The Uncommon Leader Podcast

From Tragedy to Triumph: The Inspiring Story of Auntie Anne's Pretzels Founder Anne Beiler

• John Gallagher

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What does it mean to turn pain into purpose? Join us for an awe-inspiring conversation with Auntie Anne Beiler, the visionary founder and CEO of Auntie Anne's Pretzels, as she reveals the depth of her journey from a simple Amish upbringing to creating an international pretzel empire. Anne's early life, spent baking pies and cakes for her family's market, planted the seeds of responsibility and perseverance that would later define her leadership style. Her story is a powerful reminder that our foundational experiences shape our destiny in unexpected ways.

Anne's narrative takes a poignant turn as she bravely shares the heart-wrenching loss of her 19-month-old daughter and the subsequent years of enduring abuse. Rather than succumbing to despair, Anne and her husband channeled their grief into creating a 125-acre community center that offers counseling, daycare, and spiritual support. This chapter of her life underscores a profound truth: out of pain can emerge a mission that not only heals oneself but also serves the broader community. Anne’s journey is an embodiment of resilience, showing how personal struggles can lead to transformative community-focused endeavors.

As we wrap up our conversation, Anne dives deep into the distinctions between management and leadership, shaped by the wisdom of figures like John Maxwell and a supportive pastor. She discusses the importance of placing the right people in the right roles and the invaluable impact of making employees feel genuinely valued. Anne's experiences and insights offer a masterclass in leading with empathy and purpose, providing listeners with practical wisdom on nurturing both personal and professional growth. Tune in to be inspired by Anne's compelling story and invaluable lessons on leadership, faith, and resilience.

To learn more about Auntie Anne Beiler and her impactful work, visit her website at [www.auntieannebeiler.com]

Thanks for listening in to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Please take just a minute to share this podcast with that someone you know that you thought of when you heard this episode. One of the most valuable things you can do is to rate the podcast and leave a review. You can do that on Apple podcasts, or rate the podcast on Spotify or any other platform you listen.

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Speaker 1:

And those years robbed me of so much. But on the other hand, john, those years caught me so much and out of our pain, out of my pain, my husband's pain, our purpose was born. It's hard to explain all that but it's in my book and I can tell you right now. If I would not have experienced that, I can't imagine being my age and having any compassion for people, if I would not have gone through my own pain and trauma and disappointments.

Speaker 2:

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast, and I'm your host, john Gallagher. I've got such a treat for you today, as I had the chance recently to have an insightful conversation with Auntie Ann Beiler, a remarkable leader who shares her journey of resilience, faith and purpose, as told in her book Overcome and Lead, from her humble upbringing in an Amish community to the challenges and rewards of being the founder and CEO of Auntie Ann's Pretzels, and opens up about overcoming pain and trauma to find her true calling. Join us as she shares her inspiring story of transformation, leadership and the power of sharing one's struggles. Stay tuned as we uncover the wisdom and lessons that Auntie Anne has to offer on becoming the leader that God created you to be.

Speaker 1:

Let's get started, ann Viler, it's so great to have you as a guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast. How are you doing today? I'm doing great and I'm so excited about being here with you today and your audience.

Speaker 2:

I can't wait to have the conversation Before we hit the record button. I know there's some fun things we're talking about. I always get nervous about having those conversations because I don't have the B-roll to add it in. I'm like, no, let's not talk about that. That'll be great for the podcast, but it was fun getting a chance to know you before that. I do want to start you out the same way. I want to start all first-time guests with the same question, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.

Speaker 1:

Wow. So you know, I grew up in the Amish community and so my childhood was pretty idyllic and, I would say, very simple, secure. I knew nothing about the real world, but I think what really impacted me. I want to say two things. Number one my mom and dad went to. We were farmers and poor farmers, and so there was always the. There was always a need to have a cash crop or something else that would provide cash, and so my mom and dad took went to the farmer's market in Philadelphia, pennsylvania, and we lived in Lancaster County, pennsylvania, which was about two hours away.

