From Amish Roots to Global Success: Anne Beiler's Journey of Healing, Leadership, and the Birth of Auntie Anne's Pretzels

What if you could turn your deepest pain into your greatest purpose? Join us on this episode with Anne Beiler, the remarkable founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels.

Anne's journey towards success began years before she rolled the first pretzel when she and her husband experienced any parent's worst nightmare – losing a child. This loss propelled Anne into years of darkness, depression, and despair, but out of her pain came purpose and the desire to persevere toward personal and professional success.

Anne Beiler began twisting pretzels in 1987 and grew a single farmer's market stand into Auntie Anne's®, the world's largest hand-rolled soft pretzel franchise. Her professional success, however, was forged after years of darkness, depression, and despair brought on by the death of her nineteen-month-old daughter. 

Anne is among an elite group of women who have founded national companies in America and is among an even smaller group that has owned an international franchise company. She was named one of America's 500 Women Entrepreneurs by Working Women and Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine. 

Many television shows have featured Anne's Entrepreneurial insights and personal story, including ABC's Hit Series Secret Millionaire, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, ANDERSON, and Food Court Wars. Her story is highlighted in numerous publications, including Huffington Post, Fortune Magazine, Inc Magazine, Guidepost, and Nation's Restaurant News. 

Anne also received honorary doctorates from Eastern College and Elizabethtown College.

In 2005, Anne sold Auntie Anne's® and has authored three books: Twist of Faith, The Secret Lies Within, and Overcome and Lead. 

Today, Anne speaks to audiences worldwide, inspiring people with her authentic stories and life experiences. Her mission is to help women overcome the pain, blame, and shame of their past by sharing their stories so they can lead with purpose.

This episode will encourage you to fight for your healing, and realize that even when all hope is lost - you too can overcome.


Link to guest:

https://auntieannebeiler.com/

Link to Svetka:

https://www.svetkapopov.com/
https://www.instagram.com/svetka_popov

-Links-

https://www.svetkapopov.com/

https://www.instagram.com/svetka_popov/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And getting to the point where you can say I like me, I like me.

Speaker 2: 0:02

Oh, that was huge in my life that was so huge I hated me. And so when I can sit here today and I can say I like who I have become and I had the question asked me a number of times already if you could go back and start over, what would you change about your life? And the first time somebody asked me that I just had to think a little bit about your life, and the first time somebody asked me that I just had to think a little bit and I said you may not understand this, but I wouldn't change anything about my life Because I like who it's made me. All of those hardships and the abuse and the grief and all of that has made me who I am today. Who am I today? I mean, there's a whole lot more still for me, but what I know from those experiences I have great compassion for people that are in great pain.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast, where stories of courage are elevated. I'm your host, becca, and every other week you'll hear interviews from inspiring people. My hope is that you will leave encouraged. I'm so glad you're here, anne Beiler. Welcome to the Once we Dare podcast. I am so glad we got an opportunity to do this.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Yeah, I'm so happy to be here with you today and share our story and, for God's glory, Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Yeah, we met in September and we are now in July of the following year, so we're finally here with the interview, so excited to hear your story. Most people know you as Auntie Anne's the Pretzels yes, yeah. And I'd love to hear a little more of how was that business born, if you can go back and tell us how that came about.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Well, in order to understand why Auntie Anne's was created, I do need to go back quite a bit further and I'll give you the highlights of what happened, what, actually, how we ended up doing Auntie Anne's and it really came about because of our tragedy and the trauma in my life, as a little Amish girl growing up in the Amish community, my parents were old order Amish, meaning horse and buggy Amish and at the age of three, mom and dad went to the Amish Mennonite church where my dad could then have a black car and he could farm with a tractor, which that was really why he left the Amish church. So, anyway, so I grew up with electricity and grew up in a very secure family, which, I've said many, many times, my theology was formed as a very little girl. We grew up in the Amish Mennonite church and a lot of great things I mean my parents and the church taught me a lot of really foundational truths about the Word of God, but through all of that, my theology was formed and I really wanted to be a good girl, and good girl meaning I wanted to please Mom and Dad and I wanted for God to be pleased with me and wanted to serve in the community. So it was really. My heart has always been to follow Jesus, has always been to follow Jesus. That was, in the very simplest form, that's what I desired, and so I married Jonas.

Speaker 2: 3:33

I was 19 and he was 21. And he was an Amish guy, ex-amish guy, and had the same values, same culture, and we started a family and it was a very exciting time because in the Amish culture you're really ready to get married at 18, 19, 20. It's never too young, and because you're taught how to be a wife by watching your mom and how to be a mom by watching your mom and how to cook by. It was just my mom never sat down and and really taught me how to do something. It's just that we watched her. You followed by example, that's correct. And so there were eight of us kids.

Speaker 2: 4:13

So my husband and I got married and we were very involved in a very busy and charismatic church and we were in a place spiritually coming from kind of a. There was a lot of rules and regulations in the Amish and the Amish Mennonite church and very, I would say, legalistic, and yet the foundation of the Bible was there. But so when we got married we were introduced to charismatic churches and prayer and praise groups, and it was through that then that we built a church on my dad's farm. And so life was good and we were youth pastors at this church and we just knew, you know, we were on a roll and our life was just going to unfold in beautiful ways and we were living our dream with our two daughters at that time. And so the reason I'm telling you all this is because if you don't know this part of my story, you really cannot see the glory and the intervention of God in our lives. So on a beautiful fall morning, our baby girl, angela Joy, 19 months old.

