Growing up in LA, Ellen Bennett had no idea her summer spent with her grandma in a small town in Mexico would play a huge role not only his how she saw the world and related to people, but also in the career she’d eventually pursue and the company she would build. Describing herself as half Mexican, half English, born and raised in LA by a fiery mom who calls her “Mami,” and having never met a color she didn’t like, she is the founder of Hedley & Bennett, a company that crafts some of the coolest, most beautiful and kitchen tough aprons, worn by a lineage of many of the top chefs in the most iconic restaurants and kitchens in the world.
But she didn’t start out that way. Coming out of high school, without a strong sense of direction, she got on a plane to Mexico City, alone, and vanished into the culture, building a career and life before feeling called back to LA to make her mark cooking, under the guidance of two legendary chefs and restaurateurs. But a single, fateful moment, when she heard her mentor ask a simple question, then made a promise that, at the time, she had no idea how to keep, led her to launch her own company. The adventures that followed are the stuff of legend, many of the learnings and tales are shared in her wonderful new book, Dream First, Details Later (https://amzn.to/3aJf9kj), and we dive into it all in today’s conversation.
You can find Ellen at:
Website : https://www.hedleyandbennett.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/ellenmariebennett/
If you LOVED this episode:
You’ll also love the conversations we had with Samin Nosrat, chef, teacher, and author of one of the most beautiful and soulful cookbooks ever, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and host of the hit TV show of the same name. https://tinyurl.com/3phhve7n
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
The two growing up in l, a Ellen bennett, had no idea her summer spent with her grandma in a small town in mexico would end up playing a huge role. Not only-
She saw the world and related to people, but also in the career that shit
Essentially pursue and the company she would end up building describing herself as hell
mexican half english born and raised in a labour fiery mom and having never met a color. She didn't like she's, the founder of hedley and bennett, a company that crafts some of the coolest most beautiful kitchen,
aprons, worn by this lineage of many of the top shifts in the most iconic restaurants and kitchens in the world, but she didn't start out there
coming out of high school without a strong sense of direction. She gone on a plane to mexico city.
bone and vanished into the culture build
a career and a life before
feeling this sense that she has been called back to allay to make a more cooking under the guidance
two legendary shops and restaurants tours, but
single fateful moment in the kitchen when she heard one of those chefs ask a simple question
then made a promise that at the time she had no idea how to keep led her eventually out of the kitchen
into launching and growing her own company, the adventures at followed our kind of stuff
and many. The learning entails are shared in her wonderful new book dream. First, details later
dive into it, Paul today's conversation so x
It is shared with you, I'm jonathan fields, and this is good life project,
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it's a. Why not embrace it. It's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who had a panic attack on national television and then set out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked to top scientists meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and psychedelics and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from brene brown to sara burrell us to sam Harris and more. I love learning from his questions and experiences, an incredible guess. Think of listening to ten percent happier as a workout for your mind, find ten percent happier wherever you listen to podcasts growing up in glendale kind of north ish, l, a s
sounds like you describe you're up bringing their as like you. The kid never never quite felt like they fit in yeah totally. Tell me what was going on
Well, you know I had been raised with
amazing single mexican mama little but different than the lot of my peers at school, which was
It's totally fine. It just simply made me. I guess you could say stand out a little bit and it was a different journey because maybe a lot of the kids had both parents and they had you- know big giant, beautiful houses
in the hills, and now we lived in a totally modest little condo apartment in the middle of glendale and my mom Zennor. So she worked all day
all night in a twelve hour shift as in iran, and we didn't see her until the evening- and we saw her very early in the morning when she laughed at six a m. So
it was independent as hell, but it was also one of those things where we just weren't exposed to
normal life the way all these other kids were in whatever normal means for me
when the warm all was in obeying
it was my sister at home all day and figuring out. How are we gonna entertain ourselves? How are we going to you know? We need groceries
okay. Well, I guess my mom left a credit card here like maybe we should figure out how to get to the grocery store, like let's walk there and just being bored enough to figure things out was actually a beautiful thing, and I I feel very grateful that it wasn't this like buttoned up childhood, where I had a tight schedule from start to finish.
after my soccer camp, like none of that happened to just allowed me to kind of dream, big all the time and try things all the time
that were unusual for four kids like there's this story of me,
painting my mother's bedroom, bright, yellow, explain
painting it yellow. While she was working and she came home and she was like, looks nice. Ok can I think it was it there was not. There is no big commotion about me trying to do differ,
things around the house. She just happy that I was doing something
I mean also. I got it
imagine that the level of self reliance at you had had a really young age,
was probably really unusual for, like friends, is of a similar age, oh definitely, and it made it made my daily life so different, and I felt like there were so many decisions I could just make for myself that my friends would have to they had to call their dad. They had to.
their mom. They had to get permission they had to check in and for me, it was just very knows. Very unusual is very different and when I d
I did, but I needed to start driving, because I would take the boss every day in our walk, my sisters,
which is almost over a mile away and when I finally said to my mother, hey, you know why I think would be much more here
full if I had a car so that I could do a lot things that you currently have to do on top of already.
So she said our that's. A good idea was, is our car that you, you know he's out there that you want to get, and my mom has
he's on centre. As I said, oh come and go find a used nissan central get a good deal on aids. I walked my way over to brand boulevard, which was many many blocks away from our house. It's this street
and with car dealerships, and I negotiated an entire car for myself. I think I was fifteen and a half
and I just told my mom- I need you to go to you know. Starfleet,
star, whatever england, l and sign the paperwork we ve got ourselves into a good car, it's a good value, it'll be perfect and it won't come
this too much money. This is how much it is. I've already calculated based on how much money you coming in every month. We can afford it and she was like ok, she drove down to board star whatever and she signed it.
and that was how we got our first. My first car
that's amazing, I mean sounds like your mama's. Also
She was really open with you just about really working
or with the family and like this is us
is how we operate, and yet the people around us may operate differently, but yet this is a reality and it's ok exactly.
was, she never made it feel like there was something wrong
we're different. She was just simply like well here we are so let's go.
In upward yeah I mean it's interesting also. I know she grew up in a town where the dose it an astonishing amount to wealth and not nor family, but in a lot of the town, and I caught myself like there were times where I'm sort of like. Oh, so I can't go in the school trip. You know because, as just now
our family young, and it was interesting has in hindsight. You know too certainly said, unlike out like in the moment, us probably feeling a whole lot of envy, but I think
nv, especially as a kid when you're surrounded by a sturdy legs, things that you see. That may be just just not in a position to participate in. At that moment it can become. You know, constructive in there because motivating or it can become.
destructive, in that it searches, turns italy, anger rage or nearly uttering wait right
and I definitely
I feel that I took the motivation route and just said. Look at all these things we don't have, and you know my parents are separated when I was fairly young and- and there is a part in the book
he talked about how I kind of realized, as I was standing there on the side of the highway of life. I I said I I think I just need to just make it work for me and march forward, no matter what is happening around me, I'm not going to wait or rely on someone to come together to rescue me, I'm simply going to start marching forward, and I very much
if, by that truth, even to this day and as a leader now, I've definitely had to evolve my thought process to actually have a team that I can count on, because I was so independent for so long and so on
my own for so long that which can be a huge challenge,
again, you now is sort of like huge when you're just like when you when you're wiring is ok, no one's gonna figure this out for me. So let me figured out and then you realize you actually cat, like you, big, complete, pretty good at most things yet really hard to
that girl like when it holding your finally council yeah
we'll just how I made that giant decision that I was going to be on my own and that I was going to figure things out and I was gonna, be never have to rely on anybody for anything. I had to change my decision later on to be different and that decision
and a lot of what my book dream first details. Eaters about is just these like decisions you make in your life that lead you from one place to the next place, but
start to the decision to do or do not due to begin to not began to try,
try and not get
all going, and then the world sort of you know moulds itself
do that and then obviously takes action in all sorts of things, but just how I decided out beyond my own, I later decided that
could have a team. And then I took a lot.
of action to be able to have a team, and I got a executive, co
she in a lot of things around me to just help, because it was hard just gives you decide, doesn't make the journey easier
hundred gonna put in the work right, but that decision, though, as I mean it thing, it's really interesting cause there's this term helicopter parent. Now, yes, I've heard of
such parents and end, we re that's like this. Does it's almost like the exact opposite of your brain, but you,
I think what we are seeing now. Why is that? You know it's all done in the name of islamic to be safe, and I want them to be
hey but at the same time like, if, if I, as a parent, you're, constantly swooping in and helping the process of decision making, if not outright making the decisions sort of like we inadvertently take this gift from kids. You know, which is the ability just grapple with it figure out, make a decision and live with whatever that decision is absolutely in. That is a beautiful thing to be able to give to
kids, and I think that my little sister, who six years younger than me, had way less of it than I did, because we were both kind of trying to take care of her. My mom and I and she definitely did not get as much open decision making as I did, and I feel very lucky that I had all that- and I do think you know my dad is a great person, but they separated for tough circumstances. But if he had been around it would have been a very different world for us, and I I'm happy that it ended up being the way that it was even though my mother for many years was very sad and bomb doubt that
it. It happened way. It happened and I was like you can't be sad about that. I'm grateful that we got to do things on our own yeah. I know part of your experience. A grown up also was yeah, but little was done. It makes
and yet you spend like solid chunks of your summer down there. Yes, huge chunk of my time, and now it was incredible because
My mother was this way. My grandma was that times five hundred and I got to run around the streets of mexico playing soccer barefoot going to my friends house is and what was beautiful about it was that I was exposed to a very different culture than what I was living in the. U s and people were very poor like give, we would add a modest upbringing. We looked like millionaires compared to some of my
and in mexico, but they welcomed us in and they would invite me over for dinner, and I would be so happy to sit down and have a bowl of beans with fresh cheese from the farmers market in a stack of tortillas in my coca cola for dinner, nobody cared and they were so content that it made me realize it. Money was not thing,
that actually made people happy. And then I had all these friends in the: u s that had so much money, but yet their parents were never around and they were crabby when they were
they weren't necessarily happy in a lot of the kids work. The parents were depressed and it was just this whole different perspective happening all at the same time, and I thought I like what's happening in mexico, more than I'd like whatsapp
learning and allay the it's amazing to see those also right. Does it serve like it? It's late
imitation at a really young aids, to visit your values and
I about what really matters which normally like we never do until our adults and
and a lot of time, to suddenly way until we're adults when we even do that, if ever yet- and it happened in such an organic way that it just
permeated my existence. It was just like: oh yeah, you make friends first, then you worry about you, know the
yeah of business later and my my grandma used to sell clothes door to door in mexico, and she had all these friends and people would or welcome her in and she was literally friends with everyone and they loved buying things from her, but they never bought any
from her. They are actually just excited that shit.
Something to share and they had something that they needed
happened to be doing this. You know, exchange,
resources, but it was really a knowledge exchange and there happen to be some dollars and between, but they were just palmed to get it
with each other in that's the beauty and there's a whole chapter in my book about how, when you have a company and you
out there trying to you now get your idea in front of people like
humble enthusiasm at one chapter and then the other one is a common during your co and it's how you go about
getting the word out of what you're doing without making people feel like they're, a transaction right you go to. I dunno call it a t and t you feel like a transaction, you call them. You are a number on the phone, but there's something that's so beautiful about interact
with some one that makes you feel like they really care, and there
we want to help you and if you can help me, they're, not gonna, sell you anything and that's the way. I have approached everything with how we invented, and my team has also done the same in
that is a beautiful, simple truth that more people should apply to business yeah. Do you think I mean
as an adult and as a business owner. At this point. Looking back, you can sort of like look at this experience with your grandma and the neighbors and her going door to door selling and give it this frame. I'm always curious when you were a kid and you just saw what she was doing.
did any of that land like? Were you sort of aware of the fast like? Oh she's got this really interesting relationship with people where they love her they're part of the community and at the same time, there's a near. There is a transaction which tends to happen and
isn't this an interesting way to go about this, or was that really just reflecting later in life? I just remember how vivid it felt that people loved her like you walked into the house, and it was whatever house we were. You know showing close to that day and people were just like chevy
they're gone way, stirs gale was debated, they pass. I led the way. Little cover you know who is just
com have coffee. How are your kids? Let me see what you brought today and my grandma. My
that was so excited about what she had this week, nor what clue
she got from crossing the border and going into you know, brownsville to pick up close and bring it back to tempt. You got that
we're just like all my car. She went on an adventure and she brought it back and now we get see it, let's look at it together and it is this site,
curiosity that kind of filled the room. That's what I remember so much and when I looked back at that, I realized
what she was never selling to them. Shoes actually offering the same
using service and friendship to them
It is easier because not everybody can go to the united states and by close in that way, and so she got to bring them and she was just so delightful to be around. I may be easy,
This is a major I mean it sounds a part of what she was offering also was a feeling yeah. You know that
just this feeling of like a worrying this adventure together, like we see each other with each other, with jobs
which had handled like made. People feel important. It didn't matter if you were buying one thing and you owed her a ton of money from other things you bought yet a little note,
I? Can she would mark down like okay, this woman's giving me ten puzzles this week towards the money that I owe she owes me and she would just treat her just as kindly as the next lady over that bot, you know, may be five jumpers or whatever, and it was beautiful, because I very much took that to hedley and bennett and treat anyone. You know you could be a line cook or the head chef of a huge chain and everybody gets that same sort of love and treat
in this respect, because we're all individuals were all on a journey and were all on an adventure together rate so make people feel important because they are in that field.
Thing is, I I strongly believe one of the things that really took headline bennett from you know, Ellen out of her house,
three hundred dollars to now this much larger organization. The that's me
I mean it. It sounds like that. Feeling also is something that the seed was planted with grammar, but also that was it sounds like those were summers, and those were moments. Where
an understanding of food, the creation of food serving others like that. That's he was also point in a really powerful way during the summer's hundred percent and seeing how it made people open their homes up and open themselves up through food was really beautiful, and it was very simple
by the way, wasn't fancy at all, but it was so delicious and it was made with so much love and care that it did give me this urge towards food and the kitchen and being a part of it
way, shape or another, and I always knew I would end up doing something with food. I just didn't know exactly what it would be. So that's another part in the book how,
talk about how the road is very windy and it's not a straight shot like okay and then you go to college, and then you get a job and then you retire. Like that's like stuff, you see on tv, that's not how the real world
works and I went on all these wild adventures to end up in a place where I figured out. Well, I have a company that outfits restaurants in shafts, but I no longer cook myself, but I am adjacent to that industries. It I get the best of both worlds took along
time to get to that place, yeah as a as it always does in that mythology. I completely agree that it's justice or linear trajectory- I don't maybe that exists in certain fields and for certain people, but I think for most people at yet. I saw data like a couple of years. Back that said, the average person will literally change entire career or something like eight times, not just jobs, but careers, which which I and I think the pace of that is
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conditions apply need to hire. You need indeed, so you come back here. You graduate highschool and
you're in a place also where you're like okay, so college isn't necessarily the next step for me, but you love cooking. He loved people. He had all his lessons, see you get on a plane and he go back to mexico city alone with basically no plans, no job.
what was going through your mind, I, my mother, being the magical unicorn that she is.
She just saw me kind of waffling around in l, a a little bit after I graduated high school and all my friends were off to different schools, and you know I'm going to go to berkeley and I'm going to go over here and it was all very proper and I just kind of wasn't finding my footing and she was like. Well. Why don't you you know? Maybe why don't you go to mexico for a little bit and and
then come back and it'll be good, good change of environment. You know just do something a little different for for the summer and
so. I was like, I think, that's a great idea. I love mexico, my family didn't nor, I don't have any family living in mexico city, so this is really kind of ballsy. So I go to mexico city I get there and I'm like whoa
crap. This is incredible like it is so vibrant and little hive and people are happy in its loud in food everywhere, and I was like this is it I gotta stay here like this is awesome
you know I got a boyfriend and I found a place to live and I just
loomed this whole life into existence. Out of nothing and by myself, and I had to get a mexican passport because you
much easier to be a citizen than to have, although you know,
new, wants permits to work into
in mexico as an american is actually quite arts eyes. I know what I want to do that I'm gonna get my my mexican citizenship, so I went to that whole ring a moral and it was just one it venture after the next figuring out how to get jobs, and
country how to get set up with the ira and maxie or how to rent an apartment,
on your own, when you don't have credit in another country, and it was like battle after
no, but he was so exciting because I was on my own
I just.
Decided. I could do it. I don't know there was like no other alternative. Also my parents at this point, both of them mind you we're like this is now crazy. My mother
two months now I was like really leaning into this, and so they said we're not getting
giving you any kind of money, you need to come home, so I really had to make things work
because I was now proving them wrong and so
I got all these jobs in every single one of them. Helped me figure out how to make something out of nothing. And how did you know that element
way dream first details later and I just went from one adventure to the next and would become
added to it, because I had no other alternative, there's nothing to fall back on, so I just had to keep marching forward and that's it. It's a really tough thing to do, but it's also a really good thing to do, because your committee,
And then you're, following all the way to the end, no matter what comes your way and he taught me that kind of grit and resilience did not give
even when things get really really hard, and I had some pretty rough circumstances at times in mexico, where people would
He now bamboozle me literally in and just things happen
and edward super tricky and had to navigate them on my own, because nobody was there to rescue me and now is. That was a great thing. That was very,
but very great inexperience. Yeah I mean when you and it's sort of like you know with everything where you struggle and something goes wrong and then you make it through its or I well. If I could do
emails really just keeps building proof in your mind that exotic nothing that cannot go back yet
I call them there's a little section in the book. I call it getting notches on your confidence belt. You just go
through life and you're accumulating these experiences. Were you fall down they get back up in here. Like I write, I was able to do that, and I can go. Do a bigger one and tackle bigger and bigger challenges, and it just gives you the feeling that you can see just keep going. There is like exposure,
therapy. Basically there you know, but but in the real world day to day like a one of the biggest cities in the world in a foreign country where you have like it's just you
yeah, there's no safety net at all
bring it down. So when you're down there
you got through a series of jobs from acting the and then get actually go,
starting just certainly explore the restaurant industry and cooking yeah. What is it that happens? That makes you say,
because your six eating you, like you're, gone from, think the thing to do anything but
checking these things. What happens in your mind, that makes you say it's time to go back to the? U s such a good question, and it would have been a lot more comfortable. I say air quotes because it actually wouldn't have been proven much more comfortable to stay in mexico, because by the time I was twenty two and twenty two and a half I had my own house, I was making a.
on of money. On my own I was totally independent. I was a freelancer in all these different jobs. I could work they want to work by then, and I had graduated my little culinary diploma and I had done all these great things. I had learned
so much and I just kind of looked around and said: okay, I'm twenty two and a half I've thought this this this and this I cut the money in the bank. I've got this thing and I'm like so is this. It like, I may
it. I think- and there was just something within me that said this can't possibly be it. Are you going to just say you made it at twenty two? That seems like you're kind of copying yourself out here, and I felt that I needed to take what I had learned in mexico and apply it and kind of plug it back into this life that I had in a way ran away from which was l a and I felt the need to come back and incomplete. What I had started, which was this love of food and to have my culinary career and have my restaurants and all the things I wanted to do, and he was the path less chartered, but it was the right thing to do because it was not as easy and it wasn't just available, and I thought, if
not doing this now, like what am I actually gonna? Do I'm just gonna stay here and get married and have kids and might call it a day that seems really boring, and so I sold everything I made the decision and I was like ok, let's do this and I sold at all, which was a very therapeutic thing to do, because I also realise that all this stuff didn't actually make me. I had made it and it was. It was like stuff at the end of the day and I got rid of it and then I went and travelled for like two months and then flew back
home and moved back in with my mother, and let me tell you that was weird cause. You had this whole life for years on your own, in a foreign country living your best life and now you're back in your mother's house, like with her yelling about you, know, cleaning the kitchen. It was so strange, but I said if I could do it in mexico. I can us thousand per cent. Do it here and ironically, when I came back to lay everything in my life had not changed in los angeles, but I had changed dramatically, and so I looked
life with such a different perspective, and it felt like somebody had rolled out the red carpet and was like which way do you want to go everything so much easier in the united states easier also in air quotes? And that's when I went and decided to get different jobs in restaurants buying my way into the culinary world and begin from the bottom up and just make it happen. Just how I had.
Their an somewhere along the lines is where I started had we invent it all
go out of my house also at three hundred dollars and with nothing else. But myself and I kept going right, sir,
basically drop in thailand and hustle like crazy and end up effectually working to full time jobs at two different restaurants, two different shafts, but the goal
It sounds like. Let me just
as much as humanly possible and get a foot in the door because surly, but but I mean it's unfastening by that because, like you said you were doing rate in mexico city or make a lot of money on home at all,
stuff. And then, when you, you effectively start starting
over. But in your mind, you know that you ve already attain this level of success in the new york literally walking into the kitchen restaurant saying the neue
We shall make our work for free for a while just to show you that need my work ethic and until you decide whether you want to hire me, it really requires you to humble
yourself, you know young and to say like I am not just because I've had this thing that I've done in accomplishing my past, I'm stepping into something entirely new and nothing is above me,
which is a really hard thing for most people. The do yes, yes, definitely end, as I've had my business for eight years now
eight and a half years. Humility is something that just is data day. It's every day you I'm the chief janitor him. The chief person that deal
with any shit storm. That comes our way, and that is just the way it is as a business owner, but yeah. It took a lot of just not worrying about, looks and purse
exception and all that stuff and just recognizing I was there to learn, and that was it in abutment, starting at ten dollars an hour. That was what I was going to do, because I wanted the value of the education was so much more important to me than the money. I was going to make that I love that, and I knew that experience a bit personally. I was in a very very past life. I was actually a lawyer working at like one of the biggest firms in new york city, oh wow, and I I burned out in a really big way, and I decided I needed to start entirely over and had a lifelong love of wellbeing and fitness and and entrepreneurship as well,
well, but I kind of knew if I was going to jump to that world, I had to start at the absolute bottom, so I went from making you know a healthy six figure living with a really prestigious job, to making twelve bucks an hour and like just working the floor, to learn the business and it's it is isn't like. I had to swallow my ego-
but at the same time you learned so much, even if you could have taught your way into a management level, job at a restaurant
you just learn at a profoundly different level when you show up as alike
It is just you, do understand the culture and what it really takes to actually create this thing, I'm acting in such a powerful experience. If you, if you're willing to go there yeah in in a lot of people, I will. Where do I start? What do I do and I always recommend, go work for free go. Do an internship go shadow, somebody offer something that you have that summit
this doesn't have an just show up in contribute in a way that out shines everybody around you and makes them want to give you an opportunity and not out shine in a bad way, but simply like if somebody shows up the seven sharper than eleven in terms of gusto and when I first got my job at problem,
and this is a two michelin star restaurant. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I barely knew was a two missions are restaurant. I was just so in awe of everything our bout it that when I didn't know what to do, I would just clean and clean hard and fast, and that made them realise that I wanted this and that I was putting in that effort, and that is what people want. Even if you don't know what you're doing, if you show that you care
and that you're trying hard people notice. They just really do, and I admire that so much especially now when, as we continue to grow and scale the organization, every time we hire people, we are looking for people that are no ego like. If you mention you know what fancy schools you went to like you, actually don't need to mention that it's on your resume. You don't need to talk about that, and I have so many incredible people that work for us that went to incredible schools, and I can tell you nobody knows it. Nobody knows who went to Stanford versus who went to a community college versus who didn't go to college
people just don't talk about it, cause, that's not the culture that we've created and the company we're about no ego showing up, never stop learning like make magically. These are the values of headlamp on it. There.
The project is supported by name, so it's that time of the year were a lot of oak start to think about their fitness schools getting their bodies moving myself included. I actually recently started thing a lot more attention to how I was feeling my body and also really came to realize that I was carrying a lot of information in my body and potential disease risk in the form of weight. So I wanted and intelligent and sustainable and supportive way to increase my health lose the widening
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In two hundred seventy two numerous ninety eight percent say new, helps change their habits and behaviors for good, and that is because new actually helps you understand the science behind your choices and why you have certain craving. So if you feel like you been lacking the knowledge to make the changes, you wanna see, try out new, so you can start making informed choices and start to really change the way that you think about weight, loss and wait. Management and wellbeing take the first step and sign up for your trial today at noon. Dot com- that's an oh, oh, am dot com to sign up for your trial today or just click. The link in the show notes so a sock about headline than it because you ve built something really incredible, but am, I am always fascinate by surly.
at the moment of inception, and for you, you know like at almost every business. Has this sort of like legend yelich have a moment or something that happens
Yeah you're working as a line cook in the kitchen, and you just happened to hear overhear something, and then you make a promise. That is almost completely fabricated, but then you like decide. Okay, now I need to actually live up to that promise. Yeah yup yeah. It was a crazy, crazy moment in time, and I think all of us have moments like that that cross cross our lives and you are either willing to take that leap at that moment or not, but I guarantee you, it happens to all of us, so you just have to be aware of it and be willing to make that jump. So for me it was the chef said: hey, there's a girl she's going to make aprons for us. Do you want to buy one, and I was like chef. I have an apron company. I will make you those aprons. What's the turnaround? How long is it going to take like give me the order? I will do this for you and he's like your
I cook in my kitchen. What are you talking about, but I convinced him, and so he was like okay, fine forty aprons. He got yourself an order, and that was how the company began and it was very dream. First details later it was just like
decided and do it and I had to commit my job was now on the line I loved my sheriff. He was an amazing person to work or- and I didn't want to fail him- and I had already done all these crazy
things in mexico, where I just kept showing up, and I thought if I can do all that, I can figure out how to make this happen. I'm in the u s and of a car and didn't even have a car in mexico
It was so much easier to figure this out here. So with my amazing latin community around me, I figured out somebody that new summit,
that could so and pieced together, really piecemeal there together and then deliver that first order by the way, Jonathan that first order when I delivered it was far from perfect and my shuffles, like bennett, these apron
some like twenty four hours later, which almost killed me mentally break, is, as is possible.
The apron three. But the parties also to it's. Your job also,
a range of my rolling, is on what was like. Oh my god. What is this even mean, and so I had to repair the burdens and make them better and fix the straps, and it took the lead close to get me going and then the path was just continue, adjusting along the way and making it tinkering with it till it was better as the car was now moving in. That was my way. I know that
there's many ways to to do a business right. You don't have to do it so by the seat of your pants, but the idea here is: don't let too many of the details. Stop you from beginning there's a line.
They say start before you stop an interim first. He tells later and and that's the whole idea. This isn't never do the details. It isn't details, never its details later, just like begin
yeah. I love that there is. I was once told if you're, not at least
little bit embarrassed by the first product that you ship no matter. What is that your creating you? Didn't you waited too long totally
so like the end and also- and this was a part of europe,
It's right, a sort of like you can make something in your mind. What you think is really good, but you don't really know what needs to be fixer. What needs to be improved upon until it interacts with other people. Yeah is their feedback, but but were terrified because really, but what
it's wrong and, and although terrible but it's like, but we need, we actually need their feedback to make it as good as we want to be terrified of that. The same time totally terrified to hear it. But yet it is a part of the recipe feedback is in that equation has to be there yeah. I mean what also occurs to me sort of like on a less obvious way, and I'm curious whether you like you feel this was a big part of it. Is that for this chef to not just say like this, ok, I'm throwing them out, I'm going back to the original person ordering them, because I know they're going to be a certain quality. A certain thing. There was something about the relationship that you had cultivated with that chef overtime.
That led them to sort of like forebear and say I'm going to give you time to make this right and that's a new to me. I wonder if a lot of this story, like the the less obvious part of the story, is that you had built up so much trust over time by just showing up and by the work ethic that you devoted over time that you, you earned sort of like this, this window of trust for him to kind of way. While I had never thought of that, I love that. I I hope that is part of the reason I I definitely feel like. He just gave me this opportunity. It was just sort of like granted to me in a beautiful way. I didn't I didn't overthinking. I think he didn't overthink it either we just his name's Joseph Centeno and he's just such a brilliant entrepreneur in his own right.
I always remember him being in the kitchen with a ton of paint on his shoes, because he would be painting the bathrooms and painting the restaurant before the restaurant even opened, and then he would be on the line cooking with us in firing off orders and being like for steak to fish whatever, and he just got into the trenches with us. So he may be saw that in me to just
willingness in commitment to show up, but yeah he was an incredible leader feel very lucky to have cooked under him and Michael summer. At the same time, it has
and was to mention stars and the other one was like volume. We were doing
so many meals in one night and the other one was like pick herbs and perfection and everything being like everything in it's right place, and it's quite kind of like my upbringing. This
crazy cultural contrast that I seem to love there.
I love that an end and Joseph also goes onto then open a series of additional restaurants after ass. Yes, he becomes quite quite successful
yeah, see you find yourself, then surely drop into this world really focus on working to jobs.
Doing this amazing stop working a lot, and now your ass. You are three jaws, because now you sort of like me
Italy spun this apron company out of thin air, yes and
did you have a sense for what you wanted it to become
the early days, or were you just kind of showing up and saying
he's gonna go where it needs to go. I mean because your I'm I'm trying to think about
couldn't have had literally like even a matter.
minutes on any given day to breathe.
You like, let alone he only talk about like. Let me right, like let me plan the trajectory of this. Not be mapped out, maybe
form as it sounds like you are literally just opening your eyes working nonstop for eighteen, twenty hours a day,
probably and then closing them and open to make it through the next day, yeah an oil.
hundred percent and in so many ways I just kept thinking like you just gotta, keep running you gotta keep going, you gotta reinvest. Every penny back to business, don't spend more than you make. Just go, go, go and I dont know
white or how- but there was just this desire inside of me to make this thing bloom, and I was so
unclear about where it was all going to land, but it didn't matter because I was really enjoying it. I was really loving how I felt showing up every day and doing this, and I was like this scrappy underdog that was just figuring it out and nobody else was doing it, and so it felt like this big, wide, open field of opportunity, and I would
to my left and right and no one was around, so it was just running as fast as I could to get to as many shafts that as many people that I could help as possible and making all these friends along the way- and it was I was like willing it into existence,
But then there came a time when I started to get.
I head sort of slammed into the ground and it became not so pretty anymore and it became not so whimsical and not so like just shine it into making it right and to make it happen. Miraculously things started going wrong and the time when I recognise how do I get off the bike
to adjust the bike and not just keep writing the vague, even though there is a tyre marrying and like the handlebar was falling off and a hand put any back and systems into the company and my team was getting burnt out and-
I was still working all these jobs and it was just wroth and I had to again make those shifts in those were really hard. They were. There were simple, really hard times there, where I think a lot of people may be worth throw in the towel, because it was just not not fund any more and a lot of my experience was very real life. It was very real time and it was showing up in getting to the right place at the right time. It wasn't planning oriented, and so
I had a tough time getting over those hurdles and finding team members that would come on board and I would find team members, but they would be friends of friends, and it was just like havoc. It was people trying to just figure things out and not having alignment, and so we just kept stumbling and stumbling, but yet around us from the outside looking
and the business was growing. We were having we had so many customers we had. Everybody in their mother was contacting us about doing custom work and we were outfitting big, big time, shafts like David Chang and Martha stewart
alton brown and you name it. They were calling us and we were just the cool new kids in town, doing something
so different and so radical that they wanted a piece of it, but the opportunities were kind of killing off.
Like we do. We are saying yes to everything and kind of getting indigestion from it. Man drowning rounding opportunity and it was half really top and add to maison girls, morrison ali, who worked
we at the very beginning, and this other girl, deja and twin the three of them, and I we would sell and place the orders and try to get the fabric and put it in. And ah it was rough
so we went through this like,
moon phase into oh shit. This is real phase. We need to do this better, too.
And the evolution of recognising we needed different people and different systems and different processes as the business was, was evolving and we couldn't just keep going like we were going and we had to start growing
alphabet, and that was very, very challenging and it was also very mentally draining because my magic was making something out of nothing and now to make something that already exists into something different was not my
spot, and I had to. I made a lot of failures and I messed a lotta things up from just delivering things, not on time like things started to slip and we would count on people and then the people wouldn't deliver, and then we wouldn't deliver to our customer and it was hard. But those were the parts where we kind of like. Had our heads hit the ground and we still
got up every day because there are all these people that wanted her stuff. So we had to keep going. There was no exit, it wasn't like oh we're having a hard time, and we have no customers
was like there was a line out the building and we needed to deliver so that went on for quite some time and then I started calling in recruits, and
I did something that I had never done before. I started throwing money at the problem and I had always kind of thought figure it out. Do it on your own, like just get people too
help you and I started hiring consultants which I went on this great crusade of consultants, which was oh, my gosh. What a disaster they would come in with all their offend dangled ideas, and we would begin
some of them and we would leave some of them and then we'd realise that's not a good idea. We move on
and it was just this kind of finding your your footing
while the businesses mind you still growing is like true hard horrible growing pains, and has
peter. I was doing a terrible job because I have endless amount of energy and I can just keep going forever and my team couldn't and yet
doesn't even looking around cause? I was so busy trying to like do everything all at the same time, so it
Failure after failure for quite some time until I got a couple of key people in the building with me,
It helped me see the light of day and there's a whole chapter on that how they kind of have like this big come to Jesus with me. The intervention literally it was an injury, was a full blown intervention and they said you gotta do something different. You cannot continue this way, it's not healthy for you or for the team or for anybody. We need to do this better, and so at that moment I kind of had to like let go.
The rains that I've been like clenching so hard just trying to bring this thing to life and not let it die, and we we started doing in a different way and end
that was that was a whole journey in its own right, but all of
things happen? They happen to people, they happen to you on the path and
Isn't this books don't always share that? You know they're like kind of skip over that section, the heartache and then they're like, and then we sold the business you're like. How did you do that so yeah we get
deep and honest in raw in very colorful, because businesses colorful thing it's not just black and white, the oven
I mean part of me,
Saunders also, you know when you go,
through those those moments and every business does every found or does it there's a even went like your humming from the outside from the
Looking out so often just like you uttered taping as fast as you can to try and keep things from like spontaneously combustion, but one
just curious about you know. We ve talked about finance looking and also had the embedded becomes. As you probably know, the was premier apron company,
yeah. Like Austria designs, I could maybe but there's something else going
right and you allude to it from the very very, very first moment, which is you're not just making aprons
This goes all the way back here will eater like your your creating eulogist, creating an apron which has a funk,
no job, which is good and important. Hasta were but there's something bigger going.
