Asides -

Spending time in good company

I enjoy being in the company of good people. At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, we’re blessed with an abundance of amazing customers, cookie helpers, advocates and cheerleaders. When I get a chance to go outside the oven, I try and seek out people and events with those same qualities. Spending time with Howie Rhee and the folks at Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship are always at the top of my list.

I first met Howie when he invited me to be a judge in the Duke Startup Challenge, an event where student entrepreneurs pitch their real-world businesses competing to take home a $50,000 top prize to help launch or grow their company. Howie is one of the most generous and connected people I know on this planet.

He welcomed me into the Duke entrepreneurship community and introduced me to incredible entrepreneurs like Sean Lilly Wilson from Fullsteam Brewery, Jay Mebane of Bootstrap Advisors and Melissa and Doug Bernstein from the company that bears their name. There’s nothing quite like spending time outside the oven in the company of good people.

Duke I&E hosts a variety of events and Anna’s Gourmet Goodies is proud to be a frequent alumni vendor. Dr. Monika Hirschbichler ordered brownies for the first Transform event this April, a 3-day, invitation only event for Duke alumni entrepreneurs. Howie invited me to attend and I eagerly cleared my calendar knowing this would be an opportunity to spend quality time with some of the best and brightest from Duke.

Roughly 100 people were scheduled to attend. We were organized into teams – mine consisted of Kasper Kubica, founder of Carpe Lotions and Corey Creek who operates two businesses – ULoop.com and LiveFashionable.com. Kelly Garvey is building a new platform to help people understand the impact of public policy and Christine Schindler who built her company, PathSpot, to solve the problem of discovering food-borne bacteria using a cutting-edge digital scanner. She built the first prototype with parts from Radio Shack, incredible. Once again, I found myself in very good company.

We began the evening with an exercise called ‘The River of Life’. Using markers with paper by Melissa and Doug we drew a pictorial view of our life, starting anywhere and ending here. It reminded me of how I see the journey of starting a business.

“It’s like going whitewater rafting. You want a good team in your raft, everyone helping paddle. Someone must be the navigator. Sometimes you float along gently, enjoying the scenery. Sometimes you are in the throws of raging, violent turbulence, paddling furiously and trying to stay in the boat. Sometimes you get stuck on a rock. But in the end, the goal is to make it down the river safely, with everyone still in the boat and enjoy the ride.”

We shared our stories over dinner. It was the perfect way to move beyond resumes and bios, getting to know the real story behind the team. It felt good to have an amazing group of people in my boat.

Wednesday’s agenda opened with a team session, followed by a variety of breakout sessions on a range of topics including finance, technology, operations, social, cultural and emotional challenges.

During the morning break around 10 a.m., we heard a deafening boom that shook the room. We stopped and looked around at each other, wondering what just happened. It sounded like an explosion.

The news broke quickly and looking out the window, we saw the plume of black smoke rising into the air. As it turns out, a few blocks away, a broken gas pipe resulted in a massive explosion. An entire building collapsed sending debris throughout the downtown Durham area. We learned later that in addition to several serious and life-threatening injuries, sadly, the sole fatality was the owner of the coffee shop where the explosion happened. He spent his last minutes warning his customers to stay away from the danger. Standing in a group of business owners made the impact of such a tragic loss even more personal.

Our building was closed and had to be evacuated. Fortunately, one of the attendees offered up his spacious rooftop home in downtown Durham. The entire group walked to our new location and gathered to continue the journey. Howie led us in a moment of silence for the victims of the explosion. This close-knit group gathered in, a little closer.

We continued the schedule for the day, not missing a beat. I’ve been to conferences and seminars with breakout sessions, but nothing like this event. Most are led by speakers and experts who have experience and knowledge, but are ultimately there because they have something to sell. No one at Duke Transform was there to sell. It was an event focused completely on sharing experiences, wisdom, being transparent, vulnerable, and in many cases, asking for help.

The day ended with a fireside chat from a man who knows what it means to transform an organization. Coach Cutcliffe came to the Duke football program in 2007 at a time when it was not uncommon to give away game tickets just to fill the stands. With some of his first team members in attendance as successful entrepreneurs after their football careers, Coach shared his stories of what it takes to win, to take a hit, and to get back up again.