Speaker 2: 5:18

We lived right next to my parents in the country, out on a farm, and so there was always, we were always back and forth to my mom's house and Angie and her sister would often walk up to grandma's, and it was on a particular Monday morning. It was a beautiful day and I was in my kitchen and I just watched Angie followed her to the door and my front door and watched her walk around the corner of the barn and I knew she was almost at mom's house. So I went back into my house and and as I, as I got to my kitchen, my um, I heard all this commotion, all this screaming and this uh, it was, it was, uh, it was horrendous. I'd never heard that kind of commotion and I knew it was people just screaming and wailing and I knew in that moment. I just felt like Angie's gone. I just knew because something left me in that moment.

Speaker 2: 6:14

And so you know the tragedy, the trauma. My sister was driving a front-end loader, a Bobcat, loading and unloading sand for my father, and she didn't see Angela that morning and backed over her accidentally and Angie was killed instantly as my father comes running across the yard just carrying her limpless body, just wailing. Well, this was something that I had never experienced, this in my life. So I didn't know what to do, but as we went through what you would do, so we took Angie to the clinic and she was pronounced dead there. As Angie made her ascent to heaven, that day I began my slow and gradual descent into a world of emotional pain and spiritual confusion, because I really believed I was being a good girl, I was pleasing God, I was doing it all right. I know it sounds immature when I say this now. It sounds like you know, maybe I should have known better, or I should have been taught, I don't know. But in that moment it just was a whole new world for me and I didn't understand why.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Yeah, wow. So that is the pivotal point of your life where? Everything, initially, you thought, was going well, life is great, you guys were happy, everything was well. And then you had this accident and within that accident, you began to question everything.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 7:40

And, like you said, you had your descent. And then how did the Auntie Anne's pretzel come about?

Speaker 2: 7:46

Correct. So during that time again, the soon few months after Angela was killed, my pastor invited me to his house I mean to his office and to talk. And so I went to see him and he, at the end of our conversation, I was a grieving mom and hadn't been able to really talk about what was going on because I didn't know how to express my feelings. And at that point he took advantage of me physically and I and the point of my message here for for people to I want your listeners to understand um why this is such a pivotal part of my life as well. And that is after I left his office.

Speaker 2: 8:24

I decided it was not my fault that I was abused, but I decided to keep a secret. I had no idea what that really meant, but I knew over time. I kept that secret and that secret enslaved me into the world of abuse for almost seven years. And so the miracle and the beauty of Auntie Anne's is that it really for Auntie Anne's to actually be a part of our lives and for us to be able to do that. It's completely miraculous because the abuse then the pain of losing our daughter and the abuse of pastor At the age of 34, I was done. I was skin and bones. I hated who I'd become. I felt like there was nothing left to live for, and so during that time, I finally told my husband my secret, and he loved me in spite of that. I'd just like to mention here that there's a whole lot more to my story, and if anyone is interested in really knowing more, you can pick up my book. The Secret Lies Within. You can get it on my website or on Amazon.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Yeah that's a powerful book too. I mean, there's so much to that, and in there you're very passionate about not keeping secrets, and what secrets do to us and how, when we don't expose things to the light, the darkness just eats away at us Absolutely. And it's important for us to deal with our trauma, to deal with the pain.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Yes, just eats away at us Absolutely, and it's important for us to deal with our trauma, to deal with the pain, yes, and so then, I guess the good part about all of that pain for us was we found our purpose and my husband loved me back into our family and we stayed together miraculously. And he began to ask the question why did this happen and how could it happen? Because we were a very intact family, I mean it was. I never would have imagined anything like that would have happened to us. And so his inquisitive mind he's always been like. He'd always try to figure things out. He was a machinist and he fixed cars and motors, always trying to figure things out. And so he took our experience and he began to study psychology and he became over time a marriage counselor, layman's counselor for our church and our community, and he was doing it as a free service. And now I'm finally getting to the point, and that's why we started Auntie Ann's.

Speaker 2: 10:38

I went to work because he was making no money and I said you know what? I guess I should go to work. And he said well, you know, you've really never been the breadwinner, but you know, if you have opportunity to work somewhere and make a few dollars. Sure, that's great. So I went to work and where I started to work was a farmer's market and they had soft pretzels and that's where I learned how to make soft pretzels. But I learned how to make soft pretzels.

Speaker 2: 11:02

But Auntie Anne's was created because my husband was passionate about helping other families find help in their time of need, and so that's why we started the company and the very first day at the store I was like what am I doing here? I know nothing about business, I don't know anything about Xero, I had no formal education. Growing up with the Amish culture. You go through the eighth grade and then you help on the farm. And so I had no education and I had no capital, didn't even know what that was all about and we had no business plan. But the purpose out of our pain, our purpose was born, business plan. But the purpose out of our pain, our purpose was born and the purpose became so clear and it became so big and the finances for that purpose, uh, was to do marriage, counseling it, his counseling um center and his clientele just grew so fast.

Speaker 1: 12:04

And Auntie Anne's pretzels our store, we, we began selling pretzels faster than what we could make them yeah, I mean, if you walk anywhere in the airport right now, go to the mall you'll find you'll bump into Auntie Anne somewhere right, and just the smell of them is like alluring. You know, when I go to the airport the one right next to us it's always there and it like I'm always thinking about you. Yeah, yeah, well, thank you.

Speaker 2: 12:27

I know the smell really draws you to the store. And so, again, we had no idea that God had this grand plan of taking pretzels and lemonade around the world. But we just really found great joy in just supporting. I found great joy in supporting Jonas and doing his counseling and he had people come to his center from all around and it was all free. And when we started to build Auntie Anne's, we started one store and then two stores the very first year, 12 stores the next year, and I was so excited because we were making all his money and I was able to just support him. It was amazing. And so Auntie Anne's corporate then became.