Speaker 1:

So during that time that I feel like something happened in my heart, in my head, that I didn't understand at the time but, as I look back, pivotal and very important to who I am today. And that was number one when my mom and dad would go to market on Thursday, and they would go Friday and Saturday, but my mom would go along on Thursday, I would come home from school and mom would have a note on the kitchen counter saying Annabeth's, which was my name was Anna and she her pet name for me was Annabeth's, and she would say Annabeth's. And here's the list of pies and cakes I want you to make tonight for the farmer's market in the morning, friday morning, and mom was at market and I would come home and see this list and I remember clearly, john, as I read the note from my mom there were 60 to 70 pies or cakes and both combination that mom had was asking me to bake. I would walk down into my basement I could almost I feel it right now and I would just, uh, I remember the loneliness because mom wasn't there. That's the only time in my life that my mom was not there and that was that went on for about two years. And um so, going down into the basement by myself. My siblings are eight of us kids. I don't know what they were doing, but all seven of them were out somewhere doing something, either in the field or in the garden or cleaning. I don't know what it was, but I asked them not too long ago am I telling this story correctly? Did any of you help me bake in the basement? And they all said are you kidding? No, so it's true.

Speaker 1:

I would walk down those steps very often wipe the tears from my eyes, and the reason I say this is important to my adult life is because I began to feel the responsibility At a very young age to be productive, to please mom and dad. And then the result of that was mom and dad didn't say, oh, you're amazing, or we love you, or any of those kind of things, but the next morning I would do all of this by myself, like from scratch you know all the pies from scratch, the dough, everything. And my dad would come down the next morning and I would help him, before I went to school, to load up the pies in a pie case and he would say to me you know, annabeth, these really look nice. And so I would go to market then on Saturday and my dad would brag about I don't know about brag, but he would tell everybody that these pies and cakes were made by my daughter. And so I felt a pride for my dad. I felt great satisfaction, but I knew what I learned there was that I never got paid for anything, but my reward was satisfaction. And to get to that reward I had to persevere and persevere. My definition of that is very simple it simply means you do what you don't feel like doing, just keep going. And I learned that at the age of 11 and 12. And the result of that. My dad was just just let me know that somehow in in by the way he acted and by what he said to the customers that he was really proud of me, although he never said that. And the other thing I learned there in that market was my dad was a hard worker and he loved people. Now, I didn't know that at the time, but I would come to the market on Saturday with him and he would interact with all the customers.

Speaker 1:

It was a very ethnic group of people in Philadelphia. Back in the day it was my Amish world and then Philadelphia, and I didn't understand anything about ethnicity or cultures. But I watched my dad interact with all kinds of people it didn't matter black, white, jewish, it just it didn't matter and he would laugh with them, he would talk to them, he would act like they were his friends and I remember standing by my dad thinking how can he do this? He doesn't even know these people. But even that John impacted me to the point when I grew up and experienced life and eventually started Auntie Anne's, I remembered my dad and that's powerful to me and I think that family of origin that we grow up in really does set us up for life, whether it's good or bad bad and in my case, it was so good to be brought up in the Amish culture with parents that loved me and taught me about God and taught me how to work hard and taught me how to love everybody.

Speaker 2:

Wow, I could go so many different routes with that. As I listen through the things you're talking about perseverance, hard work, faith, affirmation and care and one of the quotes that came to my mind Maya Angelou's quote about people remember how they made you feel, not necessarily what they said or what you did, but how you made them feel and he clearly made you feel. To a certain extent that was his way of sharing his love what I hear from you there and that he was able to make you feel loved in that space where you were. My mom is a big fan of my Amish country. She's probably more on the Ohio side in terms of where she lives. We grew up in northern Panhandle, west Virginia, and she understands that and appreciates that so much, especially the service side of that as well, the customer service side. Now, again, going deeper than that, it's just how you treat people and I'm sure you took many of those things to Auntie Anne's as you guys started, which that led ultimately this story, and we'll get a chance to go backward into that story. But into your book we'll get a chance.

