Have you tried and failed to leave the family business? Have you tried, failed, and then succeeded on your own terms? You’ve got a kindred spirit in Mike Katounas. Although Mike’s family has been involved in the painting industry since he was two years old, he didn’t have a liking for it.

Mike left home to go to Virginia Tech for engineering, but it was a poor fit. He was then accepted into a physical therapy school, but before attending, he changed his mind and got a Master’s degree in health education instead. If only he had known before getting that degree that it was not his passion! He moved to Chantilly and had a couple more jobs. When he was getting ready to be married, his father approached him about giving the family painting business one more try, with the goal of eventually taking over.

When Old and New Collide 

“My dad had been successful,” Mike admits. “Everything had worked for him.” And if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Mike, however, wanted to try new things. He saw that the internet was booming and business opportunities were spreading west of the city. His dad didn’t want to invest time and money into learning how to utilize the internet for painting and was moving more towards the city. “We butted heads, and he actually fired me right around Christmas of ‘04,” says Mike. Although the two reconciled and Mike went back to work, the firing was a wake-up call that made him realize that the situation was not going to work well in the long-term.

When Mike’s father-in-law mentioned that he could start his own business, the light bulb went off. “The wheels started turning, and I scared the life out of my wife with the idea, and within a couple of months I got my license and insurance and was off and running.”

His Own Business on His Own Terms

Mike was nervous that his dad would be upset to learn that he didn’t want to continue in the family business. “But the funny thing was that when I finally approached him about starting my own business, instead of being upset, he was actually very excited,” Mike says. They’d been fighting a lot, and it removed that drama. It also relieved the pressure of having the burden of providing an income for Mike and his family. His father was instrumental in helping to get Mike off the ground, both in terms of knowledge and experience and by helping him get his first two employees. “If I didn’t work for him, there’s no way I would have started my business,” says Mike.

Home Works Painting

One thing that sets Home Works Painting apart from its peers is communication. “We’re asking a lot of questions over the phone to get an idea if we’re the right fit,” says Mike. “If we’re not, we’ll tell them right away. We don’t want to waste their time or ours.”

They also have free color consultations. People want to change up the look of their home, but get scared by the Swatch Ness Monster because color indexes have thousands of colors and it’s hard to know where to even start.

Home Works Painting also offers a six-year warranty. They believe in what they do, and if they don’t meet those expectations, they’ll make it right.

Mike encourages customers to look at reviews online on Google, Facebook, or Yelp. He could give a list of references, but who puts a displeased customer on a reference sheet? “I can tell you all day how great we are,” he says. But don’t take it from him. Check them out online.

Paint It Forward

The second annual Paint It Forward nomination went to Still Brave, which deals with cancer-stricken children and their families. Having gone through cancer himself, Still Brave is close to Mike’s heart. Still Brave connected Home Works Painting with a child with cancer and his brother, and the two boys got their rooms repainted. “We let the boys have their creative freedom,” says Mike. The boys planned out exactly what they wanted, and Mike had one week to make it happen. Mike got to get creative himself, buying supplies from Ikea and Home Depot and using materials he’d never used before. The best part, though, was the boys’ reactions. Mike loved seeing their faces when they first saw their upgraded rooms, and hearing their excitement and joy.

An unexpected benefit was the effect it had on his team. His employees gained pride in knowing that they work for a company that isn’t just about making the profit, but also cares about the community. “It was a great team-building that I hadn’t even considered,” he says.

On the Horizon 

Home Works Painting is gearing up for a busy 2018. “I’m about to bring on a new salesperson,” says Mike. “It’s endless possibilities right now. I see a lot of growth happening.”

Psychic medium, healer, spiritual teacher, speaker, and author Uma Alexandra Beepat has over 35 certifications, which makes her the perfect person to be the founder and owner of Lotus Wellness Center. Although Lotus Wellness Center does it all, they focus on natural wellness and health, including mainstream things like massage, reflexology, life coaching, and hypnosis, as well as lesser-known things such as reiki healing, access bars, theta healing, intuitive readings, and spiritual counseling.

The Awakened Life

 Uma is mostly known as a spirit communicator. “I’ve been doing that since I was a child,” she says. Around 2014, the spirit woke her up in the middle of the night and told her that they had to talk to people who were just starting their journeys. So Uma got up and wrote from three in the morning until eleven in the morning, and had her book finished.

The book helps people who are awakening. Folks have their lives, spouses, children, jobs, and social circles, but still feel like it’s not enough. “They’re feeling like something’s missing, something’s lacking,” says Uma. The book helps them find what they are lacking, what they can expect in living an awakened life, and serves as a how-to guide. People starting on their journeys may feel alone, under pressure, depressed, sad, or anxious, but the book and Lotus Wellness Center are here to show you that you’re not alone. That’s why Lotus focuses so much on community. “We want people to know [they’re] not alone, and we’re really trying to let them know that there [are] avenues available for them,” Uma says.

Hearing Voices

The spirit has been talking to Uma since she was a child, but it wasn’t until she was 30 years old that the spirit told her to get busy. “Usually I hear voices in my head, and this time I heard it outside of me,” says Uma. The voice told her that the time for playing was done, and it was time to work. “It was almost like I was robotic. I lifted up out of the bed, got down on my knees, and I didn’t even know or have the enlightenment to say this, but I heard myself saying ‘I know nothing. Teach me everything,’” she says. Everything fell into place without her having to pay for anything or worry about anything, and she started the business out of her basement in 2009.

