Momtrepreneur

Although we do our best to control what our kids eat, the reality is that as soon as they’re about 4 years old, we start to lose that control. My daughter in Pre-K has lunch at school once a week, and my kindergartener weekly. My girls eat what is offered since bringing a lunch from home is not an option at their school. The school tries to offer healthy alternatives and is continually working to make improvements, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are some things that are offered that I would only rarely let my kids eat, if at all. For example, if given the choice, I’d eliminate processed meats from my children’s school because I know they’re not good for you.

What I didn’t know until recently is, how bad for you processed meats really are. The World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research’s “Second Expert Report” concludes that “processed meat is a convincing cause of colorectal cancer.”

The National School Lunch program, a federally funded program that often provides the best meal a child may get in a day, currently distributes and subsidizes processed meats like hot dogs to 30+ million children. Given the link between cancer and processed meats, it’s time to eliminate these meats from the National School Lunch program.

As a concerned parent who wants to make a difference, I’ve signed the petition to the Secretary of Agriculture requesting that the government halt the distribution and subsidization of processed meats like hot dogs through the National School Lunch program. Whether you have children or not, if you’re reading this blog you’re concerned about nutrition and health, please take a moment and click on the following link to sign the petition too. Thank you.
http://support.cancerproject.org/site/PageServer?pagename=usda_national_school_lunch_program_petition

No one would argue that this is a difficult economy in which to grow a business. It gets to all of us, but the real challenge in many ways isn’t how to grow your business in this economy, but rather, how to keep your motivation level high despite the discouraging economy.

I discussed my personal values with my Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) Forum last night (a small group of 9 Boston entrepreneurs who meet monthly to share experiences and learn from each other – part of a worldwide organization of 9,000 members). From this I realized that if I make sure that my actions are consistent with my values, I’m happy.

Sounds simple, but this is how it works (for me). One of my values is to “make a difference”. When asked last night what this means, I replied that it’s simple. As long as I feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life, I’m happy. It could be as simple as opening the door for someone who has too much to carry, letting someone who is obviously in a rush cut ahead of me when driving, etc.

Given the economy, I decided to apply my values to my work at Zoe Foods. This lead me to rereading emails that Zoe Foods and I have received from its customers (i.e. you!). When I read emails from people who tell me that they love Zoe’s new crunchy granolas because they taste good and have great nutrition, I can’t help but think “Score!”. There’s another person I helped make a difference for today. So… if it makes you happy to make someone else happy, please keep the emails coming and commenting on the blog.  I promise that I will pay it forward!

Parents at my children’s school want to see the nutrition of snacks and lunches improved: hormone-free milk, no nitrates in the lunch meats, no deep fried food, no white bread or empty calories. No one would disagree with these goals as my husband and I work hard to teach our children to eat a variety of foods and make healthy choices. But teaching children to eat healthfully and providing them with healthy choices is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle that is important not to lose sight of.

We not only need to provide our children with healthy choices, but we need to teach them how and why we combine these healthy choices. Yet, the puzzle is still larger.

I believe we also need to teach our children to appreciate the wonderful choices that they have and the importance of not wasting food since it is a precious gift. When I was a child, my mom used to tell us that children were starving in Ethiopia and that we needed to finish the food that we had taken. As a child I don’t think I fully understood the implications of what she was saying, but it clearly made an impact on me since I recall her words 30 years later.

I am torn on this issue because I have been asked to participate in a group of concerned parents who want to improve the nutrition at my kids’ school. I would love to see my children have healthier choices with no fast or fried food. And yet spending my limited free time to help my children’s school is like tutoring a child who scored 90% on a test so that they can get 100% the next time. There are so many children who need much more help since they’ve only scored a 30%.

The National School Lunch Program provides $2.57 per lunch for over 30.5 million children, and for many of those children, that’s the best meal that they get. If I am to help my children’s school improve its nutrition, then at least I can make sure that my children learn that there are others less fortunate than themselves and that we all need to make an effort to help others less fortunate than ourselves in any way we can.

Although I didn’t want to make my blog political, I can’t help but say that I’m excited that our country has looked past color and race and elected someone who has vision, smarts, and the people skills necessary to move our country forward.

In order to make a positive change in our world, I think that the singer and songwriter Jack Johnson says it best:

With My Own Two Hands by Jack Johnson, featuring Ben Harper ?(repetitive refrains are edited out for brevity’s sake)

I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make it a better place
With my own two hands
Make it a kinder place
With my own two hands
I can make peace on earth
With my own two hands
I can clean up the earth
With my own two hands
I can reach out to you
With my own two hands
I’m going to make it a brighter place
With my own two hands
I’m going to make it a safer place
With my own two hands
I’m going to help the human race
With my own two hands
I can hold you
With my own two hands
I can comfort you
With my own two hands
But you’ve got to use
Use your own two hands
With our own two hands
With my own two hands

Is there such a thing as a sick day if you’re a mom? Oh, and why don’t you add to that, entrepreneur. I know there is such a thing as a “sick daze” – I’ve been in once since Saturday. Guess trick or treating was too much for me this year.

