778 Turn Your Creative Passion into a Thriving Business with Christina Tosi

YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP EVERY DAY. I’m not a distance runner. When I run, the first few minutes are easy. But after a mile, it starts to hurt. I can either stop there, or I can keep going. When I push through the adversity, I feel like I can run forever. I hit the zone where it doesn’t hurt anymore. The same thing happens in life. You have to keep giving it your best even when it’s hard. You have to know that something great is waiting for you on the other side. Everything you’re going through now is paving the way for success in your future. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about passion and hard work with a woman who revolutionized the dessert industry: Christina Tosi. Christina Tosi is a chef, author, and television personality. She is the founder and owner of Milk Bar, the sister bakery to the Momofuku restaurant group, and just opened her seventeenth store. Christina is the recipient of several awards and was featured on a list of "Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink" by Food and Wine Magazine in 2014. Christina shares that every time she gets close to a goal, she raises the bar a little higher. She is always growing and always learning. So get ready to learn how to find your true passion and share your gifts on Episode 778. Some Questions I Ask: Can you tell us the story of how Milk Bar came to be? (12:00) How did you learn how to scale your business? (24:00) What’s your vision for Milk Bar? (31:00) How do you continue to reinvent the dream (34:00) What’s the worst voice you have in your head, and what’s the best voice (39:00) Do you think you’d be as driven as you are if you weren’t critical of yourself? (42:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: About filming Netflix’s Chef’s Table (8:00) The lie of the “overnight success” (10:00) How David Chang influenced Christina (15:00) The problem of “knowing too much” (29:00) How working out can help you in business and life (37:00) Why you can’t use outside approval to measure success (43:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is episode number 778 with Christina Tozzi.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Georgia O'Keeffe said, "Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant. There is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing." Welcome to this episode. I'm super pumped. We've got Christina Tozzi in the house. If you are a fan of MasterChef, then you're gonna love this episode. I watched an episode of MasterChef and was blown away by this story about Christina Tozzi. She is the founder and owner of Milk Bar, which is the sister bakery to the Momofuku Restaurant Group.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  And with a number of locations all around North America, it's been blowing up and her story is incredible. In this interview, we talk about how her story became a metaphor for people who are passionate about life and what it takes to get your dream going. Also, the power of making mistakes and figuring out answers as you go when you start a business and not just having it all figured out right from the start. How to scale a business and what it takes to go from one store to several around the country, from starting out with minimal funding to raising more money and beyond. Also, the mindset of an introverted entrepreneur and how that compares to an extrovert. This is a powerful one. Make sure to share it with your friends.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  LewisHowes.com/778. Make sure to tag Christina Tozzi as well on Instagram. Let her know what you enjoyed about this. And I'm telling you guys, you will be addicted to the, all the goodies at Milk Bar. So make sure to check out Milk Bar because it is unbelievable what they make.

• 2:19Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have Christina Tozzi in the house. Good to see you.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm all drugged up on Milk Bar Truffles right now. I'm so excited. And I've been wanting to learn more about you ever since Higgins told me, Matt Higgins told me that I had to have you on. I was next to you in line at the pop gala last year. I didn't say hi to you because you were busy. And I watched the Netflix special.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Ah, The Chef's Table.

• 2:47Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable. First off, how amazing are those specials? They just make you love people and love food.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  They're incredible. It's an incredible process because these people learn everything about you and your background. And it's fascinating to me. I mean, they're storytellers, right?

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  They're incredible.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  They're storytellers and they do it through video and they do it through interviews.

• 3:08Lewis Howes?

  The music is just like so moving and emotional.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  They know how to like just like tap into you. Like getting into your brainwaves, getting into your heartstrings and tugging it.

• 3:17Lewis Howes?

  How long was that process for you?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  It took 14 days.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  14 days of filming?

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, which on some level, and you have to imagine, they probably did months of research in advance because they came in knowing what they wanted. One, committing 14 days of your life to something like that is a commitment.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  Huge commitment.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  And it's also a leap of faith because you're also like, I mean, you're gonna see, I'm a big believer in like when you commit, you're jumping, you're going all in. There's no like committing a quarter of the way or part of the way or committing here but not committing there. So it's like, great, welcome to my worlds. What do you want? What do you want access to? What do you need? But I also think committing helps make, helps make something like that what it is.

• 4:02Lewis Howes?

  Even better.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, because if they don't understand you, how are they going to tell your story best?

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  Now, did you know it was going to do pretty well based on like previous chefs that you had talked to?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh. No, because up until that point. Chef's Table was about typically fine dining chefs. And you're in their beautiful restaurants and you're in their beautiful kitchens.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  And you didn't have a restaurant?

• 4:27Speaker 02

  We don't have a restaurant and our kitchens are, you know, our New York City kitchen, for example, is 11,000 square feet of space. And so I'm thinking, like, we don't use tweezers. We mix cookies in mixers that are big enough for you to take a bubble bath in, right? And so when they first even approached us, I was like, I don't, like, I think maybe you read the wrong article. Or I think perhaps you have the wrong impression because you're not gonna get the story that you typically tell. One, the spirit of what we do is very, very democratic in the, we make cookies that are that are accessible in an ideal world to anyone and everyone, right? It's a $2 cookie, it's a $3 cookie. You don't have to make a reservation.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  It does take a team to put together, but we're doing it in this really big, large, almost Willy Wonka type of factory. And the spirit of these things, it's so different. It's so different. Our stores are open from 7 or 8 a.m. until midnight or 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. It's so different. And they said, no, we know exactly what it is that this episode will be. And we're like, we're into taking the risk.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  We're into taking a chance. And I think that acknowledgement for me was the, great, they're, they're gonna stretch. And so committing to this means meeting them at that stretch.

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:51Lewis Howes?

  And what, and it came out when, mid last year?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, middle of last year.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  And what happened afterwards, like, the next six months?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Well, I had no concept of, it's kind of interesting. You're, you live in your own world, you live in your own head. I do what I do for me, I do what I do for my team, I do what I do because it's what makes sense to my, in my head. I have no clue whether or not it's gonna, I don't know. It's maybe, I'm sure it'll resonate with some people, maybe not others. I didn't anticipate that it would sort of like blow up our universe in the most beautiful ways. And I, I mean that in It affected people in ways that had nothing to do with food. Like, food was really the conduit, more so than it was the focal point. I think you get to it because food's interesting and everyone wants to watch like a gooey cookie.