Speaker 2: 13:09

As we grew, we became obviously a very sophisticated, a very corporate company and it was so fun just to make money so that we could keep the family centers, what we called it the community center going and never dreamed, never, ever dreamed, that we'd have more than one store Maybe. I did an interview at the Lancaster newspaper during the time we'd had maybe 15 stores, I don't know and they asked a question you know. So how many stores do you feel like you can build? I have no idea, maybe 50 one day, yeah, so again, we didn't have a business plan, but as time went on and we began to hire people that knew more than we did.

Speaker 2: 13:57

I was really good at loving people. I was really good at, I loved what we were doing because I knew that we were serving a great product. It just gave me great joy. So my beginning responsibilities, I guess, were just simply loving people and creating a great product and I was so happy right there. That's all that mattered to me, and we were supporting Jonas and his ministry. So it never dawned on us that we would ever go further than a few stores and eventually around the world with Antian's Brunches, and at what point did you guys decide to franchise the company?

Speaker 2: 14:33

We never decided anything. I mean, I always tell people-.

Speaker 1: 14:37

It just kind of organically snowballed into what it is.

Speaker 2: 14:39

It really did. Antian's is a modern day business miracle and I have to say that because God just gave us this idea and we responded to a market and customers love the pretzel and we grew our stores and probably in 19, we did what we call immediately. We called it licensing, Like anytime somebody wanted to buy to do Auntie Anne's pretzels. So we set up a very one-page licensing agreement and then discovered in 1990, I guess it was the end of 1990, that we're actually, I mean, our model was actually franchising, but we had no idea we were franchising.

Speaker 2: 15:20

Oh my gosh it scared me to death because we discovered what franchising really was. And for anyone out there that knows anything about franchising, it's a very litigious business to be in. I mean, there's so much. Yeah, that entails a lot. It's very difficult. It's the legal aspects of it if you don't do just right. You know.

Speaker 2: 15:43

And I read a book called oh, during that time I read a book. It was called Franchise Opportunity. I read that book and my stomach was in knots the whole time. I read it. I'm like, oh my gosh, we are franchising and if you do it wrong, I mean, you can be sued by the state in every state that you're in and you don't have a UFOC document. You can be sued a lot of money for opening up a franchise in any state.

Speaker 2: 16:07

And by that time we were in six states. And anyway, we went to a franchise consulting company and thank God, we were able to save ourselves from any litigation, from any legal action. We called all of our franchisees in. At that time we had probably 30 franchisees, more stores, but about that many franchisees. And we just had this big meeting with them and said listen, guys, we're in trouble. We did a licensing agreement with you, but we're actually franchising and we explained to them the difference.

Speaker 2: 16:42

And anyway, you know, I truly believe because God created Auntie Anne's, he helped us every step of the way, even when we did the wrong thing. You know, our goal was to to have a great company, to serve our franchisees and to serve a great product. It was never to. We were not trying to beat this system in any way. Yeah, and we were not. We had no penalties in any one of the states that we were in, because God created Auntie Anne's for us and he made a way for us where there seemed to be none, many, many times, in the glory of our company.

Speaker 1: 17:16

It is a miracle. And I love what you write in your newest book called Overcome and Lead, and you start off the book by saying that my greatest success is not Auntie Anne's the pretzel franchise, but Auntie Anne, the person. And then you write that in order to overcome your obstacles, you must overcome yourself. So I'd love for you to dig into that, because there's a lot of people that want to succeed, a lot of people that are striving for success and whatever that definition of that may look like to them. But sometimes we don't realize that the greatest obstacle and if you could just kind of go into that and what was that process like for you of becoming Anne and having that be, you know, the thing that you're most proud of, in a sense, Well, I started by telling the story, you know, of the death of Angie and the abusive pastor that really stole my voice.

Speaker 2: 18:10

It took all of my. It just took my spirit, my faith, and so to where I had no self-confidence number one.

Speaker 1: 18:20

And look at you now on stages speaking freely and just attracting crowds. And here we are on the podcast sharing your story, right?

Speaker 2: 18:28

It's a beautiful thing, Redemption is beautiful, but the question being, how did I get through all of that to actually get to the point of confidence again and all that? But it was overcoming myself meant to me. I knew my internal struggles and I lived with them every day because, you know, self-esteem I didn't like who I was. I never felt good enough, I never felt like I can't do that. So there was self-doubt and there was always the mantle of shame that I felt as I went to work every day. Now, you know, building the company was a really great distraction for me. I mean, I loved what I was doing, you know Right and you knew how to do hard work, since you were a little girl baking pies and doing all those things.

Speaker 1: 19:20

That's right.

Speaker 2: 19:21

And hard work is really. I mean, there's many things that saved the day for me, you know. But to overcome my internal struggles, the secrets I was so worried that somebody might find out about my abuse and somebody might find out about who I really am. The secrets that we keep, you know, eventually they will kill us. I mean, it destroys us, it destroys our spirit, and so the things when I say I have to overcome myself, it was the internal struggle that was constantly with me and I think that most people in business, you know, I think that we all sort of feel like you know, we have these secrets. You know, I don't want anyone to know about my secrets. I don't want anyone to know about my past, I don't want anyone to know who I really am. That is so debilitating over time, and I've known many, many business people that have crashed and burned literally because we're trying to make it look like everything is great on the outside. I call it the external life which we actually build. That life we make sure that it looks good on the outside. I call it the external life which we actually build. That life we make sure that it looks good on the outside and on the inside, we're falling apart and we don't want anyone to know.

Speaker 2: 20:34

And so, in short then, the way I really managed that as a leader and with the growth of Auntie Anne's, I would say, from the time Angie was killed in 1975 to 1996, that's 21 years, wow I carried this constant shame and guilt of what I did to Jonas and how my family ended up being very dysfunctional because of my pain and all of these things, and so I'm always guilty and feeling bad for what I did, even though the abuse was not my fault, but just that whole secret and that lifestyle was so heavy and so depressing for me. And so, after about 20 years, that's when I finally went for some massive counseling because I crashed and burned I really did and so I guess my advice would be, or maybe I should just say how do you begin to talk about your issues? Because as a business owner or as a mom or whatever your role may be, how do you overcome these things? That just, it's like a ball and chain that I carried with me every day to work, and it's really there's only one way to overcome that, and that's just you have to begin to talk about it.