As a mom, your kids cannot just give you the day off. Even if your husband or helper has agreed to let you rest so that you can take care of yourself to get better – did you tell your kids that this was the plan? When they’re little, they just don’t get it. If you’re in the middle of a nap and you hear the stampede of feet followed by “mommmmyyyyyy” – so much for the nap.

Not to mention, in my house I’m the grand coordinator of everyone’s schedules and plans. Because I wasn’t feeling great, my husband took the kids when they woke up Sunday morning to have brunch with friends and then to the playground. By the time they got back it was well past noon. Since my head was feeling fuzzy, I didn’t even realize until dinner-time that one of my daughters missed a birthday party.

As for work, as a business owner, there really are no sick days either, just somewhat less productive ones. There’s only so much you can get done when your head feels like it’s filled with custard. And, if you decide to work from home because you don’t want to infect the rest of your team, your kids are thrilled. You then have the challenge of telling them that they need to let you work even though you should be in bed resting to get better. Now if that doesn’t send a confusing message! So… it’s now 4:45pm and I have not seen my kids since 1:30pm. Guess they got it after all.

Not really sure how that makes me feel, but it does let me get my work done. Now all I need to do is feel better so that I can get back to work and to my family!

Just getting ready to finish up my work to head home for Halloween! For the last two weeks, my girls both told me that they wanted to be fairies - all the rage with Pre-K and Kindergarteners. Last night as my older daughter was getting ready to go to bed, she told me that she had changed her mind and she really had to be a cat. Hmmm… She had a halloween parade at school first thing the next morning. Nothing like changing her mind at the last minute!

Although I still had some work to get done and was exhausted, I brainstormed with my husband the best way to make a cat’s tail (try taping some crumpled up newspaper around a coat hanger and covering it with a piece of material or play scarf ) and some kitty ears (cutout from a cardboard cereal box with colored construction paper glued on and attached to a headband) given the late hour. I interspersed my late night art project with finishing up some work (easy to do while the glue was drying) and this morning - my daughter was thrilled.

Entirely worth it despite the last minute effort. Now it’s time to get ready to go trick or treating. And later tonight I expect a visit from the Halloween Fairy who I hear, will be leaving the next series of Rainbow Magic Fairy books by Daisy Meadows. Does she write anything about cats?

For more on the Halloween Fairy, see http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/hello-halloween-fairy/

Well, there is some truth here.  One of my goals is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country – see my blog (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/mommy-will-you-talk-to-the-chef-at-school/) Okay – I stated it publicly – the next day another mom in the class approached me about getting together a small group of parents’ whose goal is just that!

So, if it’s just that easy, here’s another goal… I’d like Zoe Foods to make a difference in people’s lives with great tasting natural products that are packed with nutrition. Zoe’s Granolas and Bars are distributed across the country and is a major player in the food industry!

The Secret is out - we’re working toward this goal and appreciate your helping to spread the word about Zoe’s so that we can make it happen.

Married seven years as of yesterday and together for almost 10! Just another milestone to make me realize how quickly time passes. I had never heard of the seven year itch until a friend of mine told me about it. Why seven? Do we suddenly tire of our partners after seven years? Do people tend to enter their mid-life crisis at about the same time as seven years of marriage, so that they start to pine for their younger days?

Perhaps it’s akin to the seventh awning stretch in a baseball game. Maybe it’s not really an itch at all, but rather a time to stretch and reflect upon all the wonderful things that have happened, and a time to come up with a game plan for all of the exciting things we have to look forward to.

Nutrition in your child’s school – is there any? My kindergartener started eating lunch at school this year. She was so excited. At barely 6 years old, she is beginning to enjoy the freedom of making her own decisions. With this responsibility, she has quickly learned that it’s not always so easy to make a good choice.

I realize that my daughter’s awareness about what is healthy and what is not, is not the norm. With a mom in the natural foods business and a dad who knows just as much, our girls cannot help but learn about nutrition. Although they have never been to McDonald’s and don’t really know what it is, they do know that it’s not healthy for them. Awareness and education is a crucial component, yet is only half the battle. The other half consists of the options in your child’s school cafeteria.

With the increasing rate of obesity and Type II diabetes among young children, we not only need to teach our children what is good for them, but we also need to make sure that there are healthy options that taste good in our children’s school cafeterias.

One of my dreams is to make a difference in nutrition education across the country, but now that I have a child eating lunch at school every day, I realize that we also need to influence what options our children have to choose from.

I wish I could say that I’ve figured out how to slow down my life – but I haven’t made much progress since my June entry (http://www.zoefoods.com/blog/slowing-down-the-course-of-time-do-less-not-more/). In fact, since being on vacation, I think I’ve tried to cram in everything that I missed doing while I was gone into the last several weeks.

The result of being crazy, busy means that I am not eating as healthfully as I would like. And, the first places that I’ll steal some time from are breakfast and lunch. The result is less portion control and too many carbohydrates.

Here are some tips that I’m following to lead to healthier breakfasts and lunches:

Night Time Prep
1)    Take some salad from the Tupperware where we keep a washed head of mixed greens for the week, and put some in a single serve container for lunch for the next day. Take some other healthy leftovers like chicken, broccoli, squash, and put them in a container for lunch. Watch my portion sizes! Go heavy on the vegetables.

