Chef – Owner at Leaf and Loaf and Fun with Food: Sue Coraggio Snape AKA The Medical Chef – S1E22 (#22)

S1E22 – Chef – Owner at Leaf and Loaf and Fun with Food: Sue Coraggio Snape AKA The Medical Chef – powered by Happy Scribe

Don’t be afraid to fail because you’re going to fail a million times and fail could just mean you’re going to find you don’t like it. So just be willing to experiment all kinds of things, different environments, different people. And you want to work by yourself or with other people. One of the things about having a food truck is the hours of having the food truck would have been Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which were the opposite hours that I wanted to be working on my business. So those are definitely the most important things, I think. Right. Don’t be afraid to succeed either, because I know plenty of people that are afraid to succeed.

Boss Uncaged is a bi-weekly podcast that releases the origin stories of business owners as they become uncaged Trailblazers, Unconventional Thinkers, Untethered Trendsetters and Unstoppable Tycoons. We always hear about overnight success stories, never knowing that it took 20 years to become a reality. Our host S. A. Grant conducts narrative accounts through the voices and stories behind uncaged bosses in each episode, guest from a wide range of backgrounds sharing diverse business insights. Learn how to release your primal success through words of wisdom from inspirational entrepreneurs and industry experts as they depict who they are, how they juggle their work life with family life, their successful habits, business expertise, tools and tips of their trade release. The Uncaged Boss Beast in you welcome our host S. A. Grant.

Welcome welcome back to Boss Uncaged podcast. On today’s show, we have Sue Snape, she is my friend. She’s a business owner. I think her business unit is one of those businesses that you may kind of second guess you would even think it was a business. But she’s found a way to make it work. And not only that, her background has completely had nothing to do with this, to start off with. So, Sue, who are you?

Really good to figuring that out about every day I am a mom, a wife, an entrepreneur. I’m a creative person, a dog lover.

This is true.

I’m really into eating healthy food and being as healthy as I can be so I can do my work that I’m here to do.

So the name of your company is Lift and Loft and Fun with Food. Right? And you also owner of the food studio in East Cop. So obviously we’re in the midst of Colvert. You want to just kind of give us a little bit of insight to like those business units. How do they work? You know, what was the structure and where are you with those two businesses?

Sure. So Leaf and Loaf is the company. I started it in twenty fifteen and it was kind of a combination of all kinds of things, food related, because when I came out of culinary school, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. So I tried all kinds of things and quickly discovered what I did not want to do, which was actually more important than figuring out what I wanted to do. So Leaf and Loaf was a granola company. At one point I put that on hold for a while. Then I brought the company back and then I started some catering and then some personal chef services. And then I also started Fund with Food, which is a children’s program, but it’s under the umbrella of love right now.

So first of all, I want the audience to see how modest she was. She just kind of just stated these things very simply. But your original background, you were a director of content for like nuclease medical media. And that’s what you and I met. Right? We were colleagues. And obviously this creativity in both the environments you are. But I mean, cooking is a completely different creative than digital content. So what did that transition look like I mean, what did you just wake up on a random Tuesday? I said, OK, today enough is enough and I’m going to start cooking. I mean, how did that come to fruition?

Yes, but it was a Sunday.

OK, OK.

I mean, I was in that field for sixteen years. I have a BFA medical illustration. Loved what I did for fifteen years. And one Sunday I woke up and I couldn’t stop crying because I had to go to work the next day. And I was like, this is not right. It’s not how we’re supposed to live. And so I with the support of my husband, we just decided it was time for me to quit. And so that was a process sort of that took a little bit of time. But I quit and didn’t know necessarily what I was going to do after that. I worked with a career coach for a while, which was a little bit scary because she said that we work intensely for two weeks together and at the end of those two weeks, she would have an answer for me. When we get down to the last meeting where I’m like, oh my gosh, what is she going to tell me? I should be. And she got on the phone and she’s like, This has never happened before. I don’t know what to tell you. What are you like,

where’s my refund? Maybe.

Right. I just did all this work and you did nothing for me. But then she said, you know, give me a couple more hours. I’m working on something. And then she called me back and you need to go to culinary school. And I was like, I am forty years old. What are you talking about? Looking back, everything I did outside of my medical situation was really I would go to the grocery store at lunch just to walk around, so I quit my job and went to culinary school. It’s crazy. Crazy.

So, I mean, obviously, I want to dance to the Atlanta as well, too. So I definitely understand that that makeup right. So what was like your main thing, your main attraction once you got into culinary school, like what was that unique moment to say, oh my God, I love this. I want to do this for a living moving forward?