Speaker 2: 21:53

It doesn't go away. It's all in your body. I mean the body keeps score.

Speaker 1: 21:57

It's all inside of you and what happens when we don't let it out.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Oh, my goodness. Well, I went through, uh, suicide, I mean, I, I was often thought about, you know, taking my life because I was in despair and in the business world. Then, when I finally got past that and Jonas and I finally we had a few years of when I made my confession to him, you know, life was good for a few years, uh. But what happens to us in time if we don't unload, um, it's going to come.

Speaker 2: 22:25

You have all these trigger points, you have all these things that just it steals your energy, it steals your joy and as a Christian in business or whatever you're doing for me, I didn't have the energy I needed to really be who I had to become, to be the leader, a leader of a growing international company. So all of my guilt and my shame and these feelings were dragging me down, like to the point where I wanted to run away at the age of 1995. I was done, I couldn't do this anymore and I really was making plans to just walk away from it all. Wow, because the internal part of me was so heavy and it got heavier instead of lighter, anyways, so when I began to do counseling by myself.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Is that what changed? So when you got to that point where it was really really bad, what was kind of the pivotal point to change there?

Speaker 2: 23:22

What changed? There was one day Jonas had to meet Hun on this next trip. You're going out, just don't come home. He was very kind but he didn't know what to do because we still weren't really talking about the death and the abuse a whole lot. There were no secrets between us but we didn't really unravel and talk through, and this was how long after you confessed to Jonah. Oh, that would have been 10 years, 10 years after.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:48

So what was the question again? You had just asked me.

Speaker 1: 23:51

Just what was the pivotal point when you came to the very bottom? Of just feeling the company's growing, but you're just being really weighed down by all this.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Well, there's a couple of things happened. My daughter came home during that time and told us that she'd also, she was 25 and she was also abused by the pastor. And she told us and we didn't know that before that moment Wow, and the combination of that, and I had told Jonas a few a year or so into during that time I said to him you know, I just feel like I'm being controlled by you know, the franchisee's growing. I'm no longer. I mean, yes, we're the founders, I'm the leader and we're building the company. It's going well.

Speaker 2: 24:28

But the franchisee's voices were getting louder and there's more people on our team at Auntie Anne's we had employed about 150 people at that time corporately in the home office. So I was beginning to feel like controlled by everybody and that's just like I didn't understand where that came from. But then I finally went for counseling in 1996. And again, it was because I felt controlled by the company and I was beginning to feel really, really unhealthy and physically and my daughter made that, told us about her secret as well it just almost I don't know. I really thought I wouldn't be able to survive that. And so then you know, when you crash and burn, there are choices for us.

Speaker 1: 25:15

And my choice was.

Speaker 2: 25:16

Jonas said to me hon don't come home, go see Doc Dobbins in Akron, ohio, and I cried like a crazy woman. I said I don't want to go see him. There was a counselor, he's a psychiatrist, and so he said but you have to stop and you have to make an appointment and don't come home until you're better. Wow, well, that was like it sounds unkind, but he by saying don't come home.

Speaker 1: 25:43

Yeah, sounds like I'm kicking you out, almost right, exactly.

Speaker 2: 25:46

It was a very, very difficult moment, but I did what he said, and we made an appointment to go see Dr Richard Dobbins. He has passed away since. Love that man. He changed my life, changed my life. So that's the beauty, though, of overcoming yourself. You know what Rarely can you do this by yourself.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:05

You don't have to do it alone, right? But you, I had to start talking. Yeah, and I'll never forget. When I went to this, went to his office, dr Dobbins, he said to me well, tell your, let me, let me hear your story. And I said well, doc, I can't tell my story, I don't, I don't know where to start. I said, because he said you can't tell your story, why? And I said I think I'm going to have a heart attack, because every time I start thinking about it I have something come up from the very inside of me that just makes me feel like I'm going to choke. Wow, and he said you're in a safe place. This is a great point. Find a safe place. Not somebody at the bar, not somebody maybe in your church that gossips to everybody about everything. Right, right, you have to find a safe place. And Dr Richard Dobbins was my safe place. And he said to me in that moment he said you know what, ann, if you start to talk and you have a heart attack and you end up passing out, he said you're safe here. I'll call 911. We'll take you to the hospital, it'll be okay. Wow.

Speaker 2: 27:07

So I don't think most of us understand the depth of pain. They're everywhere. I am not alone. Yeah, my story is not the worst story in the world, guaranteed. But when we live these kind of stories, we feel alone, our voice is stolen, we don't know how to talk, and so that's why, thank God you don't have to do this alone, and so it was pivotal for me. And so that's why thank God, you don't have to do this alone, and so it was pivotal for me. That was when my husband said that to me. I had no idea how much that was going to change me, begin to change me on the inside.

Speaker 2: 27:41

I began to tell my story to Doc and wrote 12 legal pages full on both sides, in his office one night. When I went to bed and took it to him the next day had no idea all this stuff was inside of me. So I began to feel healthy, you know, over time. So I feel like to be successful, to be healthy, to be whole, it takes time, but I can tell you, in my dark days I would never have been able to understand how bright and how much light was out there for me internally. Yeah, what's possible? I didn't even.