2)    Get to bed no later than 11pm, and ideally earlier. Goal is to wake up well-rested so that I can wake up at 6:30am and exercise!

Morning – Rise & Shine
3)    Exercise as soon as I get out of bed for 20-30 minutes. Do my Prana Power yoga video with Taylor Wells, or my Jackie Warner video, or get on the elliptical trainer!

4)    Take 10 minutes to eat breakfast with my children. Pour Zoe’s Granola into a bowl to manage the portion size and add skim milk.

5)    Grab the lunch I put together from the night before from the fridge. Remember to add oil and vinegar to my salad.

6)    Take a break for lunch and don’t eat while on the computer – it’s no better than eating in front of the television. Enjoy my meal for 10-15 minutes, it will be more satisfying and fill me up, as well as taste better. I know I think that we can multi-task, but if I focus my senses on eating, it will be far more enjoyable. Pundits claim that if we actually take breaks, we will be more productive!

I am starting today, will you?

As a working mom with more limited time with my girls, I struggle with the fact that children need boundaries and discipline and that I cannot give in to their every whim. I’ve discovered one way to make this a little easier – try to avoid certain situations in which I know they will constantly be asking for something that I don’t want to regularly have to deny. By the way, my girls are very persistent.

Halloween candy is one of these situations. Last year my girls realized that the more candy they can collect, the more they’ll have to eat. On the night of Halloween, we pretty much let them have what they want. What I try to avoid is their asking for candy after dinner every single night until it all disappears.

Several years ago a parent told me a secret that solved the problem of too much Halloween candy.

Hello, Halloween Fairy!

When we get home from trick or treating, my girls spill all of their candy out on the counter and they each get to pick 10 pieces that they would like to keep in a bag with their name on it. Then they put the rest of their candy back into their trick or treating bags. We write a note to leave for the Halloween Fairy along with the candy they decided not to keep. They put the note and their candy outside the back door and get ready for bed. The next morning, they gather their trick or treating bags from outside the back door to discover a present that the Halloween Fairy left in exchange for their Halloween candy.

Thank you Halloween Fairy for leaving something that my children will enjoy for a lot longer than the candy bars, and just as importantly, thank you for eliminating the battle over their wanting to eat their Halloween candy daily for the next month.

Have you ever told someone a real story and the reply was “It’s too good to be true?” Come to think of it, I haven’t with a sole recent exception. Recently I went to a meeting for Boston entrepreneurs/founders of companies. In discussing my company with one of the venture capital people at the meeting I was told that a deal that I had negotiated for Zoe Foods was too good to be true.

For some reason, this comment keeps coming back to me along with all of its philosophical and dire implications… the deal really isn’t real, there’s some sinister legal language that even after crafting the document hand-in-hand with my attorney for three months that I missed, or maybe even that I signed a deal with the devil and just don’t know it yet.

Since I don’t believe that any of these three scenarios are true, I’m going to stick with my story - we got a good deal because we’re actually a good company since Zoe Foods mission is to make a difference in people’s lives with great-tasting, good-for-you foods.

Have you ever found something too good to be true? After 43 years, I am happy to say that my life is too good to be true, and it truly is.

Avoiding Nanny Nightmares (again)

A couple of days upon returning from our “big trip” to China, our current nanny who has been wonderful for the last 10 months told me that she would like to keep working for us but “live-out.” Ugh! This is about the last thing I need to handle right now – I still feel like I’m catching up on my work from being away and cannot afford any outside distractions, especially because Zoe Foods is just at the brink of taking off if we can meet consumer demand and build our distribution quickly enough.

So… childcare… I welcome your suggestions. I have made every effort in the last year to keep our current nanny happy. I’ve taken vacation time to cover for her vacation. When we’ve had vacation and she didn’t want to take hers, I paid her anyway. I’ve tried to make her feel welcome in our home – we’re easy-going and flexible and it’s been fine with nannies in the past, but she wants her own apartment. If she were to “live-out” that means a higher cost for me. Alternatively, she offered working for me in the afternoons only and receiving the same compensation. There’s no value to me in that other than I don’t have to go through the search process again and that my children can have consistency beyond the last year. Ugh. That’s what comes to mind, a big, fat, ugly, UGH!

Is My Daughter Turning Into Me? My mother tells a story that when I was about four years old I snuck into the kitchen, moved a chair, climbed onto the counter, and snuck some Mallowmar cookies (a graham cracker with a marshmallow on top – all covered in chocolate). According to my mother, she only discovered this because when she went to give me a bath, my tummy was covered in chocolate. Guess I thought hiding them in the elastic waistband of my pants was a good idea instead of risking getting caught eating them at the scene of the crime.

Today I learned that my youngest daughter who is four years old pulled a similar trick. My daughter’s nanny relayed a story where my youngest snuck some candy hearts (left over from last February’s Valentine’s day) and tucked them into the waistband of her shorts and was caught red-bellied!

