Transcript
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Requesting Stormy now.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Invite.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I guess you're here.
Speaker: There you go, Stormy.
Speaker: Hey!
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: We did it.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: Yeah, I can hear you now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're here.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: That was quite the journey.
Speaker: Hey, so look, you know, there's this thing that I want to say before we get started.
Speaker: Three things I tell people.
Speaker: You even in a storm.
Speaker: Having a hard time.
Speaker: Getting ready for a storm.
Speaker: Now I can hear you.
Speaker: Can you hear?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Now I can hear you.
Speaker: Three things to know.
Speaker: You even in a storm getting ready for a storm.
Speaker: Are you about to get out of one?
Speaker: So you've now experienced all three.
Speaker: I'm going to get my phone set here.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: Well, Stormy, welcome.
Speaker: Welcome to Nigger Talks Podcast.
Speaker: Stormy is an incredible e-commerce pioneer, cannabis activist, and corporate renegade.
Speaker: She's the CEO and co-founder, I believe, of Mothers, Ruggers, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Also, she ran High Rise Magazine.
Speaker: And last but not least, she was at Overstock.com for 15 years.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I think when you left as president, y'all did like, y'all was at like 2 billion in revenue, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker: Yeah, so congratulations.
Speaker: Welcome to Bigger Talks.
Speaker: But before we get moving forward, I have a quote that you said that really stuck out to me.
Speaker: And I'm going to read it, and then we can start our conversation from that perspective.
Speaker: You said, I realized some of the best moments of my life.
Speaker: We are all experiencing this new world.
Speaker: Don't be afraid to dig in and find fearlessness.
Speaker: So how did you get to that thought and how did that come out?
Speaker: Where did that start?
Speaker: Where did that come from?
Speaker: The idea of being, you kind of broke up during the quote, so I'm not sure the middle of it, but I think that just like being able to find, like to dig deep and know that being fearless was the only thing that you have.
Speaker: You know, it's this, it's an interesting thing, life, this life thing, right?
Speaker: So now I'm in my 50s.
Speaker: I'm a la-la because the G word is four letters in my house.
Speaker: My son's daughter, right?
Speaker: Because I have a hard time saying grandmother.
Speaker: But you go through these moments, these chapters of life where you've evolved differently.
Speaker: And, you know, people always say, oh, that grumpy old man or she's just crotchety, whatever it is.
Speaker: And what I'm realizing is people, as you get older and go through the chapters and life just kicks your ass a little bit, you learn more and more to bet on yourself.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that means, you know, you start, that means you have some boundaries, you know, because you're like, wait a minute, I can't get distracted.
Speaker: I'm realizing that no matter how much we collaborate, how much we're together at the end of the day, those steps are just you.
Speaker: And they're so scary to take.
Speaker: So even today, I dig deep on fearlessness because everything's scary, especially when you're betting on yourself.
Speaker: You know, that's a, it's a, you're coming from a different place each time, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, because you have to bet on yourself to really win in life.
Speaker: And it's scary.
Speaker: Yeah, everybody turn their back on you, everyone out you and think you just don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: You're crazy.
Speaker: How are you going to do that?
Speaker: Then you look wow to them because they don't understand your purpose or how you think.
Speaker: So you have to really build up your internal being, internal confidence to know, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to go to oversight as a temporary employee.
Speaker: Then I'm going to run the company.
Speaker: You know, like that was your life.
Speaker: You know, you was a struggling mother on welfare to the board.
Speaker: I'm like, how did it all start?
Speaker: Where did you get that faith and confidence to run an overstock and to get out of the position you were in as a mom at a young age?
Speaker: You know, I wouldn't say I was born in poverty for sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I was born, you know, having been raised in Utah, I was born in a far more colorful zip code.
Speaker: You know, our ground roots are, you know, Hammond, Indiana, and that's 12 miles from Gary, Indiana.
Speaker: So it's like, you know, that's where we're from.
Speaker: That's where my parents are from.
Speaker: And that mattered when the way that they taught hard work, you know, so it was more about hard work.
Speaker: You know, my, his father was his first person in his family born in the United States.
Speaker: So my dad's second generation, he just believed you worked.
Speaker: And you worked to live.
Speaker: You worked so you could put food on the table.
Speaker: You didn't work for any other reason but to give yourself food and table.
Speaker: So you worked hard, performed well, proud every day.
Speaker: And that's what they taught me.
Speaker: So the, oops, my phone's ringing.
Speaker: That's what the, kind of what they talked about is you got to go work hard.
Speaker: You know, being an entrepreneur wasn't something that was even considered in our household.
Speaker: It was getting a job and working hard.
Speaker: But through that, my mom always said, you know, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker: We've always had these secret like, oh, okay, Stormy, you know, you're going to walk in, people are going to, like you said, we all feel beat up decades into life.
Speaker: It's like we've had our asses kicked, every one of us.
Speaker: But, you know, we would always have the side conversation about like, oh, they think that you're cute, you know, you can
Speaker: You know, but always be smart, stay smart.
Speaker: But like, you're not going to overcome that with certain people.
Speaker: You know, they're not worth the effort of what you have to teach them and prove to them that you're smart.
Speaker: You don't have to prove it to them.
Speaker: You prove it to yourself every day and you acknowledge like, dang it, they really just think I'm cute.
Speaker: Like there were certain stereotypes or whatever that you simply cannot overcome around certain people.
Speaker: And so the side conversation was, it's not worth the time.
Speaker: You move forward, you move forward.
Speaker: And the truth was, you know, my climate overstock from temp to president was moving forward and past them at times, right on past them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You said a lot of powerful things in that message.