Speaker 2: 28:24

I never thought that I would ever be free from the guilt and the shame of what I'd been through. I just thought I have to carry this. Somebody has to pay, right. And so I was paying by my guilt and my shame. That was my payment. I had to pay for this, and so, after the counseling, I began to experience freedom, and I discovered that when I talk about this, I always feel lighter. So I just began to talk more about my story, and I went to my management team in my company and explained to them what happened. So you don't need to tell everybody your story all the time. All the details, that's not important. But for you to begin to talk about it and so I told my team at that time. I just want you to know that I'm going to be okay, and I also want you to know if I come in to the office. I mean, these are little things that we can do as leaders, especially as you're healing and as you're processing.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Absolutely, there's a lot. You can get triggered by different things and every day can look different.

Speaker 2: 29:32

You're exactly right, there was so much, and so I just let them know. You know, if you feel like I'm being, you know, unkind or look depressed or whatever. Just know that this is a journey for me, but I will let you know when I'm having a bad day. And they supported me 100%, told me to take a sabbatical and get well. And guess what? I got well. You can't even think about that in your pain. Like what does that look? Like? What does it feel like to be well? I didn't know. But when the beginning is actually is to open up, be open, honest and truthful about what's going on inside of us. And you know people want to talk about as we became very successful, obviously, and people, all everybody wanted to talk about the success of Anteas. I got so weary of that because I'm telling them this great, amazing story On the inside, I'm just falling apart.

Speaker 2: 30:35

That's before you were okay with exposing it.

Speaker 2: 30:37

That's correct, correct. So I lived that way for a number of years. So I love to talk about the internal life this is only me and God knows about that and the external life which we craft. But when you can and my psychiatrist said it that time he said, if you can bring the external life and you can bring it with your internal, if your external and your internal is one and the same, you will have peace. And that's the life that I live today. It's been a crazy, amazing journey and it's really hard for me to believe sometimes that life can actually be this good. But I love this life. I love to tell my story. I love to be real, open and honest. I don't lie, I don't even pretend anymore.

Speaker 1: 31:26

I mean it's so You're like I'm over it. If I had to come, those things had to be exposed, you know what Just not worth it.

Speaker 2: 31:34

I'm just done with it because I love the life that I'm living and I want to encourage people. It's hard. It was hard for me to tell Jonas my secret. It was hard for me to many, many things along the way, but now life is good. Life is. You know, there's challenges, of course.

Speaker 2: 31:50

I don't mean it's a bed of roses, but I know where to go, I know who, I am Right, I know what I need to do. When I feel upset or I'm triggered, or maybe I have a moment of depression, there's things happening, but I know exactly what to do about all of that. I talk to my husband about it, or I talk to a really close friend or someone that just loves me and I pour out. So my life. I call it the lifestyle of the ongoing lifestyle of confession. It's just just keep yourself clean on the inside and then the outside will be pure joy. It's amazing.

Speaker 2: 32:29

And we built a company, you know, for the first few years, for seven, eight years, with this burden that I was feeling inside, which nobody knew, you know. I go back to the Auntie Anne employees today sometimes, did you have any idea that I was feeling that bad? They said no, we had no idea. So I really did a good job. You did a good job of keeping it hidden, just you know. Good job, keeping it just you know being professional. Um, I'm learning how to be Auntie Anne. I'm learning how to grow the company with a great team around me.

Speaker 2: 32:58

It was a very, very exciting days because it was like, wow, yeah, nobody knew. Because I just felt like if I could just pretend my way through this, someday it'll be all right. But that's a myth, it will not someday be okay. You have to learn how to be open and honest and I also believe you learn how to talk. You learn how to speak better. You learn how to communicate better with people. So again, the external and the internal. I've worked very, very hard at bringing the two together and I'm satisfied with who I am today. I actually like me.

Speaker 1: 33:36

I love that. Can you say that again? I actually like who I am.

Speaker 2: 33:41

Yeah, that's really special to me because I hated, literally hated, who I had become, wow. I hated, literally hated who I had become Wow. And so for me to tell you that I like me, it's just. I'm saying it's how God created me, that I like. I like that he loves me, no matter what I like, that he brought me to this point of just surrender and finding solutions and being willing to do the hard work. He helped me all along the way. And so you know, the Bible says love your neighbor like you, like yourself. Wow. I'm saying, if you don't like who you are, it's almost impossible to love others.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Yeah, and I love that you said this, because a lot of people have an issue with self-love and I know that obviously it can be taken to extremes, right, of course, we can become so self-centered that we don't serve anybody, we don't care about anybody, so that's not what we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 34:42

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 34:43

But what does healthy self-love look like and that healthy self-image of I like?

Speaker 2: 34:51

myself and that's a good thing and not a selfish thing, absolutely. Um. Well, let me see. So when I started for counseling, my youngest daughter at that time encouraged me as well and she said, mom, um, you're going for help not? She said it's not, it's not called self-love, it's called self-care. Okay, so I not called self-love, it's called self-care.

Speaker 1: 35:12

Okay.

Speaker 2: 35:13

So I think that self-love, I think that part of that is caring for myself. I have to take care of myself and that means a lot. I mean your bodies, what you eat, what you read, what you see, what you I mean take care of my body. So my daughter taught me that, like you're going to see doc, it's called self-care, so that you can become more, so that you can be well and so that you can serve others and be the person that God wants you to be. So that's a very deep question. I'm trying to come up with a really good answer for you on that one. But I feel like today there's a lot of I love you, I love you and I love your shoes. You know I love my car.

Speaker 2: 36:01

We use the word love like it's going out of style, we misuse it, we abuse it. We don't understand what love is. We just don't understand. But I learned what that love is from my husband, who loved me when I made my confession to him. That story's in my book too. But he taught me. I watched him, I felt him love me, watched him, I felt him love me, and it's a supernatural kind of love. So it's not like today. It's not for me.