Go Sit in Your Wrongness and Be Wrong

In her business, she focuses on wrongness. Everyone is told how wrong they are from the minute they’re born. They’re the wrong gender, as a man living in a woman’s body or vice versa. They’re the wrong religion, wrong color, in the wrong state, or the wrong country. Everything is wrong. “As a healer and a speaker and a teacher, I am focused on the wrongness of people,” says Uma. “I celebrate the wrongness of you. I help you live your authenticity.” She wants to help people find their path that is unique to them, and then stand in it. “We focus on empowering our students, our clients, on them finding the answers within themselves,” Uma says. “We’d rather teach a man to how to fish than to give them a fish.”

The Devil Made Me Do It

Clients are the most skeptical about receiving energy healing and intuitive reading treatments. They think it’s satanic. “Energy healing is not right, only Jesus can heal, if you do that you’re messing with karma,” Uma says, rattling off some of the excuses she’s heard. Intuitive readings are definitely satanic because they involve tarot cards, it’s psychic, it’s Wiccan, it’s pagan. But Uma has been in business since 2009 and she hasn’t turned into a demon yet, so you will probably be fine.

It’s All in Her Blood

Although she looks Indian, Uma calls herself a child of the world. She was born in London, grew up in Barbados and Guinea, her father is an atheist Hindu, her mother is a practicing Muslim, and they sent her to an Anglican church as a child, where she was confirmed and baptised as a Catholic. “My mom is what we call the Dreamer. She prophecies in her dreams,” says Uma. Her maternal grandmother was a Medicine Woman, so if you went home with a cast on, she’d be in the kitchen making an herbal paste to put on your injury. On her father’s side, her aunts are very psychically gifted, and one of them is a tarot. “I come from a strong line of women,” Uma says.

What’s Uranus Have to Do with It?

What we can expect in the future is a complete revamping of the healthcare and financial systems, if Uma is hearing the spirit correctly. Uranus is moving into Taurus in May 2018, and will sit there for the next four years. The last time Uranus moved into Taurus, the Great Depression happened, people jumped out of windows to kill themselves on Wall Street, and everything crumbled. “Uranus is upset, surprises, magic,” says Uma. “Taurus is financial systems.” And just look at all this bitcoin and cryptocurrency starting to come out. In addition to a major shift in financial systems, Uma also sees healthcare shifting. “I see the big healthcare crumbling. I see all that stuff about Monsanto crumbling,” she says. “I see healers and readers and all of that, all the people in my profession, we’re now going to become part of the regular healthcare team.”

Contact Information

To learn more about Lotus Wellness Center, you can find them on their website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Youtube. To find out more about Uma, you can visit her website.

When you picture a child with cancer, what do you see? Perhaps it’s the carefully crafted and sold feel-good image of a smiling, bald-headed child at Disney World, who gets better and lives happily ever after. What Tom Mitchell sees is the parents of children who have to watch as chemotherapy, derived from a chemical warfare agent, is pumped into their child’s body, a medicine so toxic that some parents have to wear protective gear just to change their child’s diaper. He sees parents who are holding their children’s hair back as they puke, holding their hands as their hair falls out, and being forced to make life or death decisions for their child in an instant. He should know. He lost his daughter, Shayla, to cancer.

After Shayla passed away, Tom founded StillBrave Childhood Cancer Foundation to help parents deal with the everyday horror and heartbreak of cancer treatments and expenses. “StillBrave’s mission is to provide non-medical support to children with cancer and their families,” says Tom. They provide help with gas and grocery cards, rent and utilities assistance, car and home repairs, and way too many funerals.

The Birth of StillBrave

When Tom was a kid, he used to be a boxer. Although he wasn’t great at it, he could throw a straight punch and hit pretty hard. When Shayla was diagnosed with cancer, he began boxing as a sort of therapy to help himself deal with her treatment. While he was working out one day, he met professional boxer Jimmy Lange, who then met his daughter. Jimmy and Shayla became friends, which led to Jimmy watching Tom fight, which led to Tom becoming a professional boxer at the age of 40. For his first fight, Shayla walked him to the ring. He was knocked out in the second round, but he made a lot of money, and since he’s gotten his ass beat for free before, he considered that a win.

Between his first and second fights, Shayla passed away. “It was at that time that we coined the term ‘still brave,’ which was something that my daughter had said to me,” says Tom. “That was the birth of StillBrave, right before that second fight.”

Renegades of Cancer

Although Shayla is gone, Tom hasn’t stopped fighting. “She’s not coming back,” says Tom. “No matter how hard I work, no matter how hard I wish, no matter how hard I sweat, I’m not going to bring her back.” He’s not fighting for his daughter. He’s fighting for yours.

“We consider ourselves to be renegades. That’s our tagline,” says Tom. The inspiration for the tagline is from a Rage Against the Machine song. As renegades, they don’t do things that an average foundation might do. They do things like put on a punk rock concert every year. “We open it up to families who want to come out and forget about life for a night, take a shot of tequila and shake their ass and have a great time,” says Tom. They have a Carnival of Kindness, a big carnival that’s free of charge not only for children with cancer, but for children with other diagnoses or children with no diagnoses.