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  In like high-res on a screen. Everyone, everyone wants that. But it was really interesting that it became, our story became almost a metaphor for people that are passionate about life, that are trying to figure out what that means, what it can mean, what it should mean, what it takes to chase down a calling. And that it was, it ended up acting as just like a connectivity, connective tissue, like an open hand, like, hey, do you need a friend, or do you need a pal, or do you need someone that gets what you're going through? And I think also became this real, like, became a thing that people went back to, to be encouraged, to like,

• 7:26Speaker 02

  you're, we're all just regular, normal people. There's nothing special in me that's not in you, or you, or you. It's just about like how deep you're willing to dig and what you're willing to do to get to what it takes. And P.S., like, nothing happens overnight.

• 7:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Any like overnight successes. Yeah, oh, I didn't, I didn't just wake up one day and...

• 7:49Lewis Howes?

  Start making cookies.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think just kind of like ripping back, bringing down all of the barriers and boundaries that people put up in their heads through a really honest, simple story of like, we make cookies, and cakes, and pies, and ice cream. We do it on our own terms. And it took a long time to get to the point to even have access to do that. And then once we did it, it took us another 10 years to get to where we are to today. And just being as honest as possible about that somehow resonated, like, in that like, mom always said honesty is the best policy. It really is.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  So for those who haven't seen the special and don't know what we're talking about, you had been a chef at like five-star restaurants for many years, right? And can you tell the story in a brief amount of like, what you were doing at the last restaurant?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  And how Milk Bar started?

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Came to me.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  So I moved to New York to become a pastry chef. I went to culinary school because I thought being loving to make dessert in a professional capacity meant being at the top of your game. And being at the top of your game was being in the most expensive fine dining establishment. And I worked my way up. And what I realized in doing that was I loved that pursuit of that craft. But when I took a look at myself in the mirror, I was like, but I really want to go home and make cookies at the end of the day.

• 9:14Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  I want to feed, I love feeding people. And my version of loving to feed people isn't in the fanciest environment.

• 9:23Lewis Howes?

  Like a little thing with the sauces everywhere?

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Which is gorgeous and amazing. And I obviously have so much respect for it. It just wasn't what was, it just wasn't what was in me. And so the last restaurant I was at, I was doing that while also trying to figure out what my next step was. Because I knew that was, I couldn't do that anymore and be true to myself.

• 9:48Lewis Howes?

  So you weren't finding fulfillment in the work you were doing necessarily?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Exactly, I was, exactly. I was finding fulfillment in the pursuit of a craft, but I wasn't finding fulfillment in like the, the truth of where I needed to be as, as a pastry chef, as a top dog. Like I wasn't resonating with the, I was resonating with the part of the creation, but not the entirety of the creation.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  And you were making great money.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Well, no, great money does not really exist when you work in a kitchen. You work really long hours. You don't make a lot of money. It is a true labor of love.

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  But you were working at the best places.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  I was working at the best places.

• 10:24Lewis Howes?

  So you had credibility.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Credibility.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  People looked up to you and respected you.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  You were like the master of your craft.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  But I was like, but what's it for? Because I still want to come in early and make. Crazy brownies or cookies for for everyone that works in the kitchen. And then I'll go and do my job, my my my day job, which inevitably when you work in a restaurant is typically a night job. Was I was getting to a place that I was that I purposely didn't want when I decided to work into a kitchen. I was like, I don't want a nine to five job. I don't want to be a grown up. I don't want to fall into a routine. And on some level, that was what that job was. So I needed to get out and figure out my next step was. And my chef at that restaurant introduced me to Dave Chang,

• 11:11Speaker 02

  who was democratizing savory food. He had a very similar path. He was in fine dining restaurants and then was like, this doesn't make sense to me. And so he opened this like hilariously confusing ramen shop. And was just like, I'm just gonna cook whatever I want that's delicious. And I'm just gonna open the doors and if you come in and get a stool, you can eat for seven or eight or nine or ten dollars. And it was, it became a magnet for people that would make a reservation at this fine dining restaurant. And for someone that lived around the block that was like, I'm here for good food. And that made sense to me on so many levels.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  I saw what he was doing through savory food and I thought, I know what I wanted. Like, there's a path forward.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  So I started working for him at Momofuku and helping him run operations. I would bake cookies at night and bring them in. And he knew I had a pastry background. And so one day he was like, this is like pretty much ridiculous. It's clear what you need to be doing, like go and do it. And gave me that push to open Milk Bar.

• 12:22Lewis Howes?

  So you were working with him doing operations? You weren't actually cooking?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Uh-uh.

• 12:26Lewis Howes?

  Or doing?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  There were no desserts on his menu. It was like wham bam. You like saddle up to this noodle bar and you go, I'll have some roasted Brussels sprouts with kimchi puree and smoky bacon, which is something that exists now, but didn't exist twelve, thirteen years ago. And uh, it was kind of like a bunch of cowboys, right? Like, it's a few dudes running the kitchen and I knew how to hold my own and all of that, but. The thought of dessert at that point was like, what do you even make for dessert? Because it's like a ramen bar, but there's kind of pseudo-Japanese food, but also not at all. Became a melting pot for food, but also you need to get people in and out. If you're only charging them a few bucks, you gotta get them in and out because you don't want them to sit and eat dessert.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  So did you start serving dessert there for customers?

• 13:16Speaker 02

  I did over time. I started like working backwards and going, alright, well like what would be? I came up with soft-serve ice cream, like, great, people, you don't want people to sit in their chairs for a long time.

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  Take them out and go.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Give them something that is going to be a beautiful liquid puddle if they don't eat it quickly, right? And beyond that, I was like, it's this tiny little space, there's no room in the kitchen for a pastry team. So how do you reverse engineer that? And I was like, well, I can make these big, flavorful, delicious milks, if you will, ice cream bases. Put them in a machine and there's, I'm a very, I'm very big in to nostalgia. And I was like, soft, everyone loves soft-serve ice cream. Everyone has that attack.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  But it was different than just soft-serve. It had like cereal milk, right?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Something crazy.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  They were all different kind of crazy flavors. Because I was also like, I don't wanna make vanilla ice cream. Everyone makes vanilla ice cream, like, I'm not here to be the second, the third, the fourth of anyone else. I'm here to be the first me.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  And so what does that mean through soft-serve ice cream? And that was like, that was where I started to like put the pieces together of my own voice through food and my perspective on it. And I was ready when I opened, when Dave was like, this is ridiculous, like, just go and do it. Just go and do what we both know you wanna do and you need to do. And I have your back and you kinda just. Me out the door.

