The Other Way

084: [FEMALE STORIES] Zen, Sustainability, & Balancing Entrepreneurship with Susan Griffin-Black, Co-Founder of EO Products

• Kasia Stiggelbout • Season 3 • Episode 84

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I am so excited to welcome our next guest - a very special mentor of mine, Susan Griffin-Black, co-founder of EO Products. Today we're joining Susan as she shares her journey across fashion, Founding EO products, her Zen practice, and motherhood.

Susan talks about balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with mindfulness while raising a family and staying true to her values. Her story is filled with incredible moments from her early days at Esprit to discovering the wellness industry at Neal’s Yard in London.

We also dive into the challenges of growing EO Products from her garage and the balance between work and life. Plus, hear her insights on ethical business, funding, and building a company that aligns with family values.

This episode is perfect for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to create sustainable, values-driven businesses!

About Susan:

Susan is a proud mama of two wildly creative artists and is now a joyful grandma, too! She’s also the heart and co-founder/co-CEO of EO Products, a personal care brand that started in her garage in 1995. Alongside her partner Brad, Susan set out to make the magic of pure essential oils something everyone could experience. Since 1997, they’ve been crafting their products right in Marin, staying true to their roots. It all began with a simple stockpot of shower gel in their garage, and now it’s become a journey they never could have imagined—one led purely by passion and a whole lot of heart.

Connect with Susan:

IG: sgriffinblack &  eoproducts 

To connect with Kasia

Kasia:

Hello and welcome to the Other Way, a lifestyle podcast exploring uncommon, unconventional or otherwise alternative approaches to life, business and health. I'm your host, kasia. I'm the founder of InFlow, a women's wellness brand that designs intentional products to help women reconnect to their unique cyclical rhythm and find a balance between being and doing. This podcast is an extension of my mission within Flow. Here we provide intentional interviews with inspiring humans, trailblazers, researchers, spiritual teachers and more on the journey of doing things the other way. On the journey of doing things the other way. Hello, my friends. Oh my gosh. Finally my voice is back to normal, y'all. I'm so excited to finally be on the mend.

Kasia:

The past couple of weeks with my podcasts and intros were pretty rough, although, as I mentioned, I kind of loved the raspy voice. So those of you who are tuning into my regular voice enjoy. We're back to normal. Anyway, today I am so pumped because I have the most incredible guest to welcome to the podcast. She is a woman that I feel a very deep kinship with, that I admire so much that a lot of my founder female founder friends admire. She is a mother, she is a grandmother, she is a Soto Zen Buddhist practitioner and some of you may know her as the co-founder of EO Products. Some of you may know her as the co-founder of EO Products, susan Griffith Blac. Susan is a champion for the integrated wellness lifestyle and a pioneer and one of the top women business leaders in the natural personal care industry.

Kasia:

We covered so much from how Susan went from fashion design to co-founding EO Products from her garage as a new mother.

Kasia:

She talked about navigating the duality of both seeking achievement as a founder, but also equanimity as a Buddhist practitioner. We talked about what it is like to build a values-based business truly, really from a practical point of view, like how to actually do it with real examples. Susan shared a great reminder that businesses rarely reach the pinnacle of success overnight, and we got to hear some really real, true, raw stories about difficult decisions and experiences that Susan went through that eventually helped contribute to EO's success. We talked about Susan's own journey of balancing her identity as a mother, founder and Buddhist, why leaning in isn't necessarily the only path for ambitious women and why building a business that you would want to work at is crucial from the get-go, and so much more. I feel like this conversation really sits at the intersection of being an entrepreneur, spiritual practice and motherhood in such a beautiful way with truly an OG legend. So without further ado, let's jump on into it. Susan, welcome to the podcast.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Thank you and thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to talk with you today and all you know.

Kasia:

Well, I am so beyond excited. I mean, right before this call I was speaking with Ashley, who is a friend of mine and founder of Ladywell, and I were just kind of talking about the fact that we want to be you when we grow up. So this is just quite an amazing experience to get to speak with you again and to have our community get to chat with you or listen to you too.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Thanks. I'm so honored and I think that women modeling those next steps has been a very foundational and critical and I'm so grateful to have relationships with those who have gone before me, you know, and so it has a lot of heart and meaning and I'm honored. So thank you.

Kasia:

Well, you are that trailblazer for us and we have a lot of questions for you, but the first one that I want to ask is one that I love asking every single guest. And we have a lot of questions for you, but the first one that I want to ask is one that I love asking every single guest, and it surprises some people. So we'll see how you do. What are three words that you would use to describe yourself?

Susan Griffin-Black :

Let's see Curious, kind and loving.

Kasia:

I love that. I'm curious, no pun intended. Would you say that those words have evolved for you over the kind of span of your career and kind of where you are?

Susan Griffin-Black :

now, and life yes, and life yeah, very much so.

Kasia:

What do you think they would have been like 25, 30 years ago?

Susan Griffin-Black :

years ago. Yeah, they would have been creative, creative kind, maybe you know, and I think always curious I would say, I would have said seeker, creative and loving, I think could have been in there.

Kasia:

That's good. I love that. I love those types of reflections, and because we often kind of think of our lives as super stagnant at least I personally struggle with the periods of time where life feels like I'm going through like an identity shift, right, like we either want to like latch on to a very solid definition of who we are, and so I think it's it's just so wonderful to have women describe their evolution a bit, as they kind of can reflect on it, and to have that awareness. So I think that's so, so, so important.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So thank you for sharing yeah absolutely, I really I love that question and I love that perspective, because I feel like things were just, I would say, more ego-based, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, and a lot of how I would identify myself would have been more sort of, you know, leaning forward into proving myself. And now, at 68, not so much the case, you know. And with another 20 years of practice, also right.

Kasia:

Yeah, yeah. Well, you just like walked right into my immediate next question, which is so. As of course, the audience knows, you are the co-founder of EO. You're a mother, you are a former fashion designer we could talk about some of that but you're also a Zen practitioner, and I love that. You mentioned that.

Kasia:

The words you would have used to describe yourself in the past, or perhaps some of your personality, would have been a lot more rooted in that desire to prove yourself. I'm curious, kind of reflecting on your very accomplished career and the things that you've brought into the world that really are of service for many people as well. Do you think that that ego driven need to kind of define yourself in the world, do you think that that yields the same amount of success versus had you not kind of pursued your career in that way? Right, you know what I mean, where it's just it's so easy for us to be like oh, you know, this is how I identify now and like this is maybe the right not quote unquote right way, but it's just so much more, so much less ego driven. But maybe was that ego necessary or not, because I would love to hear that.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Yeah, that's such a good question. Also, I just wanted to name another identity, which is grandma. My granddaughter is four and a half months old. Congratulations, thank you.

Susan Griffin-Black :

That's a when I look at the trajectory of being a feminist, for example. You know that. So let's say I took one of the first women's studies courses at Penn State in probably 73, something like that 74. And I worked at the Women's Resource Center. And you know Gloria Steinem, robin Morgan, bella Abzug, you know I mean this was sort of the way forward intellectually and in my heart because of the equity and justice piece of it. But then on the other side, the pushing a boulder uphill culturally was still sort of happening, right.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So I remember that I felt, like always, that there was pressure to overdo because I was female. And then also, I would say from my whole you know psychology and life of tap dancing for my dad and attention. And you know, when I explored my childhood over the many years right, you know there's some of that in there too and so the combination made me anxious and really concerned about sort of imposter syndrome, like can I do this? And then overdoing it to make sure that I did it. And then, and you know. So it was very much like I remember when I became a mom with my son Mark. I was 30.

Susan Griffin-Black :

And he's 38 right now, right, so that was a while ago, and I lived in an apartment in the Marina and I and I was in the midst of opening a retail store, a clothing store, in San Francisco, and there was sort of this work from home, part of it, in transition, and I felt very agitated, sort of being able to go to a class at 1030. It's like why aren't these people working? Like I don't understand I'm, I'm, you know, and and just uneasiness and the amount of pressure that I felt to break through that. I wasn't like you know, I wasn't just a mom, and those two things were very separate. You know, it's like in spite of being a mom, then you know, there's so much there.

Kasia:

I mean just hearing you describe that kind of underlying angst, I so relate to it deeply and so many of my friends kind of describe a similar feeling, some of whom are mothers already, others who are trying to prove themselves I mean this felt and still feels like a core part of my identity.

