Stepping into the family business was never part of the plan.
In this episode, Christina talks with Nicole Elia, a second-generation leader of Engineering Equipment Sales, Inc., about her unexpected path from chemistry to commercial refrigeration, taking on the family firm, and learning to delegate after years of wearing all of the hats. They explore the value of outsourcing, documenting institutional knowledge, hiring for character, and focusing on what you can control.
Christina May: Welcome to The Breakout Moment. I'm so happy that you are here today. Let's talk about what it's like to step into a family firm. Did you have like, this growing passion for HVAC and refrigeration as a kid or like where did that come from? I mean, I feel like that's not – when you're in kindergarten they go what do you want to be when you grow up? You drew yourself as a tech, right?
Nicole Elia: I drew myself as a manufacturer sales representative. Yes.
CM: I did not
NE: I guess in short story. I went into chemistry, so I was a chemist and worked in a lab, and, about a solid three months into my first job, I was like, "This isn't for me." So, for kids at home watching, do the internship.
CM: Yes. Try it all on. Gosh, I tell people that all the time. Like, it is perfectly okay to try on jobs like clothes.
NE: Correct
CM: Early, like you can do it later, but there's more consequences. Do it early when there's no consequences. Do the internships, do the unpaid stuff, volunteer. Try it before you have bills
NE: 100%. So, okay, I needed a job and I wanted to go into technical sales. I always I like telling a story. I like learning what other people do, what their needs are, and trying to accommodate what we can provide to solve their problems. And my dad just so happened, had an opening, somebody left and he said, "Listen, you don't have to stay here forever, but at least get your sales experience."
CM: Did your dad start the company?
NE: Yes, in 1988.
CM: Okay.
NE: Yep. So, pretty much grew up in the business. I always knew the manufacturers. Some kids earn their money, their allowance money, mowing lawns. I earned my allowance money by typing numbers into spreadsheets. So.
CM: Not a bad skill.
NE: I mean, honestly, it wasn't a bad job because at least I was in air conditioning.
CM: You weren't mowing a lawn or delivering a paper or walking dogs.
NE: Yeah. So it was pretty simple in that regard. I always kind of knew what my dad did, but I didn't 100% understand the full grasp of it. So, when I joined the firm and started calling on customers and really learned, like, why this is important, we sell commercial refrigeration. Why is that so important? Because last time I checked, we don't like spoiled milk.
CM: Kind of a need
NE: It is kind of a need.
CM: We don't. We don't want to, like, get ice blocks delivered anymore or anything like that.
NE: So, yeah, it's very interesting because a lot of industries need refrigeration. Oh, pharmaceutical, grocery store, you name it, they all need it. And I had the privilege of seeing how some things are made and I, find that's the nerd side of me that loves to see how things are made.
CM: The chemist in you comes out. You're just like, oh, that's how that happens.
NE: Okay.
CM: So what's the most unique thing that you've seen behind the scenes Like a “How It's Made” episode, I guess
NE: That's a challenging one. How they put condiments into bottles.
CM: Okay.
NE: It sounds silly.
CM: It does.
NE: But it goes through a machine that gets hot. It has to be cold or a certain or certain temperature, so it doesn't spoil. And it's just this machine and basically all I was doing is providing cooling for the water fluid that keeps the machine cold so we can inject, like, ketchup or whatever, into a bottle. That was very fascinating to see how that all goes down.
CM: When you're in the grocery store, you don't even think about that.
NE: And it's not really that cold. You're talking maybe room temperature temperatures, but that metal has friction. So it has a lot of heat. Has to go somewhere.
CM: Yeah, it has to be cooled.
NE: Yeah. So I, I think that was kind of neat, like I didn't really think about it. And like well it does it have preservatives in it, why doesn't need to be refrigerated?
CM: I wouldn't have thought about that at all. I would’ve just been like, oh yeah, it's just sitting there on the shelf. I mean, it just sits in my pantry.
NE: And there are machines that, that's what they do. So I would say that's kind of neat. One, watching steel get punched like steel sheets.
CM: Yep.
NE: With holes.
CM: I love the lasers. I get just fascinated.
NE: Exactly.
CM: I’m a dog person, not a cat person, but I still get fascinated by the lasers.
NE: And then the last but not least, honestly, just packaging in general, it's kind of neat how different things are packaged. So that will reduce breakage during delivery. I mean, everybody has a common issues with LTL, and I mean, they do the best job they can, but stuff happens. So, the loss of product is a loss of money.
CM: That's true. That's true. Okay, so you get to see stuff behind the scenes. You had an interest in diving kind of into the technical sales. And I would say like your chemistry kind of background kind of comes into that. So your dad was like, hey, try it out.
NE: Yeah.
CM: Okay. So then obviously it, moved from there.