• 14:45Lewis Howes?

  He said.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  I mean, literally right next door.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  Right next door. He said, hey, we got a space here. I'll help you launch this.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I mean, I was running operations. So I was like, dude, there is this spot next door. It's coming up. We need to be careful, right? Like, a competitor could come in, or this, or that, or the other. The landlord could make trouble for us, whatever it was. And it became clear very quickly that I would take over that spot because it was best for the Momofuku side of the business. And I checked the box of like, you'll still be around, we'll still be together, like, we'll still have each other's backs. But you'll go and do this thing.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  So you open it next door. What happens in the first few months?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  We opened the door on November 15th of 2008. And there was a line out the door immediately, to the point that I have so many things I'm thankful for. One of the things was that I did not have enough time to worry about any of the things that I worry about now. I didn't have, there was no point in me that I was like, what if no one comes? And I worry about that every day when we, we opened, we still opened our 17th store. And I'm like, what if no one comes? Or what if only five people, right? Like, what if no one comes? What if no one cares? What if people don't get what a compost cookie is?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  What if calling, like, calling something that has, you know, pretzels and potato chips and chocolate chips and coffee and all of these, like, random in-your-cubbert things? What if people are like, that's such a weird name? Or what if people are like, the milk that tastes like what's left in your bowl, have to eat all the cereal out of it, like, okay. I guess. I didn't have time to worry about any of that. And so when we opened the doors, we really did open in our truest, like, most honest form of ourselves because we just had this vision, and in a beautiful and terrible way, we hadn't gut-checked it. It was just guttural. Like, there was no, like, is that?

• 16:43Lewis Howes?

  You didn't have a test group of people, be like, tell me your opinion on this flavor. What should you think of this?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  And I was like, we're gonna open at 8 a.m. and we'll open until 2 a.m. And there was no point of me that was like, girlfriend, that means you are gonna need to be at work from like 5 o'clock in the morning until like, when you're done cleaning up, 3 o'clock in the morning, like. How is that gonna work? Or I had, we were a team of, I think, four or five. It was like, maybe you're gonna need a few more people if you're gonna do that seven days a week. And so the doors opened, there was a line out the door from the very beginning. And we figured it out. I mean, we took off sprinting and we started climbing and we, every day, we figured it out. For good and for bad. We made so many mistakes.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  And the beauty of the mistakes were that we didn't have the opportunity for the mistakes to sit around. So we'd make a mistake and learn and make a mistake and fix it real quick. I mean, I remember that morning of opening day. It was probably like 6:00 a.m. and it's like, okay, we're two hours from opening. And we're looking around and I'm like, oh my God, we don't have a menu. Like, I knew what we were serving and it was all loaded into the point of sale system. And we had paper menus, but I was like, you walk in and you can't actually see a physical menu. So we took the legs off of the stainless steel prep table. We're looking around, like, what are we gonna do? Took the legs off of the stainless steel prep table, grabbed a dry erase marker.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  And I have terrible handwriting at best. And I was just like, keep baking, like, you know, just trying to like direct, like, keep baking. We were just like, we didn't know what to expect. But I think in a beautiful way, it resonated with people because I think when you buy a cookie, you're buying, it's something that's so human. If you have ever had a cookie or a cake or a pie, you've probably had it from someone that's in your family that cares about you, that, that like, in a, in a love language way, making dessert is the ultimate love language. And I think you were just getting this honest team of people that were just like, they cared so much about what they did and were just figuring it out. So it required a lot of patience from our customers.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  But you also got the most delicious baked, mixed by hand, delivered with so much care. Thing and people just came back.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  Just serving love all day.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  You know.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Love and hugs.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  Love and hugs, right?

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. Every time I go to New York, there's always a line.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 19:12Lewis Howes?

  When I go, I used to live off Princeton Mulberry and there's a spot right there.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's one on Mott, you're right.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  And so whenever I go back to New York, I always try to go in my old neighborhood and see what's new. And I saw the Milk Bar and I was like, man, there's a line.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  That one is one of my.

• 19:24Lewis Howes?

  It's so tiny. It's just like a little cupboard.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  So one of the reasons there's a line is because the reality of doing business in New York City for a New York City stores is like rent is expensive. You got to sell a lot of cookies to pay the rent. And I mean, you're open seven days a week, three sixty-five or three sixty-three, three sixty-two. But for me, I really think about our stores in New York. And I think in New York, you're there to be a person in the world. Your apartment is small. You're not really cooking at home, really. Maybe on a special occasion, but you go home to sleep. You do everything else to be out in the world. And so that store for me was really special because it's just a window on the street. It was like, we can try and jam people in.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Or that neighborhood is like that sort of like no Lita Soho neighborhood. It's the neighborhood where you you go to explore.

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  So sweet.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  And so it felt more like we we have to be a part of the street, of this street of New York City.

• 20:23Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  And so you just grab it and you go on your way.

• 20:26Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. So the first store, you were making the the cookies and cakes in the store.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  But now you have this huge warehouse where you have bathtubs of truffle ball butter or whatever it is you have in there that you're mixing all day from the Netflix series I saw. It's like, OK, how did you learn how to scale it? And when did you realize like, OK, we can't do this in individual stores anymore? It all has to be in one place and take it to the stores.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I like to think about my life, especially when people go like, OK, but like, how do I get to where you are? And it's like, you have to follow your intuition and you have to make sure that every decision you make.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  It doesn't have to be on one straight path. It can be a very curvy path. It can be really wide lanes. But you have to make sure you show up to whatever that path is every day and mean it. So when I think about answering that question, I go, well, every single day leading up to that trained me for that decision and learning how to do it. So when I was first deciding to work in kitchens, I would work in like kind of on some level in any kitchen that was compelling to me. And I got a job really early on before I moved to New York City. Someone convinced someone that I was a great baker. And I like tiny little stand mixer at home. And someone gave me a job running this huge bakery on an island off the coast of New Hampshire.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Where I had to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 800 people every day. And I showed up. And in the spirit of like you have to rise to the occasion, someone was like, here's the mixer. And it was this gigantic thing. And I was like, I have no clue how to run this.

• 22:06Lewis Howes?

