05. Pandemic Donuts
Michael Milton shares the story of starting a bakery with his girlfriend Gabrielle Henning after they both lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic
If you have made it this far, congratulations! This is the fifth episode of the pod and it is a special episode for me. For this episode I interviewed Michael Milton who is the co-founder of Pandemic Donuts and was my first interview IN PERSON! Michael graciously invited me down to their bakery for the interview which was so much fun, but was slightly louder than recording at my desk behind a locked door to keep noisy children out. Every once in a while you may hear some background noise from the coffee shop next door, but that is an acceptable price to pay for the joy of hearing Michael’s story face to face.
Michael started Pandemic Donuts with his girlfriend Gabrielle Henning after they both lost their jobs due to COVID. One thing that I really like about this story is that we all have a COVID story. It effected us all in different ways and it’s important to hear some of those stories that were different from our own to try and better understand how this pandemic impacted so many of us.
Michael was so much fun to talk to. Not only was he open and vulnerable with their story, but he is clearly someone who wants to make the most out of every day and is determined to enjoy life.
I found their story and approach to opening this business during a pandemic inspiring and insightful. It was fun for me to pull the curtains back on a local business that my family supports. (we get their donuts every week!!)
Pandemic Donuts delivers their delicious donuts (and delicious gluten free donuts) to your door if your door is in the Denver area, and their creative flavors change every week!
I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!
Click the links below to order, or follow them on social media!
Epic Moments
14:29
So there's all these really smart people that are in this industry. And I think the pandemic kind of lit a fire under some of our asses that just want us kind of go for our dreams a little bit more than if we were just to still be able to bring in bartender money every day.
15:57
There's so much anxiety involved with it, that it's important to remember that you can't fail unless you try. You can look back in 10 years when you didn't try and feel terrible about that. But if you really just like put your heart into it, and you fail, just you can let it go because you tried your hardest already. And that's that's made it easier for me, like coming to that realization that sometimes people that don't try as hard are the ones that are successful. Sometimes it's the people that don't put as many hours in and some people are just lucky. I think that's where I'm at, if I if we can call this successful, but just kind of like surrendering to the fact that even if you do everything right, you might fail, like some in some backwards way makes it easier to try.
18:45
I don't know, you know, I think selling something you care about is universal, if you can actually care about it. I care about what I'm doing now. And I know our products good. So I can transfer that belief to someone else very easily. If I was selling something I don't care about I couldn't be successful. I can't I'm not that I don't have that personality to like sell widgets for 10 cents apiece. have that be my career is something that I like feel passionate about, get excited about.
28:02
It's kind of like, if you were to walk through the woods at night by yourself, or walk through the woods at night with a close friend or a lover, I guess, like, you're gonna feel one 100 times safer if you're with someone else. And you can lean on them. And knowing that if you succeed, you're succeeding with someone, which makes success less scary, which is kind of a weird thing to talk about. But on the same side, if you fail, you're failing with someone else. And we'll still be there for each other if we do fail. Or if we do succeed
30:17
In my perspective, I think most people have been hit pretty equally, regardless if they lost their job or not just because of how terrible everything's been right. You know, politically, the amount of people that died. I think we're all in that together. 100% regardless if we lost our jobs or not, I think the best thing I can tell people that had an easier time this, that's awesome for them. Yeah. It's really good. But yeah, I don't know, people are resilient. And, again, past couple years, has been a giant tragedy. But when we're faced with adversity, like small, good things still happen. Again, like the people who got hit the hardest, there's still parts of their life that might be better now, just because they try.
31:45
Keep trying, like I said earlier, you know, I think a large part of our success was luck, and a good name. And then we back that up with working really hard. So I don't know, I've tried so many things. I failed so many times. I wouldn't be surprised if I failed again. But I don't plan to.