Well, I knew that I wanted to be my own boss. I knew that I was done working for somebody else. And I learned a lot in culinary school, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it, knowing I wanted to start my own business. I was thinking about starting with a food truck, but then I thought, I don’t know if I’m ready for this. I had two little kids at the time and so I decided to work for somebody else and to learn a little bit more about the industry before I jumped into my own thing. So I worked as an employee for someone and ran a restaurant for five years and learned so much more in the first six days of that job than I learned in culinary school because it was specific to what I wanted to do and just sort of felt my way through that and figured out what I liked and what I didn’t like about that environment and just sort of gave through a couple of things out into the wind to see what worked.

So, I mean, the strategy that you’re talking about, I always look at it as a paid apprenticeship, right? I mean, it gives you an opportunity to get paid what you’re learning as you go. And obviously you’re doing it for the end goal, which is to start your own thing. And a lot of people I think that’s part of the hurdle of overcoming the fears of stepping out for corporate America and thinking they’re going to be absolutely with no revenue for a period of time. So that, as always, I mean, your insight was essentially dead on that. So during your experience, I mean, what’s the craziest thing you’ve experienced as far inside of food? I mean, what’s the tea or the drama behind the scenes?

I mean, I don’t know if it’s specifically with food, but with my own company, maybe just being willing and able to say no to things.

OK,

I’m really working on that every day. And I’ve gotten a lot better in the last year about not taking every possible job that comes to me. But that’s the life of a business owner or a contractor or freelancer. You just you’re afraid to say no because you’ve got to take the work when it comes in. But I found that I was taking on jobs that weren’t making me happy, that weren’t actually pushing me through to the company that I wanted to have. And I was turning down work so that I could stay on track to building the company that I was envisioning.

So you’re talking about building companies. So, I mean, a lot of times people always have the question about how should a company be structured? So I know you have like a business background as well because you were a director of content. So you understand a little bit more behind the scenes. Are you sort of more of an LLC in corporate corporate structure looking like

so I am an LLC, but for tax purposes C Corp, so.

Got it, got it, got it. That’s good stuff. So, I mean, are you a sole owner or do you have any partnerships?

Just me. Another thing I decided straight out of the gate was I was not working with anybody. I had heard too many stories about family members and friends that had partners like fifty fifty or forty nine fifty one percent.

And at one percent is a big difference right

oh my gosh where just they all those relationships just crashed and burned and I just didn’t want to deal with it. So it’s just me which is good and bad for you.

I mean there’s extra weight to carry on your shoulders, but I mean, I think you’re up to it. I mean, what do you wake up on a routine basis? And I’ve been looking at Facebook. I’m big at the Facebook. Right. So I think one of the greatest things that you’ve done for your brand is you wake up every morning and you essentially sort of doing a motivational quote. You kind of do what are you grateful for? So how did you come up with that idea, that concept, and how are you tying that back into your food business?

Well, I started doing that. I’ve always been really grateful. And I really like to pay attention to the little things, that whole mindset. But when it started, schools closed here on a Friday on Monday morning, I thought so I have a bunch of classes of like one hundred students that all of a sudden I wasn’t going to see anymore. And my program was essentially on hold. And so I thought, I have to do something for me to get out of bed every morning and to give myself a reason to keep going. And so I started my gratitude post, which was supposed to be for me. And people say, well, why didn’t you just write it down in the journal? I don’t know. Actually, it just I don’t think too much about things. I kind of just do what my heart says to do. And so I started posting something else great before every morning on Facebook. And people were really gravitating towards that and telling me even like this morning, people are still saying your post is the first one that I see every morning and it starts my day off on the right foot. So it’s been. Not just for me, but I guess for other people, too,

and I think that’s a testament to who you are. I mean, considering that Covid happened. Right. And I guess this is a good Segway to step into that pivot point that we talked about before this call. Most people would have hit that pivot point and they would have seen some failures. And it had been like, damn, what do I do next? They would have rolled up in a ball, cried and put their hands up. I would’ve been over. But instead, you took that energy and you put something positive out there. So let me talk to us a little bit about that pivot point. I mean, you are owner of essentially two separate business units, right? And you have to close ones. What did that look like? Closing one, keeping one. And what would that pivot point?

I pivoted so many times in the last six months. I have like Caster’s for shoes right now. So Leaf and loaf is again the company. But I have some personal chef clients, so I would cook for families two days a week and then teach three days a week with food. I go into schools after school and educate, motivate and inspire. Kids see real food. So I had about one hundred students and also last October I opened a brick and mortar of four hundred square foot awesome little space called the Food Studio, where I was having classes there as well. So I can have classes whenever I want it right. It was my space and I can schedule whatever I wanted. I can have birthday parties, I can have just classes. It was fantastic because I wasn’t limited to just having classes in schools during after school hours. So October comes, I get all my stuff and move it all in. I set up. It’s going great. Guns, like my business is thriving. I’ve got personal chef clients, so I’ve got a balance of elementary school kids that keep me on my toes and then a more professional aspect of my business, which is creating beautiful, nutritious food for people. It’s a really good balance for my head and for my skills and everything. And then covid hit and I was like, well, holy cow, I have no idea. Like nobody had any idea how long this was going to go on and how many months it would take before a people were willing to go back to doing things in person. And B, is what I was offering was going to be top priority for them. And both of those answers for me as a business owner were like, you know, it’s a great program. I love what I do. People love what I do, but it’s not a priority. So I had the option to close and get out of my lease early, which was a huge gift, because paying rent on a space that you’re essentially closing up, as many restaurant owners know, it’s tough. So I waited for this to find the space for like nine years and then in the end they decided to close it up. So I was only open for a couple of months. But I have people saying it’s coming back. Let’s see.

I mean, I think that that’s a good segue way. And honestly, I mean, the space that I’m in, I’m really big into, like, growth strategy. And faced with that, with my clients on a regular basis of that pivot point and just hear you speak and seeing the content that you put on social media, what’s your thoughts as far as converting the food studio into like a digital online studio, a digital online course to where you’re just doing food, perhaps, and you’re doing a subscription model to where people are, hey, they’re spending five, ten dollars per month to see you cook a meal step by step, kind of like HDTV, right or Food Network, but is more personal to what they’re used to getting from you, your quality. You’re going out to the farmer’s market and recording content saying this is how I picked this particular fruit and this is what have you thought about doing something along those lines?

So that was my first pivot point actually was just going digital that first Monday, along with my gratitude post, I started a Facebook live because I still had the food studio at that point. So I just went live and showed people how to make some recipes and people that I didn’t know were following me. I had somebody from Thailand log in and watch what I was doing. And I was like, what? How do you even know about what happened? And it was fantastic. And then so that day I was like, wait a second, this could be my hair standing on end right now. It’s like, this is great. My whole mission has been to reach more students, to touch more kids. And I was sort of tapped out doing that in person because I’m just me, right? I can only be so many places at one time. So then I realized doing this online, I can reach everybody everywhere. I don’t have to be limited to five mile radius. So I started doing some Facebook lives, worked with lighting and sound. That was huge. That’s a there’s a huge learning curve there always. And then I started recording videos and putting them on an online platform so people could purchase like essentially a series of classes less expensive because it wasn’t. And I was like, this is the way to go, I’m going to be online, it’s going to be perpetual income, I’m going to be on the beach drinking fancy drinks. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t like recording to nobody. I was watching what I did. And technically, things were great. It was fine. But what brings me joy and enthusiasm is the people on the other side, the people that I’m talking to were teaching or looking at and recording. The camera didn’t work for me. I did a couple of classes and just decided I have to do this live. So pivoted again and reached out to a couple of students that I knew would give me honest feedback. Not that all kids aren’t honest, but these kids were honest. Did a free class for them just as a trial and loved it, like it brought the joy back, and so I started doing some online classes over the summer and it was the best thing ever. So schools are still not in session. And I still have some online classes that I’m doing and just started last week. I’ve got a kid from Virginia, a kid from Washington, kid from Colorado, and I don’t even know how they found out about me. But that’s a huge benefit and a way to look at the situation more positively.

And you definitely understand the business model of like the passive revenue stream. So it seems like for this to work right. In one aspect of it, you need to have live. But on the back end, you had clients that were willing to watch your recorded videos. So are you thinking about possibly recording your live videos and putting them on a membership site that way after you’re done with the lives, you’re just filling in the content?

Yes, definitely.

Perfect. Perfect. Is that website up? Is it built? How are you looking as far as development?

It’s on the table platform right now.

Nice, nice surface.

And it’s fun. There’s videos, there’s quizzes and the quizzes are we’re not doing anything for a great and final thing. It’s just to motivate kids to eat real food. So the quizzes are fun. There’s some downloadable recipes, some coloring pages and things, the whole selection of things to play with.

Got it. It is time for a shameless plug. I mean, what’s the name of the teachable course?

It’s fun with food.

Perfect.

Log on to teachable. You just go to fun with food and to come up.

Great, great, great. Hence why she was the director of content people. So I mean, we always hear about the 20 years it takes someone to get to a level of success that’s always perceived as an overnight success story. Right. How long have you been chasing the dream to get to where you are currently?