Speaker 2:

You wrote came out last year Overcome and Lead. So it's really about your story going through and I kind of I gave you a heads up beforehand. I wanted to start before that because you've not been the CEO of Auntie Anne's for a little while, you've got out of the business a while back and you could have retired. But one of the points or basically checked out if you will and it just wasn't in your blood and one of the points you make right in the book is finish well at the end. We live in a world that needs an uprising of people who are overcoming and becoming. Ironically, finishing well means never really being finished. As long as you're alive, as long as there's breath in our lungs, we have influence a voice, a moment in time that holds the potential for impact. We have influence a voice, a moment in time that holds the potential for impact. So what have you had going on since you retired from being a CEO of an unbelievably successful company? And you are still making an impact.

Speaker 1:

Well, so, yeah, the day we sold the company and the day we settled for Auntie Anne's was a very, very there was an emotional day, feeling quite, feeling quite accomplished, but also, um, feeling a great loss. Um, uh, you know, when you, when you find, when you, um, uh, when you birth, I want to say a company, uh, and all the people in it, you know, you, just, you're very, very connected to the people there and I loved, I, I loved our people, and so that that, in a sense, it was, it was a very good ending for Aunt Tans, but it was also a very difficult. But I knew even then, even though I didn't know exactly what, but I knew even then I was not finished. There's nothing in my bones, even today, that would feel like I'm finished. And sometimes, you know, when you feel that way, you almost feel a little weird, like all of my friends, but many of my friends, my family there's eight of us kids and 16 with the in-laws and all of us are still alive. And while we're all now in our late 60s and 70s, all eight of us and most of them, are still doing little jobs. I mean, they have things to do. But every now and again, somebody asks me when are you going to quit? And I can't explain that. I really don't have an answer for that because I don't know. But I can tell you when you're a person of purpose and passion, you can't quit. It's not like you have to keep moving, but something inside of you will keep you going.

Speaker 1:

And so when we sold the company, we bought a 125 acre farm. We on that farm, our purpose was then to build a community center, a service that we could provide to our community, to the in the area and also beyond the area. A counseling center. We had a, we had a church there, we had a cafe, we had a daycare, so it was a 55,000 square foot building. So so from Antigone, we went into that. We began to feel a passion for the community and we wanted to serve people who were less fortunate emotionally, spiritually or financially, and that was always a part of who we were at Antien's. So we just took what we were and what we had into this next season of our lives, and that's when I began to understand I need to write a book. And that's when I wrote our first book in 08 or 09, called Twist of Faith, and that's our memoir which is timeless. It's our whole story.

Speaker 1:

It's more than you probably want to know it's a full story and I began to realize then that, wow, there's a whole lot more that I can do. And Auntie Anne's although it was life-giving, I mean, it was an amazing journey. I began to almost feel like, wow, I couldn't do this if I was still part of Auntie Anne's. So when we sold the company, it actually gave me freedom to continue in the purpose that I knew God had for us and that was to help marriages and then eventually write a book and then going into public speaking and that has been pretty much my life since then. It's been a journey and a joy.

Speaker 2:

I'm taking note there just for one second. So I love that. I mean again and I shared a story with you beforehand a gentleman I knew that you know he retired and he had been writing for years a newsletter every Friday and he retired and stopped. I'm like no, no, no, you have to write more now. You have to get the opportunity to continue to share so many, too many stories of individuals who decide to retire and at that point they stop adding value.

Speaker 2:

And really one of the things that we learn and I'm sure you've done this through both of your books and now your cookbook that's coming out, I want to talk about that just a little bit as well is understand that and it is more powerful for you to kind of help that person that you used to be with some of the words that you wrote. And so when folks read your stories, I believe they hear that in terms of how you've overcome and the things that Harvard, mba or whatever it was that many people who run successful businesses would say that you need. But you had to overcome many of those things. I want to touch on just a quote you had on there because I think it's more about you than it is the business. But you said, out of our pain, our purpose can be born. Is that something that you experienced in terms of going through and how you ended up? You know being successful with Annie Ann's and being successful as a writer and as a speaker as well.

