How Forgiveness Equals Higher Revenue with Amy Lacey

0:02Who's ready to rock today Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Business Made Simple. Today, we'll be breaking down how forgiveness equals higher revenue. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Amy Lacey into EO Fire Studios. Amy is a serial entrepreneur and bestselling author who revolutionized the food industry with cauliflower foods. Introducing cauliflower pizza crust. Now with Soursop Nutrition, she pioneers innovative health supplements using a new super fruit.

0:36In today's foundation, we'll talk about forgiveness in business and why it's important. We'll talk about how it can equal higher revenue. We'll talk about an embezzlement story. We'll talk about being essentially kicked out of your own business and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Amy and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier.

1:09AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:44Amy, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. I think that most people disagree with the fact that they have to forgive somebody that has done them wrong in their business, perhaps an employee, perhaps in my case, it's an employee and venture capitalist. But I believe that you have to forgive that person in order to be able to expand your business and grow. And many people turn to legal actions instead. And I'm here to tell you why that's a bad idea. Fire Nation, that's why we're talking about how forgiveness equals higher revenue today.

2:32And I want to start off by talking about why. Why forgiveness in business is important. we're all trying to achieve peace right you interviewed somebody and recently and well it may not have been recently but i was listening and they were talking about true success is peace of mind and so i believe i've had many uh instances in my business is throughout the years of people that have done various different things that have caused a lot of anger and having me turn to legal options to rectify the situation. And what I've learned is when I've chosen to forgive and move forward, that I've actually grown and my business has been way more successful.

3:23So it frees you from resentment. It literally allows you to unblock your brain because we know that anger affects different parts of your brain. It affects the prefrontal cortex and the magdala. and so when you're angry hurt people hurt people and you're focused on that rather than in your business if you can forgive and there's all different kinds of steps of forgiveness and this is why i choose not to take the legal route and obviously in certain circumstances you have to take the legal route but the legal route means a lot of time and a lot of energy a lot of money lack of peace whereas if you can do the steps to forgive and I had to learn this the hard way by the way you will move forward so much faster and I think a lot of people if they look at my situation many many people were encouraging me to sue the particular person that did me wrong and I chose the opposite.

4:32And I'm so grateful because the rejection that I felt was just redirection. And I think honestly, it was God's protection. And now I'm booming in another business and this would not happen if I had chosen the other route. I love that phrase that you use and I wanna go back and visit it, which is hurt people hurt people. I mean, you need to think about that Fire Nation because I'll tell you, If you ever do something meaningful in this world, you will have haters. You will have naysayers. You will have people that just say something negative about you, your products, your service, whatever that might be.

5:10And instead of looking at that and taking it personally, I actually love doing the opposite. I truly have empathy for that person because I look at that person and I say, what kind in a state of mind does a person have to be to write something like that? Mean, hurtful, disgusting. They have to be in a mean, hurtful, and disgusting state of mind. And that's sad. So I have empathy for people that do things like that, Fire Nation, because guess what? Hurt people hurt people. That person is hurting. They are struggling. Maybe they lost a family member and they're lashing out. Maybe they just got diagnosed with something.

5:53Maybe this had a financial catastrophe. Any number of things could have happened. Maybe their sports team lost. Whatever it might be, it doesn't matter because who cares? Don't take on their hurt, their disgust, their filth that they may be spewing out into the world if it's that because there's no reason to, in fact, feel empathetic for them. Say, hey, who whatever they're dealing with, I sympathize with that, but it's just flow like water. It's going to flow right off me and I'm going to keep doing what I know is great. And I hear from so many people, they say, John, I get 99 positive comments, but it's the one negative comment that I focus on.

