Episode 166: Bouncing Back from Rock Bottom with Teresa Greenway

This is like, this is the institute of banter, where we try to get the audience listening to us and saying, what are they talking about? This is fascinating. I'm like a fly on the wall.

Like, that's fascinating.

That's what's happening right now. All right, I think we should skip this. We'll go right to it.

On that note, you are listening to the Profit first podcast, episode 166.

Oh, yes. Boom. Yes. Here we go.

He's spicing it up.

Yes.

He's like, ow. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I'm your co host, Christina Bullda.

And I'm Mike Malowitz, the author of Profit first and the guy who wraps things up around here.

Wait, I'm sorry, what is that?

Wrap things up around here.

You also rap?

I also am a rapster. I'm Fat Daddy Fatback. And I'm joined in studio by the co host, the co host, Kelsey A.

Hey, everybody.

Hey. I lost my fat daddy Fatback thing. I gotta find it again. And you, my friends, you're listening to Profit first podcast. This is a show where we explore every single element of profitability. And today I love to hear the stories of sometimes riches to rags to riches.

Yeah.

You know, these things we navigate because I think there's always insights for ourselves. And, well, today is going to be an amazing story. I mean, sometimes life, sometimes life circumstances are so hard and get to build a business and support a family all in one shot. Crazy. And people do it well.

You can find us on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein radio, Google Play, and of course, profitfirstpodcast.com.

Yep. And here's my icebreaker.

Okay, I can't wait.

Jinx. How often do you clean your ears and how do you do it? Seriously?

I would say every day to every other day. And with Q tips.

Okay. I do. With Q tips, you don't do your finger. You know, twist, the old twist. Yeah. So use Q tips.

Unless I have an itch, but every day. Yeah.

Okay. How.

Yeah, so I clean mine in the shower, actually, because I've not perforated my eardrum before, but I've like, hit it because I used to do it every day, so that just scares me. So I rinse it in the shower and then when I get out, I just take like a paper towel or tissue or something and I just kind of wipe. I don't use Q tips.

So I think I clean my ears maybe twice a week after I come out of the shower, I'll grab a Q tip and, you know, just Dig in there. Yeah, once I had earwax fall out. Have you ever had that?

No, but my ex did. Like, he would rinse it with water. I don't know if you've ever done that with like a. One of those suction ball things.

Oh, I hear that you suck.

I just seen that once you come.

Out and suck your stomach.

I thought there was like a mosquito or something. What the hell's going on? And a piece of wax pulled it.

Like, that's disgusting.

Well, it's doing its job. It's protecting your eardrum from mosquitoes. From.

Yes.

Or it's attracting them and they get stuck in there.

I don't know. So we want to know from you, listener, are you an earwax cleaner?

Interesting.

Because if you're not, well, get the hell out of the show. You discussed us just like I discussed myself. Okay. That was my big icebreaker. It was kind of gross.

Right?

But kind of interesting, right?

Yeah.

Did I nail it? Did I nail it?

It's not about nailing it.

No, that's a good point. Do we have any shout outs or anything? I didn't look.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

So this comes from Garrison McDonald and he wanted to send a thank you out to you, Mike and the rest of the team for a fantastic. Oh, just kidding. For the fantastic work that we all do. He said that he's lucky to have discovered profit first a couple months ago through this podcast.

Hey, it's working final.

And he says his business is still rough going. He does some farming, which equals front loaded expenses. But he's enjoying the learning process. So shout out to you, Garrison.

Yeah, thanks for writing.

Listen to music.

This is the best part. I love the end.

That's my favorite part right there.

I love hearing the waves.

Yeah, I love it fade out. And then the guitar is like, kind of just goes. But that's perfect timing with Garrison's comment. So, Garrison, thank you so much for being a listener. We're supporting you, man. We believe in you. And profit first is not an immediate fix. It takes some time, but just stick with it. Just like Christina and Kelsey cleaning their ears. They've never stopped. They've never stopped.

They're relaxed, unlike Mike.

Unlike me.

Let it build out.

Yeah.

That's disgusting. Oh, my gosh.

So disgusting. And it could have, I'm afraid, at an inopportune time. Could you imagine you're delivering like a speech in front of someone or how.

Much toast builds up in your ear? Like, you can have a lot of cleaning up twice a week, though.

But I feel like it's like inner.

Inner ear. It can get really deep in there.

Gross.

It was gross. But it's a weird sensation. I'm like, what the hell's going on? Yeah, there's a mosquito of wax. So, Garrison, that was all for you. No. Thank you for doing profit first and man become profitable. You want on the show. In fact, we want to hear about anyone who achieves profitability. We set this hotline, and maybe it's a little too hot because we're not getting that many calls right now. I don't know. But listen, call the hotline. Have you done something, Garen? Have you made a bold step toward profitability? Have you committed toward profitability? We want to give you some exposure on the show. Pitch your business. Tell us that you become permanently profitable. It's real simple. Dial 844-876-7221 and just leave us a message. 20 seconds or thereabout. But just tell us, you know, my name is so and so. Here's my business, and I'm permanently profitable. We'd love to hear it.

Yeah, I think we actually changed the name of it to a shoutline.

Yeah.

Am I remembering that correctly?

Oh, we did, yeah. No longer a hotline because it's not.

As intimidating and we're not going to give you information.

Yeah, Hotline. You think it's like a suicide prevention? No, no, you're okay.

We want to hear your success.

You can be profitable. Everything's just fine. Take a couple volume now. So it's a shout line. I like that.

Yeah.

You know, we're talking about today.

What?

We're talking about Northwest Sourdough. Oh, the class. When I was talking with Theresa pre show, she says, you know what? Everyone asks, how do you make dough in the dough business? Which is so cheesy, but, you know, it's exactly what I'm gonna ask her when she starts. But you can make money, and I think you're gonna be blown away when you hear a story you can become wildly successful, whatever your definition of that is, regardless of where you are today. Because I think Theresa has seen some. Some really dark days, that perhaps you face something similar or maybe not even as extreme as her. And you're going to learn how she navigated around. You're going to learn stories for yourself.

I'm so excited.

Yeah, I'm pumped. I'm pumped. Before we do that, though, I want to thank our corporate partners. Yes, there's. There's a new one. And so let me talk about them first. It's called Right Networks, not Wrong Networks. Right Networks. Right Networks helps you securely transact transition. Oh, scratch that, please. Yeah, you know, clearly I'm a big. Right Networks helps you securely transition your accounting based desktop applications into the cloud, regardless of what version you're using. Now, here's the deal. It doesn't have to just be accounting software. It can be any kind of traditional software that you're using. You use an old CRM that you love and they're trying to get you go online, but the functionality is not there. Right Networks actually gets that online. It could be your accounting software, it could be a custom software you developed yourself for your business and you're like, we can only use it now as we can't get online no more. Right Networks will fix that immediately and they'll do it right. Their support team is there. 24 by 7. Here's all you have to do.

24 by 7?

Yeah. 24 hours by 7 to 30.

What are you busting my balls for?

I'm down.

Sorry.

God, you got to win, not me.

You two are so ready for me to fail. Like piranhas. One droplet of blood.

Carry on.

To learn more about Right Networks, call them at 888-417-4448. That was 888-417-4448,. And dial extension number one. Tell Mike sent you. And you get nothing for that. But I'm just like, who is Mike? Mike? I don't know. It's some show. Supposedly he has this massive earwax buildup. It's a real issue and we should really have their website listed here, shouldn't we?

Yes.

So let's add that in the future. I think. I know they didn't mention that to us, but I think we should add that our other corporate partners are Fundbox, nextiva and Receipt Bank. So that's the big four. Fundbox, nextiva, Receipt bank and Right Networks. We'll give you more details on all of them in just a moment. But in the meantime, check out Right Networks now. And one last thing. American Express.

Of course.

You guys knew it was coming.

Yes.

Did you hear it's up for another award?

Which one?

So let me just give you the background in case you haven't heard this on the show. So I did six episodes with American Express. It's called Turning Points. You can go to any podcaster and type in Turning Points and download it. It's an explanation. Exploration of businesses have gone through big transition like we're about to hear today. It subsequently has won the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys, the country music awards. You know what's up for now?

What?

International acclaim. Supposedly in Vietnam, we're up for the Vietnamese. Yeah, I can't remember.

I didn't think through that all the way.

I'm gonna try pronouncing Vietnamese. I don't know, like the, the pound gong awards. Do you know about this?

That's fascinating.

Yeah.

Weird I haven't heard of that before. Yeah, and weird that those words don't exist.

Weird. It's kind of ironic, but whatever. All right. That was funny, wasn't it? All right, let's get to the business of the day. Her name is Teresa Greenway. Theresa loves teaching serious home bakers how to bake real sourdough bread. Which by the way, I heard purportedly sourdough bread is actually extremely healthy bread for you.

Oh, it's so good.

Yeah, it tastes delicious. Like that chewiness to it, but supposedly it's very healthy. Thirteen years ago, she built a business which was Northwest Sourdough, around teaching others how to bake real sourdough at home. She's published a four volume book called discovering sourdough extreme fermentation and also making your own sourdough starter. Her bread recipes and formulas from her books and blog have been featured on television and spread all around the world. Purportedly in Vietnam too. And she's won the pangang awards through online forums, her active Facebook group for us through perfect Sourdough, the best website ever YouTube channels, and her own site, Northwest sourdough. And the one thing you don't know about Theresa, she loves spreading joy through sourdough. Theresa, welcome to the show.

Welcome, Theresa.

Oh, thank you. Mike, Kelsey and Christina. It's great being here. I'm really happy that you invited me.

Oh, it's a privilege to have you. But you know, I bet you if I talked to you ways back in your life, it might have not been a joyful time for yourself. I understand you were going through a real difficult challenges in your marriage and in part, maybe it sprung forward where you were today. Can you take us back to that point of your life and tell us about what you were experiencing?

Yeah. Seven years ago, I fled an abusive marriage. During the marriage, I had 10 children and two of my children were still young. So when I fled the marriage, I. I took them with me and I found myself in a position where I had to support them and I had no degree, I had no work history, and I didn't know what to do. And one of the Children that I have is disabled, so I had to do something to support myself.

So I want to dig into the particulars, if that's okay. A disabled child, I mean, there's a whole spectrum. Some children are fully dependent on their parents, some are just slightly dependent. What kind of dependency do your children have on you? And in particular, when you're a disabled child, what kind of dependency was there or is there?

He has third degree autism where he will be living with me for the rest of his life. So, yeah, quite dependent upon me.

So that translates into, I presume, a full time caregiver.

Yeah, yeah. I needed something where I could either work out of the home or be available to him. He's out of school now. He's 19. When he was in school, I needed to be able to be flexible enough to leave my work at a moment's notice to give him help if he needed it. And that had to be. That's not usual. I worked in a few bakeries and the owners try to be understanding, but in the end, working at home is the best thing to do.

And sadly, and I'm seeing for myself. But I wonder, in your families too, we've had abuse in our family history. And what I understand about it is that abuse is a lot about control. So it can be physical abuse, it can be verbal abuse. Often I found it's a combination. And by undermining the confidence the victim has, if you will, did you experience that? Was your confidence undermined or challenged in a big way because of the abusive relationship you had?

Very much so. I wrote my memoir called Reach for Joy, and it tells about the 30 years of marriage where I was married to a narcissistic husband and he pretty much controlled everything that we did, and my confidence and self esteem were gone.

So when did you divorce Donald Trump? I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I had to get my one dick. Well, supposedly he's a narcissist.

Supposedly.

Supposedly. So, okay, so narcissism you're experiencing, he's controlling. You live with someone who's 30 years, then one day you broke free of that relationship. How did you do that?

Towards the end, he had me locked in where I couldn't get out. And I believe that he started putting me into position, into different positions where my life was in danger. And so at that point I was feeling, you know, maybe I could hang on until My youngest was 18, but my youngest was 9 years old. And I felt that, you know, our lives were in danger.

So we left okay, so coming from. Thank you for your candor. But coming from that background, with that much control over you, to me, it gives me a sense of hopelessness. I mean, you got out of that relationship, but now you got to start a business. Now you have to. You have a fully dependent child. You have nine other children that need you. Like, how do you feel at that moment? And what happens?

Well, at the same time, my mother was dying of congestive heart failure, so my parents. Yeah, my parents wanted me to come and stay with them since I had nowhere. The place that I. I did have one place to stay, and it was like a garage shop, and it was not very livable. So my parents opened their home to me, and I helped take care of my mom because she. She was very ill. So at one point, because of the. Because I was going through a divorce, I had to go back to the place in Washington where it was. It was a shop. And so our living conditions were pretty bad, but I was living on $300 a month, and we owned that place, so there was no mortgage payment on it. And one of my sons was living in another building on the property, so he was paying the utility bills. So I was actually able to survive on $300 a month.

That's almost unbelievable. 300amonth? Yeah. You have to feed nine, 10 children on that. I can't. My oldest son.

You guys seen this?

300 bucks doesn't pay for one day's cereal.

Yeah. I only had the two youngest at the time. The rest were grown and married and gone. And I was on food stamps because I couldn't have done it without food stamps, so. Yeah, but the 300 came from my book, Discovering Sourdough. That was, you know, on Amazon. So that's where that income came from.

So now I want to talk into starting your own business. It sounds like to me, Theresa, that the parameters were laid out. You needed the ultimate in flexibility. You know, your son with autism could need you at a drop of the hat. So you had. You couldn't be, I presume, miles away working a job that needs you physically. You need ultimate flexibility. You need a high level of income because you have two dependents now living with you. You have your own place. How did you determine the business to get started in?

Well, I was actually quite desperate. I did have my business, which was started back in 2004, but it was basically a business to help others learn how to make sourdough. And I wasn't really making very much off of it, just the 300amonth. And so I went online and started looking up how to make money. And I came across a woman called Cheryl Barr, and she had a workshop called Smart Women Make Money. And I listened to her. She had a webinar. I listened to it, and I could not afford her workshop, but she offered a scholarship to any woman who was in need. And so I applied, and I actually got a scholarship. And I'm so grateful for that because it changed my life. And I attended her workshop, and she encouraged me to do what I already knew, and that was sourdough baking. So I got online, and I was looking up how to maybe make more money doing that, doing this sourdough. And I thought, well, I have a YouTube channel. I had some of my baking videos on there. I thought maybe I could optimize my YouTube channel. And so I looked up optimizing my YouTube channel on Google. And right away I came across some courses on Udemy. And Udemy was having their $10 a course blitz sale. So I bought 10 courses, which was a lot of money for me, 100 bucks. I invested 100 bucks, and I bought courses on how to optimize my YouTube channel, social media, SEO. I just bought some courses to help me figure out how to earn money online. And when I started taking the courses, it suddenly occurred to me that I could do a course. And so that was the beginning of my relationship with Udemy and using their platform to put courses on. At this point, I have 10 baking courses on Udemy, and you get paid.

Every time someone downloads a course, you get the full fare or a percentage of it. How's that work?

They have it set up to where? Using coupons. If I sell the course, I get 97%. If they organically sell the course, I get 50%. And if an affiliate sells, I get 25%.

Okay, well, that's pretty nice.

That is nice.

But now the topic is so narrow. How to bake sourdough at home. My estimate is there's three people that care about that. And clearly it's more than three. No, but I'm just saying that's my own ignorance. I mean, what's the market look like for making sourdough at home?

Well, it's like this. I have a Facebook group called Perfect Sourdough, and it has approximately. I think, at this point, I think we're at 36,000.

Come on, man.

36,000?

That's unbelievable.

Yeah, that's like a dream for me to have 36,000 people interested in what I'm doing in me. Yeah. A big party. It's my birthday party. 36,000 people show up. Hey guys, how are you?

Where's my gift?

More sour freaking dough. Okay, so 36,000 people. And who's the consumer of this? Is this people that are looking to make sourdough in mass for bakeries or they just want to learn how to make a good sourdough for a dinner event coming up or something?

Well, we have different people there for different reasons. But you mentioned earlier that people are interested in sourdough for the health benefits. And there's a lot of people with the gluten problem that have realized that the way they used to make sourdough sourdough, the old fashioned way of fermenting the dough actually modifies the gluten to where it's easily digestible. And a lot of people with that gluten intolerance problem eat sourdough with no problems. And a lot of diabetics find that it doesn't really raise their blood sugar levels. So a lot of people are turning to sourdough because they miss bread.

Yeah. That's awesome.

And this is no lie. I actually like to bake bread. So I know it's good.

I do too.

The way the house smells for like the whole day is like, this is awesome. And then when you eat it right out of the oven, that's the best.

Oh yeah.

Nothing like it.

Yeah. So. And what do the end customer who buys one of your sourdough training videos, what do they pay for a video?

It depends upon the different promotions that are going on. So $10 is usually the bottom line where when Udemy has their different promotions, they'll have, sometimes they'll have a $10 blitz. Otherwise I have my own promotions and I'll sell them at different amounts. So it's pretty much all across the board depending upon if you come in during a promotion or whatever.

Okay. Talk about the impact to you now. So rewinding, just kind of recapping it sounds like a horrible, abusive relationship. You, you get out of it. And kudos to you. I'm so. I'm sadly so many people, I don't think do you get out of it. But it also puts you out there on your own. Two children still highly dependent on you. You're. You're living in a place that's barely inhabitable is at least what I'm understanding. And you're getting 300amonth. Where do you stand now? What kind of income are you making doing sourdough training?

Well, before I did any of this, my income was $5,000, and that was in 2014. I had $5,000 income for the whole year when I started Udemy in April of 2015. At the end of that year, I made $28,000. That's on my taxes. So my total of gross income was 28,000. So I went from 5,000 a year to 28,000. And last year, in 2016, my gross income was $87,000.

Wow. That's nice. 87,000. Sounds like it's livable. Maybe it's not your ultimate goal. Do you anticipate you'll build that bigger? Do you want to build it bigger? Where do you see the future?

Well, I've already made in the first half of this year almost not qu. What I made total in Udemy last year. And I'm not talking about just Udemy, because I also have several streams of income, and that is I'm also on skillshare. I sell books on Amazon. I sell stuff out of Etsy. I'm a linkshare affiliate. Amazon affiliate. So I have other ways of, you know, having different multiple streams of income, which I think is real important.

Yeah, it absolutely is. Has this allowed you to achieve that flexibility you demanded for yourself, that you could on the fly, leave what you're doing and be with your autistic child or to take care of other priorities in your life?

Absolutely. My schedule is very flexible, and I think the best thing about what I do is that I love it. I love sales. I love being an entrepreneur. I was selling cupcakes when I was 10 years old, so I've always been a natural entrepreneur. And so this fits me perfectly. I absolutely love doing it.

That's great. When you were in your relationship, did you dream of doing this, or did you have this in mind at all?

You know, I had my business back in 2004, and I guess there was some part of me that hoped that it would grow, but I wasn't really able to because I tried to do some retail. But my ex partner, my ex husband, was jealous of the time that it took me. So I ended up just having a website and trying to help people. And I really love helping people. So that was great. But I needed to earn an income, so I needed to turn that help into an income.

So my wife and I, we went for a walk. This was last night, so the timing is actually pretty perfect. We started having conversation around happiness and its relationship to money. And so we. Teresa. So, you know, I went through a period in my life where we had no Money and I brought it upon ourselves. And we were just talking about how stressful of a time that was. And I subsequently recovered and financially solid in part to the profit first, mostly due to the profit first system. But here's the thing we observed is that when there's no money for us, it was so stressful that it decreases happiness. But there was a certain point of income that brought consistency to our household. And every dollar we've made above that doesn't bring more happiness.

That's what they say. The cap is like 75,000.

It seems like there's a cap. Yeah, yeah. Have you experienced something like that, Theresa? Is there a cap on monetary happiness? And let me ask the other side. You've experienced living with $5,000 a year, does all happiness go away? What's the relationship between happiness and money?

Yeah, that's such a great question. Because one of the things that I chose to do when I started really ramping up my business was not to forget about spreading joy. And that's really important to me. So, yeah, when I was making 5k a year, it was very stressful because I had no idea if I would end up in the streets living out of my car or what would happen, especially with having to take care of children. So, yeah, there's a lot of stress there and it's hard to be real happy when you're in that situation. And it's also true that I got to a point where I was able to buy better equipment. I'm now in a nice home, so I'm not living in a shop garage situation. And it's been so absolutely wonderful. But it's true, once you get to that certain point where you're comfortable and you're making good money, I know for myself that I now look around and say, how can I help someone else? How can I help other people be happy? How can I spread this joy? Because it's true. I'm not looking for more money. I'm looking for how do I spread this? How do I help other people? And that seems to make me happy.

Yeah. And I suspect as you create more income for yourself, and I pray for you that you do that, that now becomes a mechanism for spreading more joy. It becomes an empowerment tool. Is that accurate?

I think so. As a matter of fact, right now at this point point I'm turning my website, I'm going to be trying to turn it into a membership site because I want to bring other instructors on board and I want to promote their stuff because I just. Because making more Money is no longer a real goal for me. It's always a nice thing to do. I mean, I'm not going to lie about that. But I just have such a great need at this point to help people more so. And I think you're right. I think when you let go of thinking just about money and you start thinking about people and helping others, it seems to me the money then just sort of comes. And if you focus on the money, then it sort of goes. So I don't know if you've experienced that, but I have.

I have. I have. You know, it's funny. I'm really an innovator, quite frankly, to be honest with you. And I already have an idea for you. If you're gonna do an educational site, Udemy we were talking about already exists. I have a name for your new site instead of you. To me, it should be you to you. Okay. That's my genius.

A real innovation.

A real innovation. That was a hysterical joke, Theresa. I didn't hear you laugh.

It was hysterical.

Thank you for pity laugh.

I know she's out of pity laugh. Here's the question, Theresa. Can you really spread joy through sourdough? It seems like such a generic. I mean, I'm not negative. Not trying to be negative here, but can you spread joy through sourdough?

Are you kidding? Have you ever taken a fresh, wonderful loaf of bread out of the oven and had people come flocking around?

I have.

And not only that, if you look at my group, which is called perfect sourdough on Facebook, you will see the joy that people have in even just showing their beautiful creations to everyone else. It's just so much fun.

Yeah. And I actually totally agree. I totally agree. I've People gather around when the bread comes out.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think cooking, and I was just baking in general, is the act. Real community building.

Yeah. Are you a baker or cooker?

I am.

Is it not cooker? It's baker, or what's the other option?

Yeah, I say chef.

Chef. Yeah. And are you too, Christina?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Therapeutic for me.

Yeah, it really is. So do you get thank you notes, Teresa? Do people email you and say, this has changed my life? I mean, how much of an impact can sourdough baking have?

I get those types of messages all the time. And I've had people from around the world send me gifts. So I've had.

You're like, please don't send sourdough. I have enough.

No, I've had people send me gifts from all around the world. Beautiful gifts to hang on my walls and things to use in my kitchen. And, yeah, I think that it's more than just. And I'm sure with your followers, you have the same thing. It's more than just a customer relationship. It's a friend relationship. People like you're out there to help them to be a part of their lives.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Do you feel that your past story, as difficult as it had been, that it now is an advantage to some degree, that you're more relatable or that people see the inspiration behind your work? Does it play to your favor in any way?

I don't know if it plays in my favor. Like I said, I wrote my memoir. It's called Reach for Joy, and a lot of my followers have read it. Every once in a while, Amazon will let me do a giveaway of it, and I put it out there for my followers, and they can see where I came from and why they're important to me. And so I think that. I think it just all works together in the end that people, you love them and you help them, and they love you back.

You know, you're so courageous to share your story. You seem to be the exception to me. I don't know if everyone that has experienced something similar would be so open about sharing it. What has been your experience about sharing it? Is it a good thing for everyone to share their dark challenges in life?

I was a little bit scared at first because I am quite public, you know, as far as people knowing who I am. And even though the book is written with pseudonyms, they know who I am. So I was a bit afraid at first. But I felt that it was real important to get the word out because I felt that if I had read someone else's story when I was stuck in my situation, it might have helped give me the courage to have escaped earlier. And so I decided to plow through any negativity and write it. And I have not had any negativity. The reviews are all good, and I've had people from everywhere personally writing me and telling me their stories and people writing and telling me how it helped them escape a bad relationship. And I wanted to hear that more than anything.

Yeah. So for the folks listening to the show right now who are maybe inspired to start their own business, maybe they have their own sourdough version. How does someone get started and build a business so quickly like you have, what would you suggest to them?

I wrote down some suggestions if I could just read them off. Would that be okay?

Yeah.

Okay. These are Some of my suggestions. Do at least three things every day to build your business. Because when you're working at home, very often you kind of feel like, I don't have to do anything today. And if you do at least three things, you know, and you can do a lot more. But if you do at least three things, you know in the course of a month, that adds up to 90 things. It's a lot. So try to do at least three things every day if you're going to make courses. If you're interested in making courses, start with a short course, 30 to 60 minutes. My first one took me four months. It was a steep learning curve, and I really wish that I had started with a short course to do the learning curve and then go back maybe and polish it later. But start with a short course, use what you already have, and then purchase better equipment with your earnings. So don't run out and spend huge amounts of money trying to buy the best of everything. When I was living in the garage, I was even embarrassed to make a course because it looked so horrible. I just thought, oh, I didn't even have a kitchen. It was a makeshift kitchen. But I focused on my hands and I did what I could and it was successful. So work with what you already have. Also, never stop learning. Read a book, take a course, listen to a podcast, attend a webinar. Don't stop learning. It's so important to continue learning. And I have one more suggestion, and that is spread joy by helping other people. That's just so important. I think that you're absolutely brilliant, Mike, by having your profit first. And I think that you can extend that just a little bit by saying, put people first, put joy first, instead of waiting until after you're successful.

Thank you for that and thanks for bringing up my antics. That's pretty cool. Teresa, where can people learn more about all the wonderful things you're doing, the websites, everything, to get in contact with you and start making some darn good sourdough. Sourdough.

You can go to Northwest sourdough, or in Google, you can just put two words, Teresa and sourdough, and you'll find all kinds of stuff about me.

Awesome. Thank you so much. We'll include everything in the show notes. Teresa, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Theresa.

Thank you so much. Wonderful opportunity. I'm so happy to be here and to have met you all.

Aw, you too.

The feeling is mutual.

Absolutely.

And we won't complain of some sourdough comes up our way. Yeah, it's funny do you, Kel? Do you prefer receiving gifts or giving gifts?

Giving gifts.

How about you?

I'm a giver.

I'm a receiver. I mean, listen, I love giving gifts. Like, you know, I'm starting to send stuff to people that I get so much joy out of their surprise. But when I get, like. If someone sends up sourdough, I'm like, I love this. Like, I get goosebumps on the receiving. I get heartful satisfaction on the giving, but goosebumps on the receiving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

So I'm. I mean, I'm an equal balance person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a great thing, right? Yeah.

Because I think some people, they receive and they're like, oh, you really shouldn't have, and that's inappropriate. And they actually downplay and they actually feel that way. I'm not saying that, but I don't know if that's good.

I used to do that, actually. And Alex and I kind of got into a fight when we first started dating because he had bought me birthday gifts. Shut up.

Fine. No, it was fine.

But no, I was saying. See, now I don't remember what I was saying. Oh, I felt like I didn't deserve it. And I was like that my whole life I was like, I don't deserve this. But now I'm like, you bought me a gift.

Okay, I know that beautiful ring. He got you a nice ring. Are you wearing it?

Yeah.

There it is. Check this out. 14K.

Look at it through your phone.

14K, baby.

It's not an engagement ring.

No, no, it's not. But. What's that? That stone is semi precious. Amethyst.

Amethyst.

This is the purple one, I think.

What is this?

Peridot.

Peridot.

Well, it's blue and it looks like a Caribbean ocean.

Indigo. No, not indigo. Into. Not into. Not.

Post a picture of it and you can tell me what it is.

It's beautiful. Well, okay, so there we go. Are you a giver of gifts or a receiver? What do you get more joy out of it? Maybe it's a balance. All right, so here's what we're gonna do, my friends. We thank you. Thank you. First, punch me. Oh, my God. That was lo.

Serious punch.

Yeah, that's a big punch. First, we're going to. In a minute, we're going to recap what we learned today from Teresa. We're going to share some other fun stuff. First, I do want to thank our corporate partners who make the show a reality. Why don't you two handle Fundbox? Next. Even receiving bank and I'll handle Right Networks. How's that sound?

You got it.

All right, so you're up then.

All right, next. Diva voiceover ip. Probably our favorite phone system ever. I think we have like 30 of them, but they're great. They're. Customer service is above and beyond. And it basically lets you make phone conversations and telephone calls everywhere over the cloud.

Yeah.

Nice.

And Receipt Bank.

Yeah.

It's the best automation tool you could have. You can automatically take pictures of your receipts and it'll sync with your accounting system. QuickBooks or Xero.

That's right. Nicely done.

And Fundbox. Oh, how I love Fundbox. And Joanna Knox. Oh, that rhymes.

That's why she works for that. They go, your last name's perfect.

Perfect.

You're not qualified otherwise, but your last name is just genius.

So Funbox is great. If you have a client that is not paying you on time and you are short on funds, you reach out to Fundbox, they loan you the money, you have it the next day, and then as soon as you get paid by your client, you reimburse with a small fee.

Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. This is a great way to manage your cash flow challenges. And right next is last, but certainly not least. Right Next.

Right next.

Right. Networks. Right. Networks. You know what they do is you can take your traditional based desktop applications and put them on the web, literally. You can work from anywhere at any time now. And those applications are great. They have that one missing component, that flexibility. Write Networks makes it right. Check them out. They are awesome. It's 888-417-4448. Doc, extension one. That again is 888-417-4448. Extension one. Write networks. They'll get you fully on the web even with that stuff you love, but you haven't thought you could put on the web. Now you can. What'd you learn today? That's what I want to know by pushing this button.

What'd you learn today?

What'd you learn today? Did you all hear me singing here earlier?

Yeah.

That was you?

Michelle Villalobos? Yeah. I had to bring my guitar in here and she made me sing, so I did wish you were here.

I know.

Was it nice?

It was nice.

Yeah. Maybe we'll do a sing along. Okay.

Okay.

You guys are into it.

We need to redeem the last one.

Yeah. What songs do you know? Maybe next week we'll do one.

I know a lot of songs.

Okay. I'll see if I can pull the song. We all can sing Together.

Okay.

So what'd you learn today, Kels?

I think just in general, I just appreciate her courage and resilience and the fact that you can get to that dark place and be in that very kind of myopic, isolated place and still come out and give so much joy to so many people in such an authentic, genuine way. And it's rewarding. Not, you know, in a fulfilling, personal way, but also she's making profit, she's supporting herself. It's incredible.