Tom also does ultra running, and will be running a 200-mile marathon in August of 2018. Each of those 200 miles is dedicated to a child who is fighting cancer or who has lost their battle to cancer. He carries their pictures with him, and when he feels tired and like he can’t go on, he looks at those pictures.

“Kumbaya?” Kumbay-no-go.

People often send Tom messages asking if they can go to the hospitals with him and hang out with the children. What they don’t seem to realize is that kids in the hospital are sick. Go figure. Most chemotherapies are done on an outpatient basis. Children are only hospitalized for very toxic treatments, fevers, and complications. “So when I go to the hospital, the kids are really, really, REALLY sick,” says Tom. “One of the common misconceptions is that we go to the hospital and it’s fun. We’re not going to the hospital and playing guitar and singing ‘Kumbaya.’” Just like cancer isn’t a happy kid at Disney World, it’s also not a fun slumber party at the hospital.

Be Somebody

People also like to ask Tom how he does it all. His most candid response is, how could they not? “Kids are dying at an alarming rate,” he says. “The ones that aren’t dying are being butchered by some of the medicines that we’re giving them.” Standing by and doing nothing is saying that this is okay with you. “If you don’t act upon that, you’re saying to yourself and the world ‘that’s acceptable to me.’ It’s not okay.”

You don’t have to be a big corporation or have a lot of money to get involved. Look at Tom, for example. “I’m nobody special. I’m a tattooed knucklehead,” he says. When Shayla died, he wondered to himself why somebody didn’t do something. Then he realized that he is somebody. “Advocate. Donate. Do SOMETHING. Anybody can offer thoughts and prayers. I don’t want you to be anybody,” Tom says. “I want you to be somebody. I want you to do something.”

One way you can get involved is through the upcoming 200-mile marathon. You can step up and sponsor a mile. At the StillBrave website, you can see all 200 children that they are honoring and sponsor their mile. If you are a runner, you can run in your own community and add your miles to the children. StillBrave’s goal this year is to raise 500 thousand dollars. And they will. “I don’t know how it’s going to happen, I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but we’re going to do it,” says Tom. Maybe it will be with the help of everyday people like you and me, the renegades who will change the course of history.

As a kid fearless enough to catch snakes for people for $20 per snake, calm enough to ride on his bicycle with a snake on it, and audacious enough to sell those same snakes to the local pet store for $40, it was no wonder that Sean Jensen would grow up to be a Marine. And as a kid entrepreneurial enough to think that scheme up, it was no wonder that he’d eventually become the CEO of his own company, Polu Kai Services, at a mere 29 years old. Polu Kai Services, a global environmental and construction solutions company, has now made three consecutive appearances in Inc. Magazine’s list of 500 fastest-growing private businesses in the United States, and was named one of the top veteran companies in the DC Metro area by Washington Business Journal in 2015.

Polu Kai Services: Revenge of the Good Guys

After leaving the Marines, Jensen became a hard and loyal worker. However, when it was time for him to receive his well-earned bonus, his boss declined to give it to him. “Instead of going to war with this guy in court, I started my own company and got all the clients that I’d sold for him,” says Jensen. Money was a challenge. The banks weren’t loaning to him, but he took what was left of his 401k and opened a bank account with it, telling the banker that one day there would be a million dollars in there. The banker thought he was crazy. “But I meant it,” says Jensen.

Jensen’s way of doing business is simple. “Do a good job, and keep doing a good job, and document your good job,” he says. “Then use that to get to the next level.”

Don’t Be Greedy

The owners of other companies the same size as Polu Kai could pay themselves a million dollars a year, but Jensen’s salary is $185,000. “I put it back into the company, and I keep it there,” he says. He uses it to invest in his employees, sending them to training and schools. “My employees are the greatest investment I have as a business,” Jensen says.

Connecting His Roots to His Future

When Jensen and his two younger siblings were abandoned in the foster care system when Jensen was six years old, they were moved from New York City to Florida and adopted, receiving new names. Jensen searched for his birth mother, but it wasn’t until he was 22 years old that he received a letter from his adoptive mother that contained all the things that transferred through the adoption with him. “I was able to locate my birth certificate and a couple other items that had my original name, and I did the research and found my grandfather, which led to my mother, which led to me finding out that I was native Hawaiian,” Jensen says. In fact, his family had been native to the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1775. “Polu is blue, Kai is ocean,” he says. “If you’re going to be native Hawaiian, why not name it native Hawaiian?”

Helping Veterans Transition into Civilian Life

Jensen is the author of Sergeant to CEO: A Foster Kid’s Lessons in Family, Fidelity, and Financial Success, a book and story that has touched many lives, as evident by his online community of over 28 thousand followers. “I ended up writing it to give back, let people know that you can be a foster kid and survive, and you can join the military and transition out and survive, and you can start a small business and survive,” he says. The books talks about planning and preparing for the transition to civilian life. “If there’s anything I’d like to solve, it’s better preparing troops as they transition out of the military,” he says. That includes career veterans who mistakenly think they can just retire, and the one-tour veterans who come out with injuries and PTSD into a world where civilians don’t understand them. Many of them think they will just go live with their parents until they get back on their feet. “The parents don’t want you back in the house,” he says. “The military’s not there to budget your life anymore. You’ve got to budget your own life.” It’s tremendous shell shock.

