Living The Red Life - Ditching Opiates: How Cannabis Changed My Life and Business

Starting point is 00:00:00 So in 2019, I tore my spine while it was running. I used to run like five miles every other day. It was my vice to life. And I hurt my back really bad. And they had put me on all these opiates. And at the time, my kid was 2 and 10, maybe, 2 and 9. And I couldn't take them. So I started to smoke weed.

Starting point is 00:00:22 And then I was like, I don't mind if my kids know I'm going to smoke from weed, but how else can I do this? You're in a very authentic, vulnerable business. Talk about what you're building. I'm building a safe space for everybody to come to. No, 21 to whatever age that might be. Doctor to the janitor. You built Waken Bakery from Resilience in a Viral Moment.

Starting point is 00:00:42 What advice would you give to entrepreneurs starting a food or cannabis-related business, especially a viral moment? My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the Red Life,

Starting point is 00:00:56 ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life podcast. I am your host with Insight Success, Ray Gutierrez. We have many, many, many shows that we film here at Insight Success Studios, one of them being Women in Power. And today joins me quite a powerful woman. That is Brianna Banks, co-founder of Wake and Bakery.

Starting point is 00:01:23 Now, Brianna, Wake and Bakery. Is it a bakery that I just wake up? to and there's some creative some goods it's exactly what you think it is it's a bakery that's infused with like coffee or it's coffee tea lemonade baked goods all infused with THC or CBD cool for folks that don't understand those acronyms what is THC I'm weed marijuana ah yes the what can you walk me through all the slangs of the Mary Jane the Wild Mabo guy no that's the different for 207 10 weed Wake and bake. Wake at Bakery.

Starting point is 00:02:01 So I'm going to give you some background. I grew up in Miami. Dangerous city to grow up in. I'm a late bloomer. Move to California. Discovered medication. Yeah. Change my life.

Starting point is 00:02:10 It's the reason why I can do what I do and not lose my mind. So thank you for like being a North Star and helping folks like me that are struggling every day or as folks like to say suffering. But with your medication and your modern medicine, it's really giving me another shot at life.

Starting point is 00:02:28 So thank you for that. Exactly why I started. Hell yeah. So pound that. But let's talk about the drama. Why so many names to such an archaic medicinal magic grass? I think forever it was a cliche and people, you can't really do it because it's not legal. And now that it's becoming legal, I think that it's becoming less drama.

Starting point is 00:02:50 And so people are now just this weed, you know, easy to use. Just more cliche. I think people were scared of it back in the 60s. Great. It started. You were illegal. You go to jail. You do all these things if you're smoking marijuana. Now, it's whatever. You smell it on the street every day. Yeah. It's kind of like, is it a sense of control? Like those folks are too happy. They're too free. They're too creative. We have to remove that. And it takes away from like pharmaceutical places. You know, it's a new. The reason why I started was it was a different concept. I didn't want to take all the opiates. They'd give me for hurting myself while I hurt my back. And so I started doing that. And that was my out. And I could function as a mother or as a woman, as a worker or anything by doing it. So, yeah, I think that's probably money.

Starting point is 00:03:36 There's also that kind of green. But I got to ask, where does your journey begin? So in 2019, I tore my spine while I was running. I used to run like five miles every other day. It was my vice to life. And I hurt my back really bad. And they had put me on all these opiates. And I have, I, at the time, my kid was two and ten, maybe, two and nine.

Starting point is 00:04:00 And I couldn't take them. So I started to smoke weed. And then I was like, I don't mind if my kids know I'm smoking weed, but I, how else can I do this? So then I started putting in my coffee. And then I started baking muffins with it. And I was like, other moms would want to do this shit too. So let's see what I can do. And that's how I started it.

Starting point is 00:04:20 When you started it on your own, how comforting was it when you found other moms or folks art. Oh, that's fun. There's a lot more people than you think that do it. There's lawyers and doctors and mothers who walk in and they're like, can my kid come in here? And the whole point was is that you could come in, your kid could have a regular muffin, you could get a coffee that had the, you know, weed in it. It's pretty sweet actually watching other people. So how does one get into this kind of business? Folks watch a lot of Netflix and they see a lot of dead folks that are chasing this kind of dollar. Yeah. It's not very much like that. The government's regulated it. There's all these fancy words for it. There's there's huge, there's Delta 8, there's

Starting point is 00:04:54 Delta 9, there's Delta negative 2, there's all sorts of, all these sort of terms. And the moment they came and kind of gave this government name, Delta 8, Delta 9, I felt like they less weaponized and more regulated. So talk about that challenge. So it is a challenge getting into places, number one, that's like the biggest deal. Like letting people come into, or us come into your space. I think that's probably the biggest and hardest thing. It's easy to get a, I have a hemp license, so I'm on a federal level.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Sure. It's relatively easy to get that. you just have to apply for it, show them C-O-A's. I work with the Department of Agriculture. All my stuff is lab tested. So that's probably the easiest part. But getting people to know what it is, I started out with Delta 8. That's how I started my business because that was the loop.

Starting point is 00:05:43 I'm very familiar. And it's great. It does a lot of good things for a lot of good people. But I also wanted to advance. And so I figured out new ways in Delta 9, which is the same thing as THC, which is the same thing as weed. people have a misconception, but I have to stay under a certain percentage, but it's perfectly fine. I do that. People love my stuff. They function every day with it. Yeah, and I have my Florida medical card.

Starting point is 00:06:05 Before it became recreational in California, I had my California medical card, and it completely changed my life. At that point, it was far more chill, and it was San Francisco. Like, you loaded up an app and there was a doctor, out of my back card, it's a booboom, there is your PDF, and you walk down the street, and you literally walk into an Apple store. All right. And it's, I remember my 1,000 milligram coronavirus. Rovobar. That was just, who. It's just like, you want to see art. Like, you get fucked up.

Starting point is 00:06:29 No, that was beyond F. I was just like, wow. Like, I was really seeing like life. I was really just seeing the metamorphosis of like, wow, I can see and feel things and really just understand different frequencies. Absolutely. Yeah. And it was a very powerful moment, which I understand why it's getting regulated. Not a lot of people can experience that and walk away from it normal.

Starting point is 00:06:47 Well, and you don't, not everybody can handle that. Like, I didn't, I can't handle that much. And it's my business. I just can't do it. I can smoke a lot, but I can't eat a lot. So it definitely is something you have to learn about, and you yourself have to be like, oh, 25 is too much for me. A hundred's great for me.

Starting point is 00:07:03 I wrote like three years of projections on my business one time. I mean, it just depends on what you want to do. And not to say the thousand was in a head. It was over the couple of days. I cut it up and tell little chunks. It's not getting nuts here. That's way too much. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:18 I was like, drink responsibly, folks. Exactly. Which leads to my great segue. Like, this is the anti-alcohol party substance. Absolutely. Like, I remember experimenting with Deltaida and getting into that business saying, we need to create the drink. We need to replace alcohol with this substance because it's all the good stuff without the bad.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Yeah. Especially the terrible stuff, like drive it on, the influence and all that terrible stuff. Yes. And folks that are suffering with, you know, dementia and all sorts of other plagues with alcohol. Exactly. You name it. Correct. It's definitely an alternative.

Starting point is 00:07:49 The whole point, we have like mojitos that are just infuse with teachings of alcohol. I mean, no one's ever died from THD that I know that any research has known, you know, anything like that. So for me, it's completely an alternative to doing whatever you do on a Friday night. Oh, yeah. You know, instead, maybe you're playing cornhole and, you know, bowling, but you're high and laughing and having a good time. Or solving a 20-year problem that just hit you. It's like, wow. Going through trauma.

Starting point is 00:08:15 Yeah, it's just like, that to me was essentially the removal of the shadow, whereas Dexter likes to call it the dark passenger. where it's like, not to say that I'm a serial killer, only on Thursdays. Say it today, it's Tuesday. We're good. We're good. No killing today. But it's the removal of the dark passenger, the depression. And that was my ultimate pain point.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Like, how do I remove this blocker? There's a person that I used to be or want to become. Yeah. How do I remove it without, you know, going to therapy? Even though there's nothing wrong with therapy. But I don't want to be this prescribed medicinal over-the-counter infused anything. All right. So weed was obviously a good alternative.