One of his first actions as the new head coach was to cut the locks off all the lockers. When you build a team of quality people like Coach Cut, you don’t need them. Coach reminded us of the importance of surrounding yourself with good people. “They will determine your future.”

The goal of Duke Transform was more than simply a conference where entrepreneurs gather and learn a few things. It really was about creating an environment where people from all types of businesses, backgrounds and cultures were comfortable enough to not only share what they know, but where they need help. That is the point where transformation is possible.

My favorite definition of transformation comes from my friend and mentor August Turak. He describes transformation like this:

“When you give a thirsty man a drink of water, you transform his condition. When a poor man wins the lottery, you transform his circumstance. But when Mr. Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning, he has a transformation of being.”

Ultimately, I think we all want to end up transforming more than simply our condition and circumstances. Those measurements come and go. At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies we always strive to go beyond simply making products and filling orders, to changing the way people feel after they receive a gift of our products. People quickly forget what you say, but they always remember how you make them feel.

Getting outside the oven and spending time with good people who share the same struggles, challenges and passion is a great way to remember the real purpose of the journey. And for these few days, my boat was full and I definitely enjoyed the ride.

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I’m still using my word for the year

If the Bradford pear trees in my neighborhood could speak and only say one word, it would be ‘Spring!’. Their white flowers are like trumpets, announcing the closing of the winter and the arrival of spring.

Those of us on Daylight Savings Time have moved our clocks forward and the turning of the calendar from 2014 to 2015 is in the distant past. Did you make any resolutions for the year? If you are like most people, they’re long forgotten. I gave up on that practice a few years ago and adopted another method that is simple and actually sticks – a single word.

My friend Alan Hoffler of Millswyck Communications introduced me to the book, ‘One Word Will Change your Life’. I used it last year and decided once again to pick a single word to focus on for the entire year in both my business and personal life. This year’s word for me, is ‘Reach’.

It’s both a noun and a verb. It’s a word that propels me to take action. It might be as simple as extending a hand to say hello to a stranger. Helping a neighbor. Picking up a piece of litter. Or stretching myself to learn and master something new.

At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, it is at the core of what we do every day. We reach out to people on behalf of others. We send them a gift of our cookies and brownies, sharing different messages depending on what the sender has to say. Sometimes it is a thank you, sometimes to extend sympathy, and sometimes just to say hello.

I was delivering some cookies to Crossroads Infiniti, one of our local customers, several weeks back and had the opportunity to strike up a conversation with one of their customers in the waiting room. This Mom, with toddler in tow, was waiting for her car to be serviced.

She shared the story of her husband, a Marine, and his deployment on an aircraft carrier. She did not have or share a lot of detail, but enough to know that he was in harm’s way in a part of the world more dangerous that I’ll probably ever know. He loved our cookies and enjoyed getting them any time he visited the dealership’s service department.

I immediately saw this as an opportunity to extend our reach. I asked for his address and shared my intent with Paul the General Manager. He agreed that sending this Marine cookies was the right thing to do. I wrote him a letter, describing my conversation with his wife, included it with a fresh batch of cookies, and packed everything up for shipping.

It just so happened this was the day of the biggest snowfall we had this winter. Nothing compared to what folks in the Northeast experienced, but enough to shut down our town for the day. But the cookies were made and we needed for them to reach their destination.

A little snow in North Carolina goes a long way

I piled the few orders we had on a sled and started the trek to the Post Office. It’s only about a mile or so from the bakery. While I might have been able to drive, it felt like the right way to send off these orders. I stopped along the way to strike up a conversation with a veteran wearing his Vietnam War hat and shoveling snow. I listened to some of his stories. He immediately understood my mission, and I went on my way.

The Post Office gladly accepted our orders and sent them off to their respective destinations. About three weeks later, I received a wonderful email from the Marine, thanking me for the cookies. They had reached their destination, but more importantly, we were able to reach out and extend our thanks with a little taste of home to someone half way around the world serving our country.

In the past weeks, we’ve had the opportunity to reach out to employees of a security company and wish them a Happy Anniversary, to clients of a financial planner to say Happy Birthday, and to residents of apartment communities to thank them for calling their community ‘Home’.

