YouSaid · the spoken record

Julie Smolyansky

lines on the record: 30
first: 2020-05-21
most recent: 2020-05-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And how dark it felt, and nobody believed in me. Nobody believed in the company. But I believed in me. And that was enough. That was enough to get us through. And the same thing goes for right now. You know, when I look at data around, you know, how consumer shopping behavior is changing, how the decisions are being made, what foods are being selected, our need for immunity, the way that consumers are cooking more at home. You know, all of these things, we can all take into consideration. And I would say not just in food, in any space that you're in, absorbing this data and understanding what you can do with it is really important and to adjust your business model based on that data. It's going to be a while. Before things come back to normal, whatever that even looks like, make decisions based on that.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As accessible, really democratizing them for as many people as we possibly could. What I was remembering was my father, when he was taking Lifeway Public, we were supposed to go public on Black Friday, and obviously he couldn't. And he was devastated. And I remember being a kid and experiencing that and how all the adults in the room just looked really like they were in crisis. And look where we got, right? So I would say to any entrepreneur that there is always a sunrise, you know, this might feel really daunting. Things look so dismal that I would say that, you know, human ingenuity always takes over. And we will find the opportunity. And then I also, you know, continue to go back to those moments right after my dad died.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've spent the last six, seven weeks just working almost 24 7. This week I finally just took a few days and hours kind of for myself to recalibrate. I have found the right rhythm for myself to balance how much can I push, how far can I push? So at some point you have to recognize you are not helping anyone and you need to pull it back a little, take care of yourself. I think it's intuitive for me if it's not for you. You know, I think we have a lot of tools we're offering at Lifeway actually. We've been streaming on demand content with meditation experts, with top-of-the-line, best in class, fitness experts. We've been helping folks learn how to cook. We've been doing programming for kids. So offering as many of these self-care tools and making them.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That women have been navigating crisis since the beginning of time. And now more than ever, I think it's really important that we help women lead and push them into those positions. Like I think it's going to be really easy for diversity to kind of fall off the table. I think it's really important that we, again, remember that women are really great in crisis. And if I was a board right now, I would be putting as many women into positions of leadership as I possibly could.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like those first days right after my father died, where it was this really traumatic crisis, like running on adrenaline. And then eventually, you know, moving past the initial trauma and initial shock. And I think it's really important that we all recognize that this is kind of the new normal and everyone's doing the best that they can, that we're learning to adapt and to recognize that this isn't about who's the smartest or who has the most, you know, we're all in this together, but that it is about adapting and the ability to be nimble and fast and adapt to these new circumstances. I've been in this feeling of uncertainty and crisis and darkness and I don't, you know, that feeling of like I don't know what to do, but to recognize that we actually do know what to do. I think it's really important that we don't forget.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, mental health has been something that I have worked on most of my life. And what I found, the thing that really gets me through that has continued to always be something that's important has been self-care. It's why life weight even exists. It's eating the right kinds of foods that help fuel my goals, fuel the things that I want to do. Eating properly, working out, moving your body, how you talk to yourself, how you treat yourself. We're talking about boundaries. We're talking about self-love. We're talking about giving yourself the space and permission to say, I matter first and I have to put my oxygen mask on to take care of everyone else. This is a non-negotiable for me. And I would say like in that first month of March was really, really challenging. I felt a lot.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At global health as a matter of national security for the United States, I think this might be the best lesson that we might ever have around how we think about foreign aid. I hope that we really take this moment and use it as a teachable moment for generations to come because this isn't the last global pandemic. This is one of many there will continue to be global pandemics in the world. It's only a matter of time.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it is actually. I'm surprised that we aren't as prepared as we should be to know that it could have been prevented is really frustrating. I hope that it's a teachable moment for us and one that we will never forget. And to remember that our greatest strength, our greatest security around the world is only as strongest as our weakest link. We all know this in business, right? Well, the same thing goes for global health. And when one country gets sick or has an outbreak, it's not the time to turn away. It's the time to actually double down to invest in those countries to help contain it, to get intelligence around it, to learn about it. I guess to use the time wisely to prepare and help contain it. And if we are as strong as we say that we are, we should look.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're producing, and so, of course, I said yes, and the only time in my calendar was on Mother's Day. I'm really proud of it. And again, it's one of those moments where I felt like, you know, I know why I'm here and why I have.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So before I came to work at my father's company at Lifeway, I was a trauma and crisis counselor and I specifically worked in the space around ending violence against women. When this crisis happened and I started hearing about the lockdowns that were starting to happen and rolling out across the country, I knew, and it was confirmed, that the domestic violence was going to go through the roof. We know that in recessions, domestic violence surges, COVID-19 was no different and we saw record numbers of calls going to domestic violence hotlines across the country rain, which is the National Rape and Incess National Hotline reached out to me Friday before Mother's Day, asked if I would like to participate in their PSA that they”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we wanted to shine a light on so many women workers too that are, I think, not getting exactly, you know, the light that they deserve. And I wanted to call it out. Some people maybe don't like the term and feel like, oh, why genderize it? And that's okay. I feel like it's really important. And I think now more than ever, there are going to be so many women that get kind of pushed out of deals, pushed out of networking opportunities, pushed out of the workforce. And they're the most impacted, right? I just wanted to really shine a light on female workers as well.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The farmers, all the food manufacturers, the food processors, delivery people, the grocery store workers, these are really underappreciated people who are doing heroic work. And I think they need all of the encouragement that they can get.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say thank you to all of the essential workers. We've been so moved by the bravery and the courage by essential workers, by supply chain, by all these people who are showing up and keeping things moving for all of us. That was really what was driving us. You know, we want people to feel inspired. So we put it all together. It was just a lot of photos that were taken off of my iPhone, my 11-year-old daughter. She wrote and recorded herself on the ukulele. We, you know, laid it over on top of the still photography. And I recorded a little message and I really just mostly wanted to say thank you to the whole supply chain. And I feel like there's really not an easy way to do that. And I mean, everyone, the truck driver.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right? Well, you know, we had all of this great footage and all these great photos that we had personally taken over the course of this crisis in the production facility, in shipping and receiving. We felt that it was really important to.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of privilege. I've been here before. Like I've led through crisis before. And I'd like to feel like I can share something with another person, with a community. Like Chicago is my hometown and I can't imagine a better place than to be at Wrigley Field, an iconic part of our city, part of the heartbeat of this town in the center of the country. And normally where you'd see a line of cars waiting and traffic waiting to get to see a home game or concert headliner that what we were seeing was lines of cars of people that are hungry, that are scared, that are food insecure, and that, you know, to be there in that moment showing. Solidarity, showing and giving hope, and letting people know that they are not alone and that we are in this together.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it's important to be on the ground and to look somebody in the eyes and deliver the food to them. I wore protective gear. I had a mask. I had my gloves. We did social distancing. We took all of the measures that we possibly could, but we started this call talking about leading in crisis. And I think leading in crisis for me is just part of my DNA. And I really feel connected to those, the lineage of women who came before me who intuitively just run into that fire to go help. And I just have such a calling to do that personally that it brings me great purpose. It makes me feel like, you know, I have existed all of this time to get to this moment, to be here. I feel like I'm in a place.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've shed some tears together when I gave my remarks to the team about the changes that were happening within protocol and the safety measurements that we were putting in place. It was important for them to hear that those were coming from me at the top, that they were really important, that I really cared, that I needed them to follow it for their own benefit, that this wasn't some lawyer out of some office asking for these things. And I felt a sense of maternal care taking of them, of the whole company, of the whole team. And, you know, I got really emotional about it. And I think they did too. And I think, you know, some of these people have been with my family for over 30 years. It is like family. So I care deeply about their wellness, you know, as much as I care about my own family.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, in March, I went to probably 30 grocery stores and then I went to a bunch of pharmacies and I was trying to order them online. Oh yeah, I was personally hunting down thermometers, you know, begging people if anyone knew had access to a thermometer.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What we did do immediately was start testing for fevers. So using the infrared thermometers. And that was really, that was actually a really stressful moment. Initially, I couldn't even get one thermometer in Chicago. I couldn't find one thermometer in the entire city of Chicago. And I needed 10.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's never enough, right? You can always do more, and especially now there's more to do. We had a lot already in place. I think that's one of the great things about being in food manufacturing. The bar is so high already on sanitizing and cleaning. Like we had masks. We have gloves. We have hair nets. We have lab coats. A lot of that we already had. We had to do more. We had to bring in more and change them out more often. We typically did not have to have masks then beginning of March. We started to make that mandatory. Social distancing wasn't something that was necessary until this crisis. We implemented, you know, the tape on the ground to social distance. We already have sanitizing systems. It was just a matter of cleaning more often than we even did already.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most of March, I was in the production facilities and the shipping and receiving facilities with my team, with my workers and making sure that they knew that we were together. I was alongside with them in offering support, encouragement, motivation. I think everyone on our team recognizes that we are here to bring people better health and wellness and food. It's a very humanistic response to want to feed people.