NE: Yeah, yeah. And then we went into the recession. Yeah. So, what I learned during the recession is, many industries were affected by the recession. Refrigeration was not, it wasn't a stellar year, but everybody was still in business.
CM: Right.
NE: So whether people were putting Band-Aids on something or actually buying new equipment, maybe the capital expenditures were less, but everybody needed to keep their equipment online. So, I was like, oh, well, this is kind of recession proof. More or less.
CM: More or less.
NE: So, that's kind of where I ended up sticking because the threat of getting laid off is very minimal.
CM: Yeah. Just be careful not to say the wrong thing. Thanksgiving, you know.
NE: Whatever.
CM: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. All right.
NE: So yeah. So here I am. You know, the territory has changed over the last 20 years. But now, running the organization, I could be anywhere in our territory, anywhere from New York City, North Carolina. It just depends on what the business needs at the moment. I consider myself a working manager.
CM: Okay.
NE: I don't just send other folks to do it for me so that that's, the control freak in me.
CM: I got it. Okay, did you see yourself staying? Did you see yourself turning into what it is now? Today?
NE: No. Not initially.
CM: So you're the accidental entrepreneur?
NE: I wouldn't consider myself an entrepreneur, per se. I think I lack sometimes.
CM: That's imposter syndrome.
NE: Is that?
CM: Yes, we all have it. We all have it.
NE: I definitely look at things differently than other folks that I talk to. For sure.
CM: And expand on that. What things do you look at differently.
NE: Opportunity, if somebody is complaining about a problem, I'm like, well can I fix it?
CM: Yeah.
NE: If I can fix it, can I make money fixing it?
CM: Yes. Now see that's an entrepreneurs mindset. So see you have it.
NE: So it's just a matter of whether or not it aligns with our manufacturers.
CM: Right, and what you do.
NE: Yes. Right.
CM: But even when it doesn't align with what you did you catch yourself I know I do, going like, how could I fix this. How can I make money off of this? Yeah, I, I look at everything that way
NE: 100%, I have two business plans of other ways of like, not necessarily business plans. I should say. It would be what we could solve in our industry at one point. But of course it all comes down to revenue and time.
CM: Yeah. Oh absolutely. Absolutely money. Nobody likes to say it. But at the end of the day.
NE: I should say capital not revenue.
CM: Yeah it comes down to that. And I always tell people money produces options. Don't tell me it's not a motivator. Because for me I'm motivated by having options. I'm not motivated by the money. I'm motivated by the options. But in order to get those options, I have to have the money. So I think that gets villainized a little too much, that we should, you know, be doing things for. I hate to say it, but the goodness of doing it. And that is motivating. There are those emotional parts to it, but you still can't make those possibilities happen without capital.
NE: Correct.
CM: So at the end of the day. So now fast forward, you know, mom is also part of the business.
NE: Yes.
CM: Office manager?
NE: Yes.
CM: Okay. And then you know dad. And at what point did they come to you and say, hey, we we've got other plans.
NE: I guess about, ten years ago.
CM: Okay.
NE: It was a conversation. They're like, what do you want to do? Do you want to stay here or do you want to do you want to take over? And that that was that was the conversation more or less. So it was always when we had that conversation, then it was like, okay, yes, this is what I'm going to do. I know I can support my family this way. I have invested interest with our manufacturers. I have invested interest with my customers. You know.
CM: You understand the business from kind of the ground up. That's big.
NE: Yes, exactly. And, my dad built something pretty awesome. I am my opinion. You know, it's a little biased, but, you know, it was just him and my mom initially. And then now we have, you know, about just shy of a dozen folks and a fairly substantial line card. So, I mean, I call it my dad built great.
CM: Yeah. No, I, you know, my my neither one of my parents were entrepreneurs, but my grandfather was he was, an electrical engineer, and I have construction tendencies. Mechanical, electrical, and engineering tendencies. But, you know, the timing wasn't right there between him, you know, winding down the business. And, I was still in high school. But I always think about, what if, what if that had happened? Because my earliest exposure to business was through his business, and, even just watching him put together panels. This was before computers. So, like, custom control panels and, you know, doing the drawings and and all of that. And it was just I was so fascinated by that as a kid. I didn't want to do anything else. I didn't want to be in the kitchen. I didn't want to be helping my grandmother or my mom out thing. I wanted to be out with him. I wanted to be in the business. That's that's where the action was and that's where I wanted to be. So even though, you know, we talk about refrigeration or, you know, electrical engineering, not really sexy stuff.
NE: No, it's not.
CM: At all.
NE: Nobody wants to spend money on it.
CM: No they don't. And but yet it's necessary.
NE: 100%.