Kasia:

I would say that it's shifted a bit with some other massive life events but at the same time it is just so, so, so relatable. And it's interesting to have you describing having those feelings kind of in a very different time, at a time where truly women did have to prove themselves in a different way. Right, like it's it's not like female entrepreneurship was not as common back then as as it is now. Like we talk about it, there's more of that culture of acceptance. Like we talk about it, there's more of that culture of acceptance. So I guess, with your kind of shifting of that ego drive and really becoming aware of the presence of that ego, now that you can kind of see, you know, let's say, accomplish in the world, but maybe not have it driven from a place of ego, reflecting on all the things you were able to achieve, do you think that it could be possible to get to that same level without that angst and that kind of I need to prove myself energy? What do you think about that?

Susan Griffin-Black :

I don't know. I don't know because I don't know how it is for others. Necessarily, I would say that the more I've practiced and the more I've sort of gone inward, that my inner experience is just not as affected by outer experiences, and so I'm less reactive, maybe, and also less anxious around work. I have other anxieties and worries, and kids and all that, but work-wise not so much and in terms of my identity and work, and so I'm. I think if you've been practicing, you know it depends sort of experience, practice, commitment to practice, the, the, what drew you to practice, what you're trying to sort of work out there, work with there, as you're working with your life? Also, are you living in practice, in a practice situation, which I've never done?

Susan Griffin-Black :

I've always been a lay person. You know that accelerates things in a certain way if you can take it back out into the world and test it, you know. So all of these things make it hard to say. I hope so. I hope that we're evolving right and I hope that things are, as they always are, in a state of change. But that change is reflected in a lot of different ways.

Kasia:

Ah, that's so powerful. Yeah, I feel like I love your answer of I don't know, because that is the the ultimate kind of beginner's mind response to that question, where you know you might have an opinion on, you know, having hope for that to be the case, that we can have almost like a new wave of entrepreneurship that is perhaps coming from a different place, not just the pressures of success, improving ourselves, but at the end of the day, you know, that wasn't perhaps the way that this is where your path is now, but that's not what drove you at the beginning. So who knows how it would have turned out for you personally and for the next person. I think that that is just such a beginner's mind view, which is a very powerful tenant, I guess, in Buddhism. So I love that. So I'd love to actually backtrack for a minute here because we jumped right into some of the questions around that, really the intersection of your Buddhist practice and your business. But for women out there, because a lot of the audience that listens to this podcast we have a lot of women that listen to the podcast I would love for you to share the origin story of EO for women out there listening, because I was doing some Googling in preparation for this interview and you went from fashion design to co-founding EO.

Kasia:

You were a mother. This all came out of your garage and you bootstrapped the business, especially in the earlier days. I know, and that is just so uncommon here in the Bay Area, where I feel like most of the founders that I talk to are especially if you're in the AI space, you're sneezing and you're raising $20 million, and so we don't hear these stories of building businesses from the ground up and especially as a mother, so juggling those two almost like different but related roles. So if you could just share a bit of that backstory, that would be amazing.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So I was working at Esprit, which I took this job as my last gig in the clothing business. I was really done and kind of looking for what my next thing would be. And I worked for the late Doug Tompkins who was very much of a conservationist and environmentalist and he wanted to really take a look at how we were making things. How could we make things with a lighter footprint? What harm were we causing? Could we be mindful about that and change it over time? Were we making too many products? Where are we in the, you know, on the continuum of really pushing consumerism? So all of this, you know, was sort of his thinking and his inquiry. And then we all sort of joined in. So we would have brown bag lunches at the time, say 1990, david Brower, paul Hawken, anita Roddick, david Foreman, you know, and it just erotic, david Foreman, you know, and it just, and Yvonne Chouinard, right, and so the list just kind of kept going. And I was already studying a Zen student but what I learned about interdependence and really looking at everything through that filter of what harm were we creating? Really sort of, you know, blossomed around organic cotton, because you know there was so much harm in growing conventional cotton harvesting, processing, all of that. So that really made me very aware of the link between weather, climate, agriculture, how we process things to go through. How good is that for the planet? How good is that for the people who are making the thing, you know? And it just put it all together for me in a, in a very felt sense, kind of palpable way.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So, and and then Doug sold the company, he moved to Chile and I knew my my time there because very different circumstances when his partner bought him out. So I was kind of looking for the next thing to do and I wasn't sure. And I was on a buying trip in London and I was sort of wandering around in Covent Garden and I came upon this little courtyard, neil's yard, and I walked into the apothecary and as I walked in the door and the smell was just incredible. I mean, snippets of it were familiar, like you know, my grandma's tomato garden and you know there's some memory, scent and sense memories there, right, but it was so honest and vital and beautiful and there were treatment rooms upstairs so you could go see an aromatherapist or acupuncturist or you know, homeopath and then come downstairs and in this in the apothecary they would make medicine. They would make, you know, the herbal tincture, medicine in the back, contracted with a compounder, you know a homeopath who used to drop it off. And then they had Bath and Body Care and a full range of essential oils and dried herbs and books, right.

Susan Griffin-Black :

And I walked in and I picked up this little bottle of lavender essential oil, lavender and gustafolia, from France, and I like smelled it and I was like I looked around and it was like the room was like gold, you know, and I was like this is what I want to do next, you know, because it was beyond a product, it had to do with wellness, it had to do with self-care at a deep level and also inquiry. That was outside of the Western medical model, right. And so I got the rights to distribute Neil's Yard. And I did that for a couple of years, neil's Yard, the bath and body care and then ended my relationship with them and started EO. And so Neal's Yard was, I would say, from like 92 to 95. And then EO was launched at the end of 95 in Bloomingdale's catalog, holiday catalog.

Kasia:

Oh my gosh. And you were a new mother at the time. How old were your children?

Susan Griffin-Black :

Yeah, so my son was born in 86. So he was, you know, nine, and I was pregnant with my daughter, lucy, and she was born in 96, right. So I had, you know, been working always and fortunately, my pregnancies were good, you know. So that was possible, because, you know, not always and especially at that age, right, that's a little bit tricky, but and and it was what it was, you know, except we were working for ourselves, right? So Brad and I were dating.

Susan Griffin-Black :

I got a project from Birkenstock. He was closing down his clothing company and their studio was down the hall, and this was after sort of the garage. We moved to a little industrial building in the city on 3rd Street, you know, to a little industrial building in the city on third street, you know, and I had to fill like 10,000 bottles of foot oil and 10,000 little foot salts, put them in a craft box with the Birkenstock logo and da da da and hand stamp that. So he came down to assess the situation of how long was it going to take us to do that and he was like no man, you cannot pour this out of a beaker, you cannot make it pour. No, not for 10,000 bottles and 10,000 salts.

Susan Griffin-Black :

We got to figure out a way to gravity feed and he had made gravity feed and you know we were dating, we became business partners, we got married, we had a baby he's the stepfather of my son, you know, and all of that and he really took, and was skilled to take, the general manufacturing process, operational process. You know he did a lot of sales, I did finance and all you know product development and branding and that's sort of he had mid-gravity feed. We started. We made that project on time because he figured out a way to jury rig that and you know, and one foot in front of the other, kind of not kind of definitely.

Kasia:

So much there. I mean, first of all, I think it's so wonderful to kind of recognize the power of like partnership that you don't have to have all of the skills yourself and that like leaning on other people to kind of complement your skills. As you kind of partnered with Brad, he obviously optimized the operations, you were the visionary behind the product and the finance part of things, and so I think that that's just such an important also lesson. I'm curious in the early days, and especially for a lot of founders out there who are just like okay, you know, social media is the only way to get the word out. Like what were you doing back then to grow the business? And I understand this feeling so acutely where you're. Just like you know, I'm shipping X number of planners, which is obviously my product, but it's like it feels so slow going at the beginning, like what was your strategy, if you even want to call it that, to kind of spread the word at the beginning?

Susan Griffin-Black :

I wouldn't say it was a strategy. I would say that it was survival. You know, because you know we had to work. We didn't. It wasn't like an you know, it wasn't an option. We didn't make a bunch of money in tech before we did this. You know there was no other.