Speaker 1:

I, of course, at the time I would never have known that, but hindsight is 2020. And I clearly see out of our, out of our pain, our purpose was born because I think that and part of our pain was our 19 month old daughter was killed accidentally, and killed instantly, when she was. We were young, married I was 27 at the time and soon after that, and that in itself changed everything about me. It changed the way I felt about the world. It changed my I mean, it almost lost my faith, although it was strong and it was really tight inside of me, but it started to begin to almost unravel. And then, soon after that, my pastor came to me and invited me to his office and when I got there, I was relieved because I'm like, wow, okay, I can actually talk to somebody about my grief, which I really tried to isolate myself. I didn't want anyone to know how bad I was feeling, and so, before I left his office, he took advantage of me physically and I knew nothing about abuse of any kind and I walked out the office door and I stood there for a little moment and I thought, wow, okay, for a little moment and I thought, wow, okay, we lost Angie, my life is in a crazy place right now. Just so much grief. I don't know what to do with this. But one thing I do know I have to keep this a secret, and so what I really talk about quite a bit today is that whether it's a business setting or a church setting, it doesn't matter to me. I want people to know that secrets will actually kill you. They keep you from becoming who you need to become.

Speaker 1:

And that day, standing there outside of his office, I decided to keep a secret because I felt like it was the only choice I had to make. And who would I talk to? Who would understand, who would believe me? It was my pastor, and that one secret then kept me in the world of abuse for nearly seven years, and I call it the dark world of abuse of every kind. I lost myself. We had two daughters at that time. I was an absent mother. I was there physically but emotionally abandoned my children for all those years because I was trying to survive.

Speaker 1:

And so I tell that part of my story, john, because so many people that I know. Today, as I go out and I speak, countless people come to me, and I know that they have never been able to resolve the pain or disappointment or the trauma in their life. And so I tell that story even to your listeners, to anyone who's missing right now, to just let people know. Let you know, it matters where you're at in life, but I can tell you that you can overcome. It sounds almost like a fairy tale, I guess, but I'm telling you you can overcome it all.

Speaker 1:

And how do you overcome it all? Well, it's a journey, but it starts with a choice, another choice that I made. The one choice took me into the dark world. Seven years later I made another choice, and that choice I made to tell my husband my deep, dark secret that I thought was mine to keep. I would go with it to my grave with his secret, because it was too bad and too evil. But I made a choice that day, and there's a whole story in my book about going to tell my husband my secret. And obviously my husband and I were married. Now We'll be 56 years in September.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing to me.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing Only because I know my story. Okay, I'm just saying I know my story story and I know how hard it's been and those years robbed me of so much. But on the other hand, john, those years taught me so much and out of our pain, out of my pain, my husband's pain, our purpose was born. It's hard to explain all that, but it's in my book and I can tell you right now if I would not have experienced that I can't imagine being my age and having any compassion for people if I would not have gone through my own pain and trauma and disappointments. But I can tell you, wherever you're at right now, somewhere, somewhere of maybe you're in the middle of horrific disappointments, maybe you've made bad choices, but it's within your power, it's truly within your power to make good choices. It's truly within your power to make good choices. And my line is the choice you make today is the life that you will live tomorrow. I didn't know that then, but I'm telling you today, it's true, we can begin to make good choices. As hard as it sounds and as difficult as it may be, we can actually begin to make good choices. So, making one good choice to tell my husband my secret. Wow, I thought he would divorce me. I truly believed that he would tell me to leave here.

Speaker 1:

I am telling my story because of the power of grace of God and the power of one really good man in my life, my husband. I'm really, I'm humbled that I can sit here today and tell that story and to tell your listeners don't give up. And I can tell you one thing right now If I would never have told Jonas my secret, there would be no Auntie Anne's. I can't even imagine a world without Auntie Anne's. But I came that close to giving up on me, almost through suicide, almost gave up on myself.