CM: And you can find some. There's so much creativity in the, quote unquote, boring. And that's something that I love about. Like, what we do now is helping find, you know, those stories and helping to tell those stories like you're talking about the condiments, like, everybody can relate to that. Yeah, right. Everybody goes like, yeah, I got a bottle of ketchup. I didn't know that. That's fun. That's what gets people, like, bought into something. But yeah, there's a lot of beauty I think in the boring.
NE: For sure.
CM: So they had this conversation with you, then you were like, yep, this is my path forward. What did that process, you know, kind of look like for you guys?
NE: It’s pretty simple in that regard. It was more like a lot of our manufacturers wanted to know, does my dad have a plan? Yeah. And he did. Did we have something in on paper? No. So it was more of like, whenever he feels he's done, he'll be done. And, I mean, my dad still works today, and so does my mom.
CM: Okay. Part time?
NE: No.
CM: Nope. They're all still there every day. You're like, they're still here every day.
NE: They're all still there every day. I mean, they'll take more time here and there, but. Yeah. No, they're still very active. You know, my dad picks what he wants to do now as opposed to doing everything I do everything for him now.
CM: You got all the hats.
NE: Yes, I have the hats he was wearing in 2019.
CM: Okay.
NE: And in 2020 I was like, oh yes, it's my year. I get to make my statement.
CM: And the universe went, Hahaha.
NE: In January we have this big office meeting. I have this big calendar and for full effect, a big paper calendar. And we're writing all the stuff in and we have basically the next six months planned for February all the way through July. And on one day it all went away.
CM: I had the same experience. I had the same exact experience. We're coming off our best year. And I was like, this is it. Like I started a whole new division formally. We've been doing it informally, I had ramped up all of this stuff. I had this whole plan. And then Saint Patrick's Day.
NE: Yeah, it went one way so quickly.
CM: The Irish luck just left.
NE: Yeah.
CM: And I just tore that plan basically up.
NE: So I mean, honestly, when that happened, so we have, we have a couple services that we utilize outside of our company because as a small business, you can't always have a full on HR department. You don’t have enough work for that person to have to justify. So we have a payroll service that we work with. And so that's one of our contractors. I did heavily rely on my HR rep in that day, I was like, what am I allowed to do? What can I do? What are my options?
CM: And they didn't even know.
NE: Correct. Yeah. And honestly, I when my HR rep actually ended up getting promoted, I cried.
CM: Come back to me.
NE: I'm like, that's not fair. Why do you think that's rude? But I mean he did a great job because, I mean, it got very personal, it was more of a personal right. It was more of a friendship where, he didn't know the answers. So we were trying to go through them together and learning what? Like we were deemed a necessary business. So how do I travel? How do I get people to go to the places that are like, why are you here?
CM: How do I overcome this?.
NE: Do I need a letter? Like what states require the letter? Can I cross state lines? Because I don't live in the state of Maryland anymore. I live in Pennsylvania.
CM: That was creepy. I remember that, yeah.
NE: Initially, on a whim on that Friday, before everything shut down, I brought home a box full of supplies to my house with files that I would probably need. I figured, oh, I'll just be closed for a week.
CM: Yeah, I the same thing. I thought week two most.
NE: Yeah. So there’s a lot of that going back and forth. But I guess I said I would say like I have started to value my relationships with my outsource, services because they do provide a huge value for us to be successful, but I don't really necessarily have enough to have my own person on staff.
CM: Yeah. And I think that's an important point, because a lot of small businesses, medium sized businesses even, you can't justify keeping it in. You just can't. They don't understand. Even with the technology, there's this misnomer like kind of idea right now that the tech can reduce headcount, which it can, but it can replace. And it's like, no, not really. You still got to know what you're doing. Somebody needs to manage it and bring strategy. It's what you do. And so I always explain to people, it's like you're not your own car mechanic for a reason.
NE: Right
CM: You take your car to the mechanic because you do something else for a living.
NE: Right
CM: You know, you don't fix your own appliances in your house most of the time. Or at least I hope you don't. If you're related to somebody who does, I feel your pain sometimes. But, yeah, you hire in experts because that is their deep expertise. Just like people hire you for your deep expertise. So if you can't afford to hire in a full marketing department, a full HR department, a full accounting department, like all these back office systems, it is way more cost effective to send it out.
NE: Correct.
CM: What you shouldn't be sitting there and going. Sitting there and going that's a salary or something. One person can do what 5 or 6 people can do.
NE: I mean, but finding that person and, that unicorn that is willing to do all five jobs.
CM: And keep them
NE: And keep them, that that is that's a needle in a haystack. Yep.
CM: I's almost impossible. And your a smaller business. So how are you going to compete. Right. Because we can talk about creative benefits and things that you could do as smaller teams that larger companies can't do. But there's a lot we can't touch really as small firms. And it's and it's tough.