I couldn’t help but laugh, at least my daughter had the common sense to choose something that wouldn’t make quite as much of a mess on her tummy and clothes! When I told my story to my daughter, she replied “I want to be just like Mommy.”

When I think about what shapes who we are, we cannot help but be influenced by our parents. The only thing that gives me hope is that we learn to emulate the traits and behaviors that we admire in our parents, and learn from those we don’t. (Mom – if you’re reading this, there are very few that don’t fall into the former category – so not to worry!)

Okay, so how can there be any negatives associated with a vacation? Easy, try running a small, growing company where if you take time off, there isn’t a large enough staff to spread your work around so as not to overload any one person. What has this meant for me? It means that for the past eight years my very understanding husband has had to be satisfied with what I fondly refer to as our mini-moon (a 3-day weekend about two hours from our home for our honeymoon), cancelled vacations, a five-week maternity leave where I took calls for work at the hospital, and finally a real two-week honeymoon after we had been married for five years and had had two kids. Better late than never I told him with a smile

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. If I had to do it all over, I still would have chosen the entrepreneurial path. I don’t believe in having regrets, it’s a waste of energy on things we cannot change. All it really means is that going on vacation stresses me out! Ironic? Yes. Worth it? I’ll let you know in two weeks when I get back from China!

When I have an internet connection, I will post a blog; meanwhile, Kim, our marketing intern turned full-time employee (yippee!) will be my guest blogger writing about health, nutrition, and a healthy lifestyle. And… Tim, my trusted operations director will start his own blog. Tim will provide a fun contrast to my perspective because he is a single male who also happens to be a stand-up comedian, and who has made some very dramatic changes in his lifestyle these last three years since he has been working with me at Zoe Foods. So stay tuned, we’re going to spice it up with some useful information and interesting perspectives on entrepreneurship, health, nutrition, and work-life balance.

Okay, so maybe you do not believe in any of this new age stuff (which really isn’t new at all because the concept of believing in something and making it happen has been around for a very long time). So, let me tell you a short story…

I have believed in Zoe Foods and our mission of making great tasting product that is actually good for you for eight years. It hasn’t been easy, and not necessarily fun. But, I still believed in what I was trying to do.
We are now running a promotional sale on Amazon for our new Zoe’s Granola (our new recipe is crunchy. People who have tried it for the first time, taste it and then ask me if it is really is good for them. I’m truly delighted to tell them that it is!)

This morning I received an email from John, our VP of sales saying that Zoe’s Cinnamon Raisin Granola has just moved up in its rankings out of all grocery items sold via Amazon from #13,982 to #369. Of course this means that there is now a waiting list for our granola because Amazon had been stocking a very low inventory. No problem – we’ll ship them more. So, if you signed up to buy our granola on Amazon, you should be able to get delivery really soon! Thank you for your patience, and your support of Zoe Foods.

As I was putting my youngest daughter to bed last night she said to me, “Mommy, you’re not going to go away again?” I asked her what she meant and she explained “Like when you and Daddy went to the wedding and Grammy and Grandpa had to stay with us.”

I explained that although we don’t have anymore weddings coming up, I do have to travel for my work and would be away this coming week for one night. How do you get your children to understand that even when you’re away, your heart will always be with them?

Sitting here watching the Olympics with my husband and the commentators were discussing the Americans chances for winning the women’s gymnastics event. They were debating which of the two Americans had the best shot of winning. Then one of them said that the Chinese were there to ruin the Americans’ chances. Since when do competitors ruin your chances of winning? Without a competitor, there is no race or competition. No wonder Americans aren’t particularly liked outside of our own country. I understand that the American commentators may be rooting for the Americans, but really, let’s try to be a little more sensitive about how we say things.

Is it just me? How do people have time to stay involved in virtual communities? Facebook is a good example. No matter how much I read about Facebook or explore the site, I just don’t really get how I’m supposed to really utilize it. Clearly I’m missing something here since I have trouble keeping in touch with my full-bodied friends. When someone figures out how to create virtual time, then I can have a virtual life.

Last Spring I heard Brian Scudamore, the founder and CEO of 1-800-Got-Junk, speak at an Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) conference. To say that he was inspiring would be an under statement. I can see why Brian was able to turn everyone else’s junk into a $400 million + business and have fun while doing it. I took home some interesting “best practices” that I swore I would implement right away. Hmm, didn’t happen.

As fate would have it, looks like I needed a reminder. Several months ago the former COO of 1-800-Got-Junk spoke at a local EO event and was just as inspirational as Brian was. It was high time start implementing these best practices at Zoe Foods. Well, I didn’t start right away, but swore I’d get started as soon as our granolas had been reformulated and that I had some new hires up and running.
I now have a terrific team and we have just finished reformulating Zoe’s Granola to taste better than ever, and with even better nutrition. We’ve also revamped our website, and I have faithfully been writing my blog for a couple of months. I think that day has arrived and it’s high time to start to implement what I learned from 1-800-Got-Junk. Besides, if Scudamore could create a $400 million business from other people’s junk, I should be able to create a successful company by creating foods that taste great and are good for you. Sounds easy!
The two best practices that I learned from Scudamore that Zoe Foods will be implementing are: Daily Huddles, and “The Painted Picture”. Daily huddles start this week at Zoe Foods. Simply put, they are an all company meeting for seven minutes in which “wins” and “stucks” are brought up. The goal is to facilitate communication and hold each other accountable. The discussion and decision making takes place after the huddle. I admit that I’m a little dubious about these daily huddles, but it seems to be a common practice among successful, fellow EO members in Boston, so worth a try! Scudamore’s “Painted Picture” took me a little over a day to create. It is a two-page document describing Zoe Foods looking three years forward.
As I started to write the Painted Picture I used the future tense. Suddenly I remembered the book, The Secret. I threw out what I wrote, started over and wrote in the present tense. So this is what a vision is all about! I needed to be experiencing what it was like to have already grown Zoe Foods now, not talk about what I’d like it to be three years hence.
Athletes always talk about envisioning their performance before they actually compete. I realize that writing a vision for a company is no different, just more complex because so many more people are necessary to make it happen.
On that note, I think it’s time to go watch some more of the Olympics to see what Best Practices I can glean from these most incredible athletes.

My husband and I recently went out to dinner with good friends of ours who were visiting from Nebraska. At dinner I discovered that both Betz and I write blogs. She about life in Nebraska and missing Boston, and me about work, family, and a healthy lifestyle.

The funny thing is that Betz and I both learned that neither of our husbands have ever read our blogs. Hmm, what does that say about our husbands? Or really, what does that say about our marriages? The ironic part about this is that the most public of forums, a blog, is where I could keep secrets from my husband. Betz, are you out there? My dear husband, are you?

I’ve taken a week long hiatus from writing my blog; I didn’t intend to. Last weekend my family gathered from across the country to spend four days together. It was fun and certainly wonderful to see my parents, sisters, their families, and my cousins. However, the word “relaxing” doesn’t come to mind.

Whenever we have this time together in Maine, it involves a 5+ hour drive from where we live outside of Boston. 5 hours is a long time to sit in the car, and certainly long for my 4 and 5 year old girls. We let them watch one movie, so that leaves about 225 minutes of being strapped into a car seat. The rest of the time we made up stories, read books, played I Spy, and for the first time, played 20 Questions.

I couldn’t believe how quickly our girls caught on. When it was my youngest daughter’s turn to think of something we had to guess, she’d very quickly announce “Okay, I’m all done thinking!”. She never once tried to stump us with a Disney princess (phew - they really do think about other things)! When it was my 5-year old’s turn, she blew us away with what she came up with. Through our questioning, we learned that it was a thing, it was alive, and it was real (not make-believe). Hmmm…

Can you guess it? We finally did. It was the planet Earth.

I’ve learned that my children and employees (not to infer that they’re childish in any way) do have similar qualities. When given a goal, they can surprise you with their initiative and the solutions they can create if you would only get out of their way. Hmmm, maybe I should take more time off. Thank you to the Zoe Foods team!

Before I started to get ready to go to work the other day, my youngest daughter, age 4, came into my room and wanted to play a quick game of Connect 4. Before we started playing, she looked me directly in the eye and with a very serious expression (which is unusual for this giggle monster), said “Mommy, if I win, you have to have another baby. And, I want a baby brother!”

How did my four-year old learn how to make a bet on the outcome of a game? It certainly isn’t the standard practice in our household.

I hesitated for a moment in my reply, “How about if Ozzie [our 85lb. dog] is your baby brother?” Weak answer, I know. How do you tell your child that your work is essentially one of your babies? I guess when she’s old enough to read, she’ll find this blog archived somewhere and by then, hopefully, she’ll understand.

I got back from my business trip from the production run of our new granola and my girls were asleep. From their perspective, I was gone for three “sleeps” – not the two days I had promised. It seems to be tougher on my younger daughter, age 4, when I travel for work. My 5 ½ year old seems to take it in stride and accepts that this is what her mommy has to do.

The next morning (yesterday) I was excited to have my girls eat Zoe’s new crunchy granolas for breakfast. I figured that if two picky eaters liked Zoe’s Granolas, then we’d really have a shot at growing the company after eight hard years of just surviving. My 4-year old was all over it. She tried it, ate it, and went back for seconds and thirds! It was a hit, and a relief for me.

My older daughter was a little tougher on me. She told me that she doesn’t like granola but would try it. How could I have a child who doesn’t like granola when that’s what I spent my working hours thinking about?  Ugh! She tried it anyway, smiled, told me she didn’t like it, and walked away. I couldn’t believe it. Okay, I don’t need everyone to like my company’s products, I’ll settle for 50% (as if my children of two make a statistically significant sample).

A couple of minutes later I heard my youngest daughter screaming, “Mommy, she keeps stealing my granola.” Hmmm, at the young age of 5 my daughter has learned how to push my hot buttons. As long as she likes Zoe’s Granola, she can push that hot button anytime! I think Zoe Foods is finally off to the races, and after  8 years in training, I am really excited. As far as my older daughter goes, I think that my husband and I had better brace ourselves for her teenage years.