Speaker 1:

And that's why I can tell you, listeners, you can pick yourself up and begin to make good choices, and the number one choice that you need to make right now is that you will go and tell somebody what's going on in your life, your thoughts, your hurts, your pain, your disappointments. You may even call it sin. You may have betrayed, I don't know what it is. It's hard, it's rough, it's tough, but you can still find someone that you can talk to. And to me that is almost the only answer out For me. It was the only answer out for me, it was the only answer out, and as I did that, then life began unfold. The shackles began to fall, but it was still very, very difficult to go from there to be very difficult.

Speaker 2:

where I'm at right now had to be yeah, yeah, and again it goes back to that story, but the story of you know you are, you know, perfectly positioned today to help that person that you used to be and you mentioned that in your work that you do now. So you talked about being a writer, writer of books, you talked about being a speaker, but you also talked about you used the term help marriages as well. So is there a story that you um has been especially impactful on you after that that you've been able to help someone without, obviously, without um, taking into account anybody, anybody's confidentiality, but I mean that that you've been so happy that you've been able to help with what you've done since you retired.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it started at Auntie Anne's. I mean, you know, I've had we had a number of employees at that time, you know, and the rules are the rules, you know. You gotta live by the rules. As far as you know, we all have our standards and our values and our culture within our companies and I love to tell these stories, not naming names, but just to let employers and owners of companies know that you are an influential person. That's why you own a company. It's not about the perks, it's not about how amazing you are as the boss or the founder, but it's really about serving your people.

Speaker 1:

And I think what I discovered, without the pain that I would have experienced, I would have been, let me tell you, I would have been a hard-nosed boss, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 1:

But because what I experienced, it made me great, it made me feel gracious, compassionate to our employees and a number of times we had employees that you know things happen in the workplace and we had some employees that had affairs in the company and you know, as we met with the team, I'm like come on, guys, they're great people, they've contributed to Auntie Anne's.

Speaker 1:

I mean, they've been here for a number of years. Are we just going to say goodbye, I'll see you later, or can we bring restoration? And I'm happy to tell you that I think that that's the influence, and I feel like that's good leadership Knowing you know the things that happen in the workplace. It's hard stuff and, as a leader, I think we're called to be compassionate but also firm. You can be firm and compassionate at the same time, and so we gathered people together and we came up with some solutions and resolutions that worked. And so, again, if I would not have experienced all that myself, I would have fired these people in a New York minute. But I feel like as I don't know, I feel like, as leaders in business, that we're there to serve people and to take them to another level in their lives emotionally, spiritually, financially, in whatever way that we can, and that, to me, is the role of a good leader.

Speaker 2:

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Speaker 2:

I agree, compassion. It's something that is lacking, no doubt, and you're right, there are rules, uh, and there are pirates in there that uh must play and understand guidelines, uh, when you have to care for somebody, uh, and I you've. You've talked about that a little bit more in your book as well, but you know your story and and taking a chance on others as well is is often worth, worth the risk. Sometimes it isn't, and we learned that pretty quickly and we need to make changes as a leader, but sometimes it is. And your story as well, in terms of your daughter and then the experience that you had with the pastor, as you said, had to test your faith. So how were you able to overcome that and still remain strong in your faith?

Speaker 1:

You're asking some very good questions and I know we have 30 minutes, maybe two minutes right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, we're at 22,. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, again I have to go back to my foundation. My parents taught me about God and faith and the importance of it in our lives. And during those years of disappointment and just downright abuse and complete hopelessness, and to the point of suicide, I guess what I did mostly was cry and pray because I felt like it was the end of. I could not believe I'm in this place. I hated who I had become. I couldn't believe this little Amish girl that was innocent about life and didn't know anything about the world. I mean, you know I wasn't perfect, but I don't mean that. But I had no information, no experience with evil and darkness, and so when those things began to happen, as I began to work through all those things again, I cried a lot and I prayed a lot. I often said my seven years of darkness. It's like I wrestled with God for seven years because he wouldn't let me go. And that's the truth. He wouldn't let me go. I wanted to let go. I wanted to just throw the towel in and leave Jonas and my family. That's what I wanted to do in the moment. You know there are easy and quick solutions to our problems, but if it's easy, it's probably not the right thing to do. So I did the hard thing. I didn't want to, but I did the hard thing by staying and by trying to just continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.