  Used to a small one, not a scale.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, the one that sits on your kitchen counter. But it's like, great, it's just like a honey, I shrunk the kids moment. That's fine, how hard could it be? You gotta just lean into it. And I was like, great, so can you just give me the quick one, two, three? How do you lift the bowl up, this, that, or the other? And I figured out how to do it. Went to New York, went into all this fine dining, never saw a mixer like that again. But in my mind was like, okay, I know how to feed the masses. So when we opened Milk Bar, there was a line at the door and I was like, our kitchen is-

• 22:39Lewis Howes?

  This little thing over there, one at a time.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Our kitchen is hugely undersized for the demand. And I was like, we're gonna need a bigger boat. And it was a lot easier to figure out what that bigger boat looked like because I just started going into my experience and memory of, okay, what does this mean? One day at a time, one step at a time, one huge mixing bowl at a time. Instead of buying, you know, a little pack of butter, we buy a 30-pound case of butter. And instead of buying a 30-pound case of butter, we buy, you know, like a 3,000-pound brick of butter.

• 23:11Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  And you just make, you just-

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  3,000 brick?

• 23:15Speaker 02

  A 3,000-pound brick. It comes like a pallet in, and I'm not joking.

• 23:19Lewis Howes?

  It's not like a bunch of little bricks, it's one big thing. They make a big brick?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Well, how do you think they make the little sticks, dude? Like it comes, they come.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  But that part of it-

• 23:30Lewis Howes?

  How much does a 3,000-pound brick of butter cost?

• 23:33Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I don't know, I'd have to check a dairy.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  You're curious, it's crazy.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 23:38Lewis Howes?

  How many cookies can I make?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  But that's how big, I mean batches and batches, thousands, hundreds of thousands of cookies.

• 23:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  But that's also the, that's when you start to go, at some point, as you grow a business, you have to go, what are my bottlenecks? How do I work smarter, not harder?

• 23:54Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  And you just have to equip yourself. I think for me, one of the biggest like mental realizations was, people do it every day, right? Like, you're not necessarily any better or worse equipped than someone else. Whether the toilet's clogged, or you need to move a light switch, or the delivery van breaks down, right? Like, these are people doing things, applicable things that they've learned in the world, and that like empowerment of equipping yourself with as many skills is necessary to solve your problems, is really important. And those are, for me, those are like the really fun parts. One, yeah, how do you scale up the compost cookie to go from this to that? Is trial and error, is trying to throw as much of your learnings as possible against it, and then learning along the way.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Like, great, okay, so when we scale up, we need to always increase salt by 15%. Or flour needs to, you know, you have to be careful with it, or it's a bigger mixer, so you're gonna develop gluten because it takes more manpower, there's more friction that's working the dough, and cookie dough, you want to kind of be mixed as little as possible, so they're tender.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  God, cookies.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  And fudgy. But it's, it's, it is not being afraid to acknowledge the problem and to solve with it, it's to never work with the problem. But yeah, we went from this tiny store, 750 square feet. In New York, we have an 11,000 square foot kitchen. In DC, it's about 4,000 square feet. Here in LA, it's 3,000 square feet.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  How many stores in LA?

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Just one, just our flagship.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  3,000 square feet for one store?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:28Lewis Howes?

  Well, are you gonna expand it more then?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  It's a good question, I don't know.

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  Venice, and one, that's gotta get away.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  I know, I like, this is always, whenever you hang out with someone that lives in LA, they're like, or just like, there's, there's a shop right around the corner from my front door.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  There is a place right down the street that just opened up, yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 25:43Lewis Howes?

  WeHo needs it.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  It's the tricky part of...

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Knowing too much at this point, right?

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean knowing too much?

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Knowing too much, like then now opening a store is totally different than opening that first store.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  There's so much more on the line. I mean, you gotta know this, right? Like in your career, you work, you work, you work. And then, once you start to actually achieve, there's more people counting on you, there's more to lose.

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  Pressure, money involved, investors now.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Visibility, all these things. And your single decision is something that is responsible for so many other things. Aside from that, it's like, why do people love it? If it were on every corner, does it feel as special? You almost worry about breaking it as much as you worry about feeding it and supporting it and growing it. And so, when that happens, then I'm like, alright, stop. You gotta get out of your own head, like get out of the room, go for a run, whatever it is. Because now you're treating it in a way that's so precious, and that's also not what it is.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  But it is like, how do we inspire? The big question is like, how do we inspire celebration? How do we remind people, show people, be a part of people's lives? In the big and little ways, especially the little ways for me, like whether it's cheat day, cheat morning with those birthday truffles. Or the like, I just ran the marathon, or the like, I just broke, I just got dumped? Or I just broke up with someone, or I just bought my first car, whatever. The little things that you don't think about. I was on time to work today, whatever it was, right? Like the bigger little things. And being a part of that texture in people's lives, and what does that look like? For me, it's not about store count.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  It's not about measuring Milk Bar's success in any way other than trying to figure out how to measure those like really human connections, which are basically possible to measure. But for me, that's, that's why I do it, that's what makes it worth it. And that's kind of what I'm always protecting of like, but I don't want a hundred, two hundred, three hundred stores. If it means, if we do it, we have to do it in a way that still maintains that philosophy, that isn't just about like, well, we're opening it because we can.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you don't want to lose the magic, yeah.

• 28:11Lewis Howes?

  So what's the vision then? Seventeen stores right now. Do you call them stores, bakeries? What do you call them?

• 28:15Speaker 02

  We all call them different.

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  Change it up, okay. Seventeen locations.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Milk bars, milk bars.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, milk bars.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  I mean, every store is different.

• 28:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  Which is part of the formula, right? Like, we don't stamp them out. We have a roadmap, but it's really important that each one of them is their own, like, living, breathing thing, yeah. That it's a reflection of the people that are a part of it. And I don't mean on the inside. I do mean on the inside, but I also mean, if we want to be a part of your life. So if you go to a store, you're part of that, what making a store what it is.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  What's the vision then moving forward? You've been doing it for ten, eleven years almost?

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Almost eleven years.

• 28:50Lewis Howes?

  And what's the next?