Advice for New Business Owners

“If you’re going to start a business, make it sustainable,” Jensen advises. “It takes time.” Lucky for him, his superpower is patience. Lucky for you, you can be patient, too. “Take those swings, take those hits, but patience,” he says.

On the Horizon

Jensen would like to start his own nonprofit. He donates to several nonprofits now, including veterans groups, children’s homes, and food banks, and going one step further to make his own nonprofit would be nice. “[It] is going to take some time to put that together,” he says. Patience.

Contact Information

You can find Jensen at his Sergeant to CEO Facebook page. “My advice is free, what you do with it is your own deal,” says Jensen.

When you’re an artist and went to college for art but make more money bartending, what do you do? Buy your own pub, of course! At least, that’s what you do if you are Kevin Bednarz.

Bednarz always knew he wanted to have his own business. When he was a child, before he knew what a 9-to-5 job was, he put a transistor radio in a cardboard box and started charging other kids 25 cents to turn it on. He wrote on the box ‘will play music but maybe not your song.’ Although he ended up having to give the money back to his disgruntled music customers, the desire to have his own business stayed with him. “I think the biggest thing in everything I do is being creative, whether it’s coming up with a new menu, new event, or new artwork,” says Bednarz.

Bednarz started working at Ashburn Pub as a bartender and manager in 2004. By 2008, he was a 45% owner along with the original owner. When the original owner offered to let him buy the other half, there was no way he was going to turn it down. He went home and told his partner, and she asked how much it was and where he would get the money. He had no idea. “But I didn’t let it stop me. I came up with some very creative financing. I couldn’t get a small business loan, I didn’t have a lot of cash, so I had to finagle and get very creative,” he says.

Ashburn Pub’s Secret Cocktail of Success

Service and staff are the key ingredients to Ashburn Pub’s success. Bednarz has a very low turnover rate among his staff. He contends that most people will work for money but they’ll die for recognition and appreciation. “I think they stay because we reward them and it’s a family atmosphere,” he says. “We treat each other right.”

And in turn, his staff treats the customers right. Just like Cheers where everybody knows your name, long-term staff get to know the customers by name, as well as their drink orders and the cars they drive. They can greet you by name and have your drink to you before you take off your coat.

The other drinks in the mix to make it a success are cleanliness, functionality, and relevance. When a lady goes to the bathroom, it had better be clean. Cockroaches in the bathroom equal cockroaches in the kitchen, but a cared-for bathroom equals a cared-for kitchen. Things have to be in functional working order. A wobbly bar stool here and there is no big thing, but make sure the jukebox is working so he doesn’t have to pull out that cardboard box and transistor radio. After all, it will play some music but it won’t be your music. Make sure the ink is fresh and the checks are printing. Be relevant with tech and social media.

“There’s so many options, especially around here, where people can go,” says Bednarz. “So if they took the time to get in their car, take twenty bucks out of the ATM, drive here, come in, and sit down and eat, don’t take it for granted.”

Social Media Relevance

Speaking of relevance, use social media to your advantage. Talk to those idols that you wouldn’t normally be able to, and talk to your customers as well. Each summer, Ashburn Pub does crab legs. Bednarz once decided to do a contest to trade engagement from the community for free crab legs every Sunday for the summer. The payoff was fantastic and helped bring Sundays from being their slowest day to their best day. “And that was the catalyst, and now we’re doing brunch, and $2 mimosas, and we’re going to do lobster tails soon, so that one little piece of content steamrolled,” says Bednarz.

What’s the Password?

One day, you go to Ashburn Pub and it’s the normal neighborhood pub you know and love. The next day, lights and decor have transformed the place, you needed to have a special password to get in, a witch doctor gave you a coconut drink, and you left looking like a sugar skull. What just happened? A pop-up party! Ashburn Pub does themed pop-up parties every two months. “Now we’re starting to gain momentum, where now I’m teasing that we’re doing another one coming up, and my phone’s blowing up,” says Bednarz. If you want in on the fun, you better get your hands on the password.

On the Horizon — Alexa, Order Me Ashburn’s Special

Art is Bednarz’s passion, but there must be a practical side, too. He can’t sit in the studio all day. “Sometimes I feel like I’m jumping back and forth, which is dangerous,” he says. “So my big goal this year is to really keep the pub momentum going and keep doing new things while spending a certain amount of time each week doing art, and I think that’s going to be super important.” And how long does it take him to make one of his masterpieces? “Forty-seven years,” says Bednarz. It’s a skill set that he’s work on his whole life.

Other goals on the horizon are to keep having fun pop-up parties and fantastic food, and to stay relevant with the current tech. In another few years, everyone’s going to have an Alexa. Bednarz wants the Ashburn Pub’s specials on Alexa every morning. He wants customers to be able to have Alexa order them food from the pub. “Being relevant, that’s what I want to do this year,” Bednarz says.

Contact Information

You can find Ashburn Pub on their website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can find Kevin Bednarz at his website.

After graduating college in 1998, Chris Farley began work at a database management job in a government office, and hated it. “I was into running,” he says. When he saw signs asking for part-time work for runners in a store called Pacers, he had to apply. It was an instant match. In 2002, he quit his database management job, took a huge pay cut, moved back in with his parents, and set off on a quest to open his own store like Pacers.