Speaker 2: 36:38

Loving myself has nothing to do with great success, but it has everything to do, I believe, with. I discovered who I am, who God made me, and when I understood that God created me uniquely special. Every single one of us were made unique, every single one of us. There's no one like you in the whole world. You're not one of a kind, I mean, you're not one in a million, you are literally one of a kind. There's nobody like you.

Speaker 2: 37:11

And honestly, I believe that when you know that, when you hear that, when you believe that it motivates you to, why would you waste your time on planet Earth like loving yourself so much that you're obnoxious about it? Right, you know what I mean. Yeah, you know. But mean, yeah, you know. But think of life here on planet Earth. You love yourself with a reverence for who God made you, with an understanding of who he created you to be, and he created you to fulfill a purpose in this life that no one else can do. It's your life, it's your purpose, it's your calling. And when you understand that, that's such a humbling for me. It's humbling to know God created me in such a unique way that I want to honor Him and I want to do and be what he called me to be here on planet Earth.

Speaker 1: 38:14

Yeah, and multiply those gifts and the resources, the opportunities, all of that Exactly.

Speaker 2: 38:19

But when you're at peace with yourself, true peace, you don't flaunt the I love myself. I don't know the selfish love for yourself. I mean you can be. What is the word that you use when you ask me that question?

Speaker 1: 38:34

Just some people. You know they like loving themselves. You know it's selfish because it's like self-love, right. So that can be misinterpreted and it can be misused honestly it can be. But I think that there's also the other side where people are like well, if you love yourself yourself, you're being selfish and you're egoistic and all these things. But I think there's a healthy healthiness to saying you know, I like me, yeah, I like who I am, I like who I'm made to be, I like the gifts that I have, yes, and and I am me and there's no one like me and that's and that's like. I'm embracing that and I no longer have to compare myself to you know somebody else.

Speaker 2: 39:12

Like I'm not Ann.

Speaker 1: 39:13

I can never be you. You know and do the things that you did, and you know, and vice versa, right.

Speaker 2: 39:18

So I think loving yourself really it keeps me from like comparing myself with everybody. You know how we do we look at other people and think, oh wow, I wish I was like that or I wish I could do that, or I wish I looked like you or I wish I'd have more, you know. But I think that the kind of love I'm talking about is is a life of, of of satisfaction you're at peace.

Speaker 2: 39:43

At peace, you're not comparing yourself with everybody, and for, for my story, I mean the work that I put into becoming who I am today and getting to the point where you can say I like me, I like me.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Oh, that was huge in my life. That was so huge I hated me. And so when I can sit here today and I can say I like who I have become and I had the question asked me a number of times already If you could go back and start over, what would you change about your life? And the first time somebody asked me that I just had to think a little bit and I said you may not understand this, but I wouldn't change anything about my life, about my life because I like who it's made me. All of those hardships and the abuse and the grief and all of that has made me who I am today.

Speaker 2: 40:38

Who am I today? I mean, there's a whole lot more still for me, but what I know from those experiences I have great compassion for people that are in great pain. I notice people that are struggling. I want to. I know I can't fix them. I'm not that there with that. I wouldn't, because we cannot fix people but the compassion that I have for people overwhelms me sometimes. Yeah, but would I change anything? No, because I learned all of that of who I am. I learned all of that.

Speaker 1: 41:18

Wow, that's so powerful for you to say that? Because it's, you know, I think, people who are in difficult situations right now. Yeah, you know, what would you say to someone who is just feeling like they're at the bottom of?

Speaker 2: 41:28

their pit right now.

Speaker 2: 41:30

Well, first of all, I know exactly how you feel and I know exactly what you're thinking. There's really no way out and there's no answer, and you're in it so deep that you don't even know how to get out. So I know where you're living, because I was at the bottom for a very long time. But what I want to say is that there can be a better tomorrow. Yeah, and I grew up in the church believing that if I pray hard enough and long enough, that God will just somehow deliver me and pick me up out of my darkness and set me into the light. But what I want to say, what I learned, is it didn't happen that way and most times it never will happen that way. We pray because we have a relationship with God.

Speaker 1: 42:28

We have a heavenly father who hears our prayers and we pray because we have a relationship with God.

Speaker 2: 42:30

We have a heavenly father who hears our prayers and we pray because we can, and my prayers for almost seven years sustained me, kept me in this relationship with God. That was very fragile, but I knew he was there, I knew I could talk to him. I knew he heard me. So my point in all that is but God wants us to take responsibility for well. First of all, we blame everybody and everything. I blamed everybody for my life. There's no forward motion or movement as long as we blame the government, our parents, our pastor, our friend or whatever. We blame somebody for the life that we're living now.

Speaker 2: 43:23

That's what I did for years. It's self-hatred. It's taking no responsibility and blaming everybody else for who you are. Self-hatred is taking no responsibility and blaming everybody else for who you are, so taking responsibility for the choices that I made. That's huge. So the choice we make today is the life that we will live tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Right absolutely so for someone that feels stuck. You may be blaming it. I'm not blaming you for blaming, because I understand, but if you're in that mindset, then it just simply means that you have to change your response here to what happened to you. And number one is begin to talk about it to someone that is trusted and safe and then begin to take responsibility. I had to take responsibility for hurting my husband, staying in that darkness for all those years, even though I didn't know how to get out.

Speaker 2: 44:15

But once I made that confession, the light bulb turned on Like wow, okay, this is not just about me living in the dark world and nobody knowing about it, and I'm oh, wow, I'm glad nobody found out about it. But this is now about the world around me, my family, and how they're going to respond to this information. The light bulbs so when you begin to talk, the light goes on. Yeah, and I saw all of the fallout of what I had created in my family is overwhelming to me. I thought I would never survive that. But be strong and courageous, be responsible and find people to talk to that can become your mentors, your helpers. You don't have to walk this alone.