Speaker 1:

And I am grateful for Auntie Anne's because I know that Auntie Anne's, really during those, all my trauma happened before Auntie Anne's, but I carried a lot of that with me into the workplace and I know that it was heavy for me because I carried a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. But even then, a number of years later, I'm still crying a lot and praying, like you just got to get me through the day. So I'm grateful for Auntie Anne's because I really feel like the purpose that we had with Auntie Anne's. The purpose was to to be profitable, so we'd be charitable. So we had a purpose that was greater than my pain and number two purpose was to be light in the world of business.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's really important to have a purpose in spite of the pain and the disappointment and the trauma that you've experienced. Out of that, hopefully, you will find your purpose and we find our purpose through Antaeans. So getting up every morning, going to work and being responsible, being a leader of a huge organization that went around the world. I couldn't stay in bed, I had to get up and go, and so I feel like it was a gift to me in that way. So I did stay busy and then when I came home I would fall apart and pray and cry again, so for many years. But I'm grateful that Auntie Anne's I almost want to say Auntie Anne's kept me alive.

Speaker 2:

Well, I was just going to say I mean, it sounds as though Auntie Anne's was therapy for you to be where you are today, absolutely, and that the, the role that you were in uh didn't provide you the opportunity to uh be dist, or maybe it did provide you a distraction that you needed in that time of life. That was there more than the purpose, although the value and the purpose of Annie and we could dive into that for a long time. But you're right, we keep asking good questions and we uh miss our time. So, as we go forward but I appreciate you sharing that because I think that's uh easily uh stories that we have so it's overcoming uh the grief, it's overcome their story, but it's also overcoming uh and still believing uh and having faith that you know there was, there was a reason all these things happen. That prepared you and God had already written that story.

Speaker 2:

Okay, let's, let's, let's give you an easy one then. Um, so I've read through the front of your book with the endorsements and things like that, and you had some pretty powerful authors that are in there. Were there any specific you mentioned? Personal development was important to you on your journey to Anteans and other spaces. Were there any specific authors or leaders that you um went to in terms of influences on your writing style, on your leadership, or maybe someone you tried to emulate in your leadership?

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure about that, but I do know. At one point when I began to realize, when I understood that I'm not a manager, I'm a leader and I write about that, I think, in the book as well really important to know which one are you. It's not lesser or it's equal in value, but it's important to know which one that we are. Am I a manager or I'm a leader? And I always felt like I was a manager. So when I understood that, it became very clear to me I am not a manager, Although I thought I'm a diehard little Amish girl that wants to do everything when I had to shift from doing to being. I want to say that a leader is an influencer and is more about being than it's about doing, although you will do whatever it takes to get the job done as well. But I think at that time, when I shifted from management to leadership, I began to understand the responsibility, the, the, the responsibility of leadership. And so then I followed John Maxwell quite a bit in his books and, uh, we had him do an anti-im convention at one point, and um, um, and, and that's where I began to uh develop my leadership, uh, through mostly reading, because honestly, I didn't have time. I mean, in today's world they would say you have to take the time but I just didn't have time to spend a lot of time with people that had been down the road further than me.

Speaker 1:

But books became my great friend, my companion. I mean I read all the time on travels, in my travels, on the planes, all the time on leadership, because I knew if I was going to be who God wanted me to be, then I had to learn who I was or who he called me to be, and I did that mainly through reading books, and John Maxwell was one of the great, but then there was also many other books that I read during that time. And, yeah, people came into my life and I think at that time I had a really good pastor that really helped me develop my gift and my talents, whatever that was. At the time I didn't know what that was, but he helped me understand what my gifts and talents were. So, yes, people, along the way you were an encourager and an influencer. Yeah, that's right, and I had no idea.