6:30That is so sad because those 99 positive comments are the only thing that you should be focusing on. Now, there's actually a story, Amy, where you had to forgive somebody for embezzlement, which, oh, that just even hurts to say that word embezzlement. But tell us that story. Yes. So I, it's kind of a complicated story and there's, and I'm limited in what I can share with it, but let me share the high level part of it. Basically, I hired somebody to be my vice president and part of their deal was to, to gain equity of the company as we became profitable. So they were showing that they were profitable or that we were profitable on the books and not paying some of the bills that were directly related.

7:16They had the contact for the person that was trying to collect was this particular person and their phone number. They did not have access to me. And in a roundabout way, I ended up actually connecting with one of these people that we owed a half a million dollars to. And I learned that he was altering the books. In other words, he was making us look profitable, not paying. I'm not sure how he thought this wasn't going to catch up to him. And so his way of embezzling was he was rushing me to sign the equity piece. He kept saying, we need to sign equity. We're profitable. And it raised a red flag for me.

7:55And then I found out that we were actually in the hole with several different vendors. So my lawyers definitely wanted to move forward. So did the accountants. They wanted to basically prosecute. And I chose not to do that because for many, many reasons, one is like what you said, showing empathy. I looked at what his situation was, how his, he was very desperate at the time. I also felt like it was going to tie me up and it was going to cause a lot of anger and it was going to be very expensive. And so what we did was we legally let him go. And then the team and I put together a strategy and we ended up making that money within 30 days so that we could pay those vendors back.

8:46So fast forward many years later, this same person ended up taking my recipe and creating their own company. So they literally copied me, which was again, the lawyers were coming to me and saying, look, we need to, we need to go after him. He's now using your recipe and creating a similar brand. And I said, no, we're going to let that go. We are growing crazy. We are, we're doing so well. I'm going to let that go. We're not going to go after him. I don't want to distract what we have going here. And I did. I practiced empathy with him because I knew that his wife was very sick. I knew that he was struggling.

9:31And I knew that he had, I had learned a lot about him. And I, and this is one of the things I suggest to people is make sure you do a due diligence, a background check. I thought I had done that, but I had not done it to the degree that I needed to. And I learned a lot after he left. But many years later, as a matter of fact, last year, he came to me and he asked me if I would buy his business. So here's a guy that embezzled from me. Here's a guy that stole my recipe. And here's a guy that's asking me to buy his business many years later. So with that, I entertained it because I thought, well, it's just he's part of my competition.

10:13I never considered him a real competitor. but he was part of it. And I ended up being able to look at his books and, you know, he never, ever accomplished more than 10 % of what we accomplished. So our growth was 90 % more than his growth ever was, even though he was copying the recipe, copying the marketing trends. And so I just think that when you let things like that go, if you can, and you just focus on your business and your customers and giving them the best customer experience possible, it all comes back. I really believe that you put out positive in the world, it comes back to you. You put out negative in the world, it comes back to you.

10:56So I think he wasn't successful because of the way that he approached his business by copying and embezzling. And I think it all came back full circle to me. And the fact that I had the opportunity to buy him and I actually got a chance to look at his books and I could see that he was not very successful. Fire Nation, there's so many lessons to learn here and there's so much to just take away from another person's journey who has been there, done that, has the lessons, has the experience so we can potentially avoid some mistakes that others have made before us. We're going to be talking a lot more about this when we get back from thinking our sponsors.

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14:03Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. Amy, we're back. And as I mentioned before the break, I think this is really key when we can learn from those who have come before us. I mean, we're all standing upon the shoulders of giants. We have learned from those who have come before us.

14:38And one of your stories is investors fired your team. They kicked you out of your company. You neglected your family. And this was all during the rise of CaliFlower. Talk to us about this. How did you deal? We were growing massively. I mean, we were the number one pizza crust on Amazon for 16 months straight. We were selling a pizza crust every three seconds. We were growing like crazy. And I was the CEO and I was running around the country all over the place. We were doing all kinds of crazy things at the SB's Emmys, Teen Choice Awards, New York food show, you name it, we were there. and I was there and I have three children at home and a husband that has a busy practice of his own.