• 28:51Speaker 02

  I mean, for me, Milk Bar, in my most grand vision of it, and I've had to like go back to the dreamscape, because every time I get close to the dream, I'm like, girl, you gotta set the bar a little bit further, a little bit further. So my current bar is

• 29:10Speaker 02

  to make Milk Bar a thing that would, the ten-year-old version of myself, growing up in the suburbs of Ohio or Virginia, that Milk Bar's reach and presence is there to inspire the ten-year-old that is like, that loves cookies and loves doing things to make people feel like supported and a part of something, that loves walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store, that loves like digging into the cupboards and making a total mess. That Milk, to make Milk Bar into a thing that, a ten-year-old that just has the most basic, normal access that anyone in this country might have in that setting,

• 29:55Speaker 02

  in that suburban setting, that it empowers that person to just, to learn the rules and then maybe learn how to break them a little bit, or to say, cool, I get what a chocolate chip cookie is, but what if, I like these other things, what if I put them in? Or I want to do something for someone, and it doesn't have to look like a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, that it can be a reflection of the person, that it's an opportunity to really feed, to bring imagination in and to feed someone through this dessert. It is a big one, but I also feel... Like in my head, it makes perfect sense and it's not out of reach. Nothing's out of reach.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How do you continue to reinvent the dream as you get closer to it? What's the process for dreaming beyond the dream?

• 30:44Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I'm very introspective. I'm actually an introvert, so I spend a lot of time. My recharge time is spent alone. Usually on a run. Baking alone, going on a run alone. So a lot of it is, I leave my house in the morning, leave my apartment in the morning. I'm like, okay, you have to let that go and you have to go and be a person for people. But a lot of that, like, dream setting and measuring and swimming around in my own head happens when I'm alone and on my own, which is usually late at night or early in the morning. And I gut check.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  I'm a very big, I talk about like November 15th, 2008. I had no time to gut check. It was just guttural. I do all of my editing, whether it's editing a recipe or editing a plan for the business or editing that, like, big dream. It happens when I'm on my own and I run, I run things through my mind.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy? Whenever I'm running by myself as well, I get the best ideas. I'm allowed to, I give myself space to reflect on what's working, what's not working, and start to re-dream as well.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's not like a to-do list thing. It's not like, alright, so tonight when you're running, this is what we're gonna go through in our head, right? It's almost like letting yourself just be instead of, it's like being versus doing.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  So interesting. Running is big for you in that space, huh?

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  It allows me to clear everything in my mind, you know? Even if I'm, sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I'll listen to an interview, or sometimes I'll do nothing, and all three times, I get ideas. And I start to reevaluate what's happening in my life, good and bad or neutral. Just start to reimagine.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  It's a meditative space.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  Very meditative.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Do you meditate on the regular?

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I I like to say that I'm very consistent, but I miss some days here and there. But I try to do thirteen to fifteen minutes every morning.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Oh, you're so good.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Try to.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  I missed this morning, but.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  But the missing is also like the humanity of it of like.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm not perfect. I'm not gonna hit the same routine every single day. I do my best.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  But a workout, I feel like is the most meditative thing I can do.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  Because it processes any negative energy or any toxic energy or any anything and just kind of gets it out.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  I like that. It's true. There's some, it's that for me and it's also this. I think there's like, for me, I take an insane amount of empowerment in running long distances. Because there's something about like, once I get in motion, this sense of telling myself and having the relationship with myself, like, you can go forever. You can go forever. It's mind over, mind over matter. And also this, you can do, like, you can do anything. You can do anything. You have to just start. Like, taking those, that first step or the second step or the third step in the running for me is like, it's not hard to do. But once I've taken the first three steps, it could have been my millionth step.

• 33:51Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  It's that like mentality of empowerment of like, just start. Once you start, you'll figure everything else out. You don't have to have all the answers.

• 33:59Lewis Howes?

  For me, I'm not a distance guy. I'll run maybe four or five miles max on like.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  That's a really long amount for most people. I like that you're like, that's not distance, which depending on.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Three miles is like, yeah, exactly. I'm more of a sprinter or like interval sprinting. So if I do a three or four mile run, the first two minutes is easy.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  It's like right after mile, I hit mile one, one and a half, it starts to like hurt.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  And then I'm like, okay, I can either stop here or I can continue to push through it. And when I push through the pain and the adversity and I get on the other side, it's like, I feel like I can run forever. Forever for me is like another two miles. Right, but it's like, I feel like I can run farther than I'm used to running, which is two and a half or three miles. I can go four, four and a half, five. And I hit that zone as well, where it doesn't hurt anymore.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's almost like you, you learn every time anew to quiet the voice in your head, like the naysayer in your head. You're like, we're not gonna do that right now. But whether you're doing like sprints or interval, intervals, or whatever it is, I feel like it's the same thing of like, we're not gonna let that voice come at like we, the voices in my head, right? Like the personalities that you hold. We're not gonna do that right now. We're just gonna be quiet.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  What's the worst voice that you have? And what's the best voice?

• 35:15Speaker 02

  I think the best voice is the one that just like puts a smile on my face. I went for a run yesterday morning and I was like, I think everyone on the street right now must think I'm a lunatic, because it's the most quiet voice that just trans, I was just smiling. I'm like running up a huge hill, just smiling, just so happy and at peace. It's the voice that almost doesn't have a voice. It's the voice that just keeps all the other voices quiet. I think the worst voice is the one that's hypercritical. Whether it's like, you didn't meditate today. Hmm, that's a problem. Or this or that, or you're not this enough, you're not that enough, or you could have, coulda, woulda, shoulda. And I think the best voice is the one that's like, oh, I see you, shh, we're gonna be quiet.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Just be quiet. And I think talking about an acknowledgement is a big part of it. Because whether you're talking about working out, you're talking about building a business, you're talking about finding your calling and just in the pursuit of engaging with it. What do they say? Like showing up is 80% or 90% of it? And like learning to, showing up, I think, is letting that, your strongest, most powerful voice, which is your quieting voice, tell everything else to be quiet.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Percentage wise, throughout your day, what's the percentage of the critical voice versus the positive voice, would you say?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  Depends on the day. I am at my best when I am...

• 36:40Speaker 02

  I know that my relationship with myself is that I'm at my best when I'm in just like a little over my head. Where my drive to be like, you gotta keep your head up above water, you gotta keep your head up above water, is like my middle voice that keeps the critical voice quiet. So I'd say the critical voice comes out most at night and in the morning, when I'm quiet and I'm by myself. I try to keep it out of the way the rest of the day by going like, hey, great, why don't you build this bakery into this big, magic, magnificent thing?

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  And when I'm focused on that, it can, it'll usually quell everything else, especially the voice that you're like.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  Well, because you're just focused on taking action and making it happen.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm focused, I have my team, I want to serve them, I want them to feel motivated. I want to push them so that they're motivating themselves. I have all these other things I'm worried about that are in front of me.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  As opposed to letting that. Yeah, exactly.

• 37:38Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that interesting that you say you love being an introvert, but the times you're alone, you're the most critical person?