Still chasing it, but I’ve been working for myself for six years and that that was my dream. I’m there. Yeah, it definitely doesn’t happen overnight. And I was always even working in medical illustration. I was always looking for ways to emulate things that I liked about bosses that I have even going back to college. I always worked in restaurants. So there were things that I loved about people that I work for and things that I didn’t love. So I sort of kept a list in a journal of things that I wanted to be if I ever hired somebody and things that I thought worked for running a company and things that didn’t work. And I always look for the teaching points and everything, whether it has anything to do with culinary or food or students, there’s always something to learn from everything. So I just sort of gathered those things all along the way. I’m still learning every day. I learn something every time I teach a class.

Nice, nice. So I mean on this journey, right? I mean, obviously you’re saying this job is a wave which all journeys usually are. There’s always highs and lows. What’s one thing you would you would’ve done differently if you could do it all over again?

I’m wondering not I’m not saying I did everything great, but I don’t know that I. Would do anything any differently? Yeah, I mean, everything was sort of an experience and an experiment, so I had knowing what I know now, I honestly don’t know that I would change anything that I’m doing except. No, I was going to say hire someone, but no, no, no.

Got you. So, I mean, it’s a testament to your passion, to what you do. I mean, you loved every aspect of what you’re doing since day one. So, I mean, that’s a rare find. I mean, even with like a billion dollar business owners, there’s always well, I could have done this and made it to a billion dollars a lot faster. Oh, I could have made my first million a lot faster. If you just kind of like. I love the journey. I love what I’m doing.

We’re talking about money is the success point. That’s a whole other conversation. But that’s not hopefully I will get to that point where I can take some of what my company has earned and put it back into the community, help kids, give them scholarships to culinary school, whatever. I mean, I have dreams of that, but that’s not success to me.

Got you on the road map. It looks like possibly you may be developing a foundation down the road. Possibly, I mean, to filter that, but

definitely so. I had at one time over the summer, I had somebody contact me and say, hey, I want to pay for a scholarship for one of your students to take your account. It was a week long camp. And I was like, well, that’s fantastic. So I threw it out on Facebook. And within about three minutes I had someone that said, I would like to take advantage of that scholarship. Awesome. The next morning I get a text from a friend that I knew from the cafe where I worked for five years that said, hey, I saw you had that scholarship. My wife and I want to do the same thing. We want to sponsor ten students for your summer camps. I was just like I was just overwhelmed. And so I had ten kids sign up like in a second for my camps, which was great because everybody’s financial situation right now is different,

extremely

different from one another, but also different from where it was in February. So it made me realize people really want their kids in my program, but finances might be an issue. So that was a great, great thing because I got to meet kids from all over the place on the scholarship. And also I have recently applied for a grant that would essentially pay for all of my classes for like a whole semester. And I would just allow kids to just register for the class and take it without without much of a fee at all. So still waiting to hear on that. But I would love to structure my company more in that direction.

So, I mean, that that’s a shift in your business, right? So what does that scholarship look like? I mean, is it an ongoing thing? Is it online? Is it that the people can kind of just log in and click donations? I mean, how does that work? I mean, obviously this to be a time to kind of make that announcement. Right?

So I have on my registration form, I have a checkbox that says I would like to sponsor a child to take this class. And so if people check that, then they would get invoiced for the extra student. And then when I have and there’s also a checkbox that said I would like to accept your scholarship offer. And so that isn’t super huge right now because nobody really is. I mean, class enrollment right now is pretty. Pretty low, but I think that moving forward, that’s something that I’m definitely going to have and I have been in a situation where we had when my one of my kids was really little, we had to tell him that he couldn’t play soccer for the big league because we couldn’t afford it. I never want a kid to not be able to take my class because of finances. So I’ve always said, if you need a scholarship, just let me know. No questions asked. We’ll get it taken care of. And so the company has given out a couple of scholarships over the years. So really, I just throw it out into the universe. Hey, if you need a scholarship for your kid to take this class, just ask and we’ll get it squared away.

Well, the beauty of the world that we live in, right, with the economic structure of systems. Right. Right now, there’s beer markets. We have bull markets. And to my point is that. Some people may be in decline as far as funding right now, but other people that are becoming millionaires as we speak, so there’s no reason to not put it out there because like you said, you found somebody overseas that you even though you may need to find someone in China that just became a millionaire in the industry that you’re in and be like, great, I want to go ahead and sponsor your classes for the next three years. So I think if you’re going to that business model, I would market and promote the living hell out of that.

Yeah, that’s a great idea. That’s right.

You have it a 50 for being an entrepreneur. Do you come from an entrepreneurial background where your parents or anybody know?

Both laughing Because my mom’s a retired nurse and my dad was in computers.

Really?

No, I didn’t come from a lot. And there was definitely no entrepreneurial anything. I mean, maybe I started when I sold Girl Scout cookies. I don’t know. I think it just sort of came out of years of working for someone else and maybe realizing I didn’t want to do that. I missed out in all of the jobs that I’ve had, as during the time that I’ve been a mom, I’ve missed out on things that my kids were doing because I had to work and I don’t want to ever say that again. So my kids are back now and they’re they’re still my kids. I don’t want to ever say I can’t come swimming because I have to work.