Starting point is 00:08:51 for me. I agree. So thank you for that. You're opening up a brick and mortar. But it's challenging. It's not like opening up a flower shop with actual, you know, orchids and dandelions. This is a different kind of flower. Talk about some of the challenges of opening up a brick and mortar.

Starting point is 00:09:06 For instance, the one in Florida that just opened like two weeks ago. Sure. The Florida laws changed. Constantly. Everywhere changes. Arizona changed a couple months ago. Texas changed a couple months ago. And it will forever be evolving until it is federally.

Starting point is 00:09:21 legal on a full time basis across the United States. But you have to rebrand. I have to rebrand my brand and get people to know my brand again. That's a huge challenge. You have new rules and regulations as far as labeling and what color it can be in and what color can your food be. And you have to follow all these rules so that they're not kid friendly. But at the same time, triggers, all sorts of stuff. Trying to make your brand normalize it and make it not cliche, like I said. But yet still have to follow all these rules. And it's kind of hard to do that. So when you're designing your logos, your labels, your, your packaging, are you thinking about that first as opposed to let's make it art? Like,

Starting point is 00:10:03 what are you thinking about? Yeah, I mean, our first logo is actually designed by Ron Hanson. He's the guy who made the Yellow Submarine for the Ritos. No way. So he helped us. We had a bunch of them. That was quite the DM. Yo, what up? Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know. But he helped us go through them because we knew that we would start with something and eventually the rules could change. So in the center of our logo, you actually see Wake and Bakery with like a crown. Yep. It's a crown. It's also a weedly.

Starting point is 00:10:31 Sure, sure. So that eventually if we had to get rid of the cartoons, which is what I think is kind of coming around or our guys are like cartoons, we would have the center logo and people would still recognize our logo. So working through that, that's the way we can do it with the branding. We started with something that we knew could possibly change, which it is in some states, but we knew that we could take it out and people would still know what our brand was. Right. So that's what we did.

Starting point is 00:10:59 It's got to be exciting and exhilarating, right? I love it. Right. It's great. People love it. I love hearing about it. I walk into stores and, you know, people don't know who I am. Or we had a festival last week, and they're just talking about how they love the food and you should try this and you have this.

Starting point is 00:11:14 Like, we have electric lemonade that people love. Like, it's fun listening to other people and people like calling us and saying, hey, this helped me out so much with this or like you said, I worked through this instead of using therapy or someone had Parkinson's one time and came in and said my, or their dad did and said, hey, this is one thing that has helped my dad out so much. We have an employee who has stage three rest cancer and she has been eating and using our products while going through chemo and she said it's probably the best thing she's done. Wow. Yeah. The results are like instantaneous sometimes. You can even Google it. You can even find it. Yeah. I'm always on the subreddit. I'm always doing my research and it's always fun to see the miracle happen and transition within moments. Yeah. It's very, very powerful stuff. So let's talk about being a woman in power. I know it's quite a bizarre segue, but we are filming an episode.

Starting point is 00:12:04 We were very proud of the shows that we film here, Legacy Makers, Women in Power, the network that Rudy has built inside success. What are we going to learn about you today on your episode? that we're literally about to film right after this with me. I'm going to host the interview and we're going to film it. That I really have started from nothing. Right on. And that I am one persistent B, that I literally have a tattooed on my hand. That is my word.

Starting point is 00:12:29 If you had to pick a word for yourself, that is my word. I push myself sometimes beyond what I think my limit is. And it has made me stronger and a better person and made the business better too. Wow. You're in a very authentic, vulnerable business. Like, I see you, you see me. When the moment we recognize each other, it's like, I'm all about what you sell, and I'm sure you're all about me buying what you sell.

Starting point is 00:12:54 True. And at a platonic level and at a spiritual level. Yes. Which is what the kind of stories you run into at the festivals. What is that like for you educating the masses about the community, the tribe of building, which is very similar to what entrepreneurs do when they build their tribes. Talk about what you're building. I am building a safe space for everybody to come to.

Starting point is 00:13:12 No, 21. to whatever age that might be, doctor to the janitor. I truly believe every person is just a human being. There is no race. There is no color. There should not be any of that at all. My brand, my staff, how we train our staff, the culture we bring, the things we do for our community, keep us involved in it, making our space feel like a home for everybody.