I don’t usually blog about my company’s products, but I am excited, really excited. For eight years Zoe Foods has produced granolas with the best nutritional profile out there but has struggled to get Zoe’s Granolas to taste as good as the leading sellers.

I am really excited to say, that the struggle is over and that we’ve finally figured it out. Tim (my operations director) and I are now at our manufacturer’s plant because after three months, we finally figured out how to get our granolas to truly taste excellent, and have an even better nutritional profile. And, the coup de grace, we’ve figured out how to make the granola crunchy while maintaining the integrity of the flaxseed and the omega-3s!

When we tasted the product from the line, I felt like dancing “The Granola Jig” in my lab coat, hairnet, goggles, and earplugs! Quaker Oats – watch out.

I was about to write “because of the nature of my work” when I realized that wasn’t even being close to honest. What I really mean is, because of my nature, my work and personal time are intertwined. Yesterday, when my marketing intern, Kim, told me that she wanted to finish some work at home and that she would email it to me when she was done, I asked her to please give me a quick call to let me know that the email was sent. I gave her my home phone number without a second thought.

It’s 8:15pm and the phone at home rings. I am indisposed for several minutes and I ask my five and a half year old to please answer the telephone. She is thrilled to have such an opportunity! She answers the phone and says hello. I tell my daughter to ask who it is and then tell them that I will call them back soon. The next thing I know is that my daughter is telling Kim that I am in the bathroom and cannot come to the phone. Too much information. I can hear Kim trying to get my daughter to repeat the message she wants her to give to me, but I can’t hear what she is saying. My daughter hangs up the phone, “Kim says to emah your blah.”

That would be five year old for “email your blog”. Luckily, the mixing of work and home doesn’t seem to phase her or me. After she goes to bed, I email my blog to Kim.

I just read an article on www.Entrepreneur.com called “The Guilty Mom Entrepreneur”[1] – does that ring a bell? The article explains how working moms feel guilty about working and not being with their kids, and about being with their kids and not working. The article advises us working moms to separate the two and focusing exclusively on each one.

Good advice, but difficult to follow. What do you do when you’re in the car with your family and your cell phone rings and it’s one of your investors, or your sales guy who you’ve been waiting to hear important news from all day? I don’t know about you, but I take the call and tell my family I just need a couple of minutes. When my childrens’ nanny calls me at work, I take the call because she rarely calls and if there’s a problem, I want to know.

Isn’t the advantage of starting your own business to have this flexibility without someone looking over your shoulder and judging you? I started my own business because I believe in meritocracy – not face time.

I think the biggest problem with working moms and their guilt, is that they have let society tell them how they should feel rather than making the choice for themselves. Only I can be responsible for how I feel. If I choose to be an entrepreneur, mom, wife, and friend – then that’s who I am, and I don’t need to feel guilty about trying to squeeze it all in.

As Peggy Lee sang in 1963 “I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”. We’ve come along way in the last 45 years, now we just need to leave our guilt at the door.

If any of you have read the book, The Secret, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to get all “new agey” on you, but, I really think there’s something there. We attract what we believe and what we want. So I believe there’s truth in the old adage, “be careful what you wish for.”

In all honesty, Zoe Foods has been a roller coaster ride for the last eight years. If anyone had ever told me it would be so hard to start a business and turn it into a success, I would never have believed them in all of my naïve optimism. More stories on this topic, but I’ll save them for another day.

If Zoe were a cat, the company would be in its ninth life. The company is small, and is going through a difficult time with consolidation in the grocery industry, Whole Foods Market’s discontinuing brands to make room for their private label products, product challenges, management challenges, etc. All of that said, we have some really exciting opportunities coming our way, and I can see that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an on-coming train, but rather daylight. So hold on for the ride…

I leave for LA tomorrow on a 6:30am flight (I’ll be up at 4am – ugh) for some sales meetings in LA with my VP sales and some of our brokers, and a meeting with Jackie Warner of Bravo’s show Work Out, and the founder of Sky Sport Spa. Now there’s an entrepreneur for you! Despite the obvious differences between our companies, from my research on her, we have a similar philosophy – make a difference in people’s lives via a healthy lifestyle. So the roller coaster ride continues with interesting opportunities at every corner. Stay tuned… And yes, I did work out this morning and felt the burn (while my kids darted in and out of my bedroom and my dog pranced around with his bone in his mouth).

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com.

I just read a blog on the Wall St. Journal site about “The Benefits of a Feminine Leadership Style” (http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/06/09/the-benefits-of-a-feminine-leadership-style/#comment-14448). Here are my thoughts:

I have worked for both “good” and “bad” bosses of both sexes and thus, don’t think it is gender that makes someone effective or successful in managing other people. So what does make someone a good manager of people? From my experience it is whether they have the capability to be fair when put to the test, and if they are authentic.

