Ep. 33 Behind the Scenes with Sara Well of Our Best Bites

I'm Lacey Jones, and this is Elevate the Individual. Episode 33 behind the Scenes with Sara Wells of our best Bites Happy March. It is officially my favorite month of the year. I love as we pull out the doom and gloom of winter and into the promise of spring. Yes, we will have a little more rain around here, but we're also going to have a little more sunshine and light. Fingers crossed, right? I love when we get to crunch through the frosty ground in the morning, taking the kids to school, and you can see the buds popping through and that little greenery that pokes through all the brown ugly sticks, right? It's that promise of spring and starting anew and afresh. So it's a fun time. It's extra fun. This year, I'll be hosting our first multi day event. This is a special webinar. It starts March 13, goes through the 17th. It's 1 hour a day. We'll do some teaching and live coaching, and I'll go over all of that at the end of this episode. So be sure to stick with it to the end because there's a fun little bonus for today's listeners when you sign up to join us for that. So just kind of put that in the back of your mind as you listen today. That'll be March 13 through the 17th.

And what we're going to do now.

Is we're going to dig into our conversation with Sara Wells of Our Best Bites. Sara co founded Our Best Bites in 2008 with her then business partner, Ms. Kate Jones, and she's the co author of three bestselling cookbooks you probably have them in your cupboards right now and have made plenty of recipes that she has featured on her website. Her work has also been featured in many local and national news outlets and publications such as Parenting Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Cooking, The Rachel Ray Show, and The New York Times. She is a very gifted speaker and teacher and enjoys both collaborating with national brands on creative projects and also connecting with women on a more personal level, which is what you'll hear today in our conversation. And she really does just love showing the everyday realities of motherhood via social media and then helping others with solutions in the kitchen to bring joy and efficiency to their lives. So she's been a speaker, she's an instructor, a brand ambassador. She is a wife to her husband, Eric, and they live in Boise, Idaho, with their four sons and their havanese pup, Finn. So when she's not in the kitchen, she loves to watch Hallmark movies, paint and work in her garden, putting her horticulture degree to good. I imagine you know, we did not talk about this, but I imagine that she loves spring as well as we get all those plants rocking for the year. But we'll dive into the conversation. Then again, just stay tuned for more information on that webinar.

Okay, I need to know first what your favorite food group is.

Oh, my gosh. Well, desserts, probably. Is that a food group that you're thinking of?

Yeah, of course it's a food group.

I love baking and sweets and treats are probably my love language, if we're being honest.

Okay, so this goes into the next question. If you could choose one either baking or cooking for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Well, I'd probably do cooking. Really?

I mean, I'd probably be logical about.

It and realize I can't live off cookies all the time. So I would say I love cooking Latin food. That would be like my favorite. I never get tired of that. So I would say we eat that like most on the regular at our house.

And I would probably go with that.

Okay, that was a surprise. Okay. Also along the same lines, if you had to get rid of flour or.

Sugar oh, gosh, probably sugar because everyone says it's going to kill you, but I don't know, it wouldn't be very delicious. So maybe if we're all going to die anyway, let's just go for it.

Go for flour.

I'll bitch the flour.

Yeah. Hey, but here's my thing, because I.

Was thinking about this, like sugar, if you got rid of it, there's a lot of sweeteners that you use, true flowers, which one's easier to substitute for.

Well, that's true. There's a lot of other flour too, though. Yeah, we could all go gluten free.

That's right.

That's a toughie. Let's hope we'll never have to do that.

Okay, so then let's kind of merge into our topic for today of children. So what is your favorite age that you've experienced so far with your children?

Oh, gosh. Well, for the longest time, I have always said that age four is my favorite. I think four year olds are just the best ever. They're so, like, young and adorable and cute, but at four, they can start having personalities and they say the funniest things. And I used to babysit a lot when I was younger and little, four year olds were my absolute favorite. And now that my kids have grown up, though, I'm genuinely enjoying the teenagers, too. I think it's so cool to see them just develop into their own people. You just start to get this hint of who they really are and what they're going to be like as adults. And I think that's just kind of exhilarating. And I love that.

And I would say specifically, we have.

This little tradition we started with my oldest. We take them on, like we call it the teenager trip. It's like eigth grade ish. And we found it's like the time when they're just becoming a teenager, so they're like cool and fun to hang out with, but they're not an old enough teenager to hate being with their it's like the sweet spot. So I found that to be really great.

Yeah. Okay.

So is there an age that you would love to skip?