Starting point is 00:13:40 Our acronym is literally home. Like we give you opportunities. we're mindful and we have education so that you feel welcoming in our space. Always, that's exactly what I want to do for my brand. I want to keep it growing. I want people to feel like it's a space they can be in all the time. I'm going to bring up a couple of questions from your actual story script that we're going to use to film your episode.

Starting point is 00:14:01 It says here, you built Wake and Bakery from Resilience in a viral moment. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs starting a food or cannabis-related business, especially a viral moment? Keep going. I did 10 months of baking by myself from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. while living in my basement of my business. Wow. I'm sure you're having a ball. Probably I wanted to stop a million times. But my kids kept me going and I did not want to ever have anybody in control of my financial life or my freedom. sure and if you just keep going and somebody once told me one time that is just as easy to think

Starting point is 00:14:45 about the negative as it is to think about the positive oh yeah so if you consistently tell yourself today is going to be a good day it will be a good day now maybe not every day but if you tell yourself it's going to be a good day let me be in a good mood most likely you're going to have a good day absolutely and i just kept doing that i just kept saying one more day i got this one more day someday soon it's going to switch and it did eventually positive affirmation goes a long way 100% it's if you can't do it for yourself find someone that can help you do it for you yeah even if it's prayer like yeah it's not just getting stone every morning and then you know it's it's that's only half the battle it's faith it's it's all believe me this didn't all come by just because

Starting point is 00:15:25 believe in the universe or whatever i god god got me where i'm at right on it even it's not just me yeah that's why you're a powerful woman that's where we're dedicating an episode to you I'm really eager to learn more about you. How can people find you? Me personally? Well, Wake &Bankery.net is like very easy. You can find, I mean, if you literally Google Wake and Bakery, there's articles, you name it, we've been in quite a few things.

Starting point is 00:15:51 It says you're in 10 different locations? Right now we have 14. 14. So we're already outdated here. Can you kind of list them all out? Yes, the majority of them are in Chicago. So towns in Chicago, Wicker Park, Lakeview, Logan Square, Oak Park, Homewood, downtown Chicago.

Starting point is 00:16:09 So you're a celebrity there? Sometimes I get recognized because I've been in articles and, you know, quite a few articles. We are in Raleigh, North Carolina, Chattanooga, Tennessee, we're here in Fort Myers, we're in Miami, Madison, Wisconsin, Tempe, Arizona, Arizona, Arizona, is coming or is still on hold. We're everyoneing two more in Illinois. We're trying to branch out to other states, and pretty soon we're going to franchise. Wow. I know. I know it's a little iffy.

Starting point is 00:16:42 I've tried to do partnerships, and they didn't work out too well for me, so I am going to be franchising, I guess. I got to put you in contact with a good mentor mine, Greg. He helped franchise Taco Bell. Oh, wow. It's kind of small, big deal. Yeah. Small big deal. That's just a small big deal.

Starting point is 00:16:55 Wow. Just name drop him there. No, he's an amazing person. Oh, my God. What's up for you next? Like, you've opened up all these locations. It's obviously you're fighting the good fight. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:05 How do you know, like, what's next for you, knowing that there's still this big block of blocks? Once that big block of the federal government making it legal, I think that if I can open up enough stores, eventually I'll be the new, you know, the other coffee shop that everybody knows with some perfect little mermaid-looking logo. Well, I think that'll be the new one because people will already be here and you'll be able to have marijuana in your coffee without it being like you can live like no problems at all. I'll be able to get in anywhere. I can go in any space I want once it becomes legal completely. Yeah, the cities that are legal in there, cities haven't burnt down, nothing's real pain. No, in fact, murders haven't gone. We've never had any fights.

Starting point is 00:17:48 We never have anybody like angry. Sure, we've had someone come in and, you know, I don't know. But maybe once in six years something has happened. But to be honest, no one's ever angry when they come in this face. Like, it's making people happy. For sure. And uncomfortable. And no pain. And like, so way better than any alternative to it. This concludes yet another amazing episode of Living the Red Life podcast featuring Brianna Banks, our woman in power. For Insight Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. You know,

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Living The Red Life - Ditching Opiates: How Cannabis Changed My Life and Business

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