Before he could save up enough money for his own store, the owner of Pacers took him aside and asked him to buy that store. His parents saved the day. “Not only am I living at their house pretty much rent-free, now I’m asking them for money to help me do this,” Farley says. He made his best sales pitch to convince his parents to go in with him, they mortgaged their house for it, and in June 2003, Farley was the proud owner of Pacers Running.

Going All In

“Our success was because I didn’t have a backup plan,” says Farley. “I needed to have some pressure on me to make it go. When the going really got tough, there’s no options of a Plan B.” He didn’t succeed because he was smarter or more educated than others, but simply because there was no other option except success. Farley believes that if you give yourself the option of having outs and backup plans, you’ll inevitably take them.

Challenges of Growing Pacers

Farley knew the market in his area well, and knew it was red-hot. He decided that he could open a store in any town that had a Whole Foods and things would go fine. Unfortunately, not every town and market was the same. He opened one store in Silver Spring and had to close it about four years later. “What we realized was that we really needed to be immersed in the areas and the communities that we had retail,” says Farley. Satellite stores without a true community ambassador were just not going to work.

Building the Core Community

“There is nothing more important than our brand and our community,” says Farley. To help connect with the community, Farley launched a podcast. It has helped to build brand equity and spread their message. “We want to make you the best version of yourself through running,” Farley says. “That message was lost on a lot of people early on.” The podcast helped them establish that message. “It took awhile for us to understand that the brand was so important, that the community was so important, and once we did that, we made decisions based on that,” he says. “So opening a new store, yes, we’ve got to be profitable, but does it fit who we are as a brand? Will it help our brand grow?” They open, move, and close stores based not on profits, but on community, brand, and what’s best for their customers.

Competing with Online Companies

Competing with large online stores is tough. People can buy their shoes on Amazon. “But our competitive advantage is that they’re never going to be able to match our connection with that community, connection with that customer,” says Farley. Pacers is more than just a shoe store, they actually care about their customers. They want to get you into shape, get you into the right pair of shoes, get you out running, and talk about your running goals with you. They’ll even go out and run with you personally if that’s what you need. Amazon can’t deliver that to your doorstep.

Amazon can sell a pair of shoes. But Pacers can sell an experience.

Finding the Perfect Employees

“Our biggest reason for our success is our employees,” Farley says. “There’s no question about it. We can’t do it without them.” Many retailers have a ceiling for their employees in that the highest they can achieve is a management level. A number of Pacers employees have gone on to become local representatives of shoe companies, even international shoe companies. “We were invested in making sure that they were able to get to their next step career-wise,” Farley explains. “We know that retail and events are not necessarily going to be your last stop.” His employees work hard, gain great experience, develop a deep pool of contacts, and are able to participate in not just retail, but many business principles including marketing and finance.

The culture of the company is also great. Customers can tell when someone is just there for a paycheck and when someone is there because they believe in the mission and are entrenched in the culture. “We’re nothing without our culture,” says Farley. “We’re nothing without our employees, we’re nothing without our brand, but we’re nothing without our culture.” Part of that culture is giving employees a long leash to do what they think needs to be done. They’ve even let an employee drive an hour each way to deliver a pair of shoes to a customer who walked out with the wrong size. Pacers paid for their time and gas, and they gave that employee the ability and leash to make sure that customer had the correct pair of shoes.

Races and Events

In 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit, Pacers put on a Gulf Coast Relief Run to raise money for relief efforts. They thought they’d have a couple hundred people show up, but 4,000 people came to run for Katrina and they raised $125,000 for relief efforts. “Not only did we raise money for this one-time tragic event, we’ve got a community of people who want to be part of something,” Farley says. After realizing that this was a way to positively impact the community and grow their base, they began starting other races. Now they have 18 road races, including the upcoming Jingle All the Way 5k and 15k on December 10th, which starts in front of the Washington Monument and follows a beautiful course through downtown.

Get in Touch and Get Involved

You can find races, podcasts, and ways to get involved at the Pacers website, or email Farley with questions. He’ll either find the answer or find someone who knows the answer, but either way, he’ll get you whatever help you need.

Thirty-five years ago, Linda Harkness was a bartender in Georgetown and her husband worked at the Washington, D.C. club The Bayou. The Bayou needed a backstage caterer for bands and artists, and Harkness enjoyed cooking. “So, my first catered event was at The Bayou for Bruce Springsteen. The dish that I made was lasagna, salad, and bread,” Harkness says. Lasagna, of course, has small parts that are built together to make a casserole, so she layered it into a large baking vessel. She went to put it into the stove and it didn’t fit. She called her husband and told him to fire up the pizza oven at The Bayou immediately. “So I flew down to The Bayou, threw it in the pizza oven, and we served it, and that was my first gig,” says Harkness.

It may have been a heart-pumping start, but Harkness loved it. “I think you really have to love what you do. And food has always been something that I’ve loved,” Harkness says. “I love cooking, I love international foods, I love international groceries, I’m always on the search for something new and different.” That’s not to say that catering is without challenges. Sometimes everything seems fine, but then you walk in and boom. “I think to be successful in this business, you have to able to take a problem and solve it very quickly without a lot of stress, because you really don’t know what you’re going to walk into,” she says.

The Secret Ingredient to Making Each Event Magical

Harkness tries to learn as much as she can about her clients so she can customize their menu just for them. “We don’t have packaged menus. Everyone’s so different,” she says. “So we kind of create and craft a menu together.”

When Harkness’s son was four years old and her daughter was two years old, Harkness went through a divorce and was building her kitchen at the same time. It was very difficult, but she just did it. She’d haul two grocery carts through the store, with two children in them and both carts filled with groceries. She brought them to work at six am. She had a big window put in her office so she could see what her kids were doing while she was cooking in the other room. “I was extremely fortunate to have had that opportunity, to have my children and have my own business,” Harkness says.

Today, the biggest challenge that Harkness sees for catering companies is overbooking. “I think they overbook. I think you really have to pay attention to how much work you can handle, and if you have more on your plate than you can handle, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes.”

A Culture of Can-Do and Respect

There’s nothing in Harkness’s business that she can’t do or won’t do. If the floors need to be scrubbed, she’ll get down and scrub them. If the grease trap needs to be cleaned, she’ll clean it. “I think it’s important for everyone to work together and respect each other,” says Harkness. “I think if I’m willing to do what I’m asking my staff to do, they’re willing to do it for me.” She has great staff who have stayed with her for a long time, and she believes respect is a huge part of that. She has also always paid them more than the standard going rate. At the end of the day, they need to be able to support their families.

From Backstage Catering to Private Events

Harkness did backstage catering for about 18 years, but it was filled with long, arduous days. They’d start at five am when the trucks rolled in, and they’d end at two am. When one of the clubs brought in a new director who in turn brought his own catering team with him, she transitioned out of backstage events to corporate and private events. A wedding may be complicated, but she enjoys the higher level of artistic license.

A Presidential Gala

In her 35 years as a caterer, Harkness’s most memorable event was President Clinton’s first inaugural gala at the Capitol Center. With stars like Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, and a long lineup of more talent showing up to practice and set up, it was a week-long event of star-spangled awesomeness.

Finding a Wedding Caterer

To find the perfect caterer for your wedding, Harkness feels you must know what ambiance you want first. Some couples want a hotel, some want small reception sites, some want to be outside. Barn weddings with rustic elegance are currently trendy. Know your vision, then find your site. “I think that the reception site is really your foundation. And then you go into caterers and event planners and decide what you want,” advises Harkness. “But the most important thing is who you marry.”

On the Horizon

Harkness is still the director of Tasteful Affairs, but her son is now the chef at the helm. “He has really superseded me in terms of abilities. He’s just beyond phenomenal,” she says. Maybe they will continue as they are or move in another direction, but either way, the sky’s the limit.

Contact Tasteful Affairs

You can find out more about Tasteful Affairs catering at their website.

From Darkness to Kindness

A Bit About Audrey

Kindness can come from the dark places. For Audrey, kindness took over when her life exploded. She and her husband owned a general contracting business and had bought their house in the heyday. Everything was perfect. Then the market for contractors crashed as building and renovating homes dropped to the bottom of everyone’s priority list. “We couldn’t afford our mortgage anymore. It was just the worst case scenario,” Audrey says. “We had to short sell the home that we had lived in for ten years.”

On top of losing their home and struggling to keep their business afloat, tragedy struck. “At the same time, my father was diagnosed with terminal brain and lung cancer. And then, just to add insult to injury, my dog died,” says Audrey. “And I got really, really sad, just beyond sad.”

When you’re in a deep, dark place, Audrey believes you can either go deeper into the darkness, or you can refuse and bring yourself back to the light. “I had had enough,” she says. “You have to make the choice, and that’s what we try to do now.” She gathered her three children up, took them to the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia, and started handing out free wishes to people. They brought pennies to throw into the fountain, crafted wish feathers in little baggies, and handed out cards that said ‘wish on a star.’ It hurt her feelings how many people thought she was trying to sell them something or had a hidden ulterior motive, but that annoyance and hurt motivated her even more. Being kind to people made her feel good.

How Galya Got Involved

Galya and Audrey had been neighbors before Audrey had to move. They’d known each other for many years, but had lost contact after the move. Galya and her husband, Todor, own a business in web app design and development, and her husband was having a meeting in the house. Wanting to escape, Galya headed out to a coffee shop that she’d never been to before. She saw Audrey enter the shop, go to the counter, and buy herself a cup of coffee, and she heard Audrey put $20 towards paying for other people’s coffees.

It wasn’t Galya’s first experience with Audrey’s kindness. “What’s really awesome about Audrey and what I really like is she inspires people by telling her story on social media,” says Galya. “She was very real about everything that was going on in her life.” Galya had seen Audrey posting about her acts of kindness on social media as well. “She’s doing all these really great things to find a purpose, to be proactive, and to really turn all the negativity into something positive,” she says.

She flagged Audrey down and the women sat together until Todor showed up. After catching up with her and hearing about her kindness initiative, they knew they had to help. Within a week, they had built her a website and taught her how to update and handle it. “I think when you are proactive, when you want to do good, things just kind of align your way,” says Galya. “I think it was meant to be.”

Happy Orange Project

The backbone of Happy Orange Project is like-minded people coming together with a vision. “We spread simple acts of kindness within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,” says Galya.

Recently, they attended a fundraising event at MGM National Harbor for Chance for Life. They have icebreaking activities to get people networking. One such activity is the Kindness Wheel, which Todor built. It has about eight sections, with each section containing an act of kindness that you have to do right then and there. Perhaps it’s to take a drink to someone you don’t know, or to give a kindness card to a new person.

Going into companies and getting HR on board is a great area. Jobs aren’t always fun, but if your coworkers feel a bit like family, it can become enjoyable. “The majority of our time during the week is spent there, so why not create a place where everybody flourishes?” Galya says. “Then the business flourishes as well.”

Schools are another great place for kindness. Kids are so anxious, and it may have a lot to do with marketing and media. In Audrey’s house, they don’t typically turn on the news in the morning, but when she recently turned the TV on to check the weather, there was news of a shooting. “Why does it have to be 7:05 and my poor little eight-year-old, that’s the first thing that is blasted in his face?” Audrey says. “It’s unnecessary.” Children can also be very harsh with each other. Happy Orange Project has begun working with the Girl Scouts and are hoping to get into pep rallies to teach children of all ages the importance of being kind.

The Baby Beanie Project

One recent project that made a huge impact was the Baby Beanie Project. Audrey found out through a friend on social media that a hospital needed beanies to keep babies’ heads warm, especially babies in the NICU. Audrey and Galya hoped to gather 100 beanies in six weeks’ time. They gathered nearly 400.

In addition to keeping 400 tiny heads warm, they also helped a senior living facility for the memory-impaired at the same time. They went to the facility and asked if any of the women there who enjoyed knitting or crocheting wanted to craft baby beanies. Not only did the women like knitting and crocheting, they had their very own yarn club in the facility. By the time the beanie drive was over, the memory-impaired women could remember the campaign from week to week, and they alone crafted over 100 baby beanies. “We were able to make a huge impact and get so many people to contribute, and it was so inspiring,” Galya says.

Happy Orange Project also recently held a Friendsgiving with No Kid Hungry and raised $2,686, over $1,000 of which was in a single night.

Simplicity 

People think they have to do big things to make big change. They’re wrong. “It doesn’t have to be these major, huge, life-changing things,” Audrey says. “It’s simple.”

Something as simple as recognizing a cashier’s name and thanking them in the grocery store can make their day. “Just be kind,” says Galya.

Get Involved 

Find Happy Orange Project on their website. “Go to our website, sign up for our newsletter to keep involved, and sign up for initiatives,” says Audrey.

When inheritance hands you land that’s been in your family since 1716, you make a winery. At least, that’s what Kirk Wiles did. “We made our first wine in 2007, and then navigated some political, legal challenges to get open,” says Wiles. “We finally opened the winery in January 2010, and we’ve been going strong ever since.”

The original land grant to the family was 330 acres. When Wiles’ great-aunt passed away in 2005, 36 acres with the old log cabin on it was passed on to Wiles and his mother. At first, they used the land as a party spot for their friends, but due to an incorrect transfer, they almost lost the land to inheritance taxes. Nearly losing a piece of their family history prompted Wiles to start looking at what he could do with the land and put the family farm back to use. “The easy out would be to develop it and collect a paycheck and move on, but what good does that do?” Wiles says. “It ruins it for the future generations and what could have been.” Growing up on the land had been a great childhood, and Wiles wants that passed down to his children and grandchildren. “Something about this place just had magic to it,” he says.

Challenges Along the Way

The wine business is not an easy one, especially in Virginia. Paradise Springs Winery went through a 2-year litigation battle against the county because the county didn’t consider a winery to be agriculture. Being one of the mere handful of farms left in Fairfax county has been difficult from a political standpoint, as well.

In addition to persevering through the battle, they also had to build the winery and infrastructure. The location is also difficult from a growing standpoint. There’s a lot of moisture in the air that they have to combat, and dealing with the variation in Virginia weather is a challenge. “Every year we have to look at it like a blank slate because the methodologies that you use to grow a grape and to make a wine can change year to year based on what we’re given from Mother Nature,” says Wiles. “It’s not this consistent, scientific flow of how to make wine.”

The wine industry has many facets that require success. “You have to farm and grow the grapes successfully. You have to then bring it in and manufacture it and produce it into a great wine successfully,” says Wiles. “You have to get your branding correct, bottle it, bring to market, and then be able to sell it, and all of these have to work in harmony for the whole business to work.”

Learning from Mistakes

It’s important to look back on early mistakes and learn from them. For Paradise Spring Winery’s grand opening day, there was snow on the ground, it was 30 degrees out, they’d rented a tent in the barn, which wasn’t climate controlled, and had even hired a band. What they didn’t have was parking. “All these cars showed up and we had nowhere to park them,” says Wiles. They hadn’t intended to have such a large opening day, but their story is compelling and people wanted to come check it out. “People wanted to come and support that and I underestimated that on our opening. “Learning from those challenges and seeing how we’ve grown today to be able to accommodate so many people and have people come and really enjoy great wine here, it’s been really rewarding,” Wiles says. “You learn from those mistakes.”

Passion for Land, Passion for Wine 

Although the winery started from a passion to do something great with the land and preserve the sense of history, wine became Wiles’ passion in its own right. “You have to find what you love to do, and follow what you love to do. If you’re not happy doing what you do, you’re not going to succeed at it,” says Wiles. “If you follow your passion and you’re passionate about what you do, you can succeed at whatever you want to do.”

Paradise Springs Winery has been so successful at what they do thatthey’ve opened a second location in Santa Barbara. Wiles attributes their success to the passion of his team. “There’s so many people that work so hard here. We have an amazing team,” he says. “[They’ve] inspired me to work harder.”

On the Horizon

Wiles is helping write the script of the wine industry in Virginia. “I’m pretty heavily involved in some of our state boards, and I think there’s a real evolution that’s happening,” he says. “We are writing the story right now, and I think that’s an exciting thing to be a part of.” Virginia is an obscure region for a winery, but Wiles is changing that and it’s something special. “Not often can you come into an industry and help define what that industry is going to become,” he says.

Opening a location in Santa Barbara is also special. Taking a wine from an unusual location into the lion’s den of wineries is a gutsy underdog move, but people are taking notice. It’s something different, and the sky’s the limit.

“All I know is that we’re on a great path forward,” says Wiles. “We’ve got to continue that, do the little things right every single day, commit to making quality wine, and sharing wines around the world.”

Contact Paradise Springs Winery

Find Paradise Springs Winery on their website, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

No Such Thing as a Bad Dog

‘Bad behavior’ in dogs, such as nipping or aggression, are external manifestations of internal driving forces. These behaviors stem from frustration or stress because the dog’s instinctual needs are not being met. Kimberly Artley fixes communication issues between owner and pup to get to the bottom of such behaviors.

Dogs are unable to take themselves out for a run if they have excess energy to burn. “Their quality of life is 100% dependent upon what we choose to provide them and what we don’t,” Artley says. Just like when a person is upset, they may smoke, drink, or shop excessively, dogs may also act out. “It’s boredom, it’s frustration, it’s anxiety,” she says. “It’s a coping mechanism.”

Lobo

Artley’s first dog, Lobo, was her best friend. “He fulfilled that little emotional void,” says Artley. “We did everything together.” He was a balanced, well-behaved dog. However, when Artley and her husband divorced, a switch flipped in Lobo. He became overprotective and aggressive. Artley considered Lobo to be the problem and put herself into bankruptcy trying to fix him, going through trainer after trainer and sending him to a two-week board and train. Eventually, he bit someone and had to be put down. It didn’t have to be that way. “Had I known then what I know now, it would have been a non-issue,” says Artley. “I could have nipped it in the bud.” Lobo is the reason why she does what she does.

Fixing the Right End of the Leash

“We’ve got some of the most psychologically challenged, neurotic dogs on the face of the planet, and we don’t have to look any further than our end of the leash as to why,” says Artley. It’s the owner’s responsibility to provide dogs with what they need to be calm and balanced. To achieve this, Artley conditions calm.

When a dog gains something, such as attention, affection, or getting pet, from practicing something else, such as excitement or being pushy or demanding, they will continue to practice those things. “We’re actually conditioning those behaviors, reinforcing those behaviors, reinforcing that state of mind,” says Artley. Instead of conditioning your dog to be excited, you must condition your dog to be calm, polite, and respectful. “What we do not address and what we do not correct immediately gains our consent,” she says. Failing to disagree with a behavior in a dog will cause that behavior to continue, intensify, and bleed out into other behaviors.

Dogs aren’t born with the understanding of what humans consider appropriate, polite, respectful behavior, we must teach them. “But we cannot teach without first understanding how to communicate effectively,” says Artley. Humans communicate primarily through verbal language, but dogs respond to energy, body language, and vocal inflection. Speaking with a high-pitched, excited voice creates excitement in dogs, while speaking with a lower-registered, calmer voice is more grounding and facilitates a calmer energy.

Trust and Respect

When we bring a dog into our home, we enter into a relationship with them. At the foundation of every sound relationship is trust and respect. When a dog is not listening to their owner, usually it’s due to a lack of respect. Many people try to befriend their dog, especially if their dog is a rescue. They stay attached to the dog’s emotional story and try to compensate for every wrong that the pup has suffered, which doesn’t allow them to move forward. “We cannot lead through emotions,” Artley says.

Provide for Instinctual Needs 

Dogs don’t need a friend. They need structure, rules, boundaries, leadership, discipline, mental stimulation, and nutrition. Like parents of the human species provide all these things for their children, they must also provide them to their dogs as the alpha of the pack.

Different dog breeds have additional needs. People will fall in love with the look of a dog such as a German shepherd, but that’s a super intelligent, working breed. They don’t fare well as pet dogs.

Artley recommends looking at stray and homeless dogs. They don’t tend to be crazy or imbalanced, running around challenging everybody. Rather, they’re calm, cool, and collected. This is because they meet their own needs. If they need exercise, they give it to themselves. Pet dogs, on the other hand, are given every luxury — free meals, toys, beds, attention — they are constantly gaining without having to earn anything. “So what we’re conditioning are very bratty, entitled, unruly, spoiled, pushy, testy dogs,” says Artley. “We’ve got to be more accountable for what we’re doing and not doing. They’re looking to us for their guidance.”

My Dog, My Buddha

Artley wrote My Dog, My Buddha for Lobo and everybody who is struggling. “It’s a blending of personal empowerment and self-help and dog behavior,” she says. “It’s everything kind of wrapped into one.”

Packfit

Packfit does private training and stay-and-learn training. “I’m really big on educating, empowering, and equipping the human end of the leash,” Artley says. Training doesn’t happen in six or eight sessions, it happens every single day. “If our dog is exhibiting some behaviors, it’s our responsibility, it’s our commitment to them to figure out how we can help.”

Contact Information for Kimberly Artley

You can find Kimberly Artley and her book on her website, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.