Kasia:

So, and you had kids, right yeah.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So, yeah, so the idea was how do we create a company that we would want to work for? And then, in the process of starting to make things, even in, you know, at a very small scale, we could see that making things, you know, making our own products was a pretty cool process and I think, you know, we're still makers, we manufacture everything in San Rafael, as you know. But I, I think that we were so into the making of products and so not into the marketing. You know, we just we sort of had no game there. It wasn't either of our strengths, but it was about relationship.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So and I think I told you this story because I, you know, everything was guerrilla marketing Whole Foods in Mill Valley, you know, I think they had 40 or 50 stores and we really wanted to get into Whole Foods and we, they were like, yeah, it's okay. You know, I think they had 40 or 50 stores and we really wanted to get into Whole Foods and we, they were like, yeah, it's OK, you know, I don't know. And then we would like write on the bulletin board, we would call, like, you know, the whole body department, hi, do you have? You know we would. And then we made everyone at our kids school requested on the bulletin board in the community bulletin board and call, and then eventually, you know, we got in and then we got our hand soap in the bathroom and we had our like hand sanitizer in the front of the store before they sold to Amazon, and so all of that, just it was like one account at a time and with Whole Foods then it was one store at a time really and it was pretty organic. And it's like the waiting part that you're describing I really understand.

Susan Griffin-Black :

And what I would do is I would just think about, okay, what else can we make and what else can we make, and because we made everything, and then I would get to these, you know, critical points of, well, we don't have the equipment for that, or, you know, if you want to do that, we've got to go to the contract manufacturer. We couldn't really afford the minimums, didn't really like the ingredients, you know. So it was. And then really starting to understand the quality and the benefit of ingredients, cosmetic ingredients, and what we wanted to use versus what mainstream was using. And then that was the emergence of organic, standard, ewg, all of the things that set apart what is now called clean beauty, you know, and all of this sort of loses its meaning once it's saturated and dilutes what it was in the beginning.

Susan Griffin-Black :

But I can say for us and many others that we wanted to sell our products where food was sold, where organic food was sold, because people who were wanting to eat better it was a natural, adjacent idea and feeling that they wanted higher quality and healthier, better for you personal care products, you know. So we wanted to make them for ourselves and for our family and for our community. And then it just kind of rippled out and it was very word of mouth and it was very, you know, hand soap in the bathroom for sampling, sanitizing wipes for your hands and your car. Then those products would start to sell and then adjacent products. But remember, like you know, in 99, when healthshopcom, when drugstorecom, when all of those things were emerging, you know the early DTC brands and platforms, that was all really new. That was the beginning for us of selling online, of having a website, of just embracing that bit of technology as it was up and coming. I mean, prior to that it didn't exist, right? Can you imagine?

Kasia:

prior to that it didn't exist, right. Can you imagine I just I loved the story when you shared it with me originally, because I think so many founders can relate to just feeling like it's an uphill battle, right. Like you put so much passion into the products and you know, as you were even describing kind of the the original allure and the pull you felt to the beautiful sense in London, and like how that evolved into you eventually building a business and putting so much love and really putting your values into action by designing products that are good for the body, good for the earth, smell delicious. To have all this love put into a product and then have it grow so slowly or have it be an uphill battle by, as you talked about, having people sign a petition to get you into Whole Foods.

Kasia:

Often we don't hear these stories and I think it's just so amazing to have you share this type of story with listeners out there. You share this type of story with listeners out there, you know, just to remind people that we feel like, okay, amazon Prime delivers in two days, but that's not really how things work and when you see a lot of these businesses there's, you know a lot of time that had gone in behind the scenes to get them to the place that they're at. But you know, these things take time and effort and it sometimes takes multiple, you know, kind of tries to get your product into a store and I just I'm so grateful that you're sharing this because I'll know, I know that I needed to hear it then. I've shared that story with so many people since then and it's just such an important reminder, truly truly.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Well, you know, first you got to get the product on the shelf, then you got to get it off the shelf Right, and so that's the other sort of piece of it of how do you compete on shelf, especially with brands who have deep pockets or owned by other corporations and have a lot more money for marketing and advertising, you know, than we ever did, than we ever did. And a lot of companies get to the point, when they're small, that they think they need money to do that in order to grow. And that's kind of where private equity comes in, and it's too early. Well, we can have a conversation about private equity, but it's too early because you don't really know your customer.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So the thing to me was always like okay, do they like this? You know, are they? They buy it once, but are they buying it again? You know, so it just tracking that like, is it becoming part of anyone's life? And and? And what are we competing against? Probably everything. But it was more like adoption and repurchase. So it's like, it's a. You know, some people refer to it as like the war on the floor. You know what I mean. Like, it's like I was like and I guess Really selling it well, susan, yeah, the war on the floor.