Speaker: And I want to kind of take it back because I know there is a lot of women out there that are very attractive and very powerful, but they're perceived from how they look and not from who they are.
Speaker: But then people were dealing with them from their point of view.
Speaker: Many women are very intelligent.
Speaker: They know a lot.
Speaker: They've been through a lot outside of them looking gorgeous or beautiful or attractive.
Speaker: I remember when I was young, I wanted people to like me, right?
Speaker: I was a people pleaser.
Speaker: But the thing is, I didn't want people to like me for my look.
Speaker: I wanted people to like me for who I was and who I am.
Speaker: And so I had a prophet at church one time say, stop that young man.
Speaker: People going off what they see, their first impression is who you are, what they see.
Speaker: So you can't change that, like you just said.
Speaker: But every day,
Speaker: It was a battle with myself and others because I wanted people like me for something maybe they did know I had or I didn't.
Speaker: I say all that to say because you grew up in Utah, you was an attractive woman in a very entrepreneurial business space.
Speaker: There were challenges, right?
Speaker: Because when people have a look or have attention, there's different challenges that people don't know about.
Speaker: Like having a public profile, being on TV, all these, being a president of a company, there's a lot of pressures that we face and have that people don't get to see.
Speaker: I went back and did research and watched your TED talk.
Speaker: And I think you mentioned your mom said, Stormy, I don't care what you do, do something, even if it's wrong.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And you talked about, I don't know if it was like 17 or 19, you fell in love, you got married, you had a kid.
Speaker: But you thought that was right.
Speaker: You kind of like elaborate on that and talk about how that, you know, incorporated in your life and your vision of who you are today.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, the point of this, you know, going through work and those overcoming those challenges, my point was of the fearlessness.
Speaker: You can't get distracted by them.
Speaker: Those are obstacles and distractions.
Speaker: Like you're worrying about what somebody's thinking and you're trying to prove it to them when really,
Speaker: at the end of that decade, it will be you and those people are going to be nowhere around you.
Speaker: With my mom, that idea of doing something, even if it's wrong, the fear of standing still, like she really get up, do something, wipe a counter for five, 10 minutes and call that a win.
Speaker: That is a huge accomplishment on some days.
Speaker: Some days it's a struggle for people to get out of bed.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And I see that now.
Speaker: So when she was saying, get up, get dressed, you know, I'm sad.
Speaker: Whatever your teenage drama is, right?
Speaker: Just get up, get dressed and sit on the porch for five minutes.
Speaker: And then you've done something.
Speaker: You know, it's not a big something, but you've done some thing.
Speaker: You showed up.
Speaker: You showed up for something.
Speaker: So that I think also made that,
Speaker: You know, a fearlessness in the steps was, you know, you have to do one thing.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be good.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be great.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be for anybody, but just the matter of doing it.
Speaker: And showing up is so important.
Speaker: Just to piggyback off of showing up, today I didn't feel like going to the gym.
Speaker: I was fighting it.
Speaker: Once I got in that gym and I worked out, I was, yes, let's go, you know.
Speaker: Motion changes emotion.
Speaker: But because I was willing, despite how I was feeling to show up, the universe showed up for me and gave me a push.
Speaker: So I think it's important for people to know that Stormy Simon didn't just get here by just complaining and getting distracted by the distractions.
Speaker: She showed up no matter what she had going on in her world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think
Speaker: You know, we talked about, we just talked about the way we are viewed as people and how you overcome that first impression.
Speaker: One thing I really learned through the Overstock experience was I couldn't change how people viewed me.
Speaker: Like, I don't know what their first impression was.
Speaker: I had to really learn to not think about it.
Speaker: But I could change how I viewed them because I might have been just as guilty of looking at people, giving them the first impression and
Speaker: categorizing and that's the change we can do is to change how we look at people you know I have friends that say oh I can't date that person it's too short he's too short it's like you that is a weird thing to me right my whole family's little but it's like you know when you hear that and we talk about shaming of all sorts in the world but it's like
Speaker: You know, we have, we, those who feel abused by that have to change how we do it.
Speaker: We have to change how we look at people too.
Speaker: And I didn't want to forget that point actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So basically you got to be responsible and accountable as much as you want them to be because you're just as guilty.
Speaker: You know, I think someone can say something, but what are you saying about someone else that's not them?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: No one's better.
Speaker: No one's different.
Speaker: We're all the same.
Speaker: It's all relative.
Speaker: But I really want to dive in deep to the overstock experience.
Speaker: So you was hired as a temp.
Speaker: What was the process like getting to become the president?
Speaker: And what was the turning point in that employment, in that phase where you realized you could really take the company over and make it a billion dollars?
Speaker: Like, what was that like for you?
Speaker: You know, there was never a moment that it happened.
Speaker: where it was like, oh, you know what, I want to be president.
Speaker: There was never a moment that I fought for that position, you know, but it was the process.
Speaker: It was showing up every day and going to work hard, you know, but I liked it.
Speaker: Like nobody had the answer.
Speaker: So it was super entertaining.
Speaker: You know, every day was so much fun.
Speaker: The wins were so good.
Speaker: And, you know, the high fives were amazing.
Speaker: And then the fails and the things we would mess up on were also just as good because we would learn so much about something we didn't know about.
Speaker: But it was a day.
Speaker: So there wasn't like this moment that I jumped over a big bridge.
Speaker: It was, you know, building the bridge and then taking small steps over the course of 12 years, you know, from every position you can think of, right?