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Makes no sense, right?

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  But you like being alone?

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  Why do you like being alone if you're critical of yourself?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  I think it's, it's the time that I get to know myself most. I think when you're out, when I'm out all the time, I don't have like a stopping point to check in with myself, because I'm just like, go, go, go, go, go. And that stopping point to check in with myself is the place where I have the opportunity to feel the most accomplished. Because I don't need, I don't want or need somebody else's recognition to tell me about me and where I'm at and how I'm feeling about the job that I'm doing. It's the place where I have the opportunity for that when I'm alone, but the tricky part is it's also the place where like the bad voices have the opportunity to sneak into.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Huh. Do you think you would be as driven and successful as you are if you weren't critical in those alone times?

• 38:45Speaker 02

  No.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Because I wouldn't have my own measure, right? Like, if you don't have your own measure of what right from wrong is, what you want to set up, where you're falling short, then how do you know? Then you have no measure, then good and bad is all the same thing, right? And wrong is all the same thing. But it's also tricky because you have to be a person in the world and you can't just measure your own feedback for yourself. One of the big things that I've really learned over the past 10 years is it's easy to get defensive when you're like, "No, I'm my own worst enemy, so I don't actually need you to give me feedback," right? And to open yourself up a bit more to start to understand the things you don't know. You only know what you know. You don't know what you don't know.

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  That's an interesting balance.

• 39:33Lewis Howes?

  So wait, did you say you don't care about the approval of anyone else?

• 39:38Speaker 02

  I don't, that's not how I measure my own success. I think that approval, winning awards, this and that, I think that those are things that are like nice to haves. They're nice to haves for my team. Sometimes I think about my day or the commitments I make in terms of like, I'm not, it's not just me anymore, right? Like, there are people that show up every single day and make a promise. And I need to make a promise to me and to Milk Bar. And it's really important that that's, that it's a two-way street, that I'm making a promise to them. But also, if something bad comes out, if a bad piece, if a piece of criticism comes out, it doesn't, it also can't mean that you're a total failure.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  You have to find a space for those two things to exist. I think I always say to the team, like, their perception is our reality. If someone has something positive to say, that's great, but that can't be the only thing. But also, if someone has something negative to say, there's truth somewhere in it, and that's an opportunity. And we shouldn't be, we shouldn't have our guards up so much where we're only barometers of success and measure that we're not open to that.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  That's where you start to really feel like you're growing and blossoming a bit more. It's a scary place to be, but it's a really good place to be, too.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest thing you've learned about yourself in the last 11 years?

• 41:03Speaker 02

  That's a good one. The biggest thing that I've learned about myself is that I only know what I know. And some days, that's a lot, and some days, it's just the beginning. And that's a, that I think comes from, you know, when you're in your twenties, you're feeling great about life, you're feeling yourself like big time. And that, it's such an empowering, like, decade of years. And in a really beautiful way, it's so easy to be like, to feel great and feel big. And to very quickly have that turn into like defense or closing yourself off to all of the things that you will surely learn in your thirties and in your forties,

• 41:48Speaker 02

  or whatever it is. And I think when people say, when people ask like, what's your biggest mistake? Would you ever change anything? And it's like, no, but I would love to be able to go back to my twenties and just like tap myself and be like, hey girlfriends, like what you're doing is great and keep going. But like, let people in, let the conflict in a little bit more, let the criticism in a little bit more, because you're so much better off when you do.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  Really? So you weren't letting any criticism in?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I think I was doing the like, I'm on my long distance run, shh, like I've got my armor on, every day is a battle, opening this business and going and like, I have to have my back first, like on an extra, extra, extra level. And I think the second you start to actually open yourself up to let other people be a part of that dream and that vision and that business in your life, when you let people be with you, you're so much better for it. And so I was a bit more, I'm, I'm a very stubborn person in general, but I was incredibly stubborn in my twenties. And stubborn is what, I mean, on, on the tiniest purse string

• 43:01Speaker 02

  is also what drove me to make Milk Bar what it is and why Milk Bar is what it is on many levels, but. It's opportunity and threat at the same time. Like if I didn't have that, like no one gets to tell me who I am and who I'm not, what I'm capable of, what's possible. I mean, in 2008, someone being like, "You have how much money in your bank account? You're gonna open a bakery?" That sounds like a really bad idea.

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  I mean, my sweet parents were like, "Oh, my God. We gave you so much opportunity. Why do you want to go work in kitchens? And why this bakery? Like, can't you go be like a doctor or a lawyer? Can't you do the safe thing?" And I needed, I both needed to be really stubborn and closed-minded from other people's opinions to be able to hear myself. But at the same time, I look back and go, "Oh, my God. What worked for me back then does not work for me today. And if I hadn't figured it out, would have been holding me back so much."

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  What are you most proud of that you've done?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  This is like, I feel like such a hilarious old lady saying it. Well, one of my biggest pieces of pride from the past few months was we just started offering a 401(k) program at Milk Bar, which is like, when you work in restaurants, you give it your all. It's a labor of love. Restaurant, like the word restaurant is restorative, right? Like, people come to be restored. But in a really tricky way, people don't typically, you don't take care of yourself because you're working crazy long hours on your feet all the time. It's stressful and strenuous and yelly and screamy usually, and like all of these things. And there's typically not a program put in place to take, your job is to restore all these other people, and that's why you love doing it.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  You love feeding and nurturing. But who has your back? I think is the question that I started asking myself or realizing. And that was like, we offer health insurance and maternity and paternity and all of these other things. But the 401(k) for me was, like, what if, when you came into the doors of Milk Bar, you never had to write? You never had to go for another job interview? You never had to write another resume? Like, what if? When we grew, you grew. What if Milk Bar is a true reflection of all the people that work in it? And in order to do that, you gotta come in and make a promise every day, but I gotta make a promise to you. And I wanna have your back. And I think that's the one thing when you work in the food industry. You don't really think about the future

• 45:31Speaker 02

  'cause you're just so happy in this labor of love. And that was, for me, like the ultimate. Took a long time, and it's not cheap, and it is so worth it. And it's like, that part of it is the funniest. The funniest part of it, 'cause looking back 10 years ago, I mean, I would never, it wouldn't even occur to me, that I thought I was opening this bakery because I love to feed people and be a part of people's lives. And I do. I think the people's lives that I underestimated, I would become obsessed with being a part of, was my own teams. Was the people that helped me bring it to life.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  How many people are working in Milk Bar?

• 46:08Speaker 02

  320, 30?