Susan Griffin-Black :

We all want to go to that war Right, the war on the floor. We all want to go to that war. You know values driven and anti-greed and you know how do you make something fair and accessible. You know, on the shoulders of the body shop and Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia and at the end because you know this was these companies were emerging men and they had much more socially progressive ideas about what work and a workplace could look like and also the care and love and passion that they put into their products, right. So some people ahead of us, you know which was always really inspirational and good too and helpful, you know.

Kasia:

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Kasia:

Now back to the episode. You know you spoke about building a company that you would want to work for. Like that, that was one of your kind of guiding North Stars in this process. I'm curious how did you balance that with the bottom line, because sometimes those things can feel at odds, like keeping production in-house, having a factory in the Marin area versus cheaper areas. These are all decisions that I know are deeply aligned with your values but also perhaps require more money to go into that right and so, especially building a business from the ground up. How did you stay true to kind of sticking to your values, as you did that across like every single turn? Let's see.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So we raised money from friends and family and angel investors a couple of times. I think the last time was maybe 2010.

Susan Griffin-Black :

We've taken no private equity money, so this was a couple of years into the business already right, like when you yeah, at least yeah so we raised money like startup years, right, wasn't very much, I could say maybe $130,000 at that point and we raised about one, two, you know, over time, at last time, as I said, like you know, 2010. So we were never going to take private equity money. That was our because even early on, because it was the model was seemed so counter to what we were trying to do. You know, fast growth, spending a bunch of money on marketing. You know it was like just pushing product out and pushing product into people's hands and then, you know, and then, of course, seeing if they repurchased it and stuff. But the relationship was more about, was more transactional, and we just that wasn't so interesting. You know, I had come from a spree in that amount of time and this wasn't their glory years, right. So we were competing with guests and competing with this and competing and we it was the retail clothing business and you know, a new skew style every five minutes to try to appeal to that customer and blah, blah, blah and the gap, you know, is really coming up then and so competition, who were more vertical and so forth. You know that was a problem.

Susan Griffin-Black :

But the pressure for growth in private equity and anything financed that way and the pressure to do it fast and sort of fearless, and it's really like top line vanity, and then that's pretty addictive in a way. It's really adrenaline producing. And when you're doing it and you're you have all of those pipeline product fills. You know you get into target and like woo, you get this big purchase order Right and then on the other side of it, you know, did it sell well enough to stay on the shelf or were they cherry picking indie brands, you know, so that it looks like they're progressive but really the bulk of their business is done with, you know, png and Unilever, blah, blah, blah. So you know it's.

Susan Griffin-Black :

But the thing that really was so helpful was the natural products industry emerging, because that was that. You know, those people, that community. What they were doing and trying to do was, you know, more health conscious, more wellness conscious. What's in it, how is it made, who's making it, and all of that inquiry and the sort of the conscious consumer arising. You know, I'll just, we were just in the thick of it, which was really great timing, you know, very fortunate to have been there.

Kasia:

I think that's such a powerful reflection to you know, for anyone out there who's kind of thinking, okay, I want to launch this business, or I'm growing my business and I see this vision for success, but I also want to stay true to my values and you know some of the values that you expressed very early on in this conversation to A choose how you're funded and to be like conscious and intentional with like what are the incentives behind some of that funding? If you choose to raise money I think you mentioned that's really important. And then the other bit, which you've just spoken to even a couple of times, is understanding your customer and then knowing, like, how to really build into that community. So you talked about the natural foods market and EO's case and like how plugging into the growth of that network has been like really, really powerful. And it's just so interesting because I reflect on my earlier questions about you know how much did ego play a role in that pull for success in the earlier years of your business.

Kasia:

But when I hear you talking about these decisions that you made from funding, from you know marketing as you describe with like great empathy, like your consumer and how you built for yourself and for your friends and for people who really cared about the earth and the health of their bodies.

Kasia:

There's just so much like outward service in what you're describing that I'm like whoa, okay. So, yes, perhaps there was that aspect of okay. I really want to be successful, I have something to prove, not just for myself as a woman, but for other women. But there's just this obvious undertone of a deep passion and service, like through your business, and I don't know if that rings true for you, but I'm just like on the receiving end of this conversation and I see that and I think that's so inspiring that I want to name it because there's like a deep heart that is just so, so present for me, as I'm hearing you talk about these decisions and the thought process that went into that and it just it feels so warm to like describe that and then imagine running a business from that place and that's just I mean, that's really amazing actually.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Well, that's all hindsight right. So I can say a lot of these things. You know where our 30th anniversary is next year. So the hindsight of it, some of it sounds calm and you know, oh yeah, and then we just, you know, did this and did that and that was really not the case, right? So things like really paying attention, really learning about cash flow, dealing with banks, growing and financing our growth, you know, dealing with receivables and how people paid us and going from shipping direct to the distribution business and understanding that you know UNFI is Whole Foods key distribution partner.