Oh, gosh, well, I don't know. Sometimes I could name all the current ages of my children. No, I mean, you know, it's tricky, those middle school years. That's tricky.

I feel like I think that's when.

They start trying to figure out who they are, and sometimes that goes really well, and sometimes they're just trying out things that maybe isn't the way they're going to go. And you wish they could just skip over those. Maybe that's just the time I wish I could have skipped over because I hated those years. But I think that's tricky for everyone.

Okay. And you mentioned you have boys kind of all in different ages right now. So maybe introduce a little bit of your boys and how old they are. Where are you at in life right now?

Yeah, so I'm a mom to four boys, and for the boy moms, Amen, my oldest is 17 and he's a junior in high school. So we're just entering all of those big decision things that we need to be thinking about. And then I have a freshman in high school who's 15. And then I have a 7th grader.

Who'S twelve, almost 13.

And then we have a little bit of a gap, and I have a little eight year old who's in second grade.

So our boys totally line up.

They do, yeah. I was thinking that you just got one more in there. Right. And probably in my gap, maybe. Yeah.

So we have the fifth grader in your gap year. And so yeah, we have same grades. All that jazz.

So we're in. Loving the fun. Yeah. Okay.

So let's go back to the beginning of our best bites. How did this all start? Where were you at mentally, emotionally, family wise, family status? Like, where were you at when we started this?

Yeah.

All this I say we you started this?

Well, yeah, no, we it was me.

And my business partner and friend, Kate.

Jones, who, you know, because she's your sister in law. Because I have, like, you know, people have six degrees of Kevin Bacon. I have six degrees.

Lacey jones.

We have so many interesting connections.

And I just remembered the other day when I was getting ready for this, I was like, wait, you knew my brother?

Yes. Yeah.

So you know Seth from growing up and around the Joneses, my sister in law, you know, my brother.

Yep.

Went to did college. Whole. We'll do all let's do it.

Okay.

So I, of course, grew up with your husband's family. So when you guys got married, I heard your name, I made the connection that your cousins, all your cousins, were my friends. My freshman year, we were all in the same apartment complex, dorms. I guess that was fun, all those buddies. And then after I went on a LDS mission right. I came back and then I was in the same college program as your.

Brother, and your older brother I think.

Went through that program too.

So my husband as well is friends.

With one of your brothers. And then I moved to Idaho and I found have another friend that also told me that she was your cousin. I'm like, of course you are.

Oh Jenny, I forgot about that.

And then Kate, of course, who we did not meet through you or your husband and she's your sister in law. We met independently on like a parenting board and became friends and then she's like, wait a know we made that. Yeah, so funny. It just keeps weaving through anyway wild.

Yeah. So like and you go back to.

Like you guys have shared your story before, how you and Kate started our Best Bites and met on that. What was it? Like a parenting board or what was it?

It was like a parenting board for new moms. BBC.com babysitter.com used to be really big.

They had all these little forums.

So we had babies the same age kind of. And so we were on there just connecting and that back then it was a screen name so nobody knew your name. Right? And so we totally became friends and actually connected over a mutual love of food as well. We were always talking about that and then just through some things that I.

Had shared on there, just kind of.

Gave her hints to who I was. She figured it out. And if you know Kate, she's such a like she's a sleuth. That's one of her gifts. She's like, you're Sara, I know who you are and you so it was so know. So back to your original know. I was a young mom and I had one toddler and then I was pregnant with my second son and I graduated college, got married.

I think we got married like a.

Couple of weeks apart actually. Right.

And then we had moved away and.

My husband was in grad school and I had my first real job and that was so fun and fulfilling. And then I stepped away from that to have kids. And so I had been home for a couple of years just being a.

Mom and it was Kate's, your sister.

In law and my friend's idea, she's like there's this new thing and people are posting pictures of their food on the internet.

You can just hear I'm sorry, as.

You talk, just hear it.

Right.

Why? And we had this mutual love of food and cooking. We're always sharing recipes and so we were both young moms, we were probably very tired. As I look back on that time of my life, meaning you remember that grind, right? And so back then blogging was not a business. That's not why people started a blog. It was really the platform for creativity, for sharing. I think it's really the birthplace of where social media has gone now. But that's kind of how blogging used to be. That's where the community and people would leave all the comments. You start connecting with people from all over. So we did it just as a hobby, and it was a project and, like, a passion and something that gave us a purpose outside of motherhood, something to be working on and dating on and brought so much just this extra little pump of fulfillment that I think we both needed and loved. And that's really how it started and grew, and we created a community there. People were reading from all over, and I think that was really inspiring to me. When we first started and first started gaining a community and an audience, it was connecting. And people would say, oh, this has affected my family.

Why?

You've helped you so much. I love cooking now. This is more enjoyable now. And so that really starting to feel that sense of serving people and helping and building other people's families. And that also built those connections and community, which is how our business just started and then grew from there.

Yeah.

And you just covered all of my questions for the podcast right there, like, all in one answer, so okay, amen we're done? No, but okay. So you talked about growing this business, growing the community. You're also growing a family at that time. So how did you handle all the demands, all the plates, everything?

Yeah, it was tricky. And that's been a process of what, like, 16 years now, of learning how to balance that. It's a question I get a lot, and it's something that I had to intentionally work on. And I think any entrepreneur, you yourself probably knows the difference between you're not going to a job where you can clock in and out. It can literally take over your life if you let it. And so from the very start, one thing maybe in my case is my family grew up with this with their mom as like, a business owner, blogger as well, since I started it when my kids are really young. It's something that popped in later and I had to adjust. I literally did it on the road all the way. And so I learned really early on just how to set those boundaries and priorities and time block and time management and all of those things. And sometimes I've done it really well, sometimes I haven't. Sometimes I have to course correct and remember where everything needs to sit.

But, yeah, my kids grew up with.

That and they learned along with me, really.

So you talk about boundaries. Like, do you have office hours? How do you manage the structure of your day as you balance all kid demands and work demands?

Yeah, it was really difficult and challenging for me when my kids were younger and I had babies and toddlers at.

Home to do it simultaneously.

I am, I think, now a gift and privilege that all my kids are in school, and so that kind of helps set some natural boundaries. Right. And so for me, my work is my work. My kids are gone. That's what I'm focusing on during the day. And I aim I'm not always successful, but I really aim to 04:00 is when my last kiddo gets home, and 04:00 is kind of when I try to turn off that side of my brain and my life and shut my office door. So I just want to be, like, 100% present as mom, and sometimes things fill over like they do and everything, but for the most part, that's what I try to do, is kind of structure my day with their school day.

Well, and what's nice is when you do need to put on the mom hat a little bit more, even during the day, you do have that opportunity to do that because you've grown this and developed it to a place where it serves kind of the different purposes or roles that you want to fill with that. Okay, I'm looking at some of my questions here. So you've gone from, like, babies and toddlers and adolescents and teenagers. And when you're a mom, thankfully, they don't just hand us a teenager right, like, and say good luck. I mean, some people do. Some people take on that role either through foster parenting or adoption or life events. But you were handed a baby. You started with a baby. How have you grown as a mother as your kids have grown?

Yeah, I think we talk a lot about that shift in a child's life from baby in all the different stages through adolescence and into the teen years. But maybe sometimes we fail to recognize the growth we naturally go through as people right. As humans and as parents. And I feel my husband and I talk about this often, sometimes in a humorous way, like, oh, gosh, remember years ago when we used to think this, or we used to have these expectations for our kids. And so I think I'm a different person in a good way now than I was 17 years ago when I had my first baby and maybe was a little bit of a naive mom. I mean, who knows? We know what we know when we're new parents. And so as we as women and mothers and dads and humans just grow up and gain more life experience and more knowledge, that gives you perspective. And I think that perspective mirrors what your children are needing as they grow up as well. And you're growing together, and sometimes you don't even realize that unless you really take a look back at how you've grown as a person, too. So I think that happens kind of naturally.

Yeah, I had a thought while you were talking.

Oh.

Because you are growing and developing as a mom, which can kind of be a personal thing right within the walls of your home. Sometimes you're out in public, the grocery store, and you're managing all that kind of stuff, but you've also grown as mom and a businesswoman in the public eye and online. And so what you've posted 17 years ago, or you may have said something or had a thought, had a belief 17 years ago, and maybe you've grown and developed since that time and just something that's different. How do you manage being in the public eye while you're growing as a woman, a mom, a businesswoman, all of it?

Yeah. You know what's interesting, and Kate and I had talked about this a lot, and Kate, she ran my business with me. We're still good friends, but through last year, right, when I purchased my half the business for her half. So I'm doing that on my own now. But before, we would often laugh at.

Like we look back, right?

Our blog is so old that there's a lot of old content that hasn't been touched in 15 years, so 16 years. So when we go back sometimes and we'll read the things we used to write, and sometimes it's like, oh, my gosh, that was so cringey. Or sometimes I think, oh, I forgot I used to think that way or feel that way. It's so interesting that as I've grown, my audience has grown, too, which is so interesting. And the type of content that was useful to me as a mom of toddlers is so different than what I need now. And so I really feel like my audience has grown up with me because when we started it, they were my peers, right? They were all these people in the same stage of life. And so we've grown up together, which has created this amazing bond within my community. And of course, you collect people along the way. And to answer your question, too, I'm also really careful about what I say online. Really, I am. And just I'm always not to the point where I'm overly sensitive about what somebody might be offended by or things like that, but I am just really careful. More in a way like, hey, this might be how I feel really strongly about something right now. But maybe when I have a little more experience or my kids are in a different stage, I'm going to feel differently. So I try to always be careful about how I share those things, I guess would be a better way to put it, to make sure I'm leaving myself open for growth in the public eye as well. That's a good thing.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's like you and great perspective. Now we're raising kids and teenagers in the public eye and on social media and that sort of thing. And so how do you think or I guess, what do mothers need at this point in the world in a time that we live in? What do they need to help their kids kind of navigate today's tricky world in some areas.

I think if you could sum it up in one word, I think it would be connection.

We need to connect.

I think I wrote down I've been taking notes.

We're talking.

I'm like, all right, connection and creativity. Okay, connection. All right, go for it.

Yes, you've got to connect.

Right?

And I think sometimes as parents of any gender, any age, you've got a generation gap. And looking specifically at teenagers, it's so easy to kind of judge their life.

Experience or maybe parent them in a.

Way that parallels your experience as a teenager when you were a teenager, because that's what we know. And I have to constantly remind myself their experience is not the same as my experience. And so there's this generation gap. But then you've also, when you're like us and you're a mom of boys, there's a gender gap, too.

Very much so.

It's that first point of like, okay, I need to connect with this person who is 20 years younger than me, and I also need to connect with somebody who's a boy, and I've never been a boy, so how do we do these things? And with teenagers, I think you don't have to connect perfectly to connect. And I can only share from my personal experience, and I'm no parenting expert. I'm learning along the way like everyone else, but I have just learned through the years, number one, to not be so quick to come to judgment, so on, just silly things like the haircuts that I think are ridiculous, right?

Okay.

I know we could probably have a whole haircuts, but first I'm like, what are you doing? This is ridiculous. This is silly. And I have shifted that, and I'm like, you know what? This is what all the boys their age, this is what all their hair looks like.

And if that's what they like, different than what I thought it should look.

And it's great and so cool. If that's the haircut you love, hey, let me show you some products that I love that will probably help your crazy hair and that boom. Connection. Right? They know I'm not going to be the old lady saying your haircut is dumb. Well, meet them where they're at. Okay, so if they're wearing they need to wear their plaid pajama pants to school.

Cool.

Okay, let's shopping and buy you a variety of plaid pajama pants so you have more.

That's awesome.

I love that. Okay, so first of all, you're in Idaho, in Meridian. I'm up in Seattle, and I see this all the time with moms that I coach and different forums I'm part of.

And the issues they bring up is.

Usually the hair, the pajama pants, the dusty crocs, the hoodies. All right. You're nailing all of it. And so, yeah, if you're going to wear pajama pants, let's get you variety.

Go for it.

Right? I think that you've got to just.

Lean into those things. And then also I think it's also really easy to dismiss some things or think maybe it's so far out of your realm, you have no idea what's going on. And maybe that's like, kids on social media or trends that they're into or the things they like to watch on know my kids, they'll watch YouTube all the time just on our family TV. And while it's annoying sometimes, other times just like, go sit down and be like, cool. What are you guys into? Like, why is this funny to you? We watch together, meet them where they're at. Maybe they have interest. That is not your favorite interest. Maybe it's a sport you're not really into, but you go and you learn about it, and you learn all these things about them in the process. I think I'll give you one kind of funny example.

And my kids are all so four.

Boys are all very into video games. And maybe this circles back to our last point of the things as a young, naive mom that I was like, my kids will never play video games with guns.

I think you posted that somewhere on your blog.

Yeah. So my kids all they love Xbox. We're an Xbox family. They all have Xboxes, which I realize sounds excessive, but we've got one in our bonus room and one in the game room. My husband has his in his office, and my husband will play he plays, like, Call of Duty with my older teenage boys. And so they're all in different rooms on their headsets, and they totally have their little Call of Duty family. And my brother plays with them, some of my husband's college roommates and then my teen's friends. And years ago, a few years ago, when I think they were like, older middle schoolers, my husband said he's like, this has been the best thing, because stuff that my remember we were talking about that awkward age stuff our teen year old would never, will never in person talk about. He's like, you're on a headset. You get in there with all the boys, and he's playing with his other teen friends. He's like, it's just all this big conversation. They're open. They talk about stuff at school. They talk about their friends. They talk about girls. We found it was this bizarrely, natural place to connect with our boys. I say we so I'm not doing this, but right.