• 46:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  It grows every day.

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  It's crazy.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  300 people?

• 46:14Speaker 02

  And super cool.

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:17Lewis Howes?

  The first one started with like four or five of you?

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  17 locations. So you have people working in the storefront, and then you have people working in the, I guess, what do we call it? The bakeries?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, in the kitchens. We have people that run like the delivery teams, driving the cookies, and the cakes, and the pies. We have the shipping. Yeah, you're on it. You're like, you're already ready to be the director of operations of Milk Bar. Shipping and fulfillment. And then we have the other like sticky teams of, when we're at like an Oscar party, the stores are still open and this, that, and the other. And so we have so many other unsung heroes on the team as well.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  Like caterers that are going to these events, wow.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  They'll like show up high-kicking and high-fiving, and they work their butts off so that when they're there, they have a blast, and they want you to have a blast too.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kinda crazy.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  When do you feel the most loved?

• 47:09Speaker 02

  When do I feel the most loved? I feel the most loved when I receive a care package from my mom.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  She sends me, I'm like technically a grown up. She sends me, it sounds funny, but like she sends me a care package. It's usually once a month or once every two months. She sees me in obviously a very true form of myself. She's known me my entire life. She sends me, I kid you not, a bag of like little candy, like almost penny candy. So like if it's, you know, it's a little bag of Reese's Pieces or it's a tiny little Tux bar, whatever, she sends me that. She typically sends me a baked good. Like she'll send me a nine by nine square aluminum pan of like gooey butter cake, brownie, whatever. And she knows that I like everything a little, you know, from the

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  I love the gooiness.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Underbaked, so it has to be underbaked. And so then usually it's like

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Hand to the edges.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  No, and so it's usually all smushed on one side because she doesn't have like a master shipping warehouse the way that we do, right? She has, it's always a bunch of, she lives in the DC area, a bunch of DC food sections, which is her way of pursuing me being like, I get it and I support your dream. She always writes me a letter and it's always on some random piece of scrap paper because she's totally a waste not want not lady. And it's about whatever random thing she was doing that day, right? There's nothing big about it. It's just the texture of that day and that moment in life. And then maybe there's like a baby quilt because we have this tradition in our family. My family, they're all sewers and quilters and they make baby quilts.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  For so anyone that we know that's having a baby gets a baby quilt that's made by hand by the women in my family. It's these layers and blankets of like visibility and acceptance. That's when I feel the most loved because it's like, it feels like I know that I've been the same person since the moment I left home. I've been the same person. She sends the same care package and it doesn't matter to her. It doesn't matter to her that she's sending it to this huge office in New York City now. It doesn't matter to her that she's sending a baked good that's totally smushed on one side to a place that has plenty of baked goods. It doesn't matter to her. That's when I feel the most loved because I feel the most seen.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  You can feel the most seen by your mom.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's always in a cardboard box that's been used six times. You know, like the Sharpie on the side, like it's maybe it was like an Amazon package and then it was this and then it was that. And I love it because she's kind of, she's also very stubborn where she's like, oh, I see you. Oh, I see you. And it's, it also for me is like the best, I feel the most loved because it's also the biggest anchor for me in a day. To get that, to get that, to open it, to share it with the team, to put the newspaper things out, people are like, what is this? And it's like, my mom, and I usually do like the roll of the eye, like, you know, I can't take her anywhere kind of thing, but.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  It reminds me of camp. When I was growing up, I go to camp, I would get care packages and it reminds me of home and feeling loved as well. There needs to be a business around care packages.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  I mean, milkbarstore.com. That for me, that for me is like, the other part of Milk Bar is what we do online that a lot of people know, but I think we're still getting out is the, it's easy from a business standpoint to be like, it's e-comm, right? Like, that's the business term, but for me, it's like the spirit of a care package of.

• 50:46Lewis Howes?

  Feeling loved and seen and home.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and some people like in a beautiful way, like send themselves a cake. And they're like, hey, girl.

• 50:52Lewis Howes?

  Send themself a cake.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Keep doing it.

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  You can see it, you can see it as we're packing it and for me, that's like.

• 50:57Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  That's fuel, that's like the inspiration.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  How many, so these are care packages, you can send yourself anything or do you have kind of like pre-planned?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  We have, you can send almost anything on our menu. We don't ship the, the soft, the cereal milk soft serve, but we ship pretty much anything else.

• 51:12Lewis Howes?

  Do you guys do like scrap paper notes? Do you do quilts?

• 51:15Speaker 02

  We'll write a note, I might, we should totally do quilts. My mom would be like, girlfriend.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  Put like a little, little mini square.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  I do, well, I send.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  And a little sort of Reese's PCs, like every box gets like a little candy thing.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Oh my God, do you want to be the creative director of Milk Bar? We'd make a great team.

• 51:29Lewis Howes?

  I'm telling you, this would go even better, I think. If you added like little Reese's PCs or a Kit Kat or whatever it is, like every box got just a little thing of candy. Every box got a little square of a quilt and a little wrapped up note, just like a quote.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 51:43Lewis Howes?

  Something that's like you're loved and seen.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  I love this.

• 51:45Lewis Howes?

  And it adds it more like homey.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  I got you.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Less corporate-y, you know, feeling.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, right? Like, I got you.

• 51:51Lewis Howes?

  And the batter's got to get a little bit to the side, yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I feel like someone would be mad if their crack pie was like a little, maybe like, that's not what it looked like in the picture when I ordered it. Okay, fine. But yeah, the like, what else goes in the box is the question that hilariously, we're asking ourselves. And that's the fun part of building the business too, is like bringing that part of being seen in. Or sometimes the team is like, Christina, we can't do that. And asking like, but why, but why can't we? Tell me why.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  You couldn't do cereal milk either.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, there you go. Also, you couldn't pay rent off of selling three dollar cookies. But somehow we do it.

• 52:29Lewis Howes?

  So how many box of care packages do you ship a day? Do you know?

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh, it depends. Over the holiday season, I mean, hundreds of thousands. We this, this past holiday season was our biggest one. And we, the only way we could make it work, even in our big kitchen in New York, because we ship some out of LA, the LA kitchen, some of the, and the rest out of the New York City kitchen. We hired these trucks that were refrigerated to literally just drive around to keep the packages cold. Until UPS or FedEx or the postal service came to pick it up.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Because you didn't have enough freezer space.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  We don't have enough fridge or freezer space, right? Like, that's, that's when you're like, this is the. Yeah, and also like, this is the coolest thing. And I look at that and I go, I wonder if 10 year old Christina got one of those in the mail? And it's like, probably not, we gotta keep going. But that was like, that's, and that's the like, we make things funny to keep it real. Obviously, it's stressful trying to figure that out, plan for it. Package, day and night. But when we take a step back being like, we literally had trucks driving around our kitchens to keep the packages cold. Because that's how many people came out for their care, for their holiday care package.