Susan Griffin-Black :

When Whole Foods said you gotta, you know you gotta UNFI, you know you've got to go to UNFI. And we went to UNFI, to their huge warehouse in Auburn and I was like I got to meet the guy who, who guy who started this because he lived around there. I got to have a beer and, you know, whole Foods made us. And then you know the head of sales for UNFI and she's like wait, yeah, I'll see if he's around, you know. So that was Michael Funk and he was the CEO. He was one of the founders of Unify. He was the CEO and chairman of the board for a while. I think he just kind of stepped down, but he's still very involved. So I was like I just have to look at the person who I'm giving my receivables to, because right now I know who to call at Whole Foods if they don't pay us. I know who to call at Good Earth or Real Foods or you know, merz Apothecary in Chicago. But like, how do I, if you guys aren't paying us, like who am I calling? There's no relationship there. And he was like okay, and he gave me the roadmap to negotiate with all the people in his company, unfi. You know he was like you just ask them for 210 net 10, we've got cash and so we'd get paid in 10 days. You know, and those were good size orders. So you know it.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Just the relationship piece of it still is, you know, such a cornerstone of how we do, what we do and what we care about. And also you know just regenerative relationship, reciprocity in relationship. I remember calling Walter Robb, who's the president of Whole Foods, when they were beating me up for margin and too much free product and he said you tell the buyer that we are your principal trading partner and you can't. What would you do if you were me? Here's, here's all our actual costs and here's.

Susan Griffin-Black :

So there were such, I felt so much support and reciprocity, you know, in in all of these relationships and in growing up with all the, all the people you know, and so now we look at each other, you know, cause there's, there's a bunch of us, like I just was at, uh, one step closer, which is a natural products organization, and there was Carolyn Ken from Lotus Foods and Drake and Naomi from Traditional Medicinals and David from Bronner's and you know, and we all sort of just look at each other and it's been like, you know, family, because we've spent our lifetime, really, you know, 30 plus. I think we're kind of the babies in there. You know Amy's, you know in this business, you know, so it's been so it's been really great to have each other.

Kasia:

You know, so it's been, so it's been really great to have each other. That is such an incredible call out too, because I think that often I mean you described it yourself there's definitely a war on the floor Right, and I do feel like when we think about building a business, there is this like aggressive competitive feeling behind it. But I love how you kind of shared the importance of the relationship building aspect of it. Like that, if you really kind of drill it down, there is potential and it's actually quite important to it sounds like build those relationships with your customers, but with also the buyers you're working with and also other, even potentially competitors, that you can learn from. I mean that, I think, is such a powerful insight and brings some humanity back to the whole process.

Susan Griffin-Black :

Yeah, and I think too, when I started speaking at different kinds of conferences, on panels, and a lot of people were in tech and everyone was on series A or C or B and you know everyone's going for a billion dollars in revenue, it's like, you know, the truth is you got to get to a million before you get to a billion. So, like, how's that going? And also just this idea that you could not be profitable and be and have this burn rate without any accountability, like big stretches of time, without any accountability, like big stretches of time. And I, I get it now, you know, for companies who you know have made it through and have created and changed all of our lives. But you know, there was so much waste and so much. You know hope isn't a strategy, but it was sort of like if you, you know, from a venture side, you weren't really expecting to be successful with 50%, even right, it's just like, do this. And then you know, if the one, two, three, four are amazing, then you're good, you're golden. You know Brain pride, yeah, oh yeah.

Susan Griffin-Black :

But such different thinking, you know. I mean, you know, here we were mixing up first the 10 gallon pots of, you know, lavender body oil. You know, and now we might do, you know a 3000 gallon batch of lavender body oil. But I've seen it through. You know, there is a certain, again, like felt sense from every every stage of that and when you see it and you feel it and you do it, it's just a very different connection.