In the eight years I have been running Zoe Foods, an all natural foods company that produces cereals and bars, I am sure that I have made all types of management mistakes. But, the two things that I have always done is to be myself and make every effort to be fair. As a result, I believe I have earned the respect of my employees and shareholders, and if the company can produce excellent products that live up to their claims, the company too, will be successful.
As a mom and an entrepreneur, I find the same is true with my family and children, as at work. The main difference - my employees don’t have tantrums - usually

Originally published Tuesday June 10, 2008 on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

I was just at a new parents’ meeting for my children’s new school. All very exciting, but I admit that I did have an ulterior motive – meet some mothers of the other girls in my daughter’s pre-K class to arrange some play dates over the summer. That way, my daughter would have a friend at her new school. Sounds easy. It turns awkward when I explain that I won’t actually be at the play date because I work full-time, oh, but my girls’ nanny will be there.

This of course leads to the question: “So, what do you do?” Now you think this would be easy to answer, but there are so many options… I work in the natural foods industry, I run a natural foods company, I could even say that I started a natural foods company and run Zoe Foods. Or, I could just say that I’m an entrepreneur. Nothing seems to roll off my tongue because I don’t work for someone else in the way that most people do. I don’t leave it all behind when I come home at night; the day’s challenges and goals are always brewing in the back of my head, and of course the bottom line is always part of my consciousness.

How do I explain in a casual situation what I do for work when I’m an entrepreneur who adores her family and being a mom? I’m at the school function aren’t I? I’m present. My life’s work just goes in two directions: (1) my family, and (2) my job.

Building a company is hard, growing a brand that can make a difference in people’s lives with all natural, nutritious and delicious foods is harder, but raising your kids to be kind, respectful, considerate, and loving people? Isn’t that the toughest challenge of them all? And that’s the task that I outsource on a part-time basis! Now where’s the sense in that?

After five years of deliberating on these questions, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all here on this planet to achieve different things and that being an entrepreneur and a mom are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most moms are entrepreneurs! Entrepreneur (n.) a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. In my book, a family is certainly an enterprise, and no one will deny that raising a family takes a lot of initiative, tons of effort, and contains risk!

How a woman balances her roles is as varied as the number of women who choose to take on both work and family. Maybe I’m only dreaming that I can do both at once and do both well, but I don’t think so. I really believe that I can, and some of the cool stuff that is taking place at Zoe Foods right now and with my kids is proof that I am beginning to achieve the goals that I set out for myself.

So in answer to the question “What do you do?” I think next time I will say I’m a CEO – Common Everyday Over-achiever* of all things ranging from kids’ play dates to doctor’s appointments, and yes, Zoe Foods.

Note: I would like to attribute this very clever definition of “CEO” to Kris Kaplan, a fellow EO (Entrepreneur’s Organization) member, and clearly, another CEO.

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Last week was my girls’ last week of school. On the last day, the school had a sing-along and a picnic. During that time the kids ran around and played. At age 3-5, they do not really comprehend the full import of the day – that many of the 4 year olds, and all of the 5 year olds will be attending different schools in the fall. They are at school five days each week till noon, and then during weekly playdates, and birthday parties every couple of weeks. Then, school is over. Everyone’s lives are about to move on in very different directions. The parents of course were all in awe that their babies had just finished pre-school or pre-K and how quickly the year had whizzed by.

I discussed how quickly the time has gone by with one dad and soon discovered that he held the same opinion as that of my husband: the faster we run, and the more we take on, the faster time goes by. So does that mean that the converse is true? If we do less, time will slow down?

Sounds crazy but at 42 years of age, there’s still so much I want to see, do, and experience in my life and with my family that I cannot imagine how I will squeeze it all in. (Even that sentence was long just to get everything in!) There’s just so much fun to be had and many wonderful people to meet.

My wise yogi friends seem to have figured it out by being in the moment. The thing is, I am in the moment. There are just so many wonderful moments and they all whiz by so quickly. Why is it that when you’re little and your birthday is only a month away it seems like forever, and now that I’m almost 43, my 40th birthday celebration seems like it was yesterday?

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

I’m sitting at my desk in my Zoe Foods office with my earpiece on for my cell phone, typing on the keyboard for my desktop, and my laptop PC open and on to my right that I’m checking occasionally for interesting emails.

My director of operations, Tim, walks in and just starts to chuckle as he hands me something I recently printed and left on the printer (one of my many projects). I look at him with a quizzical look, and then say, “oh thanks, yeah, I printed that.” He said, “Why don’t you have a phone hooked up to your other ear, since you’ve got a computer going for each eye?”

Tim turns to leave and I say, “Ooh, now I have my next blog idea – thanks.” I take the earpiece off after listening to Verizon’s hold music (trying to get a new phone number for our home which we just moved into a couple of weeks ago) when I realize that after 25 minutes on hold, I had become accustomed to Verizon’s hold music and that it was actually helping me to tune out all of the junk and focus on just one project.

Hmmm, how many things am I working on at the moment? Well, I’ll only admit to several. How many different things are going through my brain, that’s a story for another day, but probably common to many entrepreneurs and multi-tasking moms – and when you combine the two – well, watch out!

How much can any of us really get done at one time, and get done well? Am I really accomplishing more by having so many projects going at once, or is Zoe Foods that grossly understaffed? Questions to ponder for another time… because now I’m going to run home to spend a little quality time with my kids before I go to an EO (Entrepreneur’s Organization) Board meeting.

