It’s been a little while since I’ve been active & posted anything on here.
I went back and forth on whether I should share this, but figured it might resonate with a lot of folks out there who are struggling, hustling, grinding — doing everything in their power to achieve “success”, finish the year strong, and set themselves up for a great 2024.
For the last 6 years, I had a simple way of calibrating my life.
Dream Pops was #1 — above health, family, friends, fitness — it was the only thing that mattered.
I flew across the country and attended every trade show I could.
Pitched buyers.
Manufactured product out of a tiny commercial kitchen.
Scaled into a commercial facility.
Got into retailers.
Generated as much content for the business as possible daily.
Started a podcast.
Locked in brand collaborations.
Built an amazing team.
Pivoted to bites.
Rarely said “no”.
Meeting after meeting after meeting.
++ Put every piece of my being into breaking through and building a successful CPG company.
However, this year stopped me in my tracks.
On the morning of September 12, a week before Expo East, I woke up with throbbing pain.
I figured I could shake it off since I had 4 consecutive shows the next two months and thought, it couldn’t be “that serious”.
I’d ignore the pain and handle it when I got back.
After all, I couldn’t miss Expo East, CHFA, our Mondelez CoLab graduation, NFRA and a factory visit..
Before leaving, I scheduled a quick checkup and an ultrasound and didn’t think much of it.
This led to a late night phone call with my doctor who told me that I needed to get on an operating table asap.
I got the surgery done, and afterwards the pathology report found that I had Stage 1b testicular cancer.
Little did I know that every day I waited to have the surgery, there was an increased risk of the cancer spreading to my lymph-nodes and other organs.
Fast forward to today - I am going to be okay, the cancer didn’t spread and I’m on routine surveillance and undergoing treatment.
However through all of this, I realized that putting your health second, and having tunnel vision can come with an extremely high price tag.
Starting a cpg brand is a brutally challenging business.
It’s by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done and requires the perfect combination of luck, timing, product, brand, team and timing. ;)
But please don’t sacrifice your health in exchange for a hopeful exit or the illusion of “success”.
Great things take time.
And you can’t sprint marathons.
There’s no question that we’ve all been berated by unrealistic headlines and anomalies in F&B the last decade.
The paradigm has shifted as have investor expectations.
Take your time.
Build a business with solid fundamentals.
Make $.
Go slow. :)
Wishing you all a happy and healthy holidays. Please don’t forget to take care of yourself.
Health is always #1.