Speaker 2:

And I was 48 at the way I told you you were an encourager and an influencer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's right, and I had no idea, and I was 48 at the time. I had no idea. So I think that when you find yourself in a role, you may not understand who you are. Maybe you have this vision and this. You know, I want to be an entrepreneur, but I mean, I hate to break it to you, but you may not even know who you are at the very beginning of your company. But once you discover that, embrace who you are, whether it's management or leadership, and then find the people around you that can add to your team, whether it's if you need a leader for your company or you're looking for managers. It's vital to the health of your company and it's also important to the growth of your company, because if you have the wrong people in the wrong places, let me tell you and we did sometimes it creates such frustration, but when you have the right people in the right position, it becomes like a well-oiled machine, not without its challenges, but everybody is in the right place, using their kitchen talents. And let me tell you when you find that, the sky is truly the limit.

Speaker 1:

We went around the world with great people who knew what their role was, and I'm forever grateful and I can tell you I'm not the perfect leader. Ask my employees, they would be happy to tell you that leader, as my employees, they would be happy to tell you that. But I found people that were willing to come to me, come to our company, and these people, then they became passionate about our purpose and they became passionate about our purpose simply, I feel like, because we cared about them. And if you care for your people, I believe they will care for your purpose. And these people, all the employees at Auntie Anne's, whether they were there a year or 15 years, some are still there. They carried the Auntie Anne model around the world. It's never been about me, it's been about the people and I'm glad that I know that People are your greatest gift and your greatest asset.

Speaker 2:

Overcoming Lead is a book that folks could read and learn about some of those compassionate stories that Auntie Anne's had to help their employees go through the times that they had and to get the level of commitment that you had. You mentioned putting people in the right places. Now you're talking Jim Collins in the right seats on the bus to make sure the organization can be successful over the long period, which is very important as well. At the end you've written a memoir. You've now written your leadership book and you have a cookbook that's out there, which one was harder to do?

Speaker 1:

Well, you missed the one book, which was Secret Lies Within. I've written three books and a storybook as well. We've done some online courses, all of that, but I can tell you the hardest one I did was the Secret Lies Within, because that had to do with overcoming myself, and I wanted to be raw and real and retemptive with that story to help people understand that, yeah, you may be here today, but you can become more. You can overcome, and in order to overcome yourself, you have to. In order to move on, you have to overcome yourself, and I call it the.

Speaker 1:

Overcoming yourself is the internal life of who you are. It's the inside of you, the outside of you is pretty easy to craft that life. You know people pat you on the back and they say you're amazing, you're amazing, you're amazing. And after a while you're like maybe I'm amazing, I don't know. But the internal life is what we have to. I mean, that's where we have what we have to pay attention to. Who am I only? And as we learn to do that, I really feel like we can then become. We open ourselves up then to become the leaders that God really created us to be, and it's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2:

Then we learn what it means to serve your people and to lead them in ways that will benefit them as well as it benefits us. So great, Auntie Anne. How do folks connect with you? Where do they find out more about you?

Speaker 1:

I'll just go on my website, Auntie Anne Beiler, and you'll find all kinds of things out about me, maybe more than what you want to know, but there you can follow me. I'll let you know where I'm speaking and where I'm at and hopefully, when I come to your area maybe I can meet some of your folks.

Speaker 2:

That would be great Antion. I appreciate you sharing the time with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader podcast today. I'll put the link to your website in the show notes. I only have one more question for you as I've run over on my time. I see that on my clock over here, but I got to finish you up the same way that I finished my other first time guests, and I'm going to give you a billboard and you can put that billboard anywhere you want to.

Speaker 1:

What's the message that you put on that billboard and why do you put that message on there? I'm struggling with that one, john. So there's two of them. One is find your purpose and give it to the world. The other one is secrets, lie. Truth frees you to become the person to be who God created you to be Powerful. You can choose.

Speaker 2:

Secrets lie. Love that Just got the chance to see Zach Williams recently in concert. Fear is a liar, but secrets lie, no doubt about that Love him. Yeah. So, auntie Anne, again, I appreciate you investing the time with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader Podcast today. I wish you the best as you continue to be on your journey of development, developing yourself, of helping others with their marriages and I don't know writing and speaking. I look forward to seeing you in the future as well.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Thank you, John.

Speaker 2:

And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.