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

I had forgotten this story until just now… in November I was with my husband and our two girls, and some friends of ours and their two children. Tina gave all four children a penny to throw in the fountain so that they could make a wish. My youngest daughter, 3 years old at the time, started to cry after she threw her penny in the fountain. Through her tears she explained to me that she wished she had a unicorn, but after the penny went into the pool, no unicorn appeared.

I tried to explain to her that when we make a wish, it doesn’t always happen immediately, and that sometimes we need to keep wishing in order to make it come true. Luckily for her, Christmas was around the corner and Santa Clause must have gotten wind of her wish because she received a unicorn in her stocking

Why did I suddenly recall this story from this past December – because I realized that today, I was having a “no unicorn day.” My wish and dream to grow Zoe Foods has had its challenges, and today feels like a day with few “wins.” Like my daughter, I too will keep wishing and working hard to make my dream to have Zoe’s Granolas and Zoe’s Bars available in retail stores throughout the country. Please share your dreams and wishes with me – I’d love to hear from you.

Originally posted on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Okay, so I started Zoe Foods because I wanted to produce all natural foods that could make a difference in people’s lives. (the dream) Sounds great - but clearly, I had no idea as to some of the crazy adventures I’d encounter along the way. After many years of travel for work, this was a new one…

All excited, flying to Fayetteville, Arkansas for a minority and women-owned vendor’s fair to pitch Sam’s Clubs! I know that when traveling in the state of Maine people say “you can’t get there from here,” but I didn’t know that was relevant in traveling from beantown to the land of Sam Walton.

Feeling pretty good because my first flight arrived in Charlotte on time and I was 20 minutes from landing in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Suddenly… thunderstorms and insufficient fuel to circle Fayetteville until the storm passes - plane diverted to Little Rock. We’re told we will refuel and try again - delay waiting for gate and fuel. An hour after we should have landed in Fayetteville, we finally pull up to the gate and fuel truck. New plan – all passengers can deplane and take a bus from Little Rock to Fayetteville – only a 30 minute flight, but a 3 hour bus ride! No worries, the bus will pick us up in 45 mins outside of baggage claim. Not the end of the world – should still get into Fayetteville in time for a good night’s sleep before the big meeting – say 9:30pm.
All off, collect luggage, and wait for the bus. 75 mins later - no bus. The passengers have begun to bond. Someone finds the bus waiting in a completely wrong part of the airport. Load luggage, get on bus. Bus driver uses toilet (another 5 mins delay – ugh – he’s had 75 mins – clearly my NY upbringing and impatience start to surface). Now we find that the driver doesn’t know how to get to Fayetteville. Local passenger to the rescue – sits in front and guides driver.

20 mins out, A/C on bus conchs out. I’m thinking - thank goodness, it was way too cold. Then there’s a rumor that the bus is going back to be switched out because it’s not working correctly. No one believes nasty rumor until we notice a sign pointing to Little Rock airport, and then suddenly we’re in the sticks.Turns out - we’re heading to the “bus barn”. All off, unload luggage.General confusion as to which bus to get on next. Then we see one with an engine running, so the crowd of lemmings migrates over. Luggage on, lemmings on.Off we go. Arrive at Fayetteville airport only 6 hours late! The good news, the hotel shuttle seems to be in good working order and 9 weary passengers board. Silence. Arrive at hotel, 9 tired compatriots and no rooms except for 2 available at the Sleep Inn next door. Draw straws. 7 unlucky passengers load back on to the shuttle for another 5 mins drive.

Almost 12 hours of travel from Boston to Arkansas for a 15 minute meeting that will be over in less than 12 hours from now. If the meeting results in new business from Sam’s Club, I’ll make the trip again next week! (Believe)

(p.s. received a verbal commitment to launch Zoe’s Honey Almond Granola in the Northeast – excellent start and worth the trip – now we just need to make it happen!) (Achieve)

Originally published on http://zoefoodsblog.blogspot.com/.

Zoe Foods is a small, family-owned company that I founded eight years ago. The last eight years have been a roller coaster ride – especially trying to balance the full-time work of an entrepreneur with that of a young family. Your emails and support of Zoe Foods have made this ride worthwhile. My personal goal has never wavered. Inspired by my mom, I started Zoe Foods with a passion to make a difference. This blog is about just that – making a difference, whether it’s at home with your family, at work, and within our greater community - and the challenges we face in trying to do so.

I’m rushing to get this blog done so I can leave the office to meet my two girls at my cousin’s sons’ ice skating birthday party. My girls (ages almost 4 and 5 yrs old) have been asking me for the last several days to promise to leave work to meet them at the party. I wouldn’t promise despite their persistence. I only said that I would try really hard. Zoe Foods is going through so many changes and the industry is changing, that I never know what is going to come up. As a small company, there’s only one other person who can pick up my work, and I didn’t think it fair to dump my work on someone else so I can go to a party with my kids. Then I realized… they’re not going to be 4 and 5 for very long, and before I know it they won’t need my help skating, nor even want me there. Missing a couple of hours of work really won’t make or break the company, so off I go!

I’d love to hear how you try to make a difference in the lives of others and the challenges you face. More later…