NE: Yeah. It's tough talent retention is tough. I mean we've been very fortunate where when we've had new hires that we've been able to retain them for I mean, my, my, outside of my mother and father are the longest employee has been with us since the late 90s.
CM: Wow
NE: I started in 2005. Almost every single person that's been with us has been with us for several years. And, you know, occasionally we'll have folks leave, but they're all leaving on their own terms. Right. So it's been very positive in that regard. So I feel like from a culture perspective, we have the right vibe. It’s finding those people to be part of our vibe.
CM: Right. Well, and I think that's just in general, you have to find people that are going to buy into the values, not just have the expertise right. But you're hiring for soft skills, things you can't teach. I can't teach you to be moral. No, I can't teach you to be trustworthy.
NE: Yes, 100%.
CM: I can't teach you how to treat others with respect. You have to come in with those skills. The rest I can train.
NE: Yes.
CM: And finding people who kind of fit your set of values, you know, the tribe, the culture comes from that. But if you bring in people that don't buy into that, you're going to fail from the very beginning, I think. So your dad gave you all the hats, and then we had a pandemic. So of all of the of the hats, talk to me about what the process has been for you to kind of. Well, you and I talked about this a little before we started. Like to pull a hat off it and hand it over. How do you know which ones first off?
NE: So, last year, was a challenging year. It was a great year. But for me, mentally and physically, it was challenging for me in 2025. I mean, just for perspective, I call my car my office. That used to be me until recently, I think I put about 29,000 miles on my vehicle last year. So it was a lot of driving, a lot of windshield time. So in, in December I was like, what can I get rid of? What do I need to do? Versus what do I want to do? And then what am I comfortable giving to someone else? And, you know, like my our conversations with my mother and father were like well, your father did all of that before. And I'm like, yeah, but you did his clerical while I was doing that, like, I don't have you. So it became extremely clear I needed an admin. And it actually, I think last year I was like, I'm going to hire an admin. And this is what I think is going to be what we need. And, you know, I wrote a posting, had my mother review it, had my dad review it, but do you really need a person like, can we just, like, bring someone part time? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't really feel like a part time. And I was at a conference in December and I was like, January putting the post, you know, I don't have time in December to look at the resumes.
No, no, it's the holidays.
NE: Yeah. So I was like January. So I posted the first week in January. I had my attachment at the end of January. I pulled it, I pulled the trigger really quickly. And fortunately, she was available to start.
CM: Wonderful.
NE: And, I mean, so and I struggled with, you get so many resumes, and I did read all of them.
CM: I do too, people always talk about AI screening whatever. I'm like, no, I actually look at every single one of them because I'm hiring a human.
NE: And I will be perfectly honest, I could tell which ones were written by AI.
CM: Oh, 100%.
NE: Opening summary. Yep.
CM: Just jargon jargon jargon jargon jargon. Nope. Out the door. I can tell immediately.
NE: Yes. I mean, I'm not saying that everybody, everybody uses AI as some which way shape or form.
CM: Of course
NE: I use it almost every single day. When I have to write challenging emails.
CM: I do it as well.
NE: So, but like, you have to edit it. There has to be a human element to it.
CM: That is our take on it as well.
NE: So I was able to take 75 resumes and narrow them down to called five back. Four showed up for interviews.
CM: Okay. So narrowed it down from there.
NE: Narrowed it down from there and had my admin by the end of January. She's been with us since then.
CM: That's awesome. So, how has your life changed since then?
NE: I'm still onboarding her 100% on what I need.
CM: And yourself
NE: And myself because I am a control freak.
CM: That's okay. You don't have to whisper it. It's safe. I am a control freak, too. I have trouble asking for help.
NE: So I like some days I'm like coaching myself on my drive into work. Like, okay, today I will remember it and we’ll talk. And, I'm just gonna have her sit next to me, and I'm just to say, send this and this. So that's what I've been doing. Like I have to coach myself into releasing tasks. Yes. There have been some things we implemented, like a new banking system. I had her learn it with me. Normally it would have just been me. Right, right. I had her learn it with me and she's been awesome at the integration of it. It's a very effective banking system and fraud protection.
CM: Yep. That's huge right now in.
NE: All of the money coming in, none of it going out. But she's helped me manage to make sure we make payroll so that was a huge thing.
CM: It's a learning curve.
NE: Because businesses is change. We weren't as electronic in the 90s and early 2000. Now we are electronic and almost everything is an ACH transfer. It's not a handwritten check.
CM: Well and honestly you bring that up, a lot of our customers are in your space still sending live checks and check fraud being as bad as it is, we have really pushed our customers to move to ACH. Or I mean even for local ones. We've we've even had to pick it up. Yeah. Because the fraud has become so prevalent. So you know for anybