Welcome to Krystal Rowe Impacts, a space dedicated to

empowering you to be the change that your bloodline has been waiting

for. Join me and together, let's inspire change. Kia

ora whanau and welcome back to the Krystal Rowe Impact Podcast.

And today we're going to be talking about scaling with soul. But

before that, I want to take you on a little journey of how I actually

got into business. So I had a little idea of

selling some food at a market. And so I

did. And when I had to relocate to Brisbane,

I started thinking maybe I could have a

fixed premise. Maybe if I dream hard enough

and talk about it a little bit longer that I could potentially have

my very own cafe. And so it was. I

talked to my mom about borrowing a little bit of money and

I actually found a location that was shutting

down. At that time I didn't understand very

much about business. I didn't know or

even want to know, the importance of a bookkeeper

or an accountant or paying taxes. But what

I did was jumped blindfolded and

I took the chance on myself. I've always had a dream of

owning multiple cafes and I actually narrowed that

down to having a cafe for each of my seven children

at the time. And so that vision looked

like one for each child. And if they wanted to

work and run the business, they could, but if they didn't, they didn't have

to. When I first started the Cuzzy's Cafe back in

2018, I really didn't know what I was doing. I actually opened the

doors with $700. And by

the time I paid for my first coffee order, I was under

$400. Crazy, crazy, I know, but you know what? I took a chance on

myself and it's paid off. So I had a vision of

creating multiple cafes and I always

thought that the second one would still be close to home and

that I would be able to juggle both because I juggled such a

crazy, full-on life anyway. So why not throw another cafe

in, right? By the time I had gone through

all my healing and my burnouts and

my breakdowns, I came across

a friend who was like, what would it look like to

have another cafe? And I'm like, wow, do you want another

cafe? Do you want a cafe? And I'm like, let's do it. So we

did it. And basically from there, I

learned a lot about scaling. I learned that you

have to put boundaries in place. I learned that you

have to have time management, which I

wasn't that great at, but I learned along the way to

prioritize what needed to be done to be able

to actually juggle two shops. I'm a real strong

believer in being prepared. Being prepared for

opportunity because you never know when the opportunity

is going to knock on the door. And I think that

when you dream big and you set goals that are

way above what you think could happen, You

just never know somebody might be there ready to

walk that walk with you or to explore that idea with

you or to have a golden nugget that might just go, yes,

I can do it. And when we actually start to believe that

we can be bigger than what we are right now, that's where the

magic really happens. And so when we actually dream

big, we prepare ourselves. And

then when that opportunity arises, we're so ready

for it. And it actually aligns. And

so for myself, I had jumped

into that train of scaling. I jumped on board

a hundred percent. I was like, yes, yes, yes. I

remember getting the keys to the Gold Coast shop

and I walked in and I just felt so amazing.

I felt so alive. I felt so assured. Like

I was so sure of myself. I was like, yes. Going

from rock bottom to a massive opportunity

was life-changing. And it just empowered

me so much. And the key to that

feeling was that I was prepared. I was prepared

pre-breakdown, pre-burnout. I was always

dreaming of the bigger picture. It

was an amazing journey to start the

second cafe. And so we went

on this journey and a few things happened along the way, like

the mandates took place and staffing and

we had to grow quite rapidly, which was a part that

we weren't quite prepared for. And so one advice that

I could give and share is that if you are

going to scale, You need to really be

prepared for the bigger picture. When we scaled

the first time into our second location, I was so

excited and I was so over the moon that I felt completely

empowered. And then reality sort of kicked in and

I kind of misjudged how

much we had taken on. We were driving for

over an hour and a half to the second location, doing twice

as much work. And even though it was vigorating

and empowering in the beginning, It started to

take its toll real quick. So I

started to experience things like panic attacks and

anxiety. So I would spend an hour to

an hour and a half driving to the second location. And by the time I

got there, I was an absolute wreck. I would literally

break down in the car and by the time I

got inside I couldn't open on time because I was so

anxious and that was just something that I

didn't see coming. I just thought

that it was just going to be absolutely amazing and

I didn't put in the boundaries that I should have from

the beginning. But I guess sometimes we just learn along the

way and that's the beauty of life is that We've got to take

a chance on ourselves. We've got to take a chance on

our dreams. And the moment that we do that and we say yes, we

do learn so much along the way. And if we accept the

lessons as lessons and not as failures, then

we can become so much more than what we currently are. At

a certain point, we realized that the

big dream and all of that just wasn't right for us at

this particular time. And because the pressure that we

were starting to experience was actually taking a

toll on our home life and on our amount

of time that we got to spend with our children, we made the choice to

prioritize what was most important and that's always going to be family.

So we actually acknowledged and accepted that we

took too much on and that scaling wasn't for us right

now in that particular location. And so what we

did is we retract and we worked out what was going to be best for us

and and put in place some new steps that

was still aligned with the growth of our business and the growth of

our brand, but we actually formed it

in a way that was going to be best for us. So once

we closed the Gold Coast Cafe,

it wasn't like a hard decision for me. It gave me peace

and I actually acknowledged it for what it was. I actually took

a moment and I was like, you know what, this is what's best for me and mine.

And that was good enough for me. I wasn't attached to

what people will think or what we're going

to look like, or is this a failure? It was

none of that. It just was complete peace. It

was like, yes, I made the right choice. And that goes

back to one of my favorite quotes, make one right choice and the rest

will follow. And from that, It's just

been a beautiful time for our family. We have an

extra day off. We have more

time with our children. We have more interaction with our

children. We have more capacity in our home life.

And that's what it's all about. We're in business to have

that freedom. I realized that I was

already prepared for the exit of this location.

It wasn't a bad thing. It was actually a growth move. It

was a boss move. And I was able to say,

yes, this isn't working. This isn't for us

right now. And we were able to exit in

a healthy way. That comes down to knowledge

is power as well. So when we know what we're getting

ourselves in for, we actually have power over

the situation. So we were able to determine

how this was going to play out. And that's a beautiful thing

when you're in business with your heart and soul. There's

only the right way forward. So it's really important for me to

prioritize the growth of our

brand and the growth of our family. And it's

always family first. So even though for us it didn't work

this time, We were able to walk

away with our heads held high knowing that we chose the

right thing that was best for us. And if there's

one thing that you can take away from this is to just

give it a go and never give up. There's no such thing

as failure. It's only lessons. It's all lessons

and we all grow from those lessons. So make sure you

keep your head up and give it a go. Thank you for listening today,

whānau. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you give us a five

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