15:26He's a physician and he thoroughly enjoys being a physician. So he wasn't really willing to be a stay at home dad. So I had a lot of guilt about being gone so much. And I decided that for many reasons, one, there was a fire in Northern California where we lived and it burned down an entire town. And then the fact that I was gone all the time, I decided that I might look at some of the offers I was getting for my company. Cause at this point people were coming to me and making offers. And so I ended up selling a portion of it to some venture capitalists and they seemed like a great fit, uh, the perfect fit.

16:05And I, I will say that venture capitalists, they do things a little differently and I wasn't aware of it. I had not done, I had not worked with venture capitalist before. I'd worked with angel investors, but never a venture capitalist. So in many of our meetings, it was, we'll never change your recipe. We love your team and you're always going to be a part of the board. And really just the opposite happened. They changed the recipe and I will say they did it for the better. Actually, they fired my team that helped build over an eight figure business that started from the scratch. They fired that team, every last one of them.

16:44And then they put me on sabbatical and they actually took my passwords away. So I couldn't actually see what the business was doing. That sent me into a spiral funk of anger and lack of peace. I started getting sick again. I was, it was like my fourth child was being ripped out from under me. Um, kind of like if, you know, those parents out there, if they have a child that's dating somebody they don't approve of, whenever you go and try to talk to them about that person, they just push you away. That's kind of what was happening here. I wasn't necessarily agreeing with everything that they chose to do in the business.

17:25And so I would go to them and I would complain, or I would say what, you know, how I felt it was working, especially on the e-com side, because their experience was on the grocery side. And so it was just easier for them to put me on sabbatical and give me a chance to be with my family and reconnect with my family. So how I got over that was just that I chose to have gratitude for the venture capitalists that I was able to take some money off the table, that I was able to move my family out of an area that had burned down. and we moved across country from California to Florida. We were able to buy our dream home.

18:03I was able to spend time with my kids again. But I was always very hurt by the fact that I felt like I no longer had any kind of connection with the business and that I was not part of the innovation team. And so there was a lot of resentment there. And that's really where I learned that forgiveness is a choice. choice and the choice is also to have peace of mind and that healing is a process. And I spent 16 months in counseling. I now admit this on stage when I talk on stages and you would be amazed at the private DMS that I get of people telling me, thank you for being open. Thank you for giving me permission to get help.

18:45I felt like I had to get help. I felt like my old trauma wounds of growing up with an alcoholic drug addict dad came back up through the rejection that I was feeling from the venture capitalist. So I went into 16 months of trauma therapy, forgiveness therapy, and I'll tell you, I would never have the business I have today had I not done the hard work of forgiving the trauma work. And I will say to your listeners, if any of you have experienced any trauma, it will eventually manifest in an illness, which is what happened to me. I ended up getting diagnosed with lupus and Sjogren's. And so it's really important to deal with those demons and to be able to forgive people that wrong you because you're going to get hurt and you've got to be able to forgive to be able to move on.

19:36And it's allowed me to find this new product, which is just incredible for people. my team that got fired when they were fired they stopped speaking to me they were very hurt and very angry we had built this amazing company I had brought these people in and they basically all got fired and so it took a while for me to reconnect with all of them but I'm super excited to say that they're all back with me and they're we're creating another company so we're all working together again. Well, first off, I just want to say, listen, this is so important for so many people to hear. I mean, they need to hear this because it can save you days, weeks, months, years, literally decades, Fire Nation.

20:19It can save your life because of the illnesses that Amy's talking about, but also just because how you live your days is how you live your life. So what are you doing holding on to this stuff? I always love that analogy is that anger is like holding on to a hot coal. It's like you're the one that's getting burned here. Now you have kind of alluded and mentioned a couple of times, Amy, to something that you are excited about right now. Bring us home. What is it that you're fired up about right now? Oh, I'm so fired up with this fruit that I discovered off of South Africa, a little island called Seychelles, but it's actually grown predominantly in the Caribbean.

20:57It's very hard to get in the United States. When you do get it, a piece of it is about$33. It is amazing. It has incredible health benefits and it's called Soursop. It also has other names like graviola, guanarambana. It's got all kinds of different names, but we call it Soursop at Soursop Nutrition. And we've gone ahead and taken the best parts out of it from Brazil. All of our ingredients are sourced, very clean ingredients from Brazil, and we've made it into a supplement. So we have shakes and we have gummies and we have soon we'll have, um, skincare line as well. The product is amazing. Not only does it help with things that I'm not allowed to talk about.

21:40So if you Google, you'll see there's the big C word that I'm not allowed to talk about. And that's how I found it. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. And so I was looking for holistic ways to help her while I was in counseling, trying to get over what had happened to me with cauliflower. And then I noticed that just an innovation and me taking it, my inflammation levels were really high, especially during this time, because I was dealing with anger and I was trying to get over it. And I noticed that this fruit was, my inflammation was diminished greatly. So it was, I knew it was going to do a lot.

22:18If it could help with people's inflammation, it was going to do a tremendous amount, but it also is a huge immunity builder. So we haven't been sick. We use it for travel. It's now our airborne. It has low sugar. So we don't have all the sugar that airborne has. So it's been this incredible fruit supplement that has changed our lives. Literally, it has changed our lives. And so I found a way to source it and create it and get it out to the masses, which is what I love to do. And that's what I did with the first cauliflower pizza crust. And I've done it with a couple other businesses before. but this fruit is truly a miracle fruit.

22:56I call it God's fruit. Now you mentioned the Caribbean. Is there any in Puerto Rico? Yes, you can find it there. Yes. You can make yourself a fresh smoothie, which is ultimately something I want to do is create smoothies in the grocery stores for it. Awesome. Well, if you ever take a little exploratory trip to Puerto Rico, make sure to look me up. We've been here for eight years and we're never leaving. I'm coming. I'm going to do that. You know, the cast of Hamilton called me once because they were using our pizza crust. And he said, if you ever come to New York, we'd love to treat you to Hamilton and backstage.

23:31I said, we're there next week. So I may not be in Puerto Rico next week, but I'm coming. I love it. Well, keep my email. You got that. Let's make it happen. And love everything that I'm hearing here. And if you could just give Fire Nation a call to action, if they want to connect with you, learn more from you, what would that be? So I surprisingly, because I know a lot of people don't, I take care of my own Instagram. So if you DM me at heyheyhey, not H-A-Y, we're not eating hey, hey, Amy Lacey, A-M-Y-L-A-C-E-Y, I will get the DM, I will respond to you. If you want to try some Soursop, I'll send you some samples.

24:15Love to get your opinion. If you have any questions about forgiveness, trauma, the food industry, reach out. I'm always there to help. Wow. I literally just Skyped you my address for some samples of the Soursop. I can't wait to try, especially because it grows on my island. I mean, that's just fantastic. And Fire Nation, you know that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with AL and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Amy in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up and jump into those Instagram DMs.

24:52She will get back to you, Fire Nation. Let you know you appreciate what she did today. Was open, honest, transparent, genuine. Make it happen. And Amy, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much. It's been an honor. Hey, Fire Nation. Big thank you to our sponsors and Amy for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, if you want to create better productivity, discipline, and focus in your life, visit themasteryjournal.com. Productivity, discipline, and focus. It's right there. I'll get you there in 100 days.

25:31themasteryjournal.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. the next wave your chief ai officer hosted by matt wolf and nathan lands is brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the audio destination for business professionals matt and nathan are leading ai creators in your guiding light in the ai and technology frontier ai technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented the next wave strives to be the leading podcast on ai technology and how you can apply it to growing your business listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk?

26:07It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.