Speaker: And the billion dollar moment came
Speaker: when I was CMO and we did a trailing 12 months of a billion dollars and we went profitable.
Speaker: We were profitable.
Speaker: So there were these great moments where I thought, wow, we, we did it.
Speaker: We tweaked all the dials just enough to get something flowing just right for a little bit, you know?
Speaker: So it was never a large leap when I took on a new job or promotion.
Speaker: It was always,
Speaker: to me a smaller step and I felt ready for it at the time, but two years before that time I probably wasn't ready for it.
Speaker: Yeah, and I always look at things as
Speaker: It's easy to look at Nike, Overstock, Apple, and say, man, these are incredible companies, but you don't really know the person behind it.
Speaker: So I want to ask you, what do you feel like in business is your greatest strength?
Speaker: And that strength helped you scale Overstock and all the other companies and businesses you founded and now you work in to today.
Speaker: What a great question.
Speaker: Like, what's your superpower?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Mine, I really believe, is a strategy vision.
Speaker: And first, I believe that we can do it.
Speaker: So I always believe.
Speaker: Like, I'm the one that's like, oh, of course.
Speaker: I take that, just the strategy and the pieces, and coming from the experience at Overstock where we had a whiteboard.
Speaker: Like, what was e-commerce?
Speaker: Nobody knew until we did it.
Speaker: So you literally had to figure it out, knowing that there's hard work to make it happen, and then believing that I know the way and the steps and the hard work, and knowing that we can always figure it out.
Speaker: Ooh, there's never, yes, there's just never anything because we kept going and overstuck.
Speaker: There was nothing, we didn't like go, oh shoot, okay, we can drive around that.
Speaker: We'll parkour over a couple benches.
Speaker: We'll put some gum to stick it together now and then we'll go back and come back with something brilliant.
Speaker: You know, but we always did.
Speaker: If it took one year, two years, five years, 10 years, eventually we got there.
Speaker: And I think that ability,
Speaker: is probably now my superpower, but I didn't start with it.
Speaker: I think I have some sort of like mindset.
Speaker: I'm autodidact.
Speaker: I learn about everything I do myself through reading.
Speaker: I don't really take anybody's word for it.
Speaker: I study every night on whatever I'm doing.
Speaker: And I've done that for years and years.
Speaker: Yeah, and just the intentions, the intention and the perspective that you believe, right?
Speaker: You say you believe.
Speaker: And you said you guys were in it to win it.
Speaker: You love the wins as much as the losses, but you always was willing to figure it out.
Speaker: That alone, that perspective is how you're able to scale whatever you put your energy to.
Speaker: And your energy, your paradigm, your frequency is in the business, on the business, and in the vortex of the development of the business.
Speaker: And I think it's those little things that I want people listening and watching to really understand.
Speaker: Belief, you can't buy it.
Speaker: Being willing to figure it out, you can't buy that.
Speaker: You either have to know it or you have to have it.
Speaker: You have to do it.
Speaker: You have to do it.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: That is on you to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and that's where the hard work, whatever the hard work is, you know, it can be wherever you are and whatever you're doing, but you eventually learn that's only with your hands.
Speaker: Your abilities come from that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, just now with Mother Ruggers starting from zero, right?
Speaker: We're just starting from
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: Now, I've never done that.
Speaker: How long have you been in business with Mother Ruggers?
Speaker: For how long?
Speaker: We founded a year ago.
Speaker: We came together.
Speaker: I need a rug, right?
Speaker: I can't really.
Speaker: I just met a client an hour ago, and I told them about your company, and they need a rug for their patio.
Speaker: Because I was on your website last night.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm so excited.
Speaker: Yeah, me too.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, these drugs are nice.
Speaker: They're so good.
Speaker: You can't even tell from the website.
Speaker: Like, it's not doing it justice.
Speaker: We're going back and doing all the pictures again and stuff.
Speaker: But again, that's hard work.
Speaker: We have to, it takes time.
Speaker: And where did that vision come from?
Speaker: Like, how did you get started in the road?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: But I ask myself that every day.
Speaker: And the good news is passion.
Speaker: Because
Speaker: I thought around for a leftover stock saying retail.
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: I'm not doing this again.
Speaker: Like that is hard.
Speaker: You want to give up every Christmas, every holiday.
Speaker: It's tough business, you know, and everybody's like, you sold a million products.
Speaker: Why do you have to sell a million and a half this year?
Speaker: You know, the, there's never a moment that it's enough in any retail business, but July of 2021, I have,
Speaker: Wood floors throughout my whole house run, you know, and I buy these rugs that I call disposable rugs because I can machine wash them.
Speaker: So I go online on a super mission.
Speaker: I'm going to find the perfect drug.
Speaker: I get ruggables.
Speaker: I get all the rugs you guys.
Speaker: They're all online washable rugs.
Speaker: They're super low prices.
Speaker: And they are washable.
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: I had one of every rug and I wasn't over the moon about any of them.
Speaker: And then no lie.
Speaker: This is how the universe works.
Speaker: My son, Dylan calls me because me and my boys, my sons Austin and Dylan, we're both, we're all e-commerce people.
Speaker: Like we get logistics.
Speaker: They both worked at overstock.
Speaker: They understand all the tech.
Speaker: So jack of all trades.
Speaker: And he calls me, it's like, Hey, I just got, someone wants us to run a warehouse for them.
Speaker: you know, and we can invest in these rugs and this and that, the machine washable.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, let's, you know, tell them to send me the rugs.
Speaker: I feel the rugs.
Speaker: And I'm telling you, Eric, at that moment, I go, I'm in like for sure.
Speaker: All I did was touch those rugs and I go in and they, we, I met the woman that manufactured them.
Speaker: Her name's Aisha.
Speaker: She's in Turkey.
Speaker: We met on a zoom call and I was like, yeah, I'm in.
Speaker: She comes out for a show in October.
Speaker: last October and I, I go, I don't need to go.
Speaker: I'm in this business.
Speaker: Like I'm going to get these words here, everything.
Speaker: Then I go anyway and we meet and we are like sisters on different continents, just the same men, you know, she's got this background, a master and, um, she has the manufacturing firm as hers.
Speaker: She's a master textile expert.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: She's gone to school for finance and design.
Speaker: I'm everything else.
Speaker: So the two of us together, just like a fusion, we're very similar and it's fun.
Speaker: Then we said, wait a minute, maybe we should do something bigger than what we were.
Speaker: She was thinking, you know, the people she was working with.
Speaker: And that's when we joined forces is after we met, had a few conversations and just said, let's do this.
Speaker: Came up with the brand name probably three months later.
Speaker: developed the, you know, the product was all developed.
Speaker: It was really the marketing and getting everything put together and figuring out how to tell the story of, you know, rugs.
Speaker: But the rugs got me out of bed and back into retail.
Speaker: And that's the passion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it is, you know, I firmly believe I couldn't sit here and tell you otherwise that these rugs are the most amazing rugs I've ever had.
Speaker: No, I've seen them online.
Speaker: They look amazing.
Speaker: You wait till you feel them and the warranty on them and
Speaker: You know, we make them beginning to end so I can stand behind them and I can stand up and say, you know, they're tough as a mother rugger.
Speaker: And, you know, we're right here.
Speaker: You can call us if they're not.
Speaker: We'll fix it.
Speaker: We stand behind everything.
Speaker: It's her and me, thread to consumer, which is absolutely insane and a dream in a logistical world because it'll help us with pricing.
Speaker: Yeah, the thing is, your whole energy changed when you talk about it.
Speaker: So that's why you're so passionate.
Speaker: Like, you're so happy.
Speaker: You're, like, lit up.
Speaker: I'm like, wow.
Speaker: Isn't it crazy?
Speaker: Yeah, like, your whole body language is just, it's amazing.
Speaker: I want to go back to when you said you touched the rug and you knew you were in.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: Was that your intuition?
Speaker: Was that your gut?
Speaker: What about that channeled that decision that I'm in no matter what?
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: I, I,
Speaker: I had, and I'm not exaggerating.
Speaker: I moved out of Utah this summer, but the house was 6,000 square feet and it was all hardwood.
Speaker: So when I say I bought all the rugs and I have dogs and dogs rule my life, so everything had to be covered.
Speaker: I had every washable rug on the market.
Speaker: Over the course of a year, I had been trying them out, but in July 2021, I bought them.
Speaker: I bought a bunch back to back and in August, 2021, I felt these rubs.
Speaker: So you had rubs prior to meeting, going to this warehouse.
Speaker: I was looking for machine washable rubs.
Speaker: You already had rapport with rubs.
Speaker: You already had energy with rubs.
Speaker: You can feel it, can touch you.
Speaker: Well, and at Overstock, we were a master rug dealer.
Speaker: I have my product on Wayfair, but at Overstock, we were rugging, um,
Speaker: Rug Retailer of the Year in 2001, early, early econ days.
Speaker: So my experience with rugs and knowledge of rugs and what people look for in all of those things is just in my brain because of my experience, right?
Speaker: It's in my DNA.
Speaker: I already know.
Speaker: Is it your IP?
Speaker: Yeah, you entered it.
Speaker: When I saw the rugs on your site, I was like, hold on.
Speaker: The way they look, I mean, it sounds odd.
Speaker: I can feel the texture of the rugs because I can tell the detail, the energy and the intentions behind you and your business partner, how you guys picked it.
Speaker: I was like, hmm.
Speaker: And I actually need a rug.
Speaker: Well, she hand draws every rug.
Speaker: So Aisha's experience of
Speaker: creating, there's no rugs on the market like this because she MacGyvered her machines.
Speaker: So she, what does that mean?
Speaker: Remember that show MacGyver?
Speaker: Are you that young?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that doesn't make sense then.
Speaker: Um, she goes in and hacks it.
Speaker: Like she adjusted them.
Speaker: She re-engineered certain pieces of very traditional machinery to do what she wanted it to do.
Speaker: Then she hand draws every single design, even if it looks plain.
Speaker: So we know that they're balanced and they look artistic when they lay on your floor.
Speaker: So they're also not only they're beautiful and totally different than anything else, they have this artistic touch where we create the art.
Speaker: So we aren't really interested in selling 10,000 rugs of one design.
Speaker: We have a bunch of designs and Aisha's an artist.
Speaker: We can spit these out all day.
Speaker: And so they're all unique in a certain sense.
Speaker: And when they become too many of the same, we'll just replace it with a new design.
Speaker: So do you have a rug house?
Speaker: It's like Mother's Ruggers have like a space where I can go feel and touch rugs or is it just e-commerce for now in a warehouse?
Speaker: Yeah, no, we have a showroom in Vegas.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You can come and touch the rugs.
Speaker: Anybody that ever wants to come look at our rugs in Vegas,
Speaker: can't call me.
Speaker: And then we have our warehouse is in Utah.
Speaker: And that's where we're out of.
Speaker: We have a showroom in North Carolina too.
Speaker: It's a little harder to get to, but we have showrooms 365 and the biggest one is manned that much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you got it going on.
