I started with a little cookie store and that cookie store led me to the bakery
business that then took me to an understanding about bakery cafes I'd be
working in a restaurant customer would say I want that bread and I'd say sure
and I started to slice it and you slice it like bread like this and they say no
slice it from top to bottom and I do it and I'd hand him the loaf and they'd put
on some roast beef and Boar's on and again trying to listen to be empathetic I'd
say wow there's an opportunity in a bakery cafe that the product wasn't
simply a-- is shocking to you that it's so obvious but nobody had to
figure it out but absolutely.
You know what's interesting when KIND was born
it was because I had like you started in one direction and then as I was starting
my first business I saw a need that didn't exist and then when I launched
that second one it took off and grew much more.
What was the first one Daniel?
The first one was PeaceWorks. How did that lead to KIND? So, PeaceWorks was a business trying to
get Arabs and Israelis and other people in other configurations to work
together through business and using business as a language for breaking
stereotypes cementing relations between people and connecting them and it ended
up becoming a food company because the ventures that we started in those
conflict regions were food companies. People refer to people like you and I as
entrepreneurs but I have a very different phrase for it I call us
opportunists I see opportunities and people often refer to entrepreneurs as
risk seeking I'm the most risk avoiding human being you ever met I see an
opportunity out there I'm gonna do everything in my power to protect it and
to care for it and do in fact support it. For me what defines an entrepreneur is
someone that can combine the opportunity and that can see the opportunity with
the execution. Because there's a ton of people that are incredible dreamers
and I and I know several of them. They have amazing ideas but then they
can't execute and there's amazing people that can execute but they can't see it
and if you were able to combine seeing an opportunity and then
acting on it for me that's what defines an entrepreneur.
You''ll appreciate this, I've been at this for 36
years I was a public company CEO for 26 of those 36 years I can only tell you
there's any number of dark moments when the world feels like it's closing in on
you nobody believes you feel the burden I can remember those nights when I'd
wake up and think about all those people counting on me I get up
on a stage in front of 5,000 people and I think to myself as I was speaking you
know is this gonna actually work there were moments where I couldn't make I
could barely make payroll and we had to skip my own salary to pay my other team
members salaries they we're moments were you know in our early years I felt that
we might really not make it and during those moments I didn't think it was
appropriate for me to throw that at my team and so and sometimes I didn't have
anybody to go to for that and I don't think I have a great solution for how to
cope with that situation when when I was facing that pressure I share with you
something I remember my daughter was up about an hour away at a summer house we
had and she called me and she said dad said I want you to come up and put me to
sleep and I said Emma I'm exhausted I'm beat
up I just I can't do the drive and I still have an event I have to go to and
she's hold she was 12 she wanted me to come and I drove up there and I arrived
in Manchester about 9:30 and night and I climbed into bed with her and I started
hugging her and I looked there and said Emma today may have been a tough day for
you but tomorrow will be a new day and you get to start all over again
and I realized as I was driving home from putting her to bed because I drove
back to Boston that night the person I was really talking to myself
the reality is you cannot be an entrepreneur you cannot be a business
builder unless you fully understand that the business you don't own the business
the business owns you it's with you in the shower it's with you in the middle
it's with you can turn it you can turn some people can i I can't it's very
interesting it seems like we have two interpreters them to maybe have slightly
different language but similar process for me when I'm having a bad day or a
tough moment or thing I just go home and my kids give me unconditional love and
you don't have this they're young they're under 10 but wait they will stop
giving you unconditional love as they evolve into teenagers