Building Natural Life: How to Scale a Soulful DTC Brand

Sometimes on the way to a dream, you get lost and you find a better one. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by E-Hub. I’m your host, Frank Dolce. Patty Hughes with us, the founder, the creator, the inspiration. Like, what would you call yourself? The CEO. I don’t like the word CEO. I feel like I’m just like I’m the founder. I like that. And I like like leader um founder um founder leader CEO um I’m also the like the creative kind of guru like that like the brand stems from my head and I’m involved in all of the product and the product matters a lot to me and all the messages that you know

we use in marketing matters so I’m kind of I guess that’s the chief creative officer all of untitly you know I just don’t like title names. Yeah. Untitily. I say that often. But when you say stuff like that, because a lot of your stuff has a a meaningful saying associated with it. Do you think like when we’re talking about and you say, “I’m so untitly.” Do you have that thought in your mind like, “I wonder if I could put that on a t-shirt.” Well, one thing, I wonder if we should put that on a Yeah, I could. Hey, that’s a good idea. Um, I don’t like titles. Especially, I’ve learned over the years that every

single company has all these titles and a lot of them are the same and a lot of them are different. None of them do the same thing in all the different companies. So, it’s very dangerous to say, “Oh, I’m hired this whatever it is, CMO or whatever you’re going to hire.” But, it’s that everyone does it different in every company. So, it’s it’s dangerous because you don’t know really what you’re getting. You have to work that out before they come to make sure. Well, I think you have to have a special company and a special culture to manage something like that because titles. They’re important. They’re Well, yes, they they are, but for funny reasons

like if you have this specific title, then you should be compensated this amount of money. Yeah. And so, and also like people who are trying to grow their careers, they want a certain title. So, I usually like say, “Well, what title would you like?” And then but most most importantly I think is is like what are you going to do? But even that can be confusing because there’s only so much time in the day and like you have to understand all the different words and usually what you write down together is often you know you have to you have to be resilient enough to stay and build it together and over time it kind of

evolves and becomes what it should be. Yeah. So we’re we’re in the natural life corporate headquarters and if you want coming by the way. Oh, this is a treat for us. So fun to have you here. This this is amazing. Thank you. Thank you for having us and thank you for this amazing podcast room that you built for us. I know. Maybe we should start a podcast. You should be fun. Yeah, I think you should. Okay, so if you want to know anything about Natural Life, I feel like this room is kind of tells a little bit of the story. Well, this room is very new. Like I said, it’s only been here for a

few weeks and recently we’ve been really we’ve been getting really into like the clothing and our clothes are really really popular and they’re really growing a lot. Um but I needed some inspiration. So I went to a couple vintage shows and I went to Round Top and I just got out in the world a little bit cuz it’s been a while. I’ve been kind of not doing that for a long time. And I just got out there and got so much inspiration. And you know, I’m learning that with vintage tapestries and vintage clothing, you can like that beautiful dress over there, I can scan that print and use it for ours cuz it’s that old

and it’s harder to design stuff like that. And so I’ve been putting different things together, whether it’s open market prints from my from different vendors or um we try to design it, but like some of the some of this old stuff is so cool and like all these old tapestries, you can turn them into prints. And so um so we’ve been doing that and we decided to make this room like kind of our inspiration room. So all my favorite things are all hung up all over the place and then we make the product right out there on that big long table. Mhm. Um and so we just get all of our thoughts organized and all

the things that we like for each release and then we just start slotting them and making them. It’s it’s been really fun. So this room used to be a meeting room. Um but it was closed off and I and it kind of like this building is a little difficult to you know to it’s not open so I needed it open more. So I tore down the windows. Yeah. And made it our inspiration room. It’s been really helpful. Yeah. It feels like it I I mean it feels like closed offices. I know you have to have them because you have meetings and stuff like that, but that doesn’t feel like natural life. I know. I mean,

some people want it and need it more and you need to have some private conversations, but I’m kind of an open book. I would say everything in front of everyone. I don’t really have much to hide. Um, so I was okay tearing this one down. Some people might get like, “Oh, it’s too loud.” So they wear their headphones if we’re having a meeting or something like that. Do you do you think that reflects uh you personally as well? Do you think of yourself as an open book? I think I am I’m pretty I mean I like I’m definitely not the most social person, but like if I’m you know out and about if anyone asks

me something like I’ll I open up and say you know whatever whatever is going on. I don’t hold back much. Um but I am probably the ones like I think I’m just going to stay home with my dog tonight, you know, at the same time too. But um no, everyone here that works here that’s still here, you know, they they know how open I am and it’s, you know, it’s I think it’s good because everyone knows what we need to do. Well, just so we’re communicating, I have been asking people if you had any secrets. I’ve been asking people around here if Patty has any secrets. Gosh, I don’t even think I do. Well, no

one could come up with any. No. Do Well, do you? I don’t think I do. That’s a good question. Well, you think about that. If you come up with a good secret, maybe we can talk about it. Yeah. Well, do you have a good secret? Like, what’s an example of a secret? Uh, let’s see. What would be an example? Here’s an example of a secret. Uh, I have a favorite child. And you’re and you’re okay to say that and they can hear it. You just wouldn’t say which one. Do you know Charles Barkley? Charles Barkley is a famous basketball player now. He’s an announcer. Yeah. And Charles Barkley says, “If you if parents tell you

they don’t have a favorite child, then they’re lying.” Huh? Do you Does that resonate? Well, I definitely have a favorite dog, but like my girls are so unique and so amazing and such different ways. Like I don’t like like some like they’re very very very different. They all need me in different ways and some of them need me more than than the other. You know, the ones that like one’s more independent. So, but I I wouldn’t say favorites. I just I love being a mom and I just loved every stage of their lives. And um I think that this stage is probably the hardest. They say it’s the sandwich generation, which I’d never heard of

that before. Your kids and your parents. Yeah. My my parents are, you know, there’s my mom has dementia. My dad, you know, is he’s doing good mentally, but he’s hard physically. And it’s just hard to like your spread so thin. And I wanted to go up to Nashville to be with the girls and watch Madison’s show, but I really shouldn’t have. And I don’t know. I mean, not shouldn’t have, but I felt guilty, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I don’t like that. So, my answer is I I have a favorite child, but it’s circumstantial. So, at any particular time, one of the three could be my favorite child, and it depends on what

they’re doing. That’s good. I like that answer. So that’s I like that. That’s my secret. That’s a good secret. Mine might be like I don’t know. I just don’t have a It might be something embarrassing like I sleep with my dog um in my bed or like like I don’t really like people to know like I don’t know. I don’t like to show like I’ve worked so hard, you know, my whole life in this company, but I’ve just recently started like treating myself to do things, you know, with the profit and the money. and I never really had. So, I don’t really like um you know, I don’t like that. I [clears throat] don’t want

people to know that. So, that’s probably a secret. Well, that’s super interesting. But you should enjoy the fruits of your labor. Yeah. You know, I think some people do, you know, start a company to make money or whatever, and I never I didn’t do it for that reason. That’s such a good segue. This is exactly where I want to go. Oh, good. You started a company because you didn’t not not in order to make a bunch of money, but then you now you find yourself how many years later and we just toured your warehouse, which is amazing. And you have 6,000 SKs and there’s rumors going around that the skew count is going to go

up much higher than that. And like it’s not just a business, it’s a real business like an impressive organization. you you should be and you but you didn’t get started to do that. And I think it’s also interesting since you mentioned your daughters. I I want to say that you grew up building a business with your daughters growing up. Yeah. Yeah. I rarely had a babysitter. Yeah. Um there were some days that I was so busy different funny stages, but no, I I wanted to be there, you I was the kind of person that probably never put my baby down, you know, like I was like like that’s probably how I am with my dogs.

But um I also love doing things on the side. I remember like you know my first product was I I taught myself how to develop film black and white. It was before digital cameras and I developed the film, developed the pictures and it was so fun, you know, to take pictures of things that I love in life and and I thought I wanted to be a photographer and I and I even tried to take pictures of people. I’m like, “Oh, that’s not going to be it.” Because they wanted to pose and do things I wouldn’t want them to do. But, um, I couldn’t wait to put the babies the baby to bed so I could

get in the dark room and and um develop the film and look at the pictures and it was so fun. I used to go to the beach and write words in the sand and then the waves were getting ready to wipe, you know, wash the words away and that’s when I try to get the picture, but you wouldn’t know that you got it until you develop the film and sometimes it’s like, “Oh, that’s not enough wave.” And then you go back the next day. I spent a lot of money on film and a lot of time in that dark room. And you did this because it was fun. Because you enjoyed it. Yeah. You And

you were working at Hallmark at the time. Didn’t love didn’t love your job. No, I didn’t. And I But I was good at it and I knew how to like get the job done cuz I’m fast and I got lots of promotions. I was always felt a little guilty cuz it’s like, oh, I probably didn’t work that hard to get that promotion. But um but I was effective and I and I worked there for about seven years. Um I was a sales rep, worked out of my house and um but it was not fulfilling and it was not fun and I didn’t love my life. But I had I loved um I was in my

20s and I was having fun living by the beach. I’m from Kansas City, so living in Florida, a block from the beach and having lots of friends and just doing so I was had a full life and and I would that’s when I started taking the pictures just like of life and friends and like if I went to a party I always have my camera and I would be taking pictures and then I couldn’t wait to go and and give them some of the pictures. Um, and I would make when I would go to my friends weddings, I would make these little albums, whether it was with Polaroid pictures and then I would also put

some of my black my black and whites in there and they still have them. They they cherish those little albums. So, it was just fun just making those little things, the little slices of life um for people and um so I liked doing that and I I was having fun, you know, being single and dating and all that stuff. And um but then when I we did I got married and you know not having to like figure out how to pay the bills after a while I’m like you know what I think I going to try to do something. So like I I don’t know if I would have done it if I hadn’t gotten

married and had like you know someone else helping to pay the bills. Um but I I had got invested from from Hallmark. I had like I think I had $7,000 so I could when I when I quit I got that money and of course I didn’t put it in the retirement thing. I just used it and I started I started Natural Life with that. So like I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning. It was so fun and it was less about, you know, how much money am I going to make? It was just it was just so fun to get up and just do this do this thing. And I and I did

have fun trying to figure out how to how to monetize it. Like I would go to all the different stores around Jacksonville at first to try to find people to buy the things and that was easy and fun. And I would go in there and spy on the people who were shopping to see like what they were picking cuz I I didn’t have a sales report so I could like see what they liked and then that would teach me like okay she likes friends written in the sand. I’m going to try sisters written in the sand. I think it was friends forever written in sand. Um so I um like it taught me like other

words to put in the sand. And then um my first job out of college, I was an independent sales rep um selling like 20 different small companies like different kinds of housewares and gifts. So I knew how that small industry worked and that you could take um you know little bit of product and go to the show and have a sales rep, you know, take it. So So there’d be sales reps at these shows with a booth and like a corner of all these little companies. So, I knew how that worked and I’m like, I’m going to try it with these little keepsakes that I was making and it was all the little words in

the sand and I’d make little pictures and magnets out of them. And um I remember going to the Atlanta gift show and I I walked up and down every single hall. That’s a big buildings there. Everyone said no. Nope. We don’t want to be your sales rep. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. But like I think um I’m so resilient in that way. Like I wasn’t like I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t sad. I’m like well it’s their loss, you know? They’re going to be sorry. They’re going to they’re going to like they’re going to be so sorry one day someday. Yeah. And then I got this one cute guy to um that that u he said, “Okay,

I’ll take your stuff.” And he put me on the back shelf and that was my first sales rep. And then that’s just kind of how it it kept going. Then I would go to the trade shows too by myself and set up the booth and my brother who’s like four years younger than me, he would he’s um he loves to build things so he would build the booth and we’d always win best booth over the years. It was so fun. That is Sorry I’m rambling about that. No, that’s great. I love it. Okay. So, what was meaningful about uh I know you were having fun and you loved what you were doing, but what was

meaningful about the statements that you were making? Well, I loved um I loved learning what the customers loved, you know, like because I loved giving the products I was making first. That’s what I did first. Like I would go to a dinner party and I’d bring them a little like natural life or not it wasn’t natural life then. And it was a little keepsake with the word happiness written in the sand and the and the host, you know, would just go on and on on and on. She had in her bathroom and and she just loved it. And so I I loved the bringing joy to people in that way. And whether it’s a little

magnet, you know, they didn’t cost very much or $10, but and I made like I don’t know $6 a piece and that to me that was a lot. I loved keeping track of all that too, you know, like, okay, I spent this and I would get the materials like a Joan Fabric and Hobby Lobby, like it was just however I could do it. Um, so it was the business part was fun, the creative part was fun, coming up with what the customers would love was fun. Um, making people happy was fun. It’s just everything about it was fun. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and do it. and um and just every

step of the way, you know, learning, you know, what to do next or, you know, it wasn’t like, okay, now I got to do something else. It was just everything happened organically. Okay. It’s a good way to say it. Yeah. I want to talk about that. Yeah. Um because I mean, from where you started taking black and white photos Mhm. Uh to to where you are today, that’s a lot of organic growth. But you had to have something in the back of your mind. Like you mentioned, I didn’t do this so I could go out and make a build a big business and make a lot of money. Um, you had a different kind of

purpose, I guess, in the in the in the back of your head and and whatever you were doing resonated. Yeah. With Yeah. with people. Like I mean I I loved the fact that you didn’t have to spend a lot of money to give people their favorite gift whether it was for their birthday or Christmas. And you know so our customers have always been you know such a broad you know whether it’s a broad age range cuz you know I make things for all ages. I have mom and sister and daughters and I would make things for all ages and then um and then they don’t cost a lot. So like you the fanciest lady and

the you know someone who couldn’t afford it they all loved it the same. So it was just neat and I just like you know of course I like the business side of it too cuz I I’m just kind of half and half that way. Um and it was rewarding you know to be successful but then but I was always so picky. I would never just make things to make money like oh I’m going to add this and make my sales higher. Like I would never do that. It has to like I’m so picky about what we make. It has to it has to work. And I don’t know how to say what I thought of

because I just did it. I didn’t It’s not like I I wrote down I’m going to do this. It just happened. Yeah. So, it sounds like and I don’t know if this is the same today, but it sounds like in when you started and maybe several years into the the business, you were your product design was based on things that you needed or wanted. Yes. Well, like part of our kind of our brand messaging, which it it took a while to get the brand messaging out because I wasn’t like, “What is my brand?” You know, like I didn’t have a logo for a while, you know? I I didn’t really get that until I met

somebody who’s really like very educated in branding. She pulled it out of me. But like our like our mantra, let’s see if I can I’m probably too nervous to say it, but it’s like um we believe in the little that the little things mean the most that you should that kindness really does matter. You should always be yourself, do what you love and try to make the world a better place. So you asked me a question that made me that inspired me to say that mantra and it was oh so so like I love enjoying the little things in life which you could hear in the mantra you know um and that mantra I wrote

myself and even just like natural life give love laugh I hired a company to help me like oh you need to hire somebody to help you make the branding and the tagline and that and they everything they said was terrible I think we ended up and we lived with for a year like gifts that inspire and it’s like yuck I hated it. Me too. Oh, so bad. And there was like natural and there was a gift in the middle in life. I’m like gh. So one day somebody like inspired me to change it and then we hired this consultant and I hated all the things that they said. So then one day I’m like no

it’s natural life and put a flower in the middle. It took a long time to get the flower right. Um and then it’s give period love period laugh period give love laugh. So that really kind of um defines natural life. like we make things that kind of like match that. So, you’re enjoying the little things in life. So, I don’t know if you’re going to put chip clips on your chip bag, you know, like cute one instead of a gross like plain old clothes pin and or um I mean literally everything we make. I know I’m going to forget like I don’t know. We like to make fun mugs. We like to make socks. Oh

my god, I love our socks. We make the best socks ever. I should show you these. So, they are so comfortable. Like I tried so hard to find the best sock company coming. Look, they have a moose on them and they’re so thick and they’re just perfect for boots and they’re so cute. So I um one of my interview guys who we were like we need a sourcing person somebody said. I’m like okay. So this guy came in and we’re interviewing like I’ll tell you what if you can find the best sock company in the world or factory then I will hire you. and he found this company and so he worked with us for

a while but then something else happened and he left wasn’t a good fit. So, yes, I like to make products that just make everyday life more fun, that resonate with you and yeah, I like and people love it. Like I I don’t make it for like I I love the things we make and I I like the way they look and I like I use what I love to inspire artists to make, you know, make our designs to look like this like this room really. And then so it takes a long time sometimes to get the the design right. So it has to be right and then the product has to be right. it has

to be like, “No, we don’t want to make that. That’s not fun.” Um, so I don’t know. It’d be fun to go through all the different products and and tell you, you know, why we made them. Like, I don’t know, one year we went to India to get inspired, you know, to buy tapestries and fun stuff like all this. And I noticed that they decorated every single thing that they moved around in, like whether it’s a a bike or tuk tuk or an elephant or a or a their cement trucks or buses, they’re just so decked out. And even the side mirrors would have these like tassels hanging. It just was beautiful. So I I

couldn’t wait to come home. One time we were driving well when we were there, we were driving to dry poor and we see this tent on the side of the road and it’s in the middle of nowhere and it was a a family’s farm and they had this this tent set up with all car accessories. So, I got a steering wheel cover. I got the um tassels to hang from the side mirror. I bought all the stuff and I’m like just because I loved it and it was a little orange and tacky looking. So, I came home and like made natural life version cuz I think I thought America needs car accessories. Sure. So, we

make that’s one of the fun products that we make that’s not that makes everyday life more fun. Steering wheel covers. Mhm. Like and air fresheners. Like I was walk that idea came up when I was walking through Target cuz I was bored with the girls were tiny. Sometimes you go to Target just to walk around to kill time. I know very well. And then um so my training from Hallmark taught me that if you have 12 feet in the row in an aisle in Target of the same thing, what does that mean? It sells really well. So if they just had one little face out, they would they couldn’t keep it fil. They had 12

ft of pine tree air fresheners. So, I’m like, the world needs way cuter car air fresheners. I agree. Yeah. So, we made the cutest ones. You did. And you have tassels on the end. Yeah. And what are the scents? The the scents um are kind of I don’t even know. That’s like I don’t even care about the scents as much as I do like the the colors and the designs. Like the donkey would be a cute one. That could be. We have dogs. I think and different sayings like today I will not stress over the things I can’t control is one of them. That’s good. I don’t know what the top one. It’s so fun

to see what the top sellers are. Yeah. And I love it when it’s like what I like the most. You know what my favorite car scent is? You might know because it’s really clean car scent. No, we’re right next to the beach. I grew up on the beach in Southern California. Breeze. That’s very close. I do have several candles that are ocean breeze. Now I understand that you can’t use candles anymore cuz it’s car there’s like a carcinogen. Oh no. Or do you love candles? Me too. And now always light them every time I get home. Yeah. Well, be careful. Uhoh. Because now you can’t use a candle. We make a fake candle. That’s kind

of fun. Fake candle. I was in Bells. Oh, no wait. Some company. Some really gross store. Um like Kohl’s or something like that. And um I can find the I can get ideas from anywhere like Walgreens, Kohl’s. So I was walking around it was this big bin of everything’s a dollar and I’m like wait what is that? And it was like looked like a it was like a pillar candle and you but it’s fake and you turn it on from the bottom. It has the battery and then it like glows and looks like it’s lit. So I I’m like this is so cool but it was so ugly. It had like I don’t know some

kind of I don’t know religious kind of thing on it. Um so we make we made our own. Sorry to interrupt you. Yeah. You didn’t. I’m great. Yeah, I knew exactly what I was going to tell you. Yeah. My favorite scent. Oh, yeah. There’s two. What is it? Surfboard wax or suntan lotion. Oh, I love suntan lotion. I know. Yeah. Those are my two favorite car scents. So, I need to get more of the smells. Yeah. Use that. Yeah. I think we need to improve our smells. And smells are super meaningful. Yeah. Cuz they can remind you of stuff. Like that’s why we like this tan. I know. It’s spring break in college. Oh my

god. Yeah. Or growing up on the beach. And then that’s why I have like I have to go get some stuff removed because I had the suntan lotion on or you know the oil that smells good and now I have to get like whatever is that called like melanoma or what is it? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I had to go get that cut off. Well, still it’s a great They have one right here, too. It’s a great smell. It’s a great smell, but now it’s kind of has a negative feeling. No, no, no, no. I think that should could be one of the natural life things is suntan. I love we got into um

scents for a while there. Um and I made a a special scent just for natural life and we called it the live happy scent. And it’s kind of like a wisteria. I don’t even know. It’s just like yummy. But uh that that stuff has um what do you call the it goes bad after a certain amount of time and we ordered way too much. So, we kind of got traumatized and we’re like, “Let’s not do that.” Oh, yeah. Yeah. Has an expiration. No one told me it had an expiration. So, I bought a lot and then I’m like, “What? There’s an expiration?” Yeah. So, we had to put it all at 50% off and then

we didn’t do it more. But I missed it cuz I’m out of it all of a sudden. Does that Was that a lesson? Was that a business lesson for you? Check the expiration. Yeah, it’s it’s like it’s a business lesson for me as a manager because like I didn’t feel like I mean I would think that the team would tell me like oh by the way oh Patty let’s not order that much that there’s an expiration let’s like do it in flows. So I Yeah, just lessons. Lessons. There’s lessons. Okay. So, lots of lessons. Yes. I’ve learned everything by learning the hard way, but like I think that’s the best way to learn. I mean,

I’m so I’m fine with that. Can you describe one of those lessons for us? Was there something Is there something that comes to mind that’s like, “Oh, yeah.” Well, you heard the I mean, you heard the story of the tickets, you know, all being the same. That was a biggie. Well, yeah. We Yes. But I don’t think we were we weren’t recording that were we? Do you want to talk about the Oh, you can or if there’s another lesson. I don’t care. Like I mean that was a pretty good one. That was when just quickly we were wholesale and my first really big chain. The guy really loved the stuff. So we got we went

all out. We got ton he ordered tons and it was right before the holidays and the team the our warehouse we were much smaller at the time just wholesale and they ticketed all the product. It was a It took three weeks for all these people to ticket all this product with their ticket and their price and everything. And so the guy got it. We we we met the due date just like right at the very like last minute. And they get it. We are so proud. Well, he calls he’s like, “Patty, every single UP UPC ticket is exactly the same.” And so we didn’t check them. The team did not like make sure that the

UPC code is getting different or changing. It’s a huge lesson. So yeah, that’s one you don’t really want to learn that way. Um, so sometimes there’s the lessons are really painful and others, but trying to of course you’re going to ask me for more and I’m not going to think of any everything. Like if you mention a subject, I I probably have a lesson around it. Here’s the great thing about this. We’re just having a chat. So if there’s a lesson that comes up, you can say, “Hey, that was a lesson. I thought of a I thought of a lesson.” Yeah. Okay. I There’s this thing about the culture that you’ve created. Would were you

were Have you been thoughtful about that? like creating this culture. Has that been something in the back of your mind or was it more as you describe it organic? Like I you just wanted to create things that you liked that resonated with people and Yeah. Well, I I definitely wanted to keep work fun, you know, like cuz if you love what you do, you’re not working at all. And you know, I want I want I want for my daughters, I want them to love their jobs. And it’s just like all the employees that work here like I want them to love their job. So I think that you know just keeping it fun in some

way and and but to love your job you also have to be passionate about learning and and about like building and and growing. Um so you wouldn’t last long here if you if you weren’t like that. Um but so we work really hard but like we like to play together too. Um, and you know, like with our I’m just so thankful, you know, for whether it’s an employee working or a vendor working hard to get, you know, product that we love or even you guys, you know, the way the the way you’re working with Lesie and the team like um it just like it’s it’s more fun to be that way and it just so

I think it just comes natural. I don’t I didn’t really mean for it to like I didn’t go out saying I’m going to build this culture. It just became the culture, you know, just from wanting, being I want to be kind and giving. I I think that’s probably my love language is the giving thing and I love to give people things. My dad’s the same way. Yeah. Well, the culture is so important. We And this is this is something that we deal with on this podcast regularly. I ask things like I ask people like uh would you rather have an individual who is a superstar hard worker, great at the particular job but doesn’t fit

with the organization culturally or would you have rather have someone who’s really good at their job and is a fantastic fit culturally? Can you guess how people answer that question? Well, for sure it’s almost 100%. Culture. Yeah, culture. Yeah. Like I mean like even even over like there are definitely when you get bigger, your company gets bigger, you you lack some experience and you kind of crave that. But like like to try to find someone who had who fits the culture and can love the brand and and really like want to please and build the culture and it’s not just us, it’s the community like that’s our customers, all of us, our family. It’s hard

to find somebody that fits, you know. So, so I find that it’s almost easier and better to grow the people that have that have grown with me and, you know, that fit the culture. If even if you’ve never done this before, if you fit the culture and you are passionate about everything that we do and about learning and wanting to build, you know, what we’re building, I’d rather just learn the things that we don’t know from experts. So, that’s my new thing. Like, it’s you can’t just go and hire somebody that knows. It’s just it’s just not that easy. Hiring is the hardest part and culture is more important than anything. Okay. Yes. Absolutely. And

so people clearly the most would you say people are your most meaningful asset? Yeah. Because I couldn’t have I I I couldn’t have made such an impact you know that we have without without everybody and and their enthusiasm and their passion for what we do. And like when even you hear customer experience when they get like an amazing message from a customer they can’t wait to share it with everybody and everyone gets goosebumps you know it’s just so everyone gets that and so it’s just not something you can teach for sure like if you were some big wig fancy person who knows all this stuff but then you didn’t get excited about a customer comment

like that then that’s definitely the wrong person. Have you had the experience of having people who did not align with the culture? And how do you manage that? It’s it’s it’s the hardest part cuz like I don’t like you know like when things don’t work out like I’m not very good at um you know just like managing that very is probably my biggest weakness cuz I want everyone to be happy you know I’m kind of like just want everyone to be happy but then it’s the wrong person. is like ah so I think um well trying people out like not like you’re moving your family here and you’re going to come and work here and

d and it’s just you kind of have to you have to make sure they fit and so any way that you can do that without you know upsetting the whole family is important. Yeah. Well, it’s the hardest part. It is the hardest part and it’s more difficult when you have someone who may be a great performer on one side but doesn’t fit culturally. That is really that can be really damaging. Yeah. To the organization. Yes. And you kind of have to you have to take care of it quickly. I’d rather work with consultants that know something that we don’t know, you know, so and just keep growing the people that, you know, have grown with

me so far. That’s my that’s my biggest like takeaway. And if if I’m ever talking to anybody trying to start their own company is like you probably have the answers more than you realize. You know, the answer isn’t always outside if you’re struggling with, you know, figuring something out. But it gets hard. I mean, the size that we are, there’s it can be very challenging and and you sometimes you just need someone who knows a little bit more in that area. Yeah. So, it’s okay to reach out to consultants to help you. I was going to mention you started talking about taking a chip clip and making it more appealing. Yeah. And I was walking

back here and the headquarters and uh someone pointed out the wagon like a garden wagon that you have that you can buy at any big box hardware store and black and Yeah. Or maybe if they’re really getting exciting. Exactly. No, I know. So, we have like natural life prints and they’re like I we I love making like things that are that are useful but prettier. Like we even have camping tents. All of a sudden I don’t need a garden wagon but I want one. I want that one. I know. And then you can like do different things with it. Like I used to put the girls in there at Halloween and we’d go up and

down the street. There’s so many different You can take all go to the UPS place with it. I know. I’m now I’m just going to find a bunch of reasons to use that garden cart. Yeah. Well, what else would you use it for? The garden cart. Yeah. Uh, plants. I plant around. I could probably use it for plants. I could probably haul stuff around that. If I was really a good person, I could fill it up with treats for Thanksgiving and haul it around the neighborhood and drop it off to everybody. Good one. You can bring like to the block party, you can bring stuff in there. Yes. Or picnic. Uh-huh. Beach. Walk down to

the beach. I wish I could walk down to the beach, but there’s no beach in Salt Lake City. The park, take a picnic to the park. The mountains. Yeah, it’s the mountains. Okay. Yeah, there’s lots of go camping with it. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Lots of good uses for that. Or if I enter a burrow race, there you go. I could drag my stuff along in the car, donkey food in there, something like that. Okay. So you have this culture that is clearly meaningful and it feels like you’ve been thoughtful about it. Even if you didn’t specifically write down these are all the things I want with culture, but it’s been here. Yeah. Somewhere. And and

I think that like I have an opinion on every decision that we make. Like recently, you know, we were talking about what to do for our Christmas party. Mhm. And like sometimes when you’re exhausted and you’re just like there’s so much going on and everyone’s so busy and you don’t want to like compete with everyone’s Christmas parties and you know personally and but then I don’t want to just have a lunch so lame you know we used to do fun things like white elephant gift exchange but I and we have such a beautiful office so I’m like and everybody but we’re also all tired you know so it was like sometimes you could just like

all right let’s just do this you know but I’m like no like I remember when my when I was little we’d go to my dad’s ‘s company. He worked for Owens Corning Fiberglass and they had a company party and all the families would come and it was just such a just I want everyone to not always feel justy about this place cuz we all I mean we all have fun together. We all love each other. Everyone’s so friend friends inside outside the office. So I’m like no we’re we’re going to have we’re going to have a an evening party but to make it like easier and more fun we’re going to have people work from

home on and it’s going to be on a Thursday. So, they’re going to work from home on Thursday. Yeah, I like this. And the people who can’t work from home, you know, we’re going to come up with something for them to do, you know, to feel like, what do I what do I do? Um, and then that way when their partners or whatever get home and they can bring their kids, so they’re going to because some people live far away because Jacksonville is kind of a big city and so that way they can all drive that evening to the party and they can bring their family. Everyone gets to see their family. We all talk

about everybody, but we never get barely get to see everyone. And this office is always kind of like crazy. So, we’re going to fix it all up really nice. We’re going to have an evening party and I know it’s going to be amazing and it is, you know, it’s hard to think of like I love doing stuff like that. We have Last year we did a a hoot nanny I called it in the backyard and I’m like, do you know what a hoot nanny is? Do I know what a hoot nanny is? I just love that word so much. And when I looked up the meaning, I am unfamiliar. It’s like with a hoot nanny.

Hoot nanny. Um, I got the I heard about it in Nashville because Madison lives there and someone said, “Yeah, there’s hoot nannies everywhere.” What the heck is that? And it’s some it’s something like where a community gathers together and has music and celebrates life together. And I just loved it. I’m like, “We got to have hoot nannies.” So, um, I want to have one of those, too. I know. It’s so fun. So, we had a hoot and nanny, but like there’s some laws around like you can’t have whatever open to the public. So, we’re we have to kind of go around that. But so our our Christmas party though, long story short, is we’re going

to I’m going to make it to where like it’s not like, oh, I have to go home from work and then turn right back right back around and come back, you know, and then the next day I’m still working with Lesie on what we can do to make it easy to come because it’s on a Thursday. I didn’t want to be on Friday cuz, you know, everyone has and I wanted to be kind of close to Christmas instead of December 1st. Yeah. So anyway, long. So I like to do things like that and then and but then the culture like everyone that works here like I said like loves to like loves the brand and

cares about the customer and cares about the product and cares about what we’re doing and they want to learn how to do their job better and you know they’re open to this that and the other and sometimes you know we have to de debate and it can get hard but then like it always feels so good to solve the problems and then we just you know move forward. So, I feel like that’s part of the culture. And then and then just being kind to everybody and, you know, I want to I want to pay everybody like I want to be the best. I want to overpay people if anything, you know, not underpay. And I

um I want everyone to have a good work life balance. You know, I can I’m very um I notice, you know, when someone’s working harder than they should and maybe someone isn’t. It bothers me. I can see it. Like I sometimes I say and most people you know all work hard here but like I say it with a small company and hopefully we’ll always be able to do this like you can kind of see every everyone’s value you know you know when you don’t fit because it’s just like I don’t know it’s like they’re not saying and doing the right things. Yeah. This culture seems uh like it goes throughout your product and throughout your

community and throughout your warehouse which is offsite and I’m uh and at the same time like you’re you’re you’re having fun. You’re building products that you love and that are creative and your customers love and that your customers love which I think you have like fans not necessarily customers. Yeah. And so are you building products that you have done market research and you say well I think this thing is going to be the thing that sells the best so we should build this thing or is it different than that? It’s that’s a good question. And like you know sometimes when you read books and you you know or you’re talking to the software company that

you’re trying to you know set up for your product planning it always says you do this market research. I’m like oh we don’t do that but like I haven’t had to you know and the way that we dabble and tiptoe into different products like I know what we shouldn’t make and sometimes people will have ideas like that that’s not going to work. and we’ve tried a lot over the years and I just I feel like that is a gift that I that I have to know what works and sells for natural life and I mean I’ve been wrong very few times. Sometimes I’ll order I’ll say no we need 5,000 of those and I might

be wrong on that but most of the time I’m right and like I’ll take you know bats on products like we just made um boxer shorts and I was so excited to make some boxer shorts that fit really good and that were really cute. They’re mix mix and print mix print and um they they’re really flattering because they’re just fun to walk wear around the house and you even go on the beach with them or whatever. And I’m like no no no we have to buy more than the minimum order quantity. You know we have to buy we have to buy at least 3,000 of each and and they’re selling and thank goodness like 300

a day a week. So I’m glad we bought that many. So um I don’t know. I just have this instinct and and I would hate to like not follow that but like but I do need to set up like when I’m gone, you know? I’m sure that when I’m dead or whatever or when I’m not doing it anymore, like I’m sure they’re going to have to we’re going to have to come up with a different process, but unless one of my girls has it or one of the employees here have it. So, do you generate all of the product ideas? Is that is that fair to say? Mhm. And but like everyone, even the customers

will recommend things, but I just know when to say, “Nope, that’s not going to work. Nope. Nope. Nope.” And I like to try things. I’m not scared of trying different things. Um, and we’ve tried a lot over the years. a lot. And so we’ve learned, you know, kind of what works and what doesn’t. So you have like there’s stuff for your car, there’s stuff for your home, there’s clothing. Clothes are new. Fairly new. We’ve only been doing those for about five or six years. Yeah. And it’s really good. It’s really good. So the girls got to a certain age where we go shopping. We hated everything. So we just started like Okay. Okay. So, that

that was your market research. Mhm. But we didn’t like, you know, we didn’t like make a million at first. You just kind of go slow. Yeah. Cuz like I I’ve been doing this for I don’t know. I guess if you counted day one, almost 30 years. Day one. But like when COVID hit, that’s when we turned into whole retail because before that we were just like 99% wholesale. And that’s a whole lot easier business model. You just make fun stuff. You go to the show and then whatever people order you buy more of. Yeah. Um that’s a lot easier than than retail. I didn’t really know what I was getting into with cuz we’re 100%

I don’t know probably 95% online. Mhm. Our own website and it’s a whole different ballgame because you have to figure out what how much inventory of whatever sales you’re going to repeat from the year before and grow or whatever. You have to know exactly how much of all the product to buy. Yeah. It’s hard. So retail versus online. Do you have a preference? Well, I guess um so we’re online. We’re we’re online retailers. Um so we used to have so 100% online. So no website. No stores. We have no stores. Got it. Zero stores. Um we did have one store at our local um town center when we were all wholesale. I wanted to have

a laboratory to feel to know what all these retailers had to deal with the store and I did that and it’s kind of like a I don’t know just a laboratory and um I’d like to see like like what the products how they would sell and what the customers would do and say um so that that was fun but like the day like the week before CO hit our lease came up and and Lesie and I were talking about I’m like oh god I never go in there anymore and like the merchandising’s really gone downhill let’s just not do it. Let’s just not resign. Thank God. Like what if we would have resigned cuz cuz

co hit and then no nobody goes to the store. We didn’t love our location. But my vision is to like I know like I want to have a retail store that’s like looks like this but probably like five five or 10 times bigger. And there’s a little coffee shop over there. There’s a little like vintage stall over there. And there’s a natural life store here. And there’s sofas and chairs everywhere. And there’s food, too. Yeah. That’s my vision. That sounds amazing. I know. And then people can hang out and work and and shop and enjoy the little things and and do all this stuff. Yeah. So, we we want we just bought this land back

here. This that um like there’s a bunch of what is it called when there’s a bunch of old cars on there like old like it’s a dumping ground or something? Junkyard. There’s a big junkyard right back there. We just bought that land and so hopefully we can reszone it so we can have this our first store. this experiential store. Oh, cuz it would be like an experiential brand store. So, and that’s going to be your own Yeah. All natural life. All natural life. Yeah. I got to find somebody that loves that’s good at food and coffee. I find some people passionate about all that cuz I’m not going to do it, but I’m going to

decorate it. Mhm. And then we’ll have a natural life store in there. And then I feel like that’s the kind of store or coffee shop or place to get lunch that I would want to go to. And I know it would be successful if I could just like, you know. So it’s just back to the same thing. It’s like what you like you created boxers. Why did you create boxers? You because there was some Cuz I wanted them. Oh well, I want I did. And actually that’s my first That’s funny. I should tell you that story. So, when I was in college, I was the kind of student where I’m like, I’m going to skip

class today. I’m so tired. Um, but I was good. I could I still got good grades, but I didn’t go all the time. Um, so I liked to I started my own little business in the cafeteria of my sorority. I would go to Walmart and buy all the old um Fruit of the Loom boxers and then I would stencil cute designs on the bottom and sell them. And then I had my notebook paper and I would write down the cost of the supplies and then I would sell them to all the other sororities like like one sorority were the sheep. So I had sheep going along the edge and everyone loved them cuz that was

kind of the trend. Everyone wore boxer shorts and you fold it down. Yeah. So I kind of like I love that. So that’s why I wanted boxer shorts. But I wanted cute ones cuz all the ones I would buy, even the ones from Target, they fit terrible and they weren’t cute. So I’m like I’m making cute boxer shorts. So that I’m so random. Isn’t that is that the true origin story? I mean we talk about your origin story as taking the photographs. Like I mean that was my first little business thing but like even before that like I loved babysitting and writing down all the you know the amount of money. Oh, and then one

time I even bought like I don’t know if you remember I don’t know for the same age you’re younger than me probably but um so there was this seeds you could buy seeds out of the newspaper or something weird and then I was such a little girl like grade school and they send you this box this flat box that you wear in the front and you go door to door and you sell seeds like some of them were flour some of them were vegetables for and I would I couldn’t wait to go around and sell the seeds and I was the number one like girl scout cookie seller So, I guess I think I’ve always

been kind of businessy. Yeah, it’s always been in there. Yeah. Like even like I wanted to buy and sell the seeds. Like how dumb. There was a need. But there’s an interesting mix of this business acumen with creative. Yeah. Yeah. And I was always a quiet younger girl. I was never like, you know, introvert more. And I think being from Kansas City, I grew up in Kansas. Like I think I was an observer. I remember like like looking at the cool like these beautiful girls or just like just cool people like I would notice cool people and like I would just observe like how cool she is or whatever or he he or whatever whatever

it was. I just observed a lot of things and um and maybe from being from the Midwest, you know, I’ve learned that the masses kind of like what I like. That’s kind of the only thing I could think of when people ask me how do you do it or why did you why do you think what you like? That’s the only thing I can think of is that I’m from Kansas City and I I notice things that I think are cool and maybe since you know when like we sell we have a lot of customers and we you know that saying sell to the masses or whatever it is like I feel like we like

we appeal to so many customers so many different broad people the demographic. Um, and I think that that’s why if someone were to ask me, it’s interesting though. It is super interesting. And it’s interesting because it’s not like the traditional way to build a product line. No, it’s it’s actually pretty reckless. But you know what’s even more reckless is all of a sudden CO hits and now you’re going to be a retailer and you’re growing by leaps and bounds. Okay, let’s buy inventory. And you know, like, oh boy, talk about well lessons. And that’s the biggest is is buying, you know, too much inventory and just not really understanding how how the planning process of

purchasing inventory should work at Natural Life has been the biggest challenge and puzzle like it. I often call like creating a business and solving all the problems, you know, that we have because every business has, you know, issues to to resolve. I call it a big million piece puzzle and it’s so fun just like puzzles. I love puzzles to get like areas all organized, you know, like our warehouse, it is that puzzle that that area is done. We got Yeah, we got to see that today. Yeah, it’s amazing. Thank you. And Jim, if I can give him a little shout out. Yes, Jim is awesome. He is just I’m so proud of him. He’s He’s

been here a long time and I’ve watched him grow and he’s he’s the culture he’s built over there with all those people. He’s just amazing. I love I love him. And then Mark Bonderant who’s the kind of the mastermind behind all the technology and the way it’s set up. He he’s so calm and you know you just you just trust and you know there’s definitely like you know problems that we have to solve along the way and um but like it’s it’s been so fun to watch. It’s almost like another business over there. It’s so it’s it’s really impressive. Well, it is almost proud of them. Yeah. And you should be. They’ve done an amazing

job. We all are. Like like it’s so nice to please the customers. We never have to hear like people calling saying, you know, where’s my package? Yeah. Here’s what I would say about the warehouse. Yeah. Staff, are you ready for this? Yeah. Like they’re as invested as you are. I know it feels like that. Yeah. And Jim, who may or may not have a military background, we’re not sure. We did. I thought you did, Jim. Sorry. Well, he kind of he has work ethic. Yeah. And he just kind of marches around like this. He’s just so his energy is so high and positive. Yeah. He just want to like do what he says and follow

him and please him. He’s a leader. He’s a leader. He’s a leader. He’s a leader in the best way and he loves to build everybody up. People resonate with him. Yeah. Like just in passing, we could see that occurring. And he sees you. Yeah. No matter who you are. We we had a nice we did we had a nice visit with him. But how uh how do you make that work? How does that how does the culture your thoughts about it? How does it trickle down? I think that you know when you have trust, you can feel it and the people know it and like it’s not like I get to go and see Jim’s

face to face all the time, but I can’t wait for him to come to the party, the Christmas party on that Thursday. Um, this is going to be after shipping cut off. That’s the other good thing after shipping cut off. So, it’s kind of close to Christmas, but he knows I trust him and and all of his his leads trust him and Jim trusts them and like so trust is the answer, but like you have to earn trust and he’s he’s earned that and it takes a while, you know, when you hire new people um you know, for that trust to be earned and if it’s not earned, it doesn’t work. Yeah. I want to

understand how this how you’ve built this uh the the culture of doing what you’re passionate about and having other people be passionate about it as well and then creating products um with that same aligned with those those things and then and then the your customers like it you described it as a family earlier I’ll use that word. So, how do you like creating that family? If you if you sat there and thought about it on a blank sheet of paper, how am I going to create this family? Could you do that? Um, I mean, I could do it with my hindsight. I think that Well, right. Yeah. It’s like I I don’t think I could

do it with do like to take a blank piece of paper and write that down. Right. But I think that I guess if I if something happened in natural life or whatever and then I was going to do it again, I I’ve learned so much. I would totally like repeat a lot of things and first of all I’ve learned that everybody has everyone’s passionate about different things. We’re all so different and what I’m passionate about you know is different from the other leaders and you know people that are bringing so much value to this company like Jim is passionate about the warehouse learning and helping those people that work there you know at every level

and like watching them grow and watching other people below him become leaders too. He’s passionate about that and I I love that. Um Leslie’s passionate about she’s an incredible CFO like she is she’s passionate about different things than me but she also values what I’m passionate about like and she supports that and um so like and like Carolyn my C she is a VP of digital marketing she started as an intern but like I knew she was special the day she walked in there she’s curious she asked questions she’s learns and so she worked her way up and then she got you know she she was an intern then she worked from the customer service

department which was the best place to learn about the brand and the customer because the customer knows they can talk about our brand better than our marketing team you know so a lot of times when we’re looking for oh how should we talk about this product or how should we what should the the title of this marketing whatever like ask the customer so we look through the reviews and we look through like the messages I’m like oh we have this place that we save all the best you know messages from the customers they say it the best way they know the brand I’ll ask Instagram like hey what do you guys think about this so

we love to hear from the customers. But um so Carolyn her, she’s so passionate about digital marketing. Like she says it, she’s like, “I love my job so much, but like I’m not passionate about digital marketing. I I’m passionate about making sure that whatever marketing we have matches the brand, but she’s passionate about dig.” So I think that’s the ticket, you know? I love that everyone’s passionate about different things because if they were all like me, they wouldn’t we wouldn’t have natural life. So that’s kind of cool to find. But it’s hard to to go out there and just find people like that. You have to just keep trying. Yeah. You have to be resilient.

I think that is definitely something that [snorts] um that I didn’t realize I had, but I just never I never fall down. I just keep getting up and keep trying. And I mean, we’re more successful than than, you know, failing. That’s for sure. Yeah. I mean, we’ve never had a down year ever. Wow. even in the worst economic um environments, we’re booming, I think, because our price point is so low. You know, people still have birthdays, they want to celebrate different things, and they want to give a heartfelt gift. Um and so during really bad economic times, like we’re we’re actually growing. Do would you say that something that’s still at your core is giving

a heartfelt gift? It felt It feels like that’s kind of where you started was like you wanted to give someone something that would be their favorite thing. Yeah. And even even our clothes like even our clothes that we make, you know, like I mean we make like you’re not like we don’t just make boring things, you know? If you’re wearing Natural Life, you’re making people who see you or yourself happy. You like I remember the first time I bought a dress that made me feel different. Like I loved that dress and it was comfortable and it made me feel pretty and but like I know it sounds so stupid, but like it’s just like when

you know, you know. It’s just like there’s something about your clothes, you know, when you when you like them, it just makes you feel better. So I So the clothes that we make aren’t are are to do that. So I feel like the clothes or any of the products that make, you know, chip clips or whatever they are. I said that just cuz it was um came off my trying to think of something else. Um like even playing cards. I love cards. I love so much. Everything. Oh, here’s a chip clip right there. See it? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that one’s just pretty. It has little rhinestones on it. Bedding. I mean, would you put

bedding into that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love Well, I I mean I love pretty bedding, but I also love soft bedding. Don’t you love like clean sheets? And your sheets are so soft. Mhm. So, um but then I wanted to make them fun. So, we have mix and match sheets. So, every time you change your sheets, you can change the combination. What? Yes. Isn’t that fun? Mind-blowing. So, you can like collect them all. So, I’m have all these pillowcases, all these flat sheets, all these fit and they all look good together. See? And it’s so fun to combine them. You can have lots of pillows. Okay. Can we do this just because you just did

that? Yeah. I probably cut you off in the middle of an answer. Okay. Oh, I forgot what I was supposed to be saying anyway. Me, too. Let’s Okay, let’s go through some of your very favorite products that you’ve created and why you created just like you did with the bedding. Yeah. Because I don’t think anybody like I didn’t know that story. Yeah. I love that story. In fact, that’s that’s one of the things that Halie’s been helping me with because I don’t want to like new sheets are here, you like I want to tell the story. Like I just said it. So I So she’s helping me and the team like make sure that if

we’re going to have any kind of marketing about the product has got to be the heart and soul of like why. But like I’m my I might need a cheat sheet. Like but do you need a cheat sheet? We can get you one. Yeah. Like hey Rebecca. Hey if by the way if you need someone to be the guy that says the new sheets are here. I’d be I’ll volunteer to do that. I’ll be that guy. Well bore him. Yeah. your news sheet set is well just like I hate marketing titles like that you know like come see the news sheets I don’t know I can’t even think of one but like like so I

always tell people if you ever give me a marketing title or email title subject line they have to be fun you know cuz it’s just more fun plus it works better you mean to get your attention just like like I don’t want to not tell the story sheets no okay like like is it the story I just said about mixing and matched every time You can change combination. That’s so fun. You collect them all. That’s the That’s the magic. The magic is natural magic. Being able to tell the story. There’s a story behind all that’s what I’m trying to get to with all of this stuff that you’ve created. Oh, there’s really a story about

everything. It’s kind of embarrassing. Yeah. So, let’s let’s talk about let’s talk about some of those things. Do you have a coffee you have some you have like a coffee set like coffee lovers something? Oh, she’s here. Cheat sheet. Is that true? So, yeah. Like we Why the coffee? My daughters and I love coffee cuz like I mean, don’t you just love the morning? I don’t know if you guys like coffee, but like especially when your kids are little, everyone’s sleeping and you get up as a mom before everyone has to get up and go to school or whatever. This is Oops. A while ago when they were little. Um I would just love to

get up and just like sit there and just drink the coffee. It just doesn’t last very long, but it’s fun. Um now my daughters all love coffee, too. We even have coffee beans. So, we’ve always loved coffee and so it’s kind of part of our brand. We partnered with a local bean company and so we have a really good coffee bean that we sell with a really cute coffee bag on [snorts] the website. Um, so we like to make things that we want and that’s an example. Like I know that’s coffee scoop and we have tons of coffee mugs. Is it just like a crummy little coffee scoop? M. It’s so cute. It’s stained wood

and it’s got little like carvings that are painted and it says okay but first coffee and it’s all little folk motifs. It kind of looks like all this every that’s a that’s a kind of funny thing. So I wasn’t very good at this whole time I started way back when. I never had like a brand like brand branding type business people to help me make Natural Life huge like um because I never if I would have had like Natural Life really big in all the stores that we sold to or um I think it would be more well known what we are who we are. So cuz so I have to say that’s probably been

something I didn’t do just because I’m just not doing it for business as much. I’m just kind of having fun. But like if I would have had a business person in here where we were really purposely branding the words Natural Life, but what I’m trying to say is everything we make looks like Natural Life. So people can recognize the product and say, “Oh, I love that product. I love that company.” Um, but ideally, if you’re starting a business to brand, you would have Natural Life, so like Coca-Cola or Nike, you know, people know the word. So we’re so we’re doing that more now because we want people to say, “Oh, I love Natural Life.” versus

like, “I love that product.” Yes. Do you think your Do you think your company would change if you went the more traditional route? So you said we’re creating it cuz it’s fun and you have a passion about it. It’s something that you want, something that you could use. If you went a more traditional route, would you still control it? I do have to say though that like in the back of my head, you know, I’m not like I’m not just doing it for fun. Like I like I know that it’s going to sell cuz the business is fun too to be, you know, I like to be a successful business. Like I said, we’ve been

incredibly profitable and incredibly successful every single year. Um so like I do like I just I just love that the that our customers love what I love. You know, that’s what feels good. Well, and I don’t want to make the I don’t want to make it sound like you’re not thoughtful about selling a product or or the business side of it. Absolutely. But it’s a but it’s more of um being really aligned with your product. Yeah. Than having someone tell you, well, our market research demonstrates. Yeah. I think I just like would just well not want to keep doing it if I ever hire someone like that. But like I’m but I’m also like like

I would be open to learn, you know, if if there’s ever danger, you know, the way I’m doing it. So I definitely like to learn what I don’t know. Like I’m a sponge for learning. Um I should I wish I had more time to read, you know, and learn from other people, but I love listening to podcasts and um but I’ve I’ve read a lot of good Well, the Know Your podcast is rich with Yeah. content and information. Yes. No, I I think so. Like I I love what you guys are doing. Like it I I really believe it is. You know, I got so much out of the few that I’ve watched. You know,

just you know, it’s funny because you’re talking about the stuff that you love and things that are fun and things you’re passionate about and you enjoy going to work and getting up. You’re excited about it. And I feel the same way about the podcast. Like I can tell for me that having these You’re nice. These conversations are really fascinating for me. Anyway, I mean there’s I think people are interested in that and and I’ve never really gotten a chance to tell my story, you know, very often. You know, I wrote what’s on the website or about us, but like I’ve always wanted to try to capture the the true full story, you know, for my

daughters and my grandkids, you know, for every, you know, cuz it really is it’s pretty impressive. I never really look back and say that, but like I want to capture I want to like document what we’ve done cuz it’s everyone built it with me, you know? Yeah. But you know the thing I really want to stress about this what I feel about this company is I I was telling someone earlier I had an opportunity to speak at um my kids middle school graduation ceremony. A I know I love that. I still think to this day it’s the most highly regarded speech in that middle school history. Oh, I bet it was so good. I mean

I want to hear it. They were talking about statues and stuff. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but they didn’t record it. Oh, darn. Well, you should. They should have. I could Excusing me. I mean, it went right over. I mean, I bet it was so good. I bet the kids were like I would be on the edge of their seats. So were the teachers. They think they were in horror. They were on the edge of their seats. Okay, but here was the message. Like I I put together this little PowerPoint, which was also funny because my kids were like, “You can do PowerPoint.” It’s like, that’s so funny. Yeah. What are you

talking about? Have you learned about successful? What? Oh my god. I just learned about Figma. You know what? Holy crap. Do you know about Slack? Yeah. These guys are trying to make me use Slack. Like, how many forms of communication do we need to have? I don’t know, but you guys should check out Figma if you like PowerPoint. Well, Caleb uses Figma. I know that Caleb uses Figma and he’s tried to make me use Figma. I know. I heard the word forever, but then like I’m not doing it. Well, should I should I hold out? I mean, well, it just depends on how you use PowerPoint. Like the way we used it like oh my

god it’s like it’s like PowerPoint on steroids. So it it really helps us but like you might not use it like you that like we do cuz I’m way less inspirational. I’m way less creative than you are. I’m fine. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I I gave this talk and I listed on this PowerPoint all of the things I had done in my life like Yes. work-wise. Yeah. All of these things. And I pointed out the one or two that I had a little regret leaving because I loved them and I left them because I thought I need to climb the ladder. You know what I mean? That and and I look back as maybe

that was a mistake climbing the ladder. Maybe that wasn’t shouldn’t have been the goal. Maybe being loving what I was doing should have been the goal. And so that was the message. Yeah, I think it’s a good thing. If you can find what you’re passion, no matter what you love, then you can build. That’s good. And you’re what you’re gifted at too, you know, you like that. It seems like you incorporate that message. Yes. No, it it’s I want it for, you know, my daughters. Like I got like I know what it felt like to be in a yucky job that you don’t you were good at but you didn’t love it and like and

and like oh my gosh, it was such an emotional like feeling to like can’t wait to get up. like it’s so life becomes so fun. So I want that for girls and women and people, you know, everywhere to find that. So that is part of our our mantra. Do what you love. You got you’ve got to you got to be yourself. That’s the other thing I was good at. I was never one to like try to fit in. I was always very like I was totally fine just like being my weird self and not really, you know, getting invited to everything. I was totally fine. That’s really interesting, too. Maybe we can talk about that.

And I know you’re involved with a couple different organizations. I hope we have time to get to that stuff as well. Okay. But you have your booklet here and so Well, she I was trying, you know, you asked me about the different products and you talked about your socks a little bit. I mean, oh yeah, like every product we have and like some I should that that should be something fun I do sometime where it’s like I don’t know, someone says, “What? Why’d you make this? Why’d you make this?” And I could tell the story, but like I don’t know. Like I love being I love nature. So this whole little collection, a lot of

its clothes, you know, is is Oh, is that it’s all like part we call it the um um cabin core. Yeah. Like it’s just like cuz I love the idea of being in the woods in a cabin or camping. So everything in this collection on our website, you know, it’s related even if it’s a fox mug or slippers. It’s not like like some of times it’s just decorations like the donkey, you know, that’s maybe farm. We’ll have to figure out what that goes or something. But there’s a story. That’s the thing about it is there’s a story behind it. And I align with brands. Yeah. Where I feel like I res the story resonates. Yes.

Yes. And sometimes it’s a greater story like I don’t REI or something or some of those like Patagonia, but ours is there’s like it just it’s about like enjoying the little things in life and everything we make kind of does that and like trying to like live happy. You can live happy when you do what you love and when you’re kind and when you know you’re accepting of everybody the way that they are and like I don’t know an example of little things like this little like colored flames. Have you ever had fire color fire flames? You know say you have a campfire. I love I love fires fire pits. Mhm. So these are little

like packets. You get a bunch of them in one little thing and you put the packet in the in the fire pit and it’s makes the flames colorful. Like it’s just so fun and it sounds really good cuz everyone else I love the fact that everyone else likes it too, you know. Yeah. Do you find that people discover that they like the stuff that you create and they had no idea that they would like it? Yeah, I do. Is that a thing? Like well well or just like I bet people didn’t even know that you could like say they have a fireplace or a fire pit. They didn’t know there was such a thing as

flames or colored flames. We call them colored flames. Um and like I also love moose. So, we have a bunch of mousse on everything. I saw one of your products was like uh what was that? Like a b not a bandana. Was it a bandana? Boho bando. Yeah. Yeah. That’s That was a product we made years and years ago. And it’s like a wide headband that you can wear millions of different ways. And now now the young girls are wearing them as tube tops. That’s a big trend in this the warm weather. Yeah. They love it. How do you feel about that? I don’t I mean I like I don’t know. It’s Yeah, my girls

never wore stuff like that, but actually Hie now, she likes to wear tube tops. It’s a fashion thing. I just put a little jacket on over it. Um, but if if I told her is your daughter. She’s she works here. Yeah, she works here. I think I saw her with one of the What did you call it again? The the boho bando. Boho Bando. Yeah. You know who else was talking about that? Jim. Oh, yeah. Jim was talking about that. Yeah, they’re awesome. Um, but this is cool about those. Um, so I made them because there’s just a fun and they’re very inexpensive and it’s just neat that you can wear things different ways and

I like reversible things too. Like we have a lot of reversible sweaters. But what’s really cool about these boho bandos a long long long time ago is somebody going through chemotherapy discovered them and they first of all they’re so soft and when you’re losing your hair, you know, you it falls out and it’s like goes everywhere. So that these like hold you can wear it and it kind of like goes all over everything and it holds the hair in place while you’re losing your hair and then then when you when it’s all gone, you know, it’s you can still wear it on top of your head. So people love it and um so tons of

people find it like just just from people word of mouth. So a lot of our products and I feel like a lot of the brand has grown just from word of mouth or you got you got it as a gift and um I know that company, I know that product. It’s all very recognizable. You can see it whether it’s in a store or you get it like I love that stuff and it’s I think that’s so cool that you can recognize the product. Yeah, absolutely. Because there’s so many different things that we make. Tell me about those. They look kind of like Crocs or Oh, these are slippers. Yeah. So, like you got to have

a good pair of slippers when it gets cold out and those are not like any slippers I’ve ever seen. I know. So, I had fun coming up with cute ways to make slippers and then like there’s all kinds of different ways. And this year I’m like, we got to make some with a cat on it. So we have a big cat here and then they’re like kind of entaria slippers and then these are embroidered cats and dogs. And it’s always so fun to see the selling reports like, “Oh my god, she likes them.” Cuz like I’m the one saying, “No, no, no. I think this is the best seller.” Because I I rank everything like

ABC so we can figure out how to buy it, you know? And um so I I like I like it when I guess, right? Why did you guess cats? Well, because my daughters love cats. I mean, they’re two of them are more cat crazy than dog crazy. I’m dog crazy. Mhm. And when you love, you know, when you love your animals. So, you’re just guessing that lots of people love their cats. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I’m really in tune to like girls and women of all ages. Do you think a donkey on a slip? I know. That’s um Well, the moose is doing well. Moose. The moose is doing better than the dogs

and cats. I love all moose stuff. No, cuz it doesn’t remind you of like Colorado or just like being out in nature. Yeah. So, the donkey, I think they’re just so cute. Uhhuh. I think that resonates right now. Yeah. The donkey. And like you just said, like they need a purpose. Like they love having a purpose in life. Like we all do, you know, and like we said earlier, everyone has a different passion. Everyone like loves like I don’t know the cashier at Publix might love it, you know. Do you you remember when I asked you about a favorite child? Do you have a favorite product? Everyone asked me that and I I don’t Oh,

I don’t want to ask that question if everybody wants to do that. I mean, like, not everyone, but just like, what’s your latest favorite product? I just love I love it all. I love it when I love it when we’re organized enough to not cuz I don’t like when I feel like I don’t have time to do it right, you know? But we’re getting really good at being organized with collecting all of our inspiration and outlining in a like a line plan without saying what we’re going to get. Like we know we want to have this many boho bandas and this many of this and this many of this and this many of new things.

Mhm. Like order. I love order. Like my kids went to monastery school. If it’s not orderly, if your house is all messy or the office is all messy like and your line plan’s all messy, you’re making blah, you know, like you I like order. And when it’s more organized, you make better stuff. You’re just a unique combination. I think people wouldn’t put creative and orderly together. Well, I I wonder Yeah, that’s a good question. I wonder if I’ve not really researched other creative people before, but I I always thought that order made somebody more creative. Like just like I wouldn’t want to walk into a messy house and have a party or something. I don’t

know. Or I wouldn’t want to I like to have it nice and organized. We may be thinking of creativity the wrong way. But like when I’m But then when things are organized, I’m more creative. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Like if this room wasn’t like I know it might look messy, but if it was like all like piles of stuff, then it’s hard to be organized. So, as we look around this room, does this feel like order? Yes. No, that’s a serious question. It does because like there could be piles everywhere. Mhm. They sometimes there is. Like that table over there is kind of bugging me. Look at the chair under there. Under the

table, like what is it doing under there? And there’s a bunch of junk on top of the of the table that like that does not look organized and I would not want to sit down and and do some work on that table. If you’re ever going to visit Salt Lake City, I have some serious work to do at my desk. You’ll walk in and you’ll But look how organized this setup is. I’m guessing if you don’t have a favorite product and you don’t have a favorite child, don’t have a favorite co-orker, do you have a favorite coworker? Be honest. You can just shake your head just I mean like you like I said like in

a small company you can make it’s kind of like you walk around almost naked you can see you can just feel like and of course the people that like make things better for you and make it easier or like get it like it’s just so it’s makes it so much more fun like like I say fun all the time but like like makes the work better when it’s not you know when you can tell when someone’s not understanding. So like you know but like I feel like um we all make sure that we whoever stays here is like that you know for the most part you have to be able to understand each other and

and and get it and you have to get it bring value. Absolutely. I think that’s critical bringing value. You bring uh you know maybe that’s one of the things we’ve failed to talk about is the way that you bring value to the marketplace. I feel like my like my daughter, the youngest daughter’s starting in in a new company. She’s been there for like about four four or five months and it’s it’s hard to go into a new company and try to especially it’s such a low position and try to add value, you know, it’s really hard. So I I find myself mentoring her and it gives me more compassion for the new younger people here

cuz it’s it takes a while to learn, you know, like how to so I like um making sure people have enough time to like learn things and give them grace and then like after a certain amount of time, you know, then you know. Sure. But um yeah, so like we do have, you know, we have took us a while, but we have a good little system of um goal setting and and you know, we like people to set their own goals or personal goals as well as department goals. And we want everyone to know what our overarching company goals are. And and the last three or four years since, you know, we kind of switched.

It’s almost like we’re we’re like a startup because when COVID hit, we had all of a sudden become BTOC. you know, that’s like a whole it’s really like we’re really 5 years old, 6 years old versus, you know, wholesale cuz it’s so different. But, um, you know, we want people to understand, you know, what where we are and and the goals, the overarching goals for the company recently is less about growing. you know, I don’t want to grow. I want to have better infrastructure, you know, in every everywhere. Not just, you know, the warehouse is incredible infrastructure, but like other areas aren’t as much like, you know, learning how to purchase, you know, for a

retail company is very difficult, you know, and so we have to especially when you’re when you’ve got such a broad amount of products that we do and we and everything’s, you know, growing, but then we’re, you know, when this does well, you know, then I then I’m like, “Oh my god, if that does well, she’s going to want this.” And so it’s always like, you know, it’s hard to know. And so you can’t just buy this like we did last year because you only had this, you know, so then if I’ve built all this, then you go buy too much of that. So that it’s not your typical product planning. So that’s been I don’t

know why I went off on that subject, but like it’s just um like building infrastructure in every in every area of the company gets you more brings more value than coming up with how to sell more. Does that make you more does do you feel like the structure uh balancing that structure with the more creative or aligning I guess those I don’t want to I don’t want to make those opposites but aligning structure with the creativity is that making you more productive? Does that make you feel like you’re resonating more with your customers and with your people? Well, I just I just know that I call them icebergs. You know, when you grow too fast,

you could hit an iceberg that you didn’t know was there. M so I don’t like I just want to be I want to feel safe with every every stage of the company and and you know and I don’t want to be reckless and I want to oh we’re growing sales 50%. Like it it it is it does grow that fast but like I don’t want to sign up for that kind of growth year after year when I know that some of the infrastructure isn’t quite right and some of the growth has been from having too much inventory here or there. So, um I’m on a mission to get better infrastructure in every department and that’s

what’s going to give you a right now give everybody a better a bigger bonus. Like that’s we’re going to celebrate that more than like sales and profit. Sure. Cuz I want like I want to feel safe and when I’m feel safe and organized is all part of it then I’m more creative and then it’s more fun. Gotcha. when you’re creating your products, uh, is it a process of you come up with it and then you talk to your people about it, communicate, or is it more of a collaborative approach? How are you building the stuff that you’re going to put out in the marketplace? Since we have such a broad product line now and the

clothes have done so incredibly well, there’s less like brand new products that we’re making like because the focus is right now on infrastructure. But like I don’t know, I went when I went to the some of these shows like there’s some new old vintage you know cool things that remind me of I don’t know my childhood or things that were really cool that I want to make that we’ve never made before but it’s all around clothes and that’s that’s a little bit easier. Um, and like people, it’s kind of contagious when I get excited about something like I don’t know like Sarah, she said, “I love working with I love working with you because like

you get so excited about the product, it makes me excited about the product and she’s like a sourcing person.” So, you know, it’s not like it’s collaborative in that way like like it’s you can tell when we’re excited about a product or when I’m excited about a product. It’s it’s for sure going to be something that we should, you know, follow. Um, but like I it’s I would say it’s collaborative with our little creative team and and I want everyone to, you know, to be able to add their ideas and but then I always have the final say of of what it should look like. I’m trying to improve the process and make it a

little bit easier. Like this room helps everybody know like this is the vision of the clothes, you know, this is what we look like, you know, whereas before we would use Pinterest boards more. And um so I’m trying to make it easier for everybody to like get the look and that’s like the designers and and the people that I work with on the product. But it’s a lot to organize. So if you’re if you’re really organized then you can like you know line plan and get it right. But I’m kind of I don’t want to just like oh yeah that’s fine. We’ll make that that. I want it to be like so good. Like I

want to love it. I want when the product comes I’m so excited about it. Yeah. when you first started uh when you were doing your black and white photography, you had specific words or sayings and that’s kind of continued throughout. Is that still something that you’re actively creating? That messaging. Yes. Well, so there’s there’s the actual messaging that’s written on product and then there’s also the stuff that you’re creating. Doesn’t say it specifically, but still aligned with that. Yeah. Messaging. Yes. So like um our our products started off with everything having words and then when we got bigger you know we made things without words and whatnot and then you know you the business grows

and you have less time. So one of the things that I wanted to do to help all the because we have about like seven art graphic artists that work at Natural Life. So I pick these sayings that resonate with me and I pin them on Pinterest whether it’s a picture of a gas station you know that has a cool saying on there or it’s on the sidewalk wherever I get them. um when they resonate with me and you can tell like what where I am in my life and what you know if it’s like a darker not happier I don’t know because they’re meaningful words to me and I and I love putting art around

them. So I I pen these different sayings and the artist then will when they have a little free time they it’s their chance to take the words and then try to like make artwork where I’m not art directing them. If they’re making a product we’re going to make this pill I am art directing every little thing. So, I wanted to give them a chance to be able to make art that could help evolve our look, too. So, I try I started that and then we would every single morning while you’re drinking your coffee, you’re getting your morning post. I called them posts back then on Instagram. Um, but then I’m like, I got to call

them something other than a post. And that’s why I thought of the morning chirp, you know, it’s like birds chirping in the morning and you got your inspirational quote in the Instagram because always our number one, you know, everyone loves those and they share the heck out of them and um it’s kind of helped our brand grow. And I love that it’s been a way for our artists to like I’m going to try this look and and I would say 90% of the chirps that are made we use. So some some of them don’t totally look like us, but I want everyone to feel part of, you know, making the look and evolving our our

stuff. So, I started doing that and then I would put that those a lot of that um artwork on our different products and like on our t-shirts or on the cover of a of a spiral or a planner or a calendar we have or blankets you know that’s what we um we put a lot of that and who whichever ones are more liked you know on Instagram cuz you know you like have 20,000 likes or you have 1,000 likes which one would you put on a product 20,000 likes so um that’s a way of like in a way that our customers have helped you cho choose the some of the things that we put on

our products because they they’re the ones that liked it or like our fans or whatever you call them. Um so like a lot of but then a lot of products I would say I would say I would say 30% of our products have chirp artwork and sayings on them is I don’t even know how many. Um and a lot of and obviously clothes don’t and some of the other products don’t either. Like these just have icons the socks but they’re the colorful look. Um so am I answering your question? I feel like I kind of went on a little crazy. No, I think that’s great. I the the only followup is I have I have

is like I love having something that has some meaningful saying on it. Yeah. Like I know. So if it’s a mug or even if it’s even if it’s a shirt and and I’m the only one who sees the saying, it’s stitched inside or somewhere. Oh, I love what those little hidden sayings. Yeah. Or a blanket or something. Well, like because you just align with it. Yeah. You feel like, wait, this is me. This really represents I know. That’s cool. Who I am. There’s a favorite tea that I’m sorry. There’s a favorite tea that I drink. Cold iced tea. And does it have like You’ll probably know when you take the cap off the back of

the cap. How brilliant is that? I don’t even know if it’s the best tea available, but same love to have the same. We should do that like with bubble with gum. Not bubble gum, but just like gum or just other things. It’ be so fun to do that. Yeah. But like, okay, you’ll love this new product. And this is just a little brainchild. You know how we love coffee. So, imagine you’re standing in line at the coffee shop. We love coffee shops. And um we’re going to have a little line of t-shirts called the coffee shop coffee shop line tees. And there’s a little logo that goes here. It says like cup of happy and

cute little mug. And on the back shoulder is a really inspiring message. Ah, that is and I can’t remember. I I chose them. You’re going to start with three, but they’re ones that would like be lifechanging if it if it if you were the one back there and you read it, you know, behind you coffee shop line. Gotcha. And it could be store line. I know. And um had to move your hair away from it so they can see. But they’re some of us do. I wish Nikki if Nikki was over here, she’d come tell me which ones they were. Um cuz I carry the sayings. Yeah, they’re good. Hey Nikki, are you around here?

I think I would like to read something like you’re a superstar. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you’re a superstar. I think one of them is if you have the power to make someone else happy, do that. The world needs more of that, you know. That’s a good one. That’s super. We’ll see if that’s I think I picked 10 and then we p then we like pulled around and picked the top three. So, we’ll see what they are. But I and I I hope they’re popular. Are they people? I don’t know. We’ll see. They might be too small. It might be too small to get it online because shopping online is a little different. You can’t like,

“Hey, let me tell you about these tees.” When you hear about it, you want it, but you know, but it’s a really cute fit. It’s such a Isn’t it fun? It’s a It’s Yeah, it is. And it’s a great like there’s a good story behind it. You can tell that good story behind it. And I I like the idea of inspiring people. Like even just our chirps in the morning like they obviously inspire people. Sometimes they’ll go so viral. Well, I subscribed to a thing on Thank you. Instagram that’s like Marcus Aurelius. You know Marcus Aurelius? This may be a trivia pursuit thing for you. Uh oh. I don’t know if I know him. Marcus

Aurelius is uh he’s one of the five great Roman emperors. Mhm. And he was a philosopher. He was a stoic. And so I subscribe to this thing on Instagram where every day I get an a Marcus Aurelius saying and sometimes they’re like but sometimes like today perfect. Oh that’s really good. It was so good that I shared it with one of my kids because he was kind of you know having a hard time. Yeah. What is it? What do you remember what the saying? The saying was the saying was essentially look you’re everybody’s going to face hard times. It’s how you face the hard times that makes you a leader. Yeah. And how you react

to it. Yes. Like you have a choice. You have a choice. Yeah. And you can either react poorly or you can rise above it. The other one that’s always good is the obstacle is the way like Yeah. You hit an obstacle in the road and you’re and that’s you’re actually lucky to have those obstacles cuz then you grow and you learn and you get resilient. Like it’s funny cuz like my daughters like they like, “Oh god, don’t tell me other things.” You know, they grew up with me telling them things like that, you know, cuz like I just love I love them. They’re so meaningful and they mean so much to me. Um and then

but Madison just wrote a song cuz one of them was um be kind because everyone’s fighting a battle you don’t know anything about. It’s it’s a good saying, you know, it’s like and it’s so true. You know, even even the meanest people, they’re the ones that are probably hurting the most. you know, and they need the kindness. So, so but Madison would definitely be the one that’s like rolling her eyes when I’m telling saying some kind of but she just wrote a song and it’s called battles and and she thought she found she saw that saying. She knows that we’ve had it before in our stuff, but like she saw it somewhere else and she

was went into a write with a songwriter and it is blown up. It is her number one song. Like people love it and it’s really good. It’s called Battles. You should listen to it. Okay. Madison, that’s your daughter. She’s your oldest. She’s my oldest. She’s very talented. She Her creativity came out in music. Okay, so here we go. So the here’s a little logo. Oops. So the logo’s on there. Here’s a little logo. It says cup of happy. Um and it’s a really cute fit. And then the back and suddenly you just know it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. That’s so good. And so good. And it’s like everybody

who doesn’t have that thought all the time like should I Am I doing? And then you read this and you’re like, what? Yes. But it could be something like I’m going to start exercising or I’m going to start eating better. I’m Absolutely. Somebody always has something on their mind like that. I’m going to start learning something. You know, it’s always it’s different for everybody. It could be little. It doesn’t have to be, you know. Yeah. I’m going to start an inspirational company. This one’s not here, Nikki. We need the actual saying. You know what? See this? Yeah, you get it. This one This is This is the one that you should get in the store.

Like, let me see if you can see that. So, it has the logo and then it has the saying on the back. Here’s here’s what would happen to me. I’d walk into the store and be like, “Oh, look. There’s one of those shirts.” And then this would be mine. It would just be blank. There be I’d walk up and I’d be like, “What?” You’re like, “Hurry up. Where’s my sink?” Yeah. Like, I guess I’m not supposed to do anything today. So, we didn’t have We don’t have the samples yet, but um Oh my gosh, I forgot that. So, Matt So, like Madison’s song’s doing so well. So, I changed one of them to everyone’s fighting

a battle you know nothing about. It’s a good it’s a good reminder for people be kind. Everyone’s cuz like even the mean guy behind you or whatever I don’t know in front of you. Pay it forward. So, there’s that one. And then um this is a good one. This is a third one. And I have a whole list of other ones I want to do, but like I’m not there’s there’s an example. I’m not going to go crazy and do like buy 2,000 of like 15 different ones. I want to make sure they resonate first, you know? Yeah. I’m betting on that one. I’m betting on this product. Yeah, very good. But oh, in fact,

Nikki, I forgot to tell you. We have to make sure we cuz I want to have like like the coffee shop lines or some like the information printed on here so people know, you know, cuz they might get it as a gift and they need to know. I forgot about that. Um, okay. So, the other one is what if everything you’re going through is preparing you for what you asked for. M it’s so good because in the middle of hard times and conflict, you’re like I feel like I’m I feel like I’m doing everything right. Yeah. But nothing’s going my way, right? Or if like like Madison with her music, you know, it’s been it’s

hard that music industry is so hard and you know, you get a lot of nos. Like I like me when I went to go try to find a sales rep. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like if you’re resilient, you don’t give up. like like I was I was going through that and it prepared me for what I’m doing, you know? So, you just got to keep going if you if you love what you’re doing. Where do you find all of these messages? Where do you get all this inspiration? Places like I love that you know your phone is your camera now. But like literally everywhere like sometimes, don’t you ever

see in the like some small town the gas station has a marquee there’s that there’s um you know like I don’t go out looking for them like I’m going to go find things. I just stumble upon these sayings and whether it’s a book, whether it’s like someone you’re following on Instagram or I don’t know you’re just everywhere anywhere. Have you have you come up with any on your own just your own life experience? You’re sitting there with your morning coffee and thinking whatever and then you’re like, “Oh, yeah, that I think a lot of people probably Yeah, I don’t know if I like actually wrote them originally. I’m sure somebody else did, but like I

love one of my favorites that to put on um some of our little gifty things is you make the world a better place just by being in it cuz I I would say that to like all my girls teachers and the greeting cards and they like my god your card was so nice. Um so I love saying that on on on little products cuz then the person you’re giving it to whether it’s a little vase that says that and you give them fresh cut flowers. Um it’s just like such it’s so meaningful. It’s like a greeting a really good greeting card in a in a product. Um, and then I love I loved uh I

love kindness matters. Like I I wrote that on a bunch a million different things and but I’m sure every someone else has written it too. Um, so I don’t like write longer ones, you know? I just don’t really have time, but like maybe in a different life I could do that. Do you journal? Do you write stuff down? Um, no. Me neither, but everybody says it’s the best thing you could do. No. I really I know they do. I really want to um write a book about like natural life and just because I just all the just the different learning lessons and the different chapters and the different funny stories. Um and I have a

woman here that’s really she’s awesome. Elizabeth, she’s loves to write. So she’s going to be my she’s we talk about all the time when we write our books. So maybe when I’m a little it’s time. I know you should do it. This is such a structure set up. And then what are you going to get your infrastructure set up and you’re going to say, “Oh, but I have to get this next project set up.” They’re like, “There’s so much good stuff. There’s so much good stuff.” It’s such a great story and it’s it feels like in ways a traditional, but it’s a very non-traditional story about the way to build a business around your passion.

I don’t know that a lot of people could say that. Yeah. About being passionate about what they do and getting up every day and loving what you’re doing and feeling inspired. And lots of people lots of us get up and grind like Yeah. It’s you you kind of have to do it. Yeah. And there’s not a lot of sad. I don’t want people to not like what they do. Um Madison her first job out of school was like I don’t know she worked in DC as and she was in a cubicle and they’re like, “Oh, we don’t really have anything for you to do. You can just like kind of research or whatever.” And she

was miserable. And and most most mothers would say, “You have to stay there for at least a year for your resume.” I’m like, you can’t stay there. You have to find something you love. You know, that’s the best advice, right? I think it is, but like it depends on the kind of parent you are. Like other people want, you know, want that other thing for their kid. And I was also the one at the swim team, take your time, be careful, like the mother. And then I was like, all the other moms want their kids to be in all the hardest classes so they can get in the best colleges. I’m like, you just you

need a good work life balance. take the classes that feel right. You know, I was never one to push them and I don’t know if that’s good or bad parenting. I don’t know. I mean, I’m there’s a college for everyone, you know. You don’t have to go to the best one. Well, and I mean, to be fair, maybe you don’t need to go to college at all, you know. Exactly. There’s lots of different paths, especially now. Yeah. You don’t. Yeah. I think it’s it matters more like like feeling I don’t know, doing what you love even when you’re in school, you know? Yeah, if you could do that, I mean, that’s I think that’s a

message here is if you can find what you’re passionate about and waking up every day loving what you’re doing, then that’s some level of success. Maybe the best success. I don’t know. I think so, too. And then inspiring others to to find that too and to know that. So, obviously, you’re you’re all about this company and this business and and I’m going to say building it, but I don’t mean building it like stacking on top of revenues. And I’m building like this purposeful brand. Yeah. And you just talked about kind of being a leader, being an example. How I know you get involved in the community in other ways. Where do you like to find

yourself spending time outside of your core business? Like I I love getting involved in the community, but everything that we’ve done is all has has happened organically as well. M um like there’s this woman who I just love her she started a a a nonprofit called Fearless because her son had really really severe OCD and like she was just such a she her kids were a little bit older than mine so she was always such a mentor and one of my children was going through some anxiety and different things and it’s so hard as a parent to navigate that and you go to your your teachers and you’re trying to understand what to do and

the all the different mothers and no one’s experienced what you’re experiencing and the resources you don’t know where to turn and um so like one day I just said I just love everything you do can you tell me what you did about this and you know just as a mentor and then and then she came back to me like like a month later and said so many people need help and I want to I want to do something about it I want to start like this nonprofit where you know we can make a difference in and not only the parents lives but the children’s lives out there that are struggling with all this stuff And

so I’m like, “Oh my god, let’s do it.” So I knew I’m like, “Let’s call it fearless, you know, cuz um cuz it cuz fearless can also mean see f e a r face everything and rise, you know, cuz the way to get through anxiety is like facing it and going through it.” Like it’s like exposure therapy. Um but I I made all this product and then like 10% of the profit goes back to her organization. So it gives her the money to to do all the things she does. and she’s so passionate about what she does and people look up to her. She wins all these awards and so I love that. And then

um you know one of like like I said Madison got into music really early and she was incredibly gifted as a young child and um and I love music too and not I don’t play it but I like to listen to it. So we we I had like a little concert in front of our of our house because her guitar teacher wanted to do something like that and everyone was blown away by Madison’s, you know, singing. And I’m like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe she could sing.” And so I so we started having we were having this thing called Craft Afternoon. It was once a year where it’s like we set up craft stations

and we would have live music and we’d have cookouts and all this different fun stuff cuz I just I love festivals. So we had that as a way to give back to the community for something that everyone can look forward to. And then it turned into the Natural Life Music Festival. Um and then it got so big and Madison performed for a while but then she like would not get on the stage at all. So, she went through about like seven years of not performing in front of anyone. Um, yeah, it’s kind of it’s quite a story. And then Lesie is the one that convinced her to go on The Voice and she had never

really been in front of a really big audience before The Voice. I didn’t she didn’t even tell me she applied and she got on. She was one of the top hundred and I’m like, “Oh my god.” So, she I didn’t think that she would. I didn’t know she was that good. Um, so she got on the Voice and she got three chairs. Anyway, long story short, I kind of got off on a tangent there, but um so music festivals is another thing that I that we not only do once a year, but then we also or have our own um but we also like to sponsor other music festivals cuz it’s like that music industry

is tough and these musicians don’t get paid a lot at all and but they’re like bringing so much, you know, magic to the world and um so I like I like doing that and it’s and it’s fun cuz we can bring our brand there and pop up and enjoy it. So everything that I like to do in my social life is also kind of tied into natural life a little bit. Can’t help it. I don’t mean to, you know, it’s not like this is my business, like this is my plan. This is how we’re going to do this. It just happens. Yeah. Well, I like do photo shoots on vacation sometimes. Is that right? Yeah.

And that sounds terrible. Like we we went to Well, we went to the Tellyide Music Festival, bluegrass festival to to sponsor. Plus, it’s gorgeous there. I love Colorado. We used to go there when we were little. I was a little girl, so it has a lot of good memories. And then um while we were there, I’m like, “Oh my god, it’s just so pretty here. We should like put together a last minute like um like photo shoot, you know, cuz you can do those pretty effortlessly. I’m trying to look for a picture.” Um so we did and we brought like a handful of things. I can’t find any, but um this is our new catalog

that we just mailed out. There are some in here, but from Tellide. And so there was a local photographer. We had a model fly in from California, two models. They stayed at our our rental house that we had and we just had a blast and had these gorgeous pictures. And so our photo shoots are just PE girls and women enjoying life out in the world like not like you know that’s our we want our lifestyle. We’re a lifestyle brand and we want the pictures to represent just enjoying the little things in life. Is that something you like how long have you been doing this now? I mean, if you start from the very beginning accidentally

starting this company, you know, it’s been 30 years, but like but we didn’t have photo shoots when we were wholesale and we didn’t have photo shoots when um when we would take pictures of the product and put it in a catalog, but not like lifestyle photo. We didn’t start doing that until we were more retail and had clothes. So, that’s only been like six years. Ah, do you and you still would you say that you’re as engaged or more engaged now in terms of more? I love doing this. I know it’s kind of weird, but I I do. I love it. And it’s I’m I’m probably more now. Sometimes I like I when I step

back cuz I’m self-aware of it, too. And I’m like, “Okay, should I try to force myself to do something else?” Like I mean not like for work but like I don’t know I went on a health what one of those health spa hike things you know for a whole week was nothing to do with natural life nothing to do with like shopping cool inspiration cuz they was just 100% hiking and health and healthy eating. So I forced myself to do things other things instead of just all How did that go? I mean it was fun but I didn’t do it again. Were you thinking about natural life the whole time? Mm- I’m I’m pretty good

at separating myself. Yeah, but like if I were if I were say I was there and then you’re driving over here and like, “Oh, look, there’s a fun farmers market.” I’d want to go there and if I stumbled upon something fun, of course I would think natural life. Yeah. Yeah. Or like signs like restaurant signs like and I get inspired by anything. Gotcha. What about uh as you look back across your experience with natural life, is there something that you would say this is the best thing we’ve ever done? And is there something you’d say, I wish we hadn’t done that? I mean, I think the best thing, well, I there’s a lot, but one

big thing that I that we did that I kind of did it and a lot of people didn’t want us to do it is we were getting so saturated in the market when we were wholesale. Like you would go to a little town and like there’s 20 stores and half of them would have natural life cuz we weren’t very good at the time. We grew so fast. Like we were so popular that we let everybody buy it cuz we have so many different products. Oh, that store, that store, that store, the nicest store with the $300 pairs of jeans would love our products. And this store over here, this kind of chachki loves the product.

We got oversaturated and all the big chains were like, “Patty, make this, make this.” Like, like these big chains would come to our headquarters and want me to make product for them. and because our products sold so well in our stores and I just felt like I was kind of like like losing the magic a little bit and um so I I wanted to get rid of all of our sales reps was like let them all go cuz we you have independent sales reps and and then not print a wholesale catalog anymore and and just like go to the trade shows. So, we had beautiful like trade shows that look like this all around the

country, permanent trade showrooms, um, showrooms where they were. Um, and I just wanted just like the customers that we had and and really limited and have just the best retailers where they would come and and buy the stuff. Um, and that was really gutsy to no longer make a catalog and no longer have any sales reps. And we still grew grew grew in inside there. And then and then when we when COVID hit, I’m like, “No, let’s let’s like switch and just go all retail.” Like cuz the clothes there’s not enough margin. I like price points that are inclusive for people. Like I want to make fun things to wear, cute clothes that is more

affordable. Like we could have much higher price points like a lot of these other brands, but I wanted it to be affordable and and kind of go along with all our other fun treasures that we make. We call our products treasures because they’re things you stumble upon and didn’t even know you were looking for and you just can’t resist them. Um, even the clothes are like treasures. But I wanted to I wanted them to be affordable. So, I can’t sell the clothes wholesale. So, I I really like um Oh, Lucy’s here, my dog. Um, I really like convinced everybody to let’s go for it retail. But thank god Lesie is so smart. you know, she’s

looking at all the, you know, we do still have a little bit of wholesale. So, we don’t go to the trade shows anymore. We don’t go we don’t have sales reps. We don’t have a catalog. We have a wholesale website. And this the stores that have grown with us over the years still buy from us. And and it helps because people can discover our brand and their stores and then and then that like the wholesale profit helps us, you know, pay for growing the retail side of things. Do you see the future very clearly? I mean, I definitely have a vision for a natural life and where, you know, I think like I want it

to reach its full potential, but not where you could hit an iceberg. Um, and there’s I I I would love to do different things like the experiential store I talked about. Like it’ be so cool and I want to, you know, keep getting better at the infrastructure. I can keep making, you know, everything that we make and and more. Um, and but, you know, I’m also a little naive. You know, I don’t like to listen to the political stuff, you know, like if I did some people are like, “Oh, we can’t do this because of this law, some election.” I don’t know. Like I’m just not very political and I just like if something bad’s

going to happen to the world, like I’m going to go down with everybody else, you know, and like but I’m not going to like, oh man, I wish I wouldn’t have done that, you know? I wish I would have done that instead. Um so so that part of the vision I don’t really see. um or you know and then but personally like like sometimes I I wonder cuz I’m 61 now and I often wonder like you know what what when I stop I don’t know how old I’ll be when I stop working but I know I don’t want to stop anytime soon. Like I’m not like the kind of person that can’t wait to retire,

but I’m trying to think about like what I might want to do for fun, you know, like outside of work, but everything everything I come up with is like kind of touches on work, too. But but like, you know, fun work. Like I want to um maybe I had an RV for a while, but it was kind of bumpy on the road. So, I kind of want another RV, but then I’m thinking, oh yeah, we can go to the music festival or we can go inspiration shopping. You know, it’s all tied, you know, to fun stuff cuz I love to go inspiration shopping. Um, and then and I thought, “Oh, we can maybe maybe someday

I can get a little like farm or ranch somewhere in the mountains, you know, North Carolina or something, so I can drive there and then we can have our photo shoots there.” I don’t know. Yeah. If I talked to some of the people you work with or all of the people you work with, how would they describe you? I think they would definitely say she’s passionate. I would think that and and contagious with around that, you know, and um but then some people might say like like um some people might be scared of that a little bit, you know, of like wanting to please me or something cuz I do have high expectations of of

every role. Um so they might say that. Um but they know that I they know that I care about them and that I care about their families and that that always comes first. And um I want them to love their job and I want them to be in the right job. Sometimes, you know, you can find yourself in the wrong job. And so I think that they’d be they know that we’re the kind of company that would, you know, help them grow that way. Mhm. But um trying to think what else. That’s pretty good. Yeah. Ask me some more weird questions. Didn’t you have a list of some really weird ones? Well, yeah, but you

don’t care about the Utah BYU rivalry, do you? I mean, I think that was on my list. I think one of the things you said was like cuz I it was an interesting question. I’ve never even I wouldn’t have known. It would have been hard to I don’t know you. It was like, what were you good at at a kid as a kid? Yeah. And so that’s a good one. It was a little bit like, oh gosh, what was I good at? And and um I even asked my daughter, she’s sitting over there. There’s Hie. Um, I mean, I think that I was a good like I wasn’t like a superstar in school. I wasn’t

like, you know, I wasn’t like a athlete, you know? I think that I was a good observer and I was fast at things. Um, but there was another thing that we talked about how I can’t remember what it was, but it’s it’s a hard question. Like I What were you good at as a kid? Yeah. Like I wonder if every everyone else like what did you like what did you love? What did you love as a kid? I mean, I I just wanted to be outside all day long. And I love being like if there was some sport or something happening, then that’s what I wanted to go do. I loved it when there was

a block party or I was at you just like I loved it when there was community of that’s so funny that that just came out like I loved it when everybody got together and I think when my kids were little I was the one organizing the block party and you know the Halloween you know gathering on the yard and stuff like that you know I wasn’t like a sports person um and we have a you know I’m from Kansas City we like lower middle class family you know there’s no nothing fancy like you that’s where you know you’re outside enjoying the little things, you know. No, I think that’s interesting. Did Is there something you

wanted to be when you were a kid? Did you think I wanted to be a gymnast, but I was so tall. I loved You don’t have a Yeah, I loved gymnastics. Oh my god. I was good at No, I was good at acrobats, you know, at a young age, but then I just kept growing and growing and growing. I looked like I mean, I was I was this tall when I was like in middle school. Um, so I was not very good at, but I loved that. And is that like 5’10? I’m 5’9ish. Yeah. Yeah, that’s tall for a gymnast. But why gymnastics? I don’t know. Just like I don’t I just was this little

shy girl. That’s what I I thought Oga Corbett was um was really popular then. So maybe it had something to do with that. Um and then like I remember the first time I got brave enough to try out for cheerleading cuz like cheerleading was kind of cool and I I got the lowest team. It was a C team and I was like, “Oh my god.” And there was only like three people on the C team. Like it’s like that thing that you said earlier that like I don’t know when you have hard times like makes you resilient. Um and I remember oh it was just awful and I was horrified and all the all the

other girls in the neighborhood that I played with all got on the good you know the big high team. But then the next year and I stayed on it. I did the right thing. I stayed on it even though I was like but I was so resilient. I wasn’t even that embarrassed you I was always I was just in my own little world which I think is a gift. It wasn’t like I’m crying and I didn’t make it. But then the next year um I was like I was really like you know when you’re a girl you go through these different stages. I was in such an awkward stage when I got on the C

team. But then the next year I made the A team. Whoa. And it was just like everyone was just shocked. My mom and my sister and like I was like oh. So that was kind of fun. you. It’s funny. Why am I talking about that? This a therapy session. This is there. Is there something? I mean, this one might not align with you, but if you could do anything else and be successful, if you could do anything else and be successful, what would you do? I mean, I I used to like want to be like veterinarian or like some kind of a, you know, someone that’s helping animals or people. Um, would that be as

fulfilling as what you’re doing? I think so. Do you I don’t think so because I can enjoy the little things that, you know, it’s like with what I’m doing, but I also like love games. Like I love puzzles, so I love the the challenging part of the of business. I mean, business is a game, too, you know, the game of business. Um, so I do love all that, I guess. Well, and then remember how earlier I said that I like that had the seeds? I wanted to go out and like everyone else was like I don’t know probably practicing cheerleading and I was um selling team I was yeah I was selling seeds so yeah

and then the boxer shorts and in college so I don’t know I don’t know what I would do it’s it’s a tough one like I I know if I I I don’t want to retire because what would I do but but I try to ask myself I try to ask myself maybe you should force yourself to think about something else to do but you can’t think of anything No, I can’t either. Like, I don’t know what retirement would look like. I still have several years, but I mean, we both have several years. I don’t know. I think it would be I think it would be boring. Who But I do I do want someone to

tell me when I’m in the company’s way. Like I I’m hyper like aware and focused on I want to make sure that I never get in the company’s way, you know. Does anyone ever tell you that? Has does Okay. Do people give you critical feedback? I mean, sometimes, you know, like sometimes, you know, we’ll we’ll be debating about different things and, you know, um it’s it’s it’s just easier like we need to hire this person to do this, but like it’s easier said than done. And I I’m scared, you know, sometimes to hire people from the outside because of what can happen, you know, and it’s like these big hire people don’t always know better.

So like, so I’d rather keep it small and like grow the people that are here and we can learn what we need to learn. So that’s my new my new takeaway. Like let’s not let’s grow 15% less instead of 15% more. Like I’d rather do that than and develop talent inside. Yeah. Cuz the people here that are growing and they’re so passionate about what they do and they love it here and they’re like they deserve it. It’s a big debate about developing talent inside or going outside to find the, you know, the a player. And I don’t always know that that’s the best. I don’t think it is either. I don’t either. Like I mean

like say say like, okay, let’s we don’t know this part of this. You know, we’ve gotten to the size where we need to learn this. Let’s um have a consultant come in and teach us. And then maybe that consultant ends up like like loving the brand. And then I can see that’s I mean that’s a good way to hire somebody, you know, like you want them to fit. Yeah, absolutely. Is there someone I know you talk about your mom a lot and her inspiration. Is there any other figure in your life that you would consider someone who’s been inspirational or someone that you uh really admire? I think that I I’m lucky in that my

both my mom and my dad, you know, had their they were very passionate about their work. My dad’s all business. He’s been in the home real estate, mostly home building and like community building um where he works with builders and different communities in Kansas City. and he he just loved his work and he can talk your ear off about it and just and he’s such a smart businessman and he he grew it from nothing, you know, just from pe like people loving him and like being good at it. Um so that was a really good role model and um and then my mom’s is more like accidentally building a company. So me having, you know,

kind of the combination of their skill sets kind of helped Natural Life get where we are bigger than my mom cuz my mom had a company while I was growing up. And um but she was just cards. We didn’t there weren’t even computers back then, you know, she was making cards and making different things in the basement. But it got to be pretty big. you know, she would have all of her friends come over from the neighborhood and I would come home from college and put the cards with the envelopes in the little package and get five 10 cents a piece or whatever and make enough to go out or whatever. Yeah. Um, so just

I guess growing up with both of them I think is is the answer. All of these experiences kind of leading you to where you where you are today. Okay. If you could talk to any Have you ever played this game? If you could have like a a free Yeah. a dinner party, who would you invite? Someone like someone out there? Um, I used to say Seth Goden, but like um I I love all the the inspirational marketing, you know, just like people who are real brandandy, like like getting the into the psychology of like a brand and like it’s so interesting and like I feel like we’ve grown Natural Life that way and I get

it. I understand why and our customers get it. But then like you also have to know the other part of the business like digital marketing and all that stuff. have to when you’re 100% online. Um, so I I love that. I um trying to think of who else like I don’t spend a lot of time, you know, like think I love Mel Robbins. Like she’s so motivational like like I love her. She’s I was I was um I advertised on her podcast at one time cuz I love her so much. Yeah. So she did a little like little commercial on the natural life stuff, but she has such a good message. That was before when

she was so small and she’s really grown a lot. Did that work? How did that work? That’s an example of me like I just love her and I just want to do it and I heard somewhere at some conference that um some conference they said, “Oh yeah, you should try this, try that.” And there it’s impossible to measure, you know, it’s not like we gave a coupon code or anything like that. So it’s kind of like a billboard. Um and I don’t think it did anything, but I’m I’m glad I we did it cuz it was just fun to be part of her world for a little while. When you think about the brand that

you’ve created, how difficult do you find it to align with stars or personalities and what and the effect that might have on your I think it’s difficult like I I have no interest in trying to find someone famous to, you know, like natural influencers. Yeah. No, I hate influencer stuff. like an Mm- I’m not going to, you know, I there’s enough out there that just love the product on their own and they’re talking about it all on their own. Like this one girl, Katie Feny, like loved Natural Life when she was in college. She’s huge now. And so she she would just love the product and just talk about it in front of her camera

like when it was Vine and then it turned into TikTok or whatever. And and we would say, “What the heck? Why are we selling all these surprise balls?” And we’d find out it was her. So, but but it was real and authentic. like if you were to hire someone and pay them, I’ll pay you like this much money to talk about this product. It doesn’t work. And and we tried it a couple times just because we felt like, oh, everyone else is doing it, but we don’t need it. And like it’d be different if um you know, if it was like the perfect match or something, but like yeah, I don’t really like that stuff.

How do you keep yourself uh well educated in your space? That’s a good good good question. That’s one of our core values is to be passionate about learning. Um like I I like listening to podcasts. I like um going to conferences and talking to the different you know software people that we’re partnering with you know for different you know products. I love not products but um just technology. I love all the Shopify. We’re on Shopify and it’s like really simplified that whole like way of doing business. We used to have Magento, which is a very complicated website, and like I couldn’t understand it. But with Shopify, it’s more understandable and and you can and they

have all these apps and all the apps do different things. And like I find that sometimes the more expensive, fancy, you know, technology is not always better. So, you’ve learned the hard way in that in that particular um case. So, I like learning that way. I like learning the hard way where you make mistakes but then really unpacking what what did we do that we should what would the hindsight be what we wish we would have done. Um I love talking to other other people who have companies and I always inspire our employees to to try to network with other people who do what we do and and you know try not to be competit

not not to do it with competitors you know so that they don’t feel like we’re not going to tell you you know there’s there’s enough like retailers out there to do that and that’s the best way to learn you know from different people. That’s how I learned about Figma. My friend who has another company, she’s like, “Oh my god, you got I had this consultant that we they were going to teach me this, this, and this, and everything was terrible, but this we love the software.” Um, so she got at least something from it. And then she shared that with me. And she’s always asking me like, “What do you do with this?” And this

good way to learn. Yeah. Yeah. If someone is uh thinking about starting a brand, running a business, um making a change, what you’ve had all those Yeah. You’ve had all of those things. Just do it. Just start. You’re not going to be ready and you can’t wait till you’re ready. You just got to start doing it. You just just do it and then you’ll figure it out along the way, you know? Like I mean don’t like I was lucky and that I had you know that little like that money that I got from Hallmark when I was vested you know like so I got a little like some money to do that and I had

just gotten married so I didn’t have to pay the bills. So I feel very very very fortunate about having that little like break to do it. But then um I think the other thing I I guess I would say is like you know you don’t have to start big and start small and make sure whatever you have like these t-shirts I’m not going to make 15 of them at once. I want to make sure that they sell, you know, this idea that I had. Um so, so when I first started Natural Life, I went to a little a little makers market, you know, I set up a little tiny little circle um card table or

whatever it was, and um had 40 of my little products there. It was over the Christmas holidays right down the street. And um within 2 hours, all of it had sold out. And one of the pe one of the women that bought one was the store. and I didn’t know it, but then the next day she called and said, “Will you make me some more for my store?” And so that’s how it started. So like like if I didn’t like what if they did what if I didn’t go there and what if the product wasn’t popular then I that you know you could like get in trouble. So just like test it somehow and it

could be whatever your whatever your company is if it was something that you’re making just go to a little makers market or whatever and make farmers market make sure it sells dot Etsy whatever it is. Yeah. Well, it’s an amazing company. Thank you. And it’s an amazing story. Thank you. And I mean, I wish I could say everybody could do what you could do, but I you’re like, you’re unique. You have this unique set of talents, and you’ve you’ve really I think you’ve just like we talk about alignment a lot. I think you’ve found that alignment that’s difficult for for people to do. There’s so many different ways a company can be built. You know,

I used to think that there was this rule book and that I had to do it right, but like gosh, I’ve learned that every company’s so different and there’s no right or wrong way and you know, everyone has to just go try it. You know, it’s worth trying if you have if you want to. Well, your story I I love your story. It resonates with the not just finding your passion, but following it. Yeah. And like you don’t necessarily have to follow whatever the business rule book. No. Is And sometimes on the way to a dream, you get lost and you find a better one. Wait, is that one of your sayings? Yeah, it’s one

of my favorite ones. Yeah, that’s a good one. I was going to say you should use that. No, I love that one. I used to have it on a bunch of stuff, but it’s so true. I told the girls all the time like take that job or you think you want to be like Madison, you think you want to be a musician, try it sometimes. But like if I know what it was, she was a videographer. she went to school, you know, to learn cuz she wouldn’t let herself perform. She was too scared or whatever. Um, but like so she thought that that’s what she was going to do. But anyway, no matter what you’re

doing, sometimes on the way to your dream, you get lost and find a better one. I didn’t move here to start natural life, you know? I moved here cuz I was like getting promoted with Hallmark cards and I was so proud of that and but then I got lost and found a better dream. Oh, it’s amazing. It’s a great story. I really have enjoyed talking to you. I hope you’ll come out to Salt Lake sometime. For sure. I can’t wait to and and visit us. Maybe we could do a love. We could do a photo shoot somewhere. Yes, I think that’s a good idea. You can help me find a really good place to rent,

a house to rent. And there’s so many good places. God, there used to be a trade show. I went there. I used to go there. That outdoor retailer show. Is that still there? No, it moved to Colorado. Oh, boo. Yeah. But there are amazing places. If you love Colorado, you’ll love Utah. Yes. There’s amazing places. Yeah, they have good coffee shops, I bet. Up in the canyons. There’s a few around. Isn’t that the best find though? Mhm. A good coffee shop. I love like discovering a little town or something. Yes. Like like you’re on a road trip and you stop in a cute little town and there’s a coffee shop and everything’s so cute and

it tastes so good and there’s fall leaves on the ground and pastry. And pastries. Cinnamon rolls. Don’t forget the pastry. I’m so glad you like pastries. You guys brought them. They brought sonatis. I thought we got it for them. And I’m like, “Oh, look you guys, we we have since you’re here, we have all this thoughtful of natural life to bring us pastries.” But how? It’s like It’s like you knew that I wanted that. Like, in fact, I have to finish eating some of them. Me, too. I felt like I just leaned in. I thought we connected that way. Yeah, that was our connection. Did you know I’m like this? You know, the Italians have

a a phrase. It’s no ketambo, which means we connect over food. I need to change that to pastry. We connect over pastry. And you like coffee, too, right? Mhm. Oh, yeah. Like, we were just in Nashville. It was so fun going to a bunch of coffee shops. In fact, Allie started a Tik Tok where she’s raiding all these different coffee shops and sometimes they’re not very good, but it’s pretty entertaining. It sure is. Yeah. I love a good shop. So, we’ll we’ll have you come out to Utah. We’ll take you around a little bit and love it. Photo shoot continued success. Keep down the same path. I don’t know. You’re just like, “Thank you. I

love the story. I love how you’ve built this and the messages and that you keep staying right and you’re you’re staying true to whatever that passion is. I hope lots more people can find that.” Yes. Yeah. Well, I hope I inspire a lot of people and I love what you are doing. This is so cool. Like I’m so impressed with you guys and like you’re making the world a better place. Thank you. Oh, that’s nice. I hope so. Yeah. Well, I think we just love this, too. So, well, I do anyway. We’ll talk later with these guys. Where should we go next? I love that you guys came here. It’s going to open up. Hopefully,

you guys like to travel. Everyone’s going to say yes if you come to them. Yeah. This was our test ground and I hope it worked. I think I think we nailed it. Yeah. Patty, thank you so much. It’s been so fascinating. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.