Speaker: I want to tap into the business side of you and maybe the astrology side of you.
Speaker: So I have two questions because I want to talk about the cannabis industry that you, I don't know if you still invested in or you're still a part of, but before we ask that question, was anybody, your mom or dad, business savvy or business focused growing up?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I mean, my mom works like a civil, I don't know, civil servant is that the word they would do, but she worked for the government as a civil person.
Speaker: Tech writer for machinery and tanks and
Speaker: stuff like that.
Speaker: My dad worked as a millwright in a magnesium plant.
Speaker: So he's a very blue collar worker.
Speaker: No, my brother's the first in my family to graduate college, you know?
Speaker: So they, they didn't, but they were always common sense.
Speaker: Like it didn't make them not smart.
Speaker: They just weren't doing business.
Speaker: They were living life, the commonsensical.
Speaker: So, you know, business, it is just common sense, like do the right thing.
Speaker: You know, and you can step through anything, anybody, your dog, you know, if you're dog grooming, you're, and they, this is what my parents would say to me, dog grooming, landscaping, do your best, do it your way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 7 billion people in the world, 7 billion people do that job differently.
Speaker: And that is awesome because it makes your job just as important as theirs, just as good as ready to compete with 7 billion people.
Speaker: And they really enforced, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: If you go work at the 7-Eleven as a manager, make sure it's clean.
Speaker: Make sure everybody comes in there and is like, this is the best 7-Eleven.
Speaker: Win awards for that.
Speaker: Do your best.
Speaker: Because no matter where you are, you're never just someone working at McDonald's.
Speaker: You are never just someone at the 7-Eleven.
Speaker: You are never just a landscaper.
Speaker: You are a
Speaker: integral piece to making the world work.
Speaker: Without those pieces, this world does not work.
Speaker: And we learned it in COVID.
Speaker: Every one of us, you think Elon Musk has a bigger place in this world than you?
Speaker: Because the answer is no.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He's doing different things, but we're all making it tick.
Speaker: So my parents never taught.
Speaker: There was never anything that was wrong to do.
Speaker: You could literally go be whatever you wanted, even if.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it was whatever, the landscaper that your expectations didn't have to be the president of a company.
Speaker: But hey, yours was hard work.
Speaker: I just got there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hard work.
Speaker: You believe in, you show up with it and it's important.
Speaker: So when you left Overstock, what was your mindset and mentality?
Speaker: Was it to go to another company, invest?
Speaker: Like what was the transition from Overstock to the next phase?
Speaker: You know, it's so interesting because I never had the five-year plan or like, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I kind of just left.
Speaker: And that was what I was doing now.
Speaker: I was looking at the cannabis industry.
Speaker: I had already started talking to people in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I kind of just jumped because I knew that both couldn't exist.
Speaker: And I knew that it was time for me to leave like,
Speaker: 15 and a half years is a really long time to do one thing, even though it was many different things.
Speaker: So it was time.
Speaker: And, you know, the hardest part of leaving that is what I thought the world was going to think or what the narrative was going to be.
Speaker: And, you know, the regret that I have there is not controlling it from the beginning and allowing people to kind of think what they wanted.
Speaker: And what I've learned from there with fearlessness is you control your narrative.
Speaker: No matter what.
Speaker: You can walk away from any job.
Speaker: You can do whatever you want, but you should, you know, you should do it fearlessly, like own your life.
Speaker: And I can say that and I still do a really shitty job of it.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: So are you still in the cannabis space?
Speaker: Are you still in that space?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes and no.
Speaker: Like, I'm really like the advocacy portion of it now.
Speaker: So there's a group called American for Safe Access that's run by a woman named Steph Cher.
Speaker: She has been doing amazing work in this industry for over 20 years, like suing the California Highway Patrol back in the day, like in the 90s, for arresting medical patients in the state of California.
Speaker: We forget about those efforts in this really big boom, like, please, let's all celebrate.
Speaker: We can walk in and have the right to choose our medicine.
Speaker: But we should remember it's also medicine.
Speaker: Like, even if you get high as released,
Speaker: That's your medicine.
Speaker: You know, you can, you can say that and have that.
Speaker: Don't be shamed.
Speaker: But people like Steph share moms out there still fighting for medicinal research and stuff for their children's sicknesses.
Speaker: Yes, we can recreationally get it for adult use, but there's, and my Weldon Angelos who runs mission greens Weldon was arrested in 2003 federally for one ounce, maybe a marijuana first time nonviolent crime.
Speaker: sentenced to 55 years.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah, 55 years.
Speaker: 2003.
Speaker: He served 13.
Speaker: He got out in 2016, thanks to Trump.
Speaker: There was some there.
Speaker: It was Obama and Trump.
Speaker: And then Trump pardoned Weldon.
Speaker: But this man has dedicated his free life now to really doing the work, not talking about doing the work, making the phone calls, writing the letters that he knows gets it done.
Speaker: It's not, yes, you have to hopefully raise money, but even the money.
Speaker: You have to get paperwork done to get people free.
Speaker: That's what you have to do.
Speaker: That's what Weldon does.
Speaker: He gets people freed.
Speaker: Hard, hard work.
Speaker: Those are the people in the cannabis industry, the older, you know, the traditional folks that have made it in.
Speaker: There are some wonderful brands out there like Beard Brothers, Jungle Boys, one of the old school, but they really fought hard to take and participate in a business environment.
Speaker: that cuts the cultural baggage that cannabis brings, which, you know, is what I love about it.
Speaker: I love that there were people fighting to get the medicine across the United States for years, despite, you know, they're not the cartel, they're farmers.