• 53:46Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. I've got three final questions for you. This one's called the three truths.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  So imagine you've accomplished everything you've ever dreamed of. And every dream you get closer to, you have to reinvent the new dream and dream bigger. And you achieve everything you want that you can think of. But one day, you have to go. You know, it could be 100 years from now, it could be whenever.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  I have to say goodbye to the world.

• 54:12Lewis Howes?

  Little, gotta go to, yeah, another place, wherever you go to.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  You gotta die. And you've accomplished everything. And for whatever reason, all of your message that you put out to the world, this interview, videos, Netflix, whatever books, everything you've put out in the world, you've got to take it all with you. So no one has your message anymore. No one has like your words, written, audio, video. But you get to write down on a piece of paper, this final day, three things you know to be true about all of the lessons you've learned, that you would share with the world. Your three truths or lessons, what would you say are yours?

• 54:49Speaker 02

  I showed up, I meant it, I made it better. That and like a really, I thought, I was like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna do this? That's, that is my measure of a day. And, and similar to like, I like to think I meditate every day. I don't, I try to do it regularly. The thing I try and do regularly is when I check in with myself before I go to bed, and I'm like looking to my own internal voice is like, did you show up, did you mean it? More and more than anything else, did you make it better? And that can be, it's applicable to everything, big and small, especially the small.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:28Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask the final two questions, how can I, how can we support you? Where can we follow you? How can we show up to Milk Bar in person, online?

• 55:35Speaker 02

  I love, you gotta come hang out.

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  I know, I need to go to the store. She lives right across the street from, in, in Miracle Mile area, yeah.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  Keep, get that care package, okay.

• 55:45Lewis Howes?

  So we can get her a care package online.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, MilkBarStore.com is our handle, is our website. All of our social handles, our website. I, it, my handle's just my first, last name, Christina Tozzi. You can go to ChristinaTozzi.com. I have a bi-weekly newsletter that I try to just show up, mean it, and make it better in the world and just kind of like share my own personal path of whatever random thing I find joy in, in the moment, or I discovered in my week or two. Come out and visit us in the stores. For me, it's like, come out in the morning, come out late at night, like come and see us and show up and we want to connect with you. Let us connect with you. Show up and, don't show up prepared, almost. That's like my request. Show up unprepared, show up curious,

• 56:29Speaker 02

  show up like, ready to take a leap with us. Or send someone some love in the mail.

• 56:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's an experience, so make sure you guys go and check it out. Try, sample a few things. What are the main cities you guys are in? New York, LA?

• 56:42Speaker 02

  New York, LA, DC. Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan.

• 56:47Lewis Howes?

  Nice.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  And we have a fun little refrigerated cube of a store in Toronto.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Cool.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  Any expansion in the Midwest?

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, in Boston. What am I talking about? We just opened a store in Boston. I was just there.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  This is the like, what day of the week is it? I don't even know. Boston, Harvard Square.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  Are you gonna open up in the Midwest at all?

• 57:09Speaker 02

  I mean, that's my Christina's, like inspiring the Christina's a 10-year-old. What is that? How does Milk Bar get to the Midwest? For me, that's where it all began. That's why the corn cookie exists. Growing up in the cornfields of Ohio is like, that is the ultimate love letter. That's when we'll know. That's one of the dreams. How do we get Milk Bar to the Midwest?

• 57:28Lewis Howes?

  When you open it up in Columbus, I'll go there.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  We'll all show up for the opening, right?

• 57:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm in, I'm in. I want to acknowledge you Christina for your creativity, your curiosity and for showing up.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 57:41Lewis Howes?

  I think it's hard coming from the Midwest and having these big dreams and actually pursuing it. You pursued a craft that you thought you were supposed to take for so many years. And you realize, okay, this is a great job, but it's not where I ultimately want to be. And everyone, almost everyone said it was kind of crazy to go make cookies now. But you did it anyways and look what you've created. And you've inspired so many people, so I acknowledge you for everything. I acknowledge you for showing up as a rainbow, even though I know you said there's a lot of darkness that happens day to day and challenges you have to go through. And the grit that you have to have to make this happen after 11 years. It's a lot of work, so I acknowledge you for all the work you've done. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 58:31Speaker 02

  I think my definition of greatness is being able to sit with myself and smile. Be happy, to find happiness in just being. Alone, because I'm an introvert.

• 58:48Lewis Howes?

  Being happy alone, yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  For me, that's greatness. That's something I always wanted to make sure I had in life. And if that's what I leave as my mark or the thing that I have that I know I checked off, that is greatness for me.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  Christina, thank you. Appreciate it.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode with the incredible Christina Tosi of Milk Bar. Again, I'm so inspired by her story. Check out all of her information that we talked about. Make sure to follow her on social media as well, because she's got some great stuff. And check out one of her locations. Milk Bar has been blowing up. You can get it online. You can go to a location, one of her stores, and try the full experience in person, and you may get addicted, I'm telling you. I can eat their cookies, their balls, their cakes, everything. It is so addictive. Make sure to check it out ASAP. Get someone a gift as well. You can buy a gift for someone online, and that'll go a long way. Again, make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/778

• 59:53Speaker 00

  if you enjoyed this, and tag myself, @lewishouse on Instagram, and connect with Christina Tosi as well, and let her know what you thought. And always remember, you don't have to have everything figured out when you get started. So many people are crippled by making a decision on how to launch their business, or grow their business, or start a new project. But this analysis paralysis is really what holds you back, because you're never going to have it perfect at the start. All businesses evolve, all projects grow, and transform and innovate. You trying to overanalyze and make everything perfect right away is only wasting time. The quicker you start, the faster you go. You're going

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  to learn quickly, and you can adjust quickly. Just don't stay stuck in your ways if it's not working right away. Be willing to adapt and evolve. And that's something I love about Christina. She was willing to try and innovate and be creative. And her creativity grew, and so did her business along the way. So I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, Georgia O'Keeffe at the beginning said, "Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant." There is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.

• 1:01:07Speaker 00

  I hope you guys enjoyed this one and as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.