I keep a copy of my word posted above my desk as a reminder to look for opportunities to practice, every day. It’s more than a ‘To-Do’ list or a long forgotten New Year’s resolution – it’s a reminder to reach out and focus on mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth. If you’ve never picked a word and would like to give it a try, it’s not too late. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon.

For Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, it’s about remembering that every single time we send something out the door, we are reaching out to someone, somewhere with a message and a gift that will hopefully bring them a brief moment of happiness. And that’s a goal worthy of a little extra reach.

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A great harvest takes time and work

Sometimes in our personal lives and our work (yes – even in the cookie business), we do things that need to be done, with no immediately visible benefit or payoff. In the digital world, we have near instant feedback, access to information, friends, family, resources and more. There are however, worthwhile things we must do that require time and effort without immediate feedback or reward.

In October 2012, I wrote a post titled ‘The business benefits of pruning blueberry bushes”. (If you were not among the two or three people who read it, you can check it out here.) It was another of my attempts to draw lessons from seemingly unrelated life activities. Pruning is one of those things that farmers and gardeners know is essential for plants and trees, but it has many parallels to life and business as well.

After some serious pruning and a few years of sun and water, the harvest came in.

About five years ago I decided to take on the task of reviving the blueberry bushes at our family’s camp near on the Pungo Creek in eastern North Carolina. They had suffered from years of neglect and were over grown with other vegetation. I worked in the early fall and late winter by removing what did not look right – other trees and plants that had claimed space among the blueberries. Thorny vines strangled the bushes, preventing them from bearing the wonderful fruit they were intended to produce. It was real work cleaning out all the unwanted plants and trees and transferring them to the burn pile, but a welcome respite from the mental stress of running a business.

I felt the work had value, but knew it would not produce any immediate results. It might be years before I saw the result of my efforts. Knowing that if I cut too deeply, they might not survive, I took the longer view, doing a little bit of work each season. We visited some during the summer months in the years following and I watched as the bushes began to recover, yielding some fruit each year.

During this time, we also did some cleaning and pruning at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, balancing the need to remove activities that would allow us to grow without damaging the core business. It was hard, especially after the downturn of 2007-2008, but we continued to make changes that felt right and would hopefully yield a harvest over the long term.

That process continued over the past several years and I extended it to other areas as well. Earlier in 2014, I ‘pruned’ another business interest where I had invested significant time, effort and resources. Not an easy thing, but it felt like the right thing to do, giving me more room to grow in the long term.

During these past five years, an interesting thing happened at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies. When we stop and look back at the results, an area of our business that we wanted to grow, managing birthday and anniversary gifts, has begun to flourish. We’ve added companies who choose to send birthday and/or work anniversary gifts to employees and/or customers throughout the year. They give us a list – we manage everything from there. It is something we’ve nurtured and grown. (If you know anyone interested in this service – you can send them here to learn more).

While this is clearly not ‘pruning’ for these companies, it is something they do as part of a long term view. They are nurturing relationships with the people who are critical to their business. While I’m sure they get positive feedback from some of the customers and employees about the cookies and brownies, the benefits are real but may not be immediately evident. A great harvest takes time to develop.

Life has gotten busy in the past few summers and I must admit that I have not had the chance to check on the blueberry bushes as often as I should. Last week I had the opportunity to make a trip down to the camp for a little R&R. When I walked out to the garden area to check on the blueberry bushes, it was overwhelming.

In the nearly 30 years I’ve been going down there, I remember harvesting blueberries, but not like this. I spent several hours over two afternoons picking nearly three gallons of these beautiful berries, marveling at the bounty the bushes offered up. And I am certain that the crystal blue Carolina sky, cool breezes off the creek and the summer rains will produce even more of this bounty throughout the rest of the season.

Would any of these things happened if I had not chosen to prune and clean? To make tough decisions? To do the hard work without immediate payback? Probably not.

We hope that when our customers send a gift from Anna’s Gourmet Goodies, they’ll get immediate feedback at least some of the time. Then again, they might not. I do, however, believe that when you take the longer view, somewhere down the road the harvest comes in. And if it’s anything like the yield from the blueberry bushes, you might need a bigger bowl.

My take on a popular cobbler - try it for yourself! — My take on a popular cobbler – try it for yourself!

P.S. I made good use of the harvest, creating a Belhaven Buttermilk Blueberry Cobbler that was mighty tasty. Here’s a link to the recipe if you’d like to try it for yourself.

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Why I’m really, really thankful this year

It’s official. The season of giving thanks and celebrating holiday traditions with friends and family officially begins this week. Yes, I know some retail stores put out Christmas decorations months ago – the real kick-off starts on Thursday.

At Anna’s Gourmet Goodies we’ve been preparing for the ‘holiday gift rush’ over the past few months. We are grateful that many of our best and most loyal customers will be sending out our cookies again this year. We won’t tally up numbers until the flour settles after we ring in 2014, but total sales are up nicely so far this year. We have you, our friends and customers to thank for that.

I believe that having an ‘attitude of gratitude’ is something that pays off in business and in your personal life. This past February I had the opportunity to get a clearer understanding of what that means on a personal level after taking a ride in the back of an ambulance to Rex Hospital.

I'm especially grateful for everything this year — I’m especially grateful for everything this year

I was finishing up my Valentine’s Day grocery shopping after stopping by my doctor’s office to make an appointment. I had not been feeling 100% and Debbie finally convinced me to go in for a visit. While at the store, a feeling came over me unlike anything I had ever experienced. I felt faint. My chest started to hurt. I knew things were not right. I dropped the basket, got in the car, and drove the 50 yards up the hill back to the doctor (I’m a practical guy – what can I say).

The urgent care office on the first floor took me in right away. When you say ‘chest pain’, you go to the front of the line. Within minutes, I was wired up, and people were rushing around. The doctor came in, took one look at the EKG and said, “Mr. Duke, you are going to the hospital right now. You are having a heart attack.”

Within minutes, I was on a gurney, nitro under the tongue and on my way to the cardiac care unit in the ER. On a day filled with hearts, love and candy, I called Debbie from the back of the truck and said, ‘Honey, meet me at the hospital. They tell me I’m having a heart attack. I’ll be okay. I love you.’

To say that I received care that was over the top would be a gross understatement. From the EMTs who whisked me off to the hospital, to the staff ushering me into the ER, to the cardiologist who calmed me and diagnosed my issue with perfect precision, I was in the absolute best of hands.

Fortunately, it was not a heart attack or blockage. It did require minor heart surgery to remove fluid from around my heart. Once again, from the nursing team who cared for me, the prep-nurse, to the skilled surgeon and his team, I was cared for, prayed for and watched over with divine grace – no question about it.

The surgery was a complete success. After a few days in the hospital, I was given the all-clear to return home. Tests both in the hospital and afterwards revealed no problems. No treatments and no therapy. I recently completed a stress test and watched my heart pumping away on the ‘heart TV’ as I call it. Everything is functioning normally and according to my cardiologist, I have no more risk than the healthiest people on the planet.

Am I thankful this year? You bet I am. Not only is Anna’s Gourmet Goodies having a good year, but I was given a rare gift – the chance to look at my life from a totally different perspective. To put my trust in the hands of an incredibly skilled and passionate group of people who were totally focused on giving me the chance to continue on my journey. To come out of the experience in near perfect health. The words ‘thank you’ really are not big enough.

I’ve said it before – we make cookies – but we are really in the business of making people happy. Of helping others say thank you to friends, family, clients, whomever. We’ve always been passionate about putting the same level of care in every order – whether it is one cookie or three thousand. However, this year I’ll probably toss in an extra measure of thanks to share a little bit of the gift I was given this past February. You might not taste it in the cookies and brownies, but rest assured there’s a little extra ‘thank you’ in every box.

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Real miracles happen daily in this place

Earlier this past summer, we challenged Anna to come up with some ‘mission projects’ centered around community service. She spent the last year in the YMCA Leader’s Club, where she had to spend at least 10 hours a month volunteering. To reinforce what she was learning, I offered up resources at Anna’s Gourmet Goodies to help with the project(s) she put together.

Scan back through my blog, you’ll find a post about the Ronald McDonald House in Durham (RMHD), and my last one about ‘The Why’. If you combine those two, you’ll understand why serving dinner for guests at RMHD seemed like the perfect combination for one of Anna’s mission projects.

Fresh pasta, like fresh baked goumet cookies, simply tastes better — Anna, Olivia and Elise cranked out fresh pasta for the guests at RMHD

We wanted to make a dinner that everyone would enjoy, but also create an experience that was special. Pasta is a common dinner, but we decided to make it fresh, on site, using a hand crank pasta maker.

And rather than sauce from a jar, we opted for fresh marinara starting with real tomatoes, carrots, onions and fresh herbs from our garden. We added a salad of organic greens and spinach, along with loaves of organic whole wheat baguettes from our friends at Whole Foods Market, and kicked it up a notch with a roasted garlic and butter sauce. And of course, we baked up a fresh batch of our ‘magic cookies’ to finish things off.

RMHD recently expanded and has the capacity to house up to 55 families at a time. For our meal, we were told to plan on feeding about 75 people. That’s a lot of hand made pasta, so we enlisted the help of two of Anna’s friends, Elise and Oliva.

Fresh made sauce to top off fresh made pasta — No sauce from a jar tonight – fresh vine ripe tomatoes, carrots, onion, garlic and herbs from the garden!

After a busy day in our kitchen getting as much prepared as possible, we headed out for Durham to start cooking in their spacious state of the art common area kitchen. We wanted to make sure the guests enjoyed a memorable meal, prepared from scratch with extra love and care.

We had the chance to meet and talk with several of the guests while preparing the meal. Fresh pasta is a real treat to eat as well as watching it being made. It was fun getting to know the families while we were busy cranking, stirring and preparing the meal. We met one family who was spending their last evening at RMHD, returning the next day to Bethel, Alaska. Her daughter had come to Duke for ear surgery and they spent about three months at the house. I tried to calculate the distance from Durham to Bethel, but Google maps simply could not return the calculation – rest assured it is a long way from their home.

The Anna's Gourmet Goodies Team — The Team: Chris, Debbie, Oliva, Anna and Elise

The dinner rush came at 6:30 when they announced our menu to the house. We helped guests, some weary from a long day at the hospital, navigate the buffet line and made sure everyone was served.

When we were almost ready to close up, a husband and wife came down with their daughter for dinner. While the father attended to the daughter, the mother filled up her plate. She was happy, smiling, and very grateful, so I struck up a conversation by asking about her stay at RMHD. She explained the details of her newborn baby’s condition and the challenges she faced. I listened intently as she described how doctors were working to correct something never before seen in medical history.

It seems that her internal organs where not developed and she would under go multiple surgeries to have any hope of correcting the problem. That day, the newborn was fighting an infection from the last surgery. If everything went well, she said they might return home for Christmas.

She went on to explain that as a child, she too faced serious health challenges and was herself a patient at Duke Children’s Hospital. The entire time we spoke, she had a smile on her face and seemed genuinely happy. I held back tears and was both honored and humbled by her story.

I wish that I could tell you that our cookies (and the rest of our meal) somehow contributed to her happiness, but that would simply not be true. Her happiness came from her faith and gratitude – plain and simple. This was one case where I was actually the recipient of her happiness, not the other way around.

After the last guest was served, we cleaned up the kitchen and put away the food. We left behind a couple of cookies and some leftover pasta, but I suspect that it disappeared by the next day.

I’ve thought about this experience over the past weeks and wanted to share a couple of thoughts. First of all, I am grateful to our customers. Without your support over the years, it would not be possible for us to do even small projects like this one, and give something back to our community.

Secondly, it reinforces the rewards of being of service to others. Of doing something, whether it is making cookies, preparing a meal, lending a hand or sometimes your ear, to bring a brief moment of happiness to someone else.

And finally, it serves as another reminder of the importance of perspective. We are fortunate that Anna’s Gourmet Goodies has been growing this past year, but like any business, we’ll face challenges and obstacles in the coming months and years. But probably none as great as that young baby lying in a bed at Duke Children’s Hospital, waiting for the skill of the surgeon’s hands to give her the opportunity to live life itself. In comparison, I have no problems.

RMHD sent us a nice thank you note after the dinner, but it was really us who should be thanking them. My friend and the director Oie Osterkamp told me that one of the board members suggested that the letters RMHD really stand for ‘Real Miracles Happen Daily’. After spending a little time there, meeting the guests, and hearing their stories, I’d have to agree. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to come along for the ride.

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