Speaker: They're trying to participate in the industry.
Speaker: And that's the take, I view it that way now is don't forget what we,
Speaker: You know, this is about plant medicine.
Speaker: There's a lot of legalities and federal government stuff that comes out of the decisions we make today.
Speaker: And we just all have to stay focused.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very vital that people know that from that perspective, because the way you explained it, I feel like you should have a book around cannabis and how to look at it, right?
Speaker: Point of view, because you say recreational, then you say medicine.
Speaker: Mothers and dads, they need it for their kids.
Speaker: People have type of illnesses that they need to, you know, deal with.
Speaker: And the medicine, the plant, the cannabis helps.
Speaker: And I think there should be some type of, maybe it is, some one-on-one or
Speaker: the how it provides benefits for a person's body and mind and cellular system and I think yeah I just see you in office one day soon just how you articulate how you think they hate me in office
Speaker: Yeah, maybe, maybe not.
Speaker: But I just feel like how you articulate what you believe and what you know comes off so authentic and understanding that it's like, you know what?
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Tell me more.
Speaker: By the way, what sign are you?
Speaker: Are you, are you, do you know what the- I'm Leo.
Speaker: Leo, I would say fire.
Speaker: You got that fire.
Speaker: Let's get it done.
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: So, you know, we talked about the cannabis, we talked about your time at Overstock, talked about the quote, dig deep and find your feelings.
Speaker: Let's talk a little bit about motherhood and what's that been like for you and how that evolved you as a mom and as an individual.
Speaker: What was that like?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, I, I was a mother before I was like old enough to be arrested.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was right before I turned 18.
Speaker: So even like saying it now, I kind of like, oh my gosh, that was so young.
Speaker: I can't believe that was me because I felt so like, oh, this is.
Speaker: So I went through adulthood.
Speaker: My entry into adulthood was with motherhood.
Speaker: And there was goods and bads about that one.
Speaker: You know, the reason people say don't have a kid when you're young is because like mentally you're young.
Speaker: You know, so we grew up together.
Speaker: You know, me and my son, us, we were like, hey, there was a lot of.
Speaker: fun and less yeah i corporate renegade i love outside the box if i see the path ahead of me and there's all these footprints on it and then there's this jungle this way that you need a machete i'm gonna go take the jungle nobody's been there like what's in there so we were always outside of the box and um motherhood for me was just part of the deal you know i
Speaker: I, it just is, right?
Speaker: It's like, oh, come on.
Speaker: Everybody was like, you're never going to, you know, if you're having this baby young and all these things are going to be, you know, you're hurting your life, you're ruining your life.
Speaker: I didn't experience any of that, but I don't recommend having babies at 17, you know, wait to get older, whatever your age is.
Speaker: But for me, I had so much fun with them.
Speaker: Like my friends were fun with them.
Speaker: We, they were never, you know, I tried not to exclude them.
Speaker: Of course, when I turned 21, I went to the bars.
Speaker: It's
Speaker: You know, I tried not to exclude them, but they were just kind of like part of the pack.
Speaker: Part of the pack.
Speaker: Yeah, it was like, there'd be times it sucked and I'd want to smack them.
Speaker: And then times that, you know, if anybody even looks at them cross-eyed, I'd smack the person.
Speaker: So motherhood's the greatest, you know, and we all get to do it our own way.
Speaker: Like I look back now and I think of all the things I did wrong.
Speaker: So much guilt.
Speaker: And I tell my boys, I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker: Like, I never really cooked dinners.
Speaker: I wasn't good at stuff like that.
Speaker: They didn't see it that way.
Speaker: They saw themselves as loved and they think I'm crazy over the things I have guilt on.
Speaker: So you can do it your way.
Speaker: Like, it's okay if you're a working mom and you like to work more than you like to stay home and take care of kids.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I worked.
Speaker: I worked more.
Speaker: That was my jam.
Speaker: I was good at working.
Speaker: I wasn't good at domestic stuff.
Speaker: Still not.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You own what you're good at.
Speaker: And I think, you know, that should be a slogan, you know, you can do it your way.
Speaker: Like literally in every aspect of every profession and career and genre, you can do it your way.
Speaker: And I think our way to people who are in positions that they look up to, but that's their way of living and being, do it your way.
Speaker: That's where the dig deep comes.
Speaker: Because when it's your way,
Speaker: you know, you can learn from other people's stuff for sure.
Speaker: Don't just be like, I know better.
Speaker: You probably know.
Speaker: But, you know, when it comes to it, yeah, there's when you're doing it, there's only one way.
Speaker: It's only one way.
Speaker: Do you have a book out?
Speaker: I feel like a book is coming out.
Speaker: You got a book?
Speaker: We got to tell Melanie, Melanie.
Speaker: Hey, you just got a girl to get a book.
Speaker: Read the book.
Speaker: Read the book.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: So much wisdom and inspiration and insight.
Speaker: joy and power more women need to know about you need to know about your efforts and your business and how you show up as a mom for yourself how you show up in business your intentions of working hard it's like that's amazing you need to get an award for that thanks i'd like to get an award yeah because we as people have to
Speaker: The small wins is I showed up every day for my kids no matter what it was.
Speaker: I did what I could and we're happy.
Speaker: It's not about what went on, how it happened.
Speaker: It happened.
Speaker: And you did it.
Speaker: And you're doing it.
Speaker: And you're living it.
Speaker: Now you can talk about it.