Yeah.

And super inspiring.

Super inspiring. How about you, Christina?

I've noticed that many people who appear to be the happiest tend to be the people who are struggling the most because those are the people who like to spread joy and to help out other people. And I. I'm just amazed at the strength that Teresa kept through her whole situation. So that's very inspiring. But I love the fact that she just kept plucking away at it. She knew what she had to do. She would not take for no for an answer. And look how far she come. She came and, you know, do at least three things a day that build your business.

Yeah.

And get you where you want to be.

Yeah. To me, it was something she didn't even say. You just. This is true. So you don't know people's real stories. And so you see someone, she's pretty famous on the web. Like. Like just type in sourdough. And every video, every. Everything's her. So if you're in that community, everyone knows, Theresa, you don't know the story.

Yeah.

And that's true for you, Christina. For you, Kelsey, for me, for everyone here. You know, we're all human. So regardless what you see on the outside, the inside, there's a lot more going on.

I also learned I need to get my hands on the sourdough recipe.

I know. I kind of want it.

I want it.

I want it too. Would you make some and bring it to the office?

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Alex, don't drink that. For God's sake. For God's sake. I would love to. I wish we had an oven here now because I'd be baking this out.

I wish we had a kitchen period.

I know. Wouldn't that be nice? We gotta upgrade to a kitchen. We need a kitchen now.

I don't know if Ron will approve that.

No, Ron, it was a T shirt.

He didn't approve my refrigerator.

No. He shoots down certain things, but he'll go for other things. So we can kind of cloak it. We can say, ron, we bought, like, these T shirts and A huge gong. And the bonus was a kitchen. It came with a kitchen. That's how you work it.

Good plan.

All right. I don't know if that's the best plan in the world, but. All right, we gotta start rocking and rolling out of here. Christina, why don't you take us out?

Oh.

So please leave your comments and your ratings, of course, on itunes, Stitcher, any podcast that you use, and of course, make your way over to profitfirstpodcast.com and also while you're browsing the Interwebs, Profit First Professionals.

Yeah. You're on the web anyway, right?

Yeah.

What are you gonna do, Go to, like, CNN and listen to all that stuff? Let's do that. Yeah. Boring. Right? You're gonna go look up some sourdough recipes. Once you master what Teresa teaches you on sourdough, you got it mastered. What are you gonna do now, Go back to cnn? No. There's one website you haven't gone to. It's in the darkest regions of the web. It's in the very corner.

But not the darknet.

No, no, no, no. Not the evil darknet. It's on the. The light net, I think they call it, but it's in the corner. Why don't you come visit us? It's called private firstprofessionals.com. it is a. First of all, artistically, it's mezzo manus, quite frankly.

Oh, my goodness.

It's eh. It's okay.

I like it.

Yeah. It's all right. It's all right.

I was wondering where you were going.

Yeah.

Let's be honest. Let's be honest. I've seen better design sites, but I haven't seen a business that does better, more impactful things. And that I'm being absolutely truthful for. What we're doing is eradicating entrepreneurial poverty, and we want to start with you. Your business must be profitable. It should be. You're not being a money grub. If you make money, it's the way to sustainability. Teresa told us $87,000 what she can do, she can perpetuate more joy and reach out to more people. Well, you can do the same. You can serve the world better by being profitable. We'll show you how to do it. So go to profitfirstprofessionals.com. click on the find a profit first professional button. It's easy to find. It's at the very top or the very bottom. If you're. If you're the person that likes to go to the top of screens, it's there. If you're the type of person that likes to go to a bottom of screen or the other, it's still there.

Only two type of people in the world.

There's no middle screens, there's no little space. Click on find and then we'll introduce you to a profit first professional. And the stories core in. I think Ron was announcing at the huddle this morning another One of our PFPs was helping one of our an entrepreneur eradicate the lack of poverty in their business and become even more established, more profitable. Yeah, we hear all the time. I get the emails in. I hired a profit first professional last night. I was doing that webinar for accountants and bookkeepers telling them about proffer professionals and entrepreneurs snuck on there and started saying I use a PFP over and over. Check out in the chat session, they say it's awesome.

Oh so and make sure if you are an accountant, bookkeeper coach. Profitcon is next week people.

Oh my God.

Your tickets. I really want to see you there. ProfitCon us your business.

There you go. So go to ProfitCon us and attend us live. And in the meantime, dear entrepreneurial friend, go to profit first professionals.com right now. Don't make me say it again. Fill out the form. We will hook you up.

We're going to pop you off.

Sam.