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're all responding based on their inventory systems and their computer systems, but they don't write in an algorithm for panic. That's why you saw the empty shelves across the United States. What I will say is where in the Soviet Union people would wait in line all day. And when they got into the store, there would be nothing left in the shelves. In the United States, the supply chain is very strong. It might be interrupted. There might not be the full range of all of the things you might want in every variety and flavor. But overall, the supply chain is very strong. And so people should continue to remain calm to know that there is enough food for everyone in the United States to eat.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think one of the drawbacks to all the technology is that our computerized inventory systems can't accommodate the human reaction of a global pandemic. And so, you know, the surges that they were predicting didn't even scratch the surface when the orders did come through or two weeks later and they were three, four, five, six times the quantity we were able to ship them, you know, upon the order. The surge would not have been able to be met without the warning that we had. So yeah, so I wrote this nationwide letter to all of the category buyers just letting them know that in other countries where the virus had already taken hold, the demands that they were seeing in other countries and that they should probably expect to see the similar types of demands here. In the United States”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This feeling was with me for always. And when this coronavirus started to become a bigger chatter, I did start thinking about what Lifeway's role was going to be. I took that time as critical time to prepare to get the company ready to build out that inventory, to make sure that our supply chain was strong, to create and deploy the various emergency plans. And so in terms of this letter, I knew that it was so critically important to warn, to light the fire under everyone's tush to make sure that people were thoughtful about their ordering. I really was hoping that they were really aware of the possible demand.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was used to in her country, and they overcame scarcity. You know, my parents talked about surviving famine, and my mother thought that she was going to die of starvation in the Soviet Union. And so these stories were part of my DNA. They were part of everyday life. The reason why my parents entered into the food industry in general was to feed people. This was an intuitive response by my mother to feed her community. That was sort of the context for my decision making. And I remember 1979, the historic Chicago snowstorm. And within hours of that snowstorm being announced, all of the toilet paper was gone, milk, bread, eggs, all of those essentials were gone within hours. And I was four years old at the time. And I vividly remember that experience. It was a few years before my parents would start Lifeway. But this experience.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Give you a little context. My parents and I were immigrants from the former Soviet Union. We were refugees, the first of 48 families that were settled in the United States in 1976 through a small slit in the Iron Curtain. That's the context for how Kiefer came to be in the United States. Kefir is ancient 2,000-year-old product that originated in the Caucasus Mountains where my ancestors are from. And it survived through word of mouth. It survived through storytelling, through folklore. And there were these known immune supporting benefits. So my parents, when they came to the United States, they saw that there was no Kefir in the United States. And my mother specifically saw that the food in the United States was really different than the food that she”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we started to see a lot of chatter around this in Europe and around coronavirus in general and immunity. We're able to take what happened there and apply it to the United States. I knew that the pattern would follow.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every buyer, every food brand, and Expo West got canceled. And, you know, my team was already down there. Our booth was built out, obviously. I was surprised. I was a little, you know, obviously disappointed, frustrated, all the feelings. And then I started to really tune in that feeling of impending doom and crisis allowed me to make some critical decisions on behalf of the company that really put us in a stronger place. We reacted really quickly. I knew that there was going to be a big demand for Kefir and for probiotics and for immune supporting products and for food in general.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember waking up in January watching the news in the morning, hearing about this coronavirus, also having knowledge about pandemics. I had done some work with the UN in the past. This was actually on my radar, just the possibility of an outbreak of some sort of global health crisis. And I remember walking into my kids room and bedrooms and just saying, you know, good morning, hey, there's this virus that's going around. Just be a little bit extra cautious. Wash your hands more often. Just be conscious of that. And that was it. And then in March, our biggest natural food convention was about to kick off Expo West the entire food industry goes down there.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My parents and I were immigrants from the former Soviet Union. We were refugees. My parents talked about surviving famine. And so these stories, they were part of my DNA. When this coronavirus started to become a bigger chatter, I did start thinking about what Lifeway's role was going to be. We reacted really quickly to get the company ready to build out that inventory, to make sure that our supply chain was strong, to create and deploy the various emergency plans, absorbing this data and understanding what you can do with it is really important. Hope that we really take this moment and use it as a teachable moment for generations to come because this isn't the last global pandemic.”
2020-05-21 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Leading with your gut, w/Lifeway Foods CEO Julie Smolyansky · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT