- Now, I want to talk about how to be rich
in your entire life.
And this next guest has an incredible story.
You guys, she took $5 and turned it into $10 million,
and it all started with a cupcake.
That's right. You heard me right.
So, take a look at her story.
(delicate music)
- I remember feeling desperate and broken and hopeless
and feeling like, "Why is it that everybody else can make it
and we can't?
I was a stay-at-home mom,
drowning in debt and brokenness,
losing everything that we had.
Figuring out how to make it was
what my life was about to depend on.
I was listening to The Dave Ramsey Show,
and I heard people screaming on the show,
"We're debt-free!" And I wanted that.
I heard him telling people that they could have a bake sale.
And I thought, "What if you had a bake sale every single day?"
But I didn't know how to bake.
But I had a secret weapon. It was my grandmother.
And I said, "Grandma, look, I need a recipe."
It was the first successful thing that I ever baked.
And it was when my neighbor across the street,
she said, "I want to order cupcakes for all of my clients."
That was going to be, like, 600 cupcakes.
All I had was $5 left, and I hadn't even fed the family,
and we were a family of eight.
But I wanted to do something different,
because, you know, I was tired of being crazy,
expecting a different result.
And I marched myself out that door,
and I bought everything that I could buy with that $5,
and I started baking.
I turned that $5 into $60 that day,
and I turned that $60 into $600 by the end of the week,
and I turned that $600 into over $10 million in sales.
I opened this bakery with a KitchenAid mixer
and a dorm-sized refrigerator,
because that's what I could afford to do.
And now, The Cupcake Collection is
over five million cupcakes sold.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,
and it's in that one step forward that you begin to find
that everything else begins to take its shape.
You just have to do what you can do.
I'm going to live like it depends on God,
but I'm going to work like it depends on me.
- All right, Mignon, thanks for coming
in here, chatting with me. Your story is just—
it's phenomenal.
Can you believe you're, like, living your life?
When you look back on your story, does it still amaze you?
- It does amaze me.
Someone asked me just yesterday if I surprised myself
and I said, "No."
(both laughing)
I don't surprise myself.
I fully think I'm capable of everything
that I set my mind to, but I think
that we think these things happen to other people—
that they don't actually happen to us.
And that's what I want my platform in life to be.
I will be transparent, and I will be authentic.
And you can know my business
so that you, too, can know what you can do if you believe.
- So good. Okay.
Because winning with money obviously isn't just
to win with money just to have money, right?
It is about more than that.
And you are such a joyful person,
and money doesn't always equal joy.
It equals fun sometimes, right? Money can buy some fun,
but it doesn't reassure you that you're going
to have a joyful life. But you do.
- I could have chosen to go a different way.
When God put this Cupcake Collection on my heart,
He very clearly said to me,
"Mignon, I'm done playing with you.
I've given you all these ideas,
and you start and you never finish anything.
This is your last opportunity.
Do it and live or don't and just die."
- So, what were those other chances that you didn't take?
- I mean, I had a lot of ideas.
I was a child that—I was always coming up
with something new, and my mom would be like,
"Stick to something."
(Rachel laughs)
And that, I learned later, was also a gift.
It was a gift to have ideas,
but I would try to make a business out of so many things.
I'd get the business cards made,
tell everybody I was going to do it, journal about it,
and then two weeks later when you ask me about it,
"Oh, I got something else. I'm not doing that anymore."
Yeah, and scared to go out and sort of hustle
for my business.
- That was what I was going to ask.
So, why didn't those succeed?
- Yeah, scared to go out and hustle for my business.
When it came to the Cupcake Collection,
I would be peeking out of the blinds trying to see
if anybody was going to walk down my street
so I could bombard them with, "Hey, do you wanna taste this?"
I mean, when you are truly hungry, and you know
that you're standing before life and death and you want
to live and you want to live more abundantly,
you will do what it takes in order to live.
Hunger will make you do some amazing and incredible things
if you let it. And listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio,
I was hearing people scream, "We're debt-free!"
And I felt that. I felt them through the radio,
and I wanted that. I wanted to be able to sleep
and know that nobody— I didn't have to get up.
Somebody called me today— one of those robo calls—
and they said, "We called to help you on some debt relief."
I said, "Sorry, I don't have any debt."
(laughter)
- I get those, too, and I'm like, "Yeah,
I don't think this is correct."
That's so good. So, you mentioned journaling.
Okay, I want to know. Do you love to journal?
What's your take on that?
- I have a journal by the side of my bed,
and if my purse is anywhere around here,
there is a journal on the inside that goes
with me everywhere I go.
Ideas only last for 30 seconds unless you ink them.
Otherwise, you know—and that's a scientific fact.
- Ooo, I didn't know that. That's good.
So, what's the power for you when you write things
in your journal, and you go back, let's say just 12 months,
and you reread the past year. Like, what does that do
for you?
- Oh, my gosh. So, I am rereading, right now, maybe 15
or 20 years.
- (gasps) Oh, wow.
- Because I'm writing my story now,
and I've gone back to the day that I asked God
to give me something that could belong to me.
Write your prayers down to God, because you need to know how
to be thankful and pray your gratitude back to him.
- I love that. So, the giving part of your life is huge.
You've given in so many ways, not only financially
but for opportunities for people and your kids.
So, tell me about that part of your life.
- I'm so excited to have the opportunity
to open up my space for other people.
There's not a lot for me to keep. And so, that's one
of the ways in which I'm expanding my business
by letting other people have an opportunity
to start a business with Cupcake Collection.
I remember standing in the shower, and God said,
"Open up your hands and try to catch the drops."
And no matter how much you try to hold them in your hand—
you can cup your hands as tight as you can—
you cannot hold water in your hand except for whatever goes
into the palm, and that's what I learned.
All that I could keep was whatever I could hold.
Everything else was to pass through me,
and I was supposed to let that fall on other people.
And so, that's what I'm doing with my life now.
- That's incredible. So, someone hearing your story—
who's maybe living paycheck to paycheck—
they may be as an extreme situation
as you were all those years ago—maybe not as bad—
but they're just still in this place, and they're like,
"Man, all this bad stuff has happened to me.
Why has the world done this to me?"
And it's almost a victim-like mentality.
What would you say to someone that changed your life,
of taking control over your life?
- I think that's the key. You take control.
You also take responsibility for the situations
that you place yourself in.
I love to use the analogy that, at one point, none
of us could walk. At one point, none of us could talk.
But some of us women can run in a good pair of high heels,
right?
And that means that, at some point--
- Amen, sister. Speaking of high heels, show them.
Show them, man. Show them!
- Yes!
- That's right. That's right. We can take off running.
I believe it.
- But at some point, you saw someone doing that.
- Yeah.
- And you thought (clicks) I can do that too.
And so, you tried it. And it hurt when you fell.
But it didn't stop us from trying again.
But the difference is that back then,
everyone was telling you that you could.
"Come on. You can do it. Come on, baby."
Someone was cheering you on, and there's no one cheering now.
We don't have to be victims in our own situations,
but sometimes, we get so caught up in our brokenness,
and we think that, "Oh, because I'm broken,
I can't do anything."
But it is in your brokenness
that your potential becomes released.
- So good. It's hope. I mean, that's it.
Like, what you're spreading is not just the joy
but the hope of taking responsibility
and seizing the opportunity.
- I think people don't expect that it's going to be hard.
- Oh, gosh. Yeah.
- You know, it's hard.
- That's right.
- It's hard for successful people. It's still hard.
And if it wasn't hard—
- Everyone would be doing it.
- Yeah. It's work, and work is required of all of us.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Amazing. And your story and everything that you're doing
with your life. I mean, you just radiate joy,
and you have a really rich life in many aspects.
And so, you added so much—so much to the show,
and I know you gave people out there watching, again,
the hope and the encouragement
that they can change their lives and live in a rich life
as well. So, thank you so much for being on. Seriously.
So appreciate it.
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)