So it’s a good thing you brought up the kids. I mean, we were just talking about Eva not to be confused with Ava, right. Earlier today. And so she was talking about I mean, she has a little hustle to her as well. I mean, what does she stuff that she’s building in developing on her side? Hustles right to begin to.

And we bought our sewing machine and she’s been sewing all kinds of bags and clothes and she buys things from thrift stores and brings him home and washes and cuts them up, makes new things. It’s super awesome. She’s also taught herself at about three minutes how to crochet in the car on YouTube, coming home to the store with Ja War and she just crochet this awesome bag. So she’s doing all kinds of things. And she will one day have her own business because she used to like, take my seltzer water out of the refrigerator to go to the end of the driveway and sell it for a dollar at the end of the driveway and come in making seventeen dollars off my canned water. So she’s got it going on and that our son, who just turned 18, is starting his own business while he’s in school and working to start his own little design business.

So, yeah. So I mean, Olwyn is taking up what was structural in design or

industrial design,

industrial design. So again, the apple doesn’t fall far, far from the tree. So this may we fast forward 15 years from now. And I’m sitting down and having this conversation with your daughter and I’m like, are you from Argenteuil background? The entire store will be completely different.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I was just talking about that. Someone asked, so he’s he’s working with a business mentor. You get this company started and they said, do you know anybody that has their own business? Like, my mom has her own home.

So what is his business going to be? I mean, what is he going to be designing?

I’m not sure yet.

COOl, cool, cool.

So, so many types of design, you know, who knows who knows what his thought processes.

That’s a really good point. I mean, again, you and I worked together at a medical illustration. Right. Medical animation firm and that was design. But you’re also designing food. Your son is an industrial designer, which is a whole nother monster. And technically your daughter is kind of in the fashion design area a little bit so small with a professor. So it’s not really a limitation to just pick design. It’s down to to what you love to do. So, I mean, you brought up your family. I mean, what’s your work family life balance look like?

Oh, it’s it’s pretty great now, but it’s always been a struggle because I’ve always put. A lot into my business because I had to get it going right, I had to get off the ground, I had to work, work, work. But to me, it wasn’t work, work, work, because I love it. But other people were look like other people in my family were looking at me going, know you’re just working overtime. And I was like, I’m not working all the time. Yeah, but that’s what it looks like from the outside. But in my head I’m like, oh my gosh, I got to try this. Oh my gosh. Now I have this idea. Holy cow. What about this? And it is really hard to turn that off. So not that we should turn that off, but there is a point, I think you know just as well as I do.

Yeah.

We got we got to find that balance right between family health, our mental health, physical health spending, time with family. It’s a work in progress. So it would go it started. I just decided, you know what, the idea of working like nine to 12 and taking the lunch hour and then working one to five does that. And then I was like, you know what? I think I’m going to do that. And so I started that that loose schedule for myself. So after five thirty, I just decided I wasn’t going to touch my business anymore. And things are still working.

Got it. Got it. I mean, I am definitely with you with that it got to the point to where forgetting to eat was like my worst habit. So I’ve used Alexa and I’m saying, hey, Alexa set an alarm every single day at noon and all the Alexi’s go off in the house. And I’m was like, OK, whatever I’m doing at that point in time, I need to get up. You’ll get something. You’ll definitely. Definitely. So what’s your morning habits? I mean, we touched on it a little bit. Obviously, you wake up very early, you have enough time to write a post and all your posts are thinking very organic. You kind of wake up at all the predetermined, right. You got to wake up, take pictures or whatever it is, and you present it in that moment. So what are your morning routines?

So I used to get up at four forty five. That’s not happening right now, but I’m usually up by five fifteen five thirty. I do a little like seriously like three minute meditation. I have some books that I like to read. It’s just a quick little something and it sets my head straight and then a lot of times reading that will help me realize something that I’m grateful for or I just go to make the coffee and realize I’m grateful that I clean water. I do my gratitude post. I usually like to put a photo with it because I’m not a visual person and then I do a workout for a while. My husband and I were just walking a couple of miles every morning, but then I realized that that was great and it was time with him and time outside and breathing, whatever, but it was more meditative. I needed to pump up my cardio and my weight training. So every morning we do a thirty, thirty five minute pretty intense workout and then I sit down and have my coffee and then I do a post for Facebook group that I started called I Can I Will, which is a private group that I thought would be like five of us. And there were like seventy six people there in the group right now, just kind of motivational. How can we support each other, be healthier, more efficient, better moms, better human beings for the planet, all of that. And then I take a shower and I start my day usually like eat breakfast, usually about eight thirty. I’m working.