Susan Griffin-Black :

And then also, you know, the company that we wanted to work for really came out of being a mom, because I didn't want to be more than five or 10 minutes away from my kids. I never wanted to miss a basketball game or a play or a parent-teacher conference or picking up a sick kid, because you know my nervous system couldn't handle it, that pull. And then later on, when Sheryl Sandberg wrote Leaning In, I thought no, I thought I get it. But you know, parenting is is like it's really incredible. It's like the hardest, best role, job, identity, everything about it. And so to me it wasn't just, like you know, there was nothing casual about care and presence for kids. You can, when they're younger, sort of delegate, but when they get older, if you're not paying attention, it's not worth it. And I wanted to, I wanted to, and then I also wanted other women and other families to have that experience of experience of let's just work eight hours a day, get out of here by 4.30 and go do what you know do your life.

Kasia:

Oh, thank God for that. I mean thank God for that perspective. It's so important because, as you alluded to at the beginning, right, it's not just looking at your life over the course of your career, it's not just you know the trajectory of your career, like your life over the course of your career. It's not just the trajectory of your career, your life has multiple dimensions. You're a mother, you're a grandmother. Now, right, you have this beautiful business, but you also have your spiritual practice and I think it's so important to hold those all and be able to support them, because all of that comes together to create your life, every one of those moments collectively. Okay, I could chat with you forever. We're just about at time.

Kasia:

But I have to ask this one more question, sure, and that is you hold so many identities in your life and have over the course of your life and some of these roles can sometimes feel at odds, right, like where Buddhism teaches us non-grasping, right, which sometimes can feel very much at odds with building a business that needs to be cashflow, positive, to pay employees and to, you know, afford food. And then also the identity of being a mother and a caretaker and picking up, you know, cleaning up puke or whatever it is that happens there. How did you balance all of those, like reflecting on that? How did you balance all of those, like reflecting on that? How did you balance all those identities? Were you switching one on and off over the course of the day or did you actually feel like over time those just became like different parts of yourself, but very connected, like? I would just love to hear about that experience, because sometimes it feels so binary, like this or that.

Susan Griffin-Black :

The binary positioning of that is pretty delusional, right, and also just adds to the stress. So, kind of early-ish on, I thought if you could bring your whole self to work, which meant that if you're at work and you're in the flow and that's good, or you have a cashflow problem, that you're at, whatever it is that's with you and and your kid's sick at school that you know, you could put that problem down to deal with this problem. And then you know, and it just sort of like one thing after the other. So it was more about presence than balance and I still think that is key. Like you can't really have balance without presence.

Susan Griffin-Black :

It starts with presence. It's like, okay, boots on the ground, you're here now what do you got? What's happening, what's real, what needs attention, and then trying to manage it that way and multitasking, you know never worked. And because our brains really aren't designed that way, you know, sometimes you know I'd be nursing and tech, you know, but you know I mean we do, of course, but I'm just saying, like you know, but this for anything that really you need to pay attention to at a deep level, it doesn't. So then how do you go from you know this thing over here to this thing over here. It's all interconnected. It affects you and then it ripples out and affects everybody else, right? So I think it's present, not balanced.

Kasia:

So well said, Susan. It was an absolute joy speaking with you, Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. If there's anything that you want to share with our audience, how they can find you, I'll link everything below, of course, but any last thoughts or announcements please do. I'm sure that they'll be so excited to hear so thank you so much.

Susan Griffin-Black :

I so appreciate you and getting to know you and the business that you're embarking on and just your curiosity about practice and business, because it's very close to my heart, you know so, and so thanks so much for the opportunity and I just want all women entrepreneurs to know that if I can do it, you can do it. You know there's just there's no separation. It's like it's settling with yourself that this is, this is the course, and one step at a time, you just you just go down the path and always there's always help, there's always support, and Susan at EOProductscom is my email.

Kasia:

Susan, thank you so much. Thank you so much for tuning into the Other Way. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five-star review. It really helps the podcast grow and I'm ever so grateful. If you want to stay connected, you can find information on how in our show notes. And finally, if you're curious about inflow and want free resources around cyclical living or moon cycles, check out inflowplannercom. And, of course, for all my listeners, you can use the code podcast10, and that's all lowercase podcast10, for 10% off any purchase. All right, that's all for today. See you next time.

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Kasia Stiggelbout

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