Here, which I wonder like how important the bigger sense of purpose like how these things make people feel was to your ability to push through all this adverse either had dropping into your lap yeah at any. No, in a way writing this book was my anthem, titty adversity. It was me saying
his journey has not been easy and I've gone through it and I still every day show up and there's a different adventure and a different challenge ahead. But I can do it and you can do it too, and our product is designed to make people feel awesome. It's not just an apron and because of all the people that
air headline bennett there's a whole legal lineage of incredible shafts. You put that gear on it s, not just an apron. This is the same. Brenda damage.
more, and this is the same apron that all the chefs on top chef,
where this is the same apron that you know on final table on
lakes, every chef that one that
I was wearing hedley and bennett, and so it's like it's like almost a rite of passage and getting every person to be a part of that was the journey right. It was like making the apron mean something in a way that was so much deeper than just the fabric, and I loved that that has been my favorite part of building h and b, because it's the community, that's woven into that
material and gives people the feeling that they can do it too yeah. I love that it's sort of like the feeling of having something awesome on you, but also the feeling of knowing that you
belong to a lineage of people,
Are you going out and in creating
rethinking the sand and affecting a lot of people there, something really powerful about that. Also, you see you go through a lot of the these struggles end and end up figuring, advocating knew were kind of getting everything right from the inside out and growing like wildfire. Still,
then twenty twenty heads right, you add at the end of the day, yes you're, making things for individuals who can buy, but at the end of the day, like a huge part of what what keeps your business alive is. Restaurants, totally
and all of a sudden you're one of the industries that is utterly decimated overlap.
twelve months is the restaurant industry and
This is how you lead. This is how you take care of your employees. Study. Take every community, you have,
thing to sell. If people are showing up in kitchens yeah
That turns into a real moment of reckoning, but also in
so for you and an interesting opportunity. Yes, so we decide to make this radical pivot in the company to make face masks. Then we are. Sixteen thousand square foot factory here in l a becomes a facemask facility overnight the day of the shuttle
and it was one of these moments where very similar to one shaft said: hey, there's a girl who's gonna make us apron. Do was like you know, governor cuomo in new york was saying they didn't have. Any protection had no more face. Mascot.
I saw that this was happening, and I saw a christian Syria would mean my wedding dress was like well I'll make you face masks if he knew face mass, like he'd meeks wedding dress if he can make wedding dresses and make their masks
better, show up and do this too, and it anyone justice decision again back to the decision. I just chose to do this and then everything followed from there and we did this radical shift and started making face mass overnight, but it up on it.
Website the next day. This was saturday, and by monday we were cutting and selling face, masks and shipping them through a by one donate one model on our website whom we invented and we to date have made over a million masks and we donated half a million masks, and this was never part of the plan. We had not even thought about this. We didn't even know where to begin, but it took off like crazy, because people were at home and they didn't know how to help and they thought
and she took her entire factoring- is converted into this thing like wool by one and then she can get another face mass to someone on the front lines and that's exactly what we are doing and it was because of our community and all through social. By the way like none of this was
Pushed in any way other than you know, blot oppressed. It then started picking it up, but
We just showed up and it was wild. My team really rallied to to make this happen. America
imagine you beyond.
Just knowing all the
way tat. Things are happening in the world than the community around you because of what was going on. The also like can a waking up one day and saying: ok, I think we might be over.
You know, release everyone relayed endanger like like literally late, accompanied scan economy to shut down for now, and maybe for africa's who knows he has a then with.
Twenty four hour saying not
Is there a way to potentially keep the company going and keep their jobs but
we can be of service in a calm lately different way on a completely different level. Yet exactly it was. It was something they who is.
Raising the so it as as we sit here today was thoroughly having this conversation. Where there's a, I think, there's a sense of hope in emergence and things are shifting.
resuming the lens out as you serve like look at the state of your life, your business, the world right now, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up for you? I think that one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my head may manage journey is that you need to take care of others and not just surface level. But it's really recognising the people around you. What their needs are, and I think to live a good life is
like in the service of others. If you are helping others, you are doing good. If you are contributing in some way, it can be big can be small, it doesn't actually manner just like show up for people and the more you do that the more fulfilling life becomes, because when you have a business and it's just for the sake of business is not fulfilling. If you have a family, you get show up for them. If you have friends, you get too short for them, so like failure life with as many things as you can, where you got to show up for people- and that is that's like when you are,
I felt for sure. Thank you,
before you leave. If you loved this episode, safe back you'll, also really lovely conversation that we had with some in those rat chef, teacher and
one of the most beautiful and sulphur cookbooks, I've ever seen. Salt, that acid heat and also the host of the
tv show by the same name, your fine
paying to some means episode in the show notes. Now, even if you don't
at this moment, be sure to click and download it now. So it is ready
play when you are on a girl and of course, if you haven't
had he done so be sure to follow a good life project in your favorite listening
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The.
Transcript generated on 2023-06-17.