Speaker 1: 45:08

Yeah, I also heard I don't know if you ever heard of Dr Edith Eger. She wrote the book the Choice. She was an Auschwitz survivor and she became a psychiatrist and she's currently alive in California. But she wrote this in her book when she talks to patients, because a lot of times, like you said, to turn that victim mindset into owning it right. And so she says do not ask the why, because why question keeps you a victim, it keeps you stuck right Like why me?

Speaker 1: 45:35

Why did this happen to me? Why did you know in your case? Why did my daughter die? It's not fair, right? Why did this happen? Why did I have this abuse? Why did all of these things? And she said, instead of asking yourself, why ask what now? When you ask what now, it puts the responsibility back in your hands and it's an action. So it gives you power to say, okay, I have agency to do something, so what can I do now? That's right.

Speaker 2: 46:02

Exactly right. God's given us the potential to overcome. I mean it's through him and he's given us that to use to overcome. I mean it's through him and he's given us that to use to overcome. And I think that it's very common to become you're victimized, and I understand that that's a horrible place to be. When you've been victimized, your voice is stolen, you have nothing to say, you can't even talk anymore. And then in time, after I told my husband, I made my confession, I'm like, wow, I survived. Oh, I survived.

Speaker 2: 46:37

It's kind of like the tsunami a few years ago in Louisiana, like the survival of the tsunami. I mean people like, wow, everything was destroyed, yeah, everything was destroyed. Yeah, but eventually they get back up and they're like they were victims of the tsunami. But now eventually, things start to kind of look back to normal. Wow, I survived a tsunami and we live in the survival mode and that is still not. It's a step toward, but it is not the end of the journey. Yeah, and so for me it's victimhood, then it's survival and then it's overcoming and that's the life that I have. I'm learning to live. I've learned to live it. The when I started talking, that's when I began to feel bigger. I began to feel like there's life inside of me.

Speaker 2: 47:32

There's more for me and you just keep talking and you know, every time I tell my story, very often still today. This is from 1995 to now is what 30 years ago? I'll still go home. After I'm done speaking, I'll tell Jonas, my husband, I feel lighter, I feel brighter. I feel brighter, I feel more freedom. How can that be? Well, the truth is God is light. So there is no end to how light filled you can become. It's so big Darkness brings you into this miry clay and I mean it sucks you in, it makes you, sucks you dry of life, it kills you. Darkness will kill you, but when you come out of that and you begin to walk in the light, it's like your world, your heart, your life, your everything gets bigger and brighter. And that is the life that I want people to know about as I go and share my story.

Speaker 1: 48:33

I know it's hard to explain, it's hard to say it the way I feel it, but yeah and I love that you said that each time you share it, it's, you know, good comes out of it for you, because sometimes, like you know, when I'm interviewing people, I'm like, okay, ann is like has to repeat the same story over and over again and and it's like, does it get old, do you feel? But for you, what I'm hearing you say is like actually sharing it, it kind of is bringing you freedom.

Speaker 2: 48:58

It does and it gives you more life. I don't understand that, but maybe it's the principle of give it, it shall be given to you.

Speaker 1: 49:04

I give my story away, yeah, because someone's going to listen to this on the other end, who may be experiencing hardships? Absolutely, Life is hard. There's so much. You know everybody. I think the biggest myth, too, is that sometimes we perceive that we're the only ones going through a difficult time. Yes, of course, but it's like I have not met a single person who has not suffered in some form.

Speaker 2: 49:26

Absolutely, and the healthy ones really. You've met. Some of those, I'm sure, are the ones that share their stories. And sharing your story is a form of confession. It's found in the Bible James 5, 16,. Confess your faults, your stories, your sins, your hurts, your angers, your, whatever it is, one to another. It's what we're doing right here. We're sharing life openly doing right here. We're sharing life openly, honestly, how I'm feeling, what you're thinking. That is the highest form of communication. When you can tell me your pain, I can listen and I can respond to you with love, no judgment, no guilt, no shame, nothing. It's just you tell me your story, and that's a form of confession. And when you do this, james says no shame, nothing, it's just you tell me your story, yeah, and that's a form of confession. And when you do this, james says you'll be healed. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I mean.

Speaker 2: 50:18

God has healed me. Yeah, In ways that were beyond. I didn't think it was possible.

Speaker 1: 50:26

Yeah, I mean, and your story is really showing us how the impossible can become possible through doing the hard work. What would you say is your biggest takeaway, looking back on all the work that you've done and everything? What would be the one lesson that you feel like this is your takeaway from all the Well, your life was never meant to live alone.

Speaker 2: 50:45

Number one don't keep secrets. Okay, that's a given. Don't keep secrets. It can be as small as I don't know. You maybe just can't get along with somebody, but you keep trying. I mean, and you make this, you harbor this. You really wish you could somehow make this relationship. I know it can be that, or it can be. Maybe you told a lie and really created some kind of chaos in people's lives, I don't know. Or it could be committing adultery, it could be being abused. Maybe you don't like your mom, I don't know. We all keep secrets. I don't keep secrets anymore. I'm mature now. I mean, I should be mature now. I should say it that way. But really, but really, I understand that principle. I want to keep myself free, I want to stay free. So I think that, for me, tell me, ask me the question again your biggest takeaway like the lesson from all of this.

Speaker 2: 51:43

Yes, yes. So there's a lesson would be don't keep secrets. And number two find a trusted friend. And I've talked to women already. You know you have to tell your story and they'll say but I don't have anyone to talk to. I'm like well, number one, I hear what you're saying. I believed that as well, but that's a lie from Satan. There is someone that you could talk to. You'll find somebody. Ask God. And you know I did all of the work that I've done without a mentor, with anybody helping me through the years. I just I didn't read a lot of books about what I'm talking about right now, but I just did the hard work. I mean, I just began to talk about it. And so, no secrets. Find a friend and be willing to share your feelings. I started a women's group. It was called Stories x 8. And it was called there was eight women would get together. I was the facilitator.

Speaker 2: 52:36

And it was simply come and tell your story and you will have one hour, as those seven of us women sit around the table. You have the privilege of telling your story in one hour. Nobody was allowed to interrupt you. Now that sounds sort of, but let me tell you, we long to be heard, we want to be known. God created us that way, and so that facility I mean the class that I did was a tremendous help to many, many women. First of all, they didn't know they had a story and, number two, I don't know who to talk to. Okay, so we created this place.

Speaker 2: 53:19

So just really be open and honest and find the right person God will, and ask Holy Spirit to help you. Holy Spirit, father, son and Holy Spirit are within us. Come on Like we have the help that we need to do what we need to do. And there's a verse also, verse 11, proverbs 6, 5. It simply says set yourself free like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter and like the bird from the snare of the fowler. I don't know what you see when I say that verse, but every time I say it I see great struggle. Set yourself free like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter.

Speaker 1: 53:59

And if you've seen those videos, you know what we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 54:02

Exactly, and I feel that I mean. What I'm talking about is not an easy task. I know that.

Speaker 2: 54:09

Great struggle, great struggle, great struggle to go from where you are to where you want to be. But I'm here to tell you it's possible. Just bring your deeds into the light and the light will shine into those things that you're not going to like what you see, but what it does. It brings the light onto the things in yourself. The light shines on those things and it and you begin to see things about yourself and and you begin to talk about the things, because when you walk in the light, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 54:43

It's bright. What would you say is the best piece of advice that anyone ever gave you?

Speaker 2: 54:51

Are you talking about business, life or anything the best?

Speaker 1: 54:54

piece of advice, yeah, anything that comes to mind like something that was really helpful.

Speaker 2: 54:58

Well, I mean, I got to go back to my dad. He taught me as a little girl and my name was Anna, actually, and my pet name was Annabets, and when you really want to say something, you say Annabets, oh that sounds so endearing.

Speaker 2: 55:12

You can do anything that you want to do, anything that you set your mind to do. You can do that and I mean, I know that sounds kind of big, like really. No, you can. And I honestly feel like that was one of the greatest advice, because I have thought about that in my darkest days and in the ante-end days as I was building the company. I cannot tell you how many times I I can't do this, I cannot do this. But I'd hear my dad say you can do anything you set your mind to. Wow, that's powerful, and it is powerful, and it's true. Yeah, it's true, that's what I've experienced, so there's many other one-liners.

Speaker 1: 55:54

And what would you say were the three books that were transformative for your journey?

Speaker 2: 55:58

Oh, well, the first one I read was from Dr Richard Dobbins. It was called Feelings Friend or Foe. I'm going back 30 years now but that change, that transform Sorry the name of the book. It's called feelings friend or foe by dr richard dobbins. Uh, the reason that was so transformative is because that book changed my theology about who I am. It just changed me from the inside out and I began to believe things, uh, that were true from the bible instead of what I kind of always thought. So feelings friend or foe. And then in the business world I've read a lot of John Maxwell's books on leadership, which really helped me when I discovered that I'm a leader, I'm not a manager, and my employees were like ecstatic that I finally figured out I'm not a manager, I know what you mean, because we own a business.

Speaker 1: 56:46

It's a different thing altogether. Right, seriously, yes.

Speaker 2: 56:50

So management is, you know, the doing part of the business and you do, yeah, the maintaining. That's right, but the leadership part is, uh, you know, um, when I discovered that that, that really put wind beneath my wings and I began to see myself as a leader and being. It's not right or wrong, but it's really important that you know which one you are anyway. So when I discovered that I was a leader and not a manager, I began to read books on leadership and John Maxwell. I've read a number of them. I cannot even tell you the names of the books right now, but I've read probably half a dozen of his books on leadership and it really really helped me tremendously.

Speaker 1: 57:26

That's great.

Speaker 2: 57:33

Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to share with the listener? Oh, I don't know, but I think there's so many things about Auntie Anne's that are so good that I don't own the company anymore, but as we, it was about a 20 year pretzel world for me, and you know. So I feel like one of the things that was so important to us and it was the giving factor of Auntie Anne's. When we started the company, we knew immediately that I couldn't wait to give. I mean, we knew Auntie Anne's was not about just getting money for ourselves. We knew it was about giving. God was very clear with us about that, and so giving as you build a company is so exciting and so joyful, and so I really feel like we began. We did tithing from the very beginning, like one-tenth of all of our income, the gross income, and that's just a principle that we followed. It's not like our idea or something like wow that was amazing.

Speaker 2: 58:21

No, it's just what we did because we felt like it was the right thing to do. So I want to encourage people if you become an entrepreneur and you become a leader in your company, don't forget to give, because it's really that's why we're in business. You know, giving is why we make money, so that we can give it away. And in the meantime, you know, god has totally blessed us beyond our wildest dreams. But even today, it's just I get. I'm addicted to giving and I'd rather die a pauper than have sorted all up for myself and not enjoy the ride. So giving is a great way to live.

Speaker 1: 58:59

Oh, Ann, I am so honored to just be sitting across from you and you sharing your story and I think we're going to bring Jonas in for the second phase yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1: 59:08

Yeah, so that would be awesome to hear from him too. Fantastic, I'm ready. Yeah, is there anything else that you want to? No, that's okay, I said plenty. Oh, it's been such a joy, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Once we Dare podcast. It is an honor to share these encouraging stories with you. If you enjoy the show, I would love for you to tell your friends. Leave us a reviewer rating and subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts, because this helps others discover the show. You can find me on my website, speckhopawcom.