So I think one of the big things that that you brought up in a couple other guests on this show had brought that up is within those first hour to two hours in the morning, an opportunity to read. And I see you have a couple of dozen books, BOTUS any books that you want to pull out, which you’re reading right now currently.

Those are all cookbooks, actually, but I do. I’ll show you the book that I read every morning. All right. So I’m not a big reader, believe it or not. But somebody told me about this author, so I started reading this book. It’s called Change Makers by Tosches Silver. And it’s truly like one little two page or maybe that sort of sets my head straight and making myself a better person. So there are a little things to read, like I need to be stronger by doing X. That’s great. But since we’re talking about business, this is also another book that I love of hers. It’s not your money because I’ve struggled with the whole concept of money all my life, the whole fear and scarcity thing. There’s not enough money. What am I going to do? I’m going to run out of money. The premise of this book is it’s never our money. It just sort of passes through us to get to other places. And that changed my whole outlook on my business, making money and having money as an individual. And when I started to sort of let go of that money started coming in

as the rules of attraction. I mean, it’s if you think of it positively and I think a lot of times people think of personal development, self-help as kind of like B.S. in the sense of like if I think I should become a reality. But it changes your state of mind. The book that I’m reading right now is a five second rule. And in that five second rule, it’s a simple thing. If you’re faced with adversity, you’re faced with a hurdle. You don’t wake up in the morning, you literally just count down from five to one. And just by doing that, it’s like a rocket. You’re going to jump up and do whatever it is. And in those five seconds, it changes the algorithm of your brain to say, stop making these excuses and get it done. So, I mean, I definitely want to look into that book, the one that you just showed, the last one. Definitely. So, I mean, this is what a topic a topic of books. I mean, obviously, you have a million recipes. You’re a motivational speaker in your own right, even though you may not see it that way. Have you ever thought about combining those two and creating like a motivational cookbook?

I have. And it’s not a cookbook that anybody would think of as a cookbook, because I don’t like recipes. I mean, you see all of these cookbooks, but basically when I use a cookbook, I’ll flip through it just to get some ideas. I close it up and then I go do my thing. That’s where medical illustration and my culinary time sort of overlap because I see it as more of a creative thing and that’s how I teach. Also, I don’t want people to just follow a recipe because that’s not learning how to cook. I want you to taste and smell and experience the whole all of the individual ingredients as you’re going along, that kind of thing. So my cookbook will not have any words.

So it’s going to be like comic book style, like visual storytelling,

kind of. Don’t want to say too much because it’s such a good idea.

Got you, got you.

It’s going to be like a flipbook. It’s going to be a way for people to create recipes. That are all vegetarian or vegan.

Got you. Yeah, so I mean, when are you planning on releasing them?

As soon as I get a little bit like that, a mock up of the whole concept of me being the only person I always have. These giant expectations for myself, like that book was supposed to be done three summers ago, but in its own time, I guess it’ll get finished, so.

got you So, I mean, that that’s another good thing, because, I mean, you’re talking about essentially doing like a flipbook cookbook. So you’re going to illustrations, which is a great segue way to talk about your husband, who is an illustrator, does these awesome illustrations. Please tell me he’s going to be illustrating that book.

Oh, he was on me for getting this book so long ago. Yeah, definitely did my logo. Is that all my marketing materials? Yeah. So there’s the other creative in-house.

I mean, as as a house full of creativity is all four parties.

Yeah.

So where do you see yourself in 20 years.

Not working, so I’m 50, so in 20 years, I’ll be 70. I hope I have the opportunity to not have to work and maybe just be a mentor to some students or some young kids. Honestly, I don’t really know. I say that. I say I hope I don’t have to work, but I can’t sit still. So, yeah, whether or not I have to work or not is different from whether or not I will work. And I will never not work. I will never not have something to do every day.

So do you see yourself still possibly owning a business in 20 years? Would it be like you and your business running parallel or eventually you’re going to sell it off and move on? Or what’s your thoughts on that?

I actually did look into franchising with a couple of years ago, and I think somewhere down the line that that’s definitely going to happen. We maybe, maybe 10 years, you know, I looked into it again right before covid, and then I was like, no, not the time to make an investment into that. I got to just keep my business afloat and let me come out the other side. I’ll start looking at some of those things.

You got you. So what are some tools that you would not be able to run your business without?

My laptop, for sure. OK, healthy attitude. What else

has any particular software infuse your village?