So are you on your Xbox, Sara.

And with your name? My screen name. But while I used to just whine about it and like, you guys shouldn't be playing these games, and I'm like, you know what? This is this odd way that I never would have expected, that my kids connect, and my boys at different ages play things together, and my husband connects with them in that way. And it's just been this funny little thing that works for our family.

And my husband's had great talks with.

My boys as they're just in that setting of in this virtual world together, hanging out. I think that's just an example of meeting them where they're at, right. Or if they're on an app, maybe on their phones. Get on that app too. You sure better be their friends if they're on there, right. Like they're seeing do what they're doing.

Get a sense of what's going on.

In their world and meet them there. Really?

Which is like I think you have to be open. Because growing up, we weren't necessarily a gaming family, right. We had an atari. And to really date ourselves, we had the Atari. That was a gift from the cousins one Christmas. And then we had to go to the video store, and we rented a Nintendo for a week. And my mom got super ticked off because the brothers were fighting. She packed that thing up and she returned it early, even though we had paid for a week of rental on the Nintendo. So I'm someone who has grown up in this world, right? And this is my frame of thought. But what's been interesting for me is what? You're talking about this connection, right?

Like video games.

No, that's going to isolate them, and.

They'Re going to be hermits, and they're.

Just going to sit in their room when they're 42 years old playing games by themselves, right? Well, what I've seen is, as I've been in the schools, I'm not a huge fan of tons of screen time, but I sure let my kids indulge in it, right? And I indulge in it. And sometimes we'll be subbing, like on a Friday and in a certain class Friday afternoon, they get to play Minecraft Edition or Education Edition, I don't know, some special version of Minecraft.

Yeah. Okay.

So I'm like, all right, let's stick with me. We're going to get our work done, and then in like 15 minutes, we're going to play Minecraft. And they buckle down, they get their work done. Then the computers come out.

Now, it's a little bit chaotic because.

You'Ve got 25 students in there on computers. But they are huddled up. They are not ganging up on people. That's not what we want them to do. But like strategy, right? Of like this person's over here, and they are interacting on the screen and in person. And sometimes I just sit back and I'm like, holy smokes. Is this not what we want? For our kids to interact? So it comes in not that I want to like, oh my gosh, everybody go get video games and put your kids on them for 8 hours a day kind of thing. But I think you mentioned dropping judgment, right? And being open and kind of meeting them where they're at.

Okay.

Where are you at? Okay, so this is something that fits for you. How can I still work in the things that I. Want for you. I want connection for you. I want to talk with you. I want to teach some lessons. Okay, well, how am I going to meet you? Where you're at? So that's an interesting thought there. And how we as moms have to grow right with this world, with the kids in our thoughts and our beliefs and kind of limit that I'll never do this when I'm a mom of teenagers, kind of. Right?

Yeah.

So I have a question on here. It says real talk. Do you ever have a bad day?

Never. I have the best days always.

Lacey sunshine and Rainbows friend.

Yes. Yeah, of course I do. Of course, you know, everybody does, right? We're human, so and sometimes I used.

To be, I think early on in.

Social media world, right. There was much more of that sense of like, we must present the picture.

And everything's lovely and ditching.

That was the best thing I ever did. Right. And so now when I'm struggling, when I'm stressed, when I am having a bad day, when things aren't going well.

Number one, a lot of times back.

I don't feel the need to broadcast everything. Right. That goes back to boundaries, but I'm also not afraid to just be honest about that. And that is usually just the best form of connection. When people realize, oh, you have problems too, you have bad days too, you have kid problems too, you have dinners that don't turn out too. I think recognizing that we're all human, right, is one of the best forms of connection. So, yeah, I know how to take care of myself when I'm not feeling great or things aren't going well, and I have to remind myself of those priorities and take that time to get through that.

Yeah. Because you are in the public eye. I have wondered about feelings of inadequacy. How do you process that when you're in the public eye, people are staring at you. You're sometimes fun at the camera or the screen. I mean, you've been on several different, I guess, news, spotlights. When you go to your website, you've got that whole list of featured on this and that. How do you balance that mentally?

I think that's been a process, too. I think everybody who maybe is in my position, I think for me, I had to find my purpose. And I feel like I did this. I kind of went through this process years ago. I think when at the social media kind of when it got to its height, at least in my career, where everybody was, it felt very competitive, was this constant, never ending pressure to show up and to show up well and to show up better. Right. And for me, that became extremely stressful and it created a pressure that took the joy away from what I was doing. And so very quickly I learned, like, this is not sustainable and this is not what I want. And so I had to go back to my purpose. Like, why am I doing this? What is my purpose and what brings me joy and fulfillment out of this? And that was connecting with people. It was the creative process of doing something that I loved and enjoyed, and I had very little nothing to do, really with anybody around me. Certainly my colleagues. I'd say competitors, but that's silly. It's like, these are all just people doing the same thing as me. So that sense of competitiveness doesn't exist. That's something I feel like most of us kind of create in ourselves. So I just made a decision.

I was very intentional about it, and.

Some things took action. So one of the things I did years ago was I muted or unfollowed people in my feed that weren't serving me. So if it was not something that uplifted me or taught me something or entertained me in a positive way, there was no reason for me to be following. And I would guess that anybody listening right now. If you're really honest with yourself, you can go through your feed and you know, people that come through your social media feed that caused you, like, angst, why do we follow them? It's almost like we crave that feeling of I don't know. So I got rid of all that, and freeing myself from that was just the best thing.

And then it became got me back.

To my roots, just doing what I love to do and why I love to do it, and on my own schedule and on my own timetable, if somebody was to I think people who are content creators like me, I think overestimate how much people really care or notice. Like, have you ever noticed influencers will always say, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry I've been gone. I know.

And you're like, you haven't seen me in a while.

And you're like, I literally did not notice that, so I don't care anymore. So if someone were to look and track my social media habits, you would see very clear pattern, which is I disappear like it's morning. I was like, oh, I haven't posted anything since last Wednesday or Thursday, and we're on a new week. And years ago, that would have just sent me into a frenzy, like, oh, my gosh, the algorithm, it's broken and nobody's going to follow me. But now that is a sign to everyone else, like, oh, Sara needed to step back. She's got other things going on. So that's my pattern now. I show up, and I show up well, when I show up, at least I try to, and then I step back and I disappear for a little while. And that's just totally normal for me. And that's how I stay motivated. You can't stay on 100% of the time at 100% level. So really, if we're taking care of ourselves, for me, that means I give it time. And then I step back and I give it a break and recharge my batteries, and then I'm back right.

To serve my and you kind of have to have kind of I mean, you really have to have a self awareness of your needs and knowing, okay, what things kind of drain me, right. What things energize me? And with you, you're a very creative person. So our best bites is not your only venture. Right. You are very creative. You have other things out there on your plate. And so at this point, what is on your plate? I know you make candles. Are we still doing candles at this point? Or where are we at?

Yes, I do some. Yeah.

I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur, but.

Kind of stems out of a couple of things, which is, one, I have this just inherent need and desire to create. That's where I find joy and fulfillment and passion is just in that process. Creation. I know you're similar, too. So I feel compelled to be progressing right. Constantly moving.

I'm a doer, which is good and bad.

I think that can be a blessing.

And a curse because people like me.

I don't know if you're the same way, but I have a hard time slowing down or stopping.

I have to intentionally plan that as well.

But most of my creative endeavors stem from that. So when food was my passion and that became my business, which I still find joy and fulfillment for, but it's still a business.

So I need things to be doing.

That have nothing to do with business, that I do purely for the joy of creating. So that's when I learn how to do other things and find other Hobies, and that's something I enjoy. And sometimes those things turn into businesses.

As I so I have a shop.

Called Wells and Co. And that was just kind of a dumping ground for all of my creative pursuits because that's just something I love and enjoy. And when I share that, and people wanted to enjoy them as well, so then I started selling some things. So that's just another little side business I have. But it's really an outlet for that creative process that has no expectations.

It's literally just when I want to.

Do it and when I'm doing things I enjoy.

And I love that about it. It's been a good outlet for me.

Why do you think that you have this need to create?

I think everybody has that need. I think everybody is born with that, but it manifests in different ways. Not everyone is.

I'm a very tactical, creative person.

I love drawing and painting and cooking and gardening and things like that. I think all humans at their core, right. We were built in the image of a creator. We're all creators and in different ways, whether you're creating experiences, you're creating thoughts, you're creating all these different things. And I think people just need to.

Find that outlet that is their form.

Of expression and creativity.

Yeah.

And for me personally, I think we battle this consumption versus creation. And when I feel off or like, holy smokes, Lacey, like, let's get it together, I realize it's because I've been consuming, like over consuming. I mean it's great to it's that's very natural. But when we take it kind of to extreme levels and all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I've been scrolling way too long today. All right, let's get up and let's create something. And even for me, I am artsy fartsy. I like to hands on stuff, but organizing the dishes in the sink, not necessarily loading them right, because the kids got they haven't done their chore yet. But just creating order for me, that's enough to kind of snap me out of it. I was feeling a little rough the other night and I was like, oh my gosh, I could go to bed and just walk away from it all. Or I could just go to the sink and just start creating some sort of order here with all of these bowls and plates and everything. Laundry is the same way. Like have the kids pull it out of the dryer, I sort on my kitchen counter and then they can take it from there. But just creating that order and so I think it really is an innate thing that we have within us. We've been created by a creator and so I think that's in us. But along with that and using your talents, how has helping others helped you to develop your talents?

It's a good question.

I think the more you interact with others on my platform, I've just had a great opportunity to interact with just a large number of women who are very similar life circumstances to me too, and seeing insight on other people's needs and their struggles.

And I guess I would say that.

Has helped me to share my talents and to share that process of because I think, and I'm sure you've seen this, so many women my age were.

Kind of similar in age, I think, right?

I think I'm older than you.

But have this when we aren't making.

Time for ourselves and the old filling our bucket may sound cliche, but man, that's so important.

So many women find themselves in this.

Position when their circumstances change. And maybe that's the changes. Their kids are grown up and gone. Maybe they had a career and it's over, they're lost. There's this sense of what do I do? What's my purpose? What's my passion? What do I do now? And I think as we're developing these interests and Hobies and talents along the way, you're never lost. Right. We will be life learners and we'll have things to lean on and you'll have our families, those of us who are parents, that's obviously a priority in our lives. But these other things culminate into a well rounded life, and they're going to help you find balance and love throughout that process. So the more I've interacted with women and heard those types of stories, the stronger my resolve is to continue to developing those things that bring me that.

Joy in my life. Yes.

Do you happen to have a why that keeps you motivated in your creation, in your different pursuits? You're kind of always moving forward right. And doing something. Do you have a why?

I mean, I think the why, for me, the word that always comes back to me is growth.

Nobody wants to stagnant.

Right?

And it's spiritual growth. It's just mental growth.

It's that growth. That the journey that you go through in this life. I always want to be growing. I always want to be improving. I always want to make the most of my time here in this life. And the more that I'm able to grow mentally, intellectually, all the ways, the better I could serve my family, the better I serve my community, the better I serve my business audience, I show up better in the world when I am growing and improving myself. And so that trajectory is the one.

That I want to be on. Amen.

Right.

It's progress.

It's progression.

Yeah.

And it's moving forward. And sometimes we have to push pause, like on our progression or our growth, and we'd have to recover, and we have to learn a new way. Or sometimes we go a little bit backwards due to others choices and our choices and all of that. And so we have to push pause and we have to regroup, and we have to look at our why and our purpose behind all of it so that we can start up again and keep trying and keep going. And so with some of your things that you've done, I've noticed that you work with the youth.

Do you work with the youth?

I think community just in general, like kids, friends, all that. So in doing that and being who you are and growing your talents, what good do you see for the future of our teenagers and our youth?

Oh, so much good. I have my own root of kids here at home, and then I work with the teenage girls, of all things, in my church. I'm a youth group leader for all.

The girls and work closely with the.

Ones who are like 16 to 18. And I see so much good in them. They live in a different world than we did growing up, and they have some challenges that we didn't have, but they also have some gifts and perspectives that we didn't have because of their life circumstances. And I think the youth today have such an opportunity to see a larger worldview just because of the ease of information that they have. And that can obviously be a negative thing too.

But if we look at all the.

Good that is in there so much access to learn things and to develop interests and talents. If you want to learn how to play the guitar or train a dog, you literally just google it and you can learn you could be anything, right? They have access to learn about careers and places in the world that they want to adventure to.

They also have more access to things.

That are going on in the world, the good things and the bad things. And because of that, I think they care about the world that they're growing up in, maybe more than maybe some of us did in our generation where it's a little bit more sheltered. You only got your news if your parents turned on the TV that day and so much access to news and world information that I think it's created a generation of kids who really at the core, I think they do care about well being of the world at large, right? When you look at social media that obviously has we could spend a whole episode on that. I'm sure you have. But if you look at the good too, what a great fast way to spread good news and what a great way to fill your life quickly with positive influences if you can learn how to do that. So I love that about our kids. I think that they are hopefully learning some critical thinking skills because they're posed with big questions to big concerns that we didn't have access to before. But they also have that ability to learn how to figure it out and where do you go for information? How do you answer that question? How do you really feel about this thing that seems to be everywhere? They've got to figure that out in their brains. And so learning those coping skills and those critical thinking skills I think is creating a really strong generation of kids.

Yes.

And in our youth or in our teenage years, it was a little bit thou shalt not do this or that or that. And now we're seeing these kids who have to make choices, right? And the critical thinking skills and they've got to decide do I want to do that? Is that something I want to pursue? And oops, maybe that was something that.

I did that I so sure I.

Want to continue with and trying to really think for themselves in this age of information right, and connection and using what can be gifts in positive ways.

But with that so we have this.

Beautiful generation of young people and behind them we've got mothers, right? And I really think we've also got this beautiful generation of mothers. And so what good if we're going to take the same question but tweak it a little bit what good do you see for the future of this generation of mothers who are raising these teenagers right now?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, mothers today have all of those things we just talked about kids, right? And we've also got a lot of parenting information. We always joke about how we're not giving a parenting manual when you come home with a baby, but in some bizarre sense, the Internet is a little bit of a parenting manual. We have access to other people, right? Like a way to connect with other parents and surround ourselves with good people and positive influences. And mothers today, probably all mothers, through all generations of time have underestimated their abilities to influence the people around them. And a mother is at the core of almost every family and hold tremendous power and influence over their kids and to influence them for good and to help them to develop into the people in our cases, the fathers and the men that they're going to be when they grow up. And that's a big responsibility, but it's also something that we're totally capable of.

Amen.

We've got it within each of us to create the good that this world needs and to share that. And so I like that you focused on when we take that time to individually develop our own talents and work on even our own mental and emotional health and wellness in every single aspect of life, right? Physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, all of it. We can better show up for our families and these amazing teenagers and as we help guide them and kind of navigate them through some what I would consider tricky times it's different than when we were growing up, but to them, it's what they know. And so imagine these teenagers as they then go out into the world and serve the world. It's pretty cool. And serve their communities on small level, large levels, that sort of thing. And so, okay, thank you for joining me today and just kind of sharing that behind the scenes. I'm sure a lot of people have seen you over the years and it's fun to kind of look behind and see what makes you tick. So thank you.

Anything else you want to add before.

We sign off here?

Thank you so much for having me. It's fun to connect with you and great to talk about this. I love all these topics in my life. Merging together in one podcast is fun with parenting and food and business and all the things so great. Maybe our boys will connect one day. Maybe they'll end up and they'll have.

Their own oh, they totally will.

Connections, right? And college, they all match up. So that would be fun.

Again, thank you to Sara for sharing some of the behind the scenes of what's helped her throughout these years as she has developed our best bites and continues to parent her fun boys. And so I promised you that there was going to be a fun bonus at the end of this episode for our new webinar that's coming up on March 13 through the 17th. And so if you go, there'll be a link in the show notes below. But if you go to the website Laceyjonescoaching.com, and in the upper right corner, or if you scroll down to the mid page, you'll find a little button to click for more information concerning the webinar and you can read there. We'll be talking a little bit about emotional health for moms and improving family relationships and how to help children succeed at school. And then also the theme for this month is actually Goal Creation and Developing Talents and then sharing your light. So we'll throw some of that in there. We'll have some live coaching, so be sure to bring your questions and anything that you might need coaching on. That is probably one of the more powerful forms of coaching is when you come to the group coaching and share, because what you're going through is most likely something that someone else is going through. And so through that one coaching quick, super quick session, we'll be able to help more mothers as we navigate all of this fun that we're going through. But again, it's 1 hour per day via Zoom and the recordings will be available. But the bonus I was talking about is if you sign up this week, and we'll probably keep it up until the next episode airs. So the following Wednesday, you can use Code our Best Bytes to get a 50% off discount, which is huge, right? It's already a decent price. And then you're also going to get a 50% discount on top of that. So be sure to use our Best Bytes code it's all one word and pop that in for 50% off. If you have questions, please message me through the website. You'll see that option there where it says Ask Lacey? You can click on that to ask me any questions that you need, or hop on Instagram or social Media to find me there. But again, go ahead and sign up. Holler at me if you have questions. Thanks again for joining me and we'll see you next week.