Speaker: And you don't have time to look back and go, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And every day I wake up, you know, I think Dean Martin said, I can't remember, but it was one of those old rap hat guys, I think, and they said,
Speaker: Are you ever suicidal?
Speaker: And he said, every time I wake up, right.
Speaker: Cause you wait, um, man, whatever's got your head.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's a funny thing to think about because that's what we have to overcome.
Speaker: That thought you wake up and you go, man, I wish that thing.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: I say it so much.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Whatever that was 10 years ago, even if you were wrong, even if you were in jail, even if you, even if today, that does not matter.
Speaker: It takes up this.
Speaker: And it's a hard fight, you know, to push out things of emotion and importance and things that you want, that you carry because they're valuable.
Speaker: Yes, so important.
Speaker: But you got to push out some of those things where my guilt's on my motherhood.
Speaker: You know, anytime I go there in the morning, because that's when you're like, oh, man, you can beat yourself up every morning.
Speaker: I don't know if it's the whole world, but it's me and Dean Martin.
Speaker: And, you know, just to say, like, hey, you know what?
Speaker: I forgive myself for that.
Speaker: I'll call my son if I think I'm going to go get the small validation I need to get that off of me.
Speaker: Like, what, I got to carry that for 40 years?
Speaker: No, thank you.
Speaker: Hey, get it out.
Speaker: Get it out.
Speaker: Get it out the way so you can be in your way.
Speaker: And you can start and be the way you need to be and do it your way.
Speaker: So before we get off here, I want to know what is Stormy Simons?
Speaker: What's her mission in life?
Speaker: What is your mission moving forward?
Speaker: Honestly, I hope, you know, we, we all have a legacy.
Speaker: no matter the size of what it is.
Speaker: You know, you all, we all contribute.
Speaker: You know, there's this piece of me, like working with Aisha on a different continent.
Speaker: It's so crazy, and I've never told anyone but Melody this.
Speaker: Like days before, I was working with this women's community group in cannabis, and I wrote this manifest.
Speaker: I don't know why, but it like came to me of this work in, it was in August before I met Aisha, of working together with women on continents.
Speaker: like bridging the world, like how this, because it's bigger than our United States, bigger, you know, we have to, for me.
Speaker: So ironically, the universe plopped this other continent, this woman that I loved immediately.
Speaker: She has some, I have some in front of me to actually try to do this and, you know, bring her in, you know, she's a partner in the United States as a manufacturer.
Speaker: It's the right thing to do with building a business together, but both of us have to be selfless in it, right?
Speaker: In order for this to make it work and share a vision of like, what if we just build one bridge?
Speaker: What if that's enough building, you know, trying to look at the world with acceptance and hopefully making some sort of difference on those that I can affect.
Speaker: You know, I don't know that, you know, my, I are wrong.
Speaker: I just,
Speaker: For me to feel good at night, I have to have certain things in place.
Speaker: And I can be the biggest bitch in the world.
Speaker: Like nobody's harder at business than me.
Speaker: The positivity equally turns into protectivity, you know, fine lines, border speaking really clear about things and people have a hard time with that.
Speaker: So I can be the flip side too, which is important.
Speaker: But the mission is don't sell out me.
Speaker: I've sold out before.
Speaker: And those are the things I wake up with in my head.
Speaker: Like, oh.
Speaker: When you say sell out, in what regard, in what context, so the viewers can kind of get some pretense to what that is?
Speaker: I can give you an exact example, but I don't want it to sound across like I'm whining, but I feel like I need to do this because I talk about the voice and stuff.
Speaker: So this, I joined High Times as CEO.
Speaker: It's what I wanted to do things.
Speaker: When I joined,
Speaker: I didn't feel like it was legitimate in how they were raising money and going public.
Speaker: And I felt like they were taking people's money kind of not in my alignment of business.
Speaker: Now, whether it's legal or not, doesn't matter because it's my sellout.
Speaker: So legality, all those things I'm not speaking up from my point of view, I didn't like that situation.
Speaker: I stayed there.
Speaker: I did it anyway for the title.
Speaker: And I love that title.
Speaker: I wanted that title since I was 15 years old.
Speaker: Like, history's written, folks.
Speaker: I was the CEO of my time.
Speaker: Ain't nobody going to change it.
Speaker: And I love it.
Speaker: And it is an accomplishment.
Speaker: I did try to be that.
Speaker: And I did it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: I still love it.
Speaker: However, you know, I sat there for about 120 days.
Speaker: I'm listed on the list of the shortest stints of CEOs.
Speaker: The list of 12.
Speaker: I'm one of them.
Speaker: But I had to go for that reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In, you know, in the in-between time, it doesn't even matter, the press said other things, but that is one that I have let the narration be taken.
Speaker: But it really is a moment that no, it doesn't matter what I want or what might look best for me on paper.
Speaker: I can't do that.
Speaker: I don't want to sell that to me, not anything.
Speaker: to do with high times or anybody else not about them it's about me yeah that felt that way to me and i know people can relate to being in a job and feeling like you know you it's on your peripheral you know something but you're like is that me making it up that's not really something for me to look at but it didn't feel right with you it can be the smallest thing the biggest thing somebody took somebody else's cup of coffee doesn't matter what it was doesn't sit right right
Speaker: I no longer do that, even if it benefits me on my social media.
Speaker: I can't believe I just said that out loud.
Speaker: Like what I just said was a whole cleansing, I guess.
Speaker: But that's a big deal.
Speaker: Miracle season.
Speaker: We healing here on Bigger Talks.
Speaker: I want to just, the thing I love about you, Bobby, just knowing you is that you show up your most authentic self.
Speaker: So you have said things in this interview that are very small but really big in life, right?
Speaker: There's people that sell out every day in their relationships, in their job, in their friendships, in their communities.
Speaker: Not that sell out is bad, right?
Speaker: I'm more in tune with why is it that everyone is choosing to sell out?
Speaker: What is it that we fear, right?
Speaker: It's the system.
Speaker: I mean, we have overcome so much since COVID, George, what so much as a society in the past two years, like it broke.
Speaker: I get chills because we did something big in our lifetime.
Speaker: This, what happened in the past two years, as hard as it's been, all the things, even since the Trump administration and what that caused us to pit against each other.
Speaker: All of those things mattered and they were worth it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Getting on the other side.
Speaker: So we all, here's the thing you think going from 10 to president means you don't have to sell out every, you're going to walk through moments.
Speaker: You will, but buy in for me, how I felt, I can't sell out my soul, but can I buy in it?
Speaker: Can I walk past something until I can get to a position?
Speaker: I can do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We all need money and jobs and,
Speaker: The system is the system and you don't have to be system for system.
Speaker: It just is there and we're in it.
Speaker: So don't sell out.
Speaker: That's the quote.
Speaker: Where's the book?
Speaker: Buy in, don't sell out.
Speaker: Buy in, don't sell out.
Speaker: Y'all hear her.
Speaker: Figure it out.
Speaker: Work hard.
Speaker: Yeah, get there.
Speaker: Get there.
Speaker: Don't give it up when you know there's a sunrise coming.
Speaker: Like, oh, yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker: But dang it, I already know.
Speaker: If I keep focused, I'm going to get past them.
Speaker: I'm going to keep pedaling the bike, you know?
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: So I want to leave you with this.
Speaker: I just want to say thank you for showing up.
Speaker: for being your most authentic self, for being transparent in this interview, and being a powerful, strong, independent woman who shows up for her community, her family, herself, her businesses, and everything you got going on.
Speaker: By the way, I got to get me a rug.
Speaker: So we will connect offline.
Speaker: I want to connect you with my client potentially.
Speaker: And how do we stay in contact with you outside of your social media?
Speaker: Where can people find you?
Speaker: Do you have anything coming up, any events, maybe a book?
Speaker: bunch of women or people in business I don't know I would love you to share anything you got going on so the listeners can know about Stormy Simon everywhere and then you know motherruggers motherruggers.com all of our inventories there I promise it's worth it and I'm gonna hustle as hard as the next guy when it comes to selling my goods so you know never be afraid to hustle we're never too good to sell what we're behind so motherruggers go there for
Speaker: call me directly.
Speaker: Like you can get ahold of me online.
Speaker: I'm always like, I'm always there.
Speaker: You want to buy some wholesale, whatever.
Speaker: I am going to talk at unity.
Speaker: I believe is the name of the conference in December.
Speaker: It's in Washington DC and it's put on by Americans for safe access.
Speaker: She's having their 20th, I believe it's 20th anniversary.
Speaker: And just going to speak to the true medical patients, like in the cannabis industry, all of us are doing this, but there are a group,
Speaker: You know, the federal government used to allow some cannabis patients.
Speaker: These guys have been fighting at the level that matters for our federal government to get it done.
Speaker: They've been doing it 20 years.
Speaker: They're putting forth legislation that hopefully will answer a lot of questions and get it done.
Speaker: Super important mission.
Speaker: Speaking there, I can't remember what else is going on, but I will be at MJBiz, the big cannabis conference here.
Speaker: See some old guys.
Speaker: Are you in Vegas?
Speaker: I'm in Vegas now.
Speaker: I left Utah, and this is a controversial thing, but I left Utah when they flipped and triggered the abortion bill, banned abortion the very day the federal government took the rights to women.
Speaker: So four days later, I moved.
Speaker: I haven't been back.
Speaker: I cleaned out my house, and it's up for sale.
Speaker: And that's my moment of not selling out.
Speaker: I had enough.
Speaker: That's enough.
Speaker: It is enough.
Speaker: No more.
Speaker: Yeah, we bought in, but we ain't selling out.
Speaker: I'm not going to live in a state that takes away human rights.
Speaker: You know, we, and just...
Speaker: My soapbox.
Speaker: Well, good for you.
Speaker: Thank you for being you.
Speaker: And I just love to share this space with you again in the future.
Speaker: But this was an incredible interview.
Speaker: Thank you for everything you shared.
Speaker: And people follow her.
Speaker: So many signs everywhere.
Speaker: And get you a rug.
Speaker: Mother's rugger.
Speaker: I can't wait.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Have a good one.
Speaker: Have a beautiful day.
Speaker: Be safe.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Everyone.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, guys, so Stormy Simon is incredible.
Speaker: Mother's ruggers.
Speaker: She's a powerful woman, CEO, mom, philanthropist.
Speaker: E-commerce pioneer.
Speaker: Follow her.
Speaker: Melody Carter, I want to say thank you for making this interview happen.
Speaker: I know we got on a little late, but we made it happen and we kept going.
Speaker: We showed up even though we was having a little, you know, technical difficulties.
Speaker: But people, have a beautiful day.
Speaker: Be safe.
Speaker: Count your blessings.
Speaker: Show up.
Speaker: Work hard.
Speaker: Believe in yourself and find your passion.
Speaker: It's a miracle season.
Speaker: Make sure you download and subscribe to Bigger Talks Podcast.
Speaker: This will go up sooner than later.
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: You guys stay on.
Speaker: You can buy in.
Speaker: But like Stormy said, don't sell out.
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: Peace.