My village. My village is definitely my family for sure. My husband, absolutely no one. But I have just been given so much support and love and care and motivation from people that see what I do and support me, I couldn’t have done it without them, especially when times where I was like, oh, forget it, I’m giving up. I’m not doing this anymore. And they’ll be like, No, just wait. Let’s go to sleep when you wake up tomorrow, a new day. So, yeah, that’s how I’m rolling.

Good stuff. So if I’m a brand new entrepreneur and I’m thinking about getting into the food space as the general genre, I have no details. What I want to be a restaurant owner, whether I want to be online learning or if I want to write cookbooks, what words of wisdom would you like to leave behind for them coming up behind you?

Don’t be afraid to fail because you’re going to fail a million times and fail could just mean you’re going to find you don’t like it. So just be willing to experiment all kinds of things, different environments, different people. And you want to work by yourself or with other people. One of the things about having a food truck is the hours of having a food truck would have been Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which were the opposite hours that I wanted to be working on my business. So those are definitely the most important things, I think.

Right.

Don’t be afraid to succeed either, because I know plenty of people that are afraid to succeed.

I mean, that’s definitely true. And the reality is in my business unit, I see that all the time. There’s always people that are fearful to make that step and they get comfortable currently where they are. But they want to be bigger, they want to do more, but they don’t want to take that step forward. And that’s like for me, what I’ve seen is like the biggest fear is the fear of actually winning, not the fear of losing, but the fear of succeeding, the responsibility that comes with once you make it or you achieve your goal, it’s kind of like, are you going to settle for that goal or are you going to try to achieve something new? Keep growing.

Yes, absolutely.

So where can people find you a lot. I know we talked about a couple of your business units before, but you want to go ahead and just list off a couple websites, Instagram accounts.

So my website isleaf and loaf, all written out.Com, same website. A different URL is fun with food.Fun after you end because that’s super fun, right?

Yeah,

I’m on Instagram, Sue.Snape.leaf and loaf and then Facebook Leaf and loaf and fun with food .

So as I always call it the bonus round because this is kind of like the extra questions. Right. So if you could spend twenty four hours in one day uninterrupted with anybody dead or alive, who would it be and why.

Oh. It will be my grandpa. Why? Because I feel like he visits me pretty often. He was a butcher, and while I know he’s proud of what I’ve done, but I would love to see him again, was the bonus round supposed to make me so happy?

I mean, to think about the bonus questions offstage, them in a fashion from the psychological standpoint, to allow people to let them shout? I mean, business is great, but who are you really? And everything you’ve said from the start of this podcast until now has been one hundred percent driven towards your community, towards people and towards making the greater good. I mean, that’s what you really represent. I’m using food to do that. You’re using your background, but everything that you’re doing is for that purpose. So I’m saying is your granddad I mean, it only makes sense that you kind of get a little bit savvy with that, right?

Yeah. So he was a butcher and he also owned a grocery store.

So so, I mean, that goes back to that question. I mean, there is a little entrepreneurial history in your family there,

you know.

Yeah,

I didn’t even think about that. I was always just thinking one generation back. But you’re right.

Yeah, got it. Got it. So as far as achievements go, what is your greatest achievement today?

My kids. To be able to be so proud of who they are and what they’re doing, I don’t care what they do in terms of careers, but as long as they’re compassionate people, they’re kind to everybody and they work hard. And that’s exactly who they are right now. So that’s my biggest achievement. If you can be achieving as a mom, I’m winning, right?

Great. Great. So this is the part of the podcast where I usually just kind of open up the floor to my guests to ask me any questions. I mean, what questions you may have for me.

How do you find balance? Because I know that didn’t always and maybe your some. I don’t know. I know that hasn’t been a big part of your past.

Yeah, part of my past was just work 24 hours a day every day and just make it happen. And then post stroke, once I had a stroke, I had to kind of re-evaluate things and that kind of give me an opportunity to essentially schedule my days out. So I always have a section of my day in the morning to where I wake up and kind of get things done before anybody else wakes up. And then throughout the day I knock things out. Then I have my alarm goes off for lunch. And now that the kids are working from remote, it gives me opportunity to keep my thumb on their backs. Hey, what’s going on? Did you follow up with the teacher to make sure you get everything done? Because two o’clock comes or three o’clock comes, we’re going to go out and go do something. I mean, probably right now we’re like in Florida. And I was like, dude, I want to go kayaking. Always get what you’ve got to get done. So by three o’clock, we could be on the water.

That’s awesome. So, you know, I have to kayak. You’re welcome to borrow any time.

Yeah. I mean, you are like less than a mile away,

so. Yeah. Yeah.

Great. Any other questions?

How is your family helping you balance all of the work and so many different things.

Mhm. Yep. So with that I’ve structured all my businesses kind of like in a sense of yours. I mean you’re talking about courses, book development, cooking online courses, but they all go back to one main topic, food. Right. So I’ve streamlined all my businesses. I got rid of all the ones that were inside the one hat that the one genre. So that was the first part, the part of my family helping out. Well, Alex, she’s a writer, so it makes perfect sense. I’m writing books, helping people, published books, and I’m going more into the publication space. Right. I mean, I’m on book book five or six that I’ve published for myself and I’ve working on two books for clients and I’ve published one book for a client already. So it just gives me opportunity to say, OK, I have three other editors and I have editor at home. So that gives me an opportunity to give her content and pay her to do the editing work. Kay is an entrepreneur on her own. She’s always hustling. She’s a big sell things online, so she’ll find something around the house and repurpose it to resell it as close as retail value as you possibly can. So night and day, she’s always selling something. So I always get the random question from her on the how tos. And it may not seem like it’s a balance, but for me it’s kind of like mentoring her on, OK, this is what you need to do. This is how you to do it. You set her up with print services, right? So now she has a printer, she’s printing on t shirts, printed on hats to resell these products online and in Kois is kind of the anomaly. He is he’s been an entrepreneur my family’s entire life. So it’s kind of like a gift and a curse. Like every once in a while he may come and asks a question about something, but he doesn’t really have the drive to step into that space. But he’s he’s a developer. He’s been coding for, like the past four years. So it gives me opportunity. Well, I’m working on something from developing. So what’s that? I’m like, hey, come on. So it’s not necessarily them helping me, but it’s more so positive distractions to take what I’ve learned and give back to them. And again, it brings the family a little bit closer in unity as far as we’re working on similar things.

Yeah, and it’s all it’s just about spending some time. Right. Doesn’t know what you’re doing. If you’re all the other spending time on something similar, it’s balanced, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s definitely balance. And the beauty of it is I think we’re in an age where technology could be in our favor if we use it correctly, if we’re using it to not just the monetary gains, but how do we manipulate our time like we’re time traveling every single day? How can we maximize the time that we have and make twenty four hours feel like seventy two hours. Right. That’s really my goal every single day. OK, I got twenty four hours. I have to sleep in there, I have to eat and I have to stop. How could I maximize my time and make things work in my favor.

So yeah. Is there any one thing that you figure it out with that anything we can all emulate.

The the one thing that I figured out which obviously any large corporation has figured out has been since the thirties and twenties they’ve done this is hiring and outsourcing. I mean, that’s the only way to to maximize your time and let people be themselves. What I doing outsourcing of hiring people. My first question is, it’s like I’ve hired them for X. But I’m like, OK, maybe the gambit, right, you could hire me for graphic design, but maybe I’m more of a creative director, which is a different thing. So I’m going to ask them, what do you really want to work on? So I hired you for this, but what is it that you love to do? And usually maybe three out of five people have asked that question. Three of them would say, what would I really want to work on? Is this so then I’m going to transition them from this to this. And then the other two are kind of like, I want to work on everything. And I’m like, no, no, no, what do you really want to work on? Because everything really means that you’re just doing it for the money or you have no clue where you are or what you want to do. So I tend to work with more people that know what they want and I give them those products and services and let them work on that because that’s what they want to work on. And by doing that, they show me that not only they know what they’re doing, but they’ll call attention to details. And that’s what I’m really looking for, is like there’s a little bit of detail that I may have missed because I’m doing twenty five things. It’s your responsibility. I’m paying you for that. And then they’ll bring it back to the table. And I’m like, I’m going to keep that in your pocket. That’s going to be your baby. You manage that. You run that moving forward.

Yeah. And happy employees are productive employees,

extremely productive employees. Well, I definitely appreciate your time. It’s a pleasure having you on the show. I think you definitely gave some insight to not only a strong woman, but a strong business owner as well. And that’s the goal of this podcast, is deliver that content and you’re a family person. So three, three, four, one four. When do I look at it?

Awesome. That’s flattering. Thank you.

Well, I definitely appreciated it. So what’s on your schedule today? I mean, you’re going to cook something or.

Oh, my gosh, probably not. Today is pretty packed day. I have a meeting with the school. I have a class this afternoon and then I’ve got another meeting after the class. Wednesdays are pretty busy just trying to keep things rolling.

Great. Well, I definitely appreciate your time and we look forward to following you online and seeing what you come up with next

. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Have a good one.

Thanks.

Bye bye.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Boss UnCaged. I hope you got some helpful insight and clarity to the diverse approach on your journey to becoming a Trailblazer at this podcast. Helped you please email me about it. Submit additional questions. You would love to hear me ask our guests and or drop me your thoughts at asksagrant.com post comments, share it, subscribe and remember, to become a Boss Uncaged, you have to release your inner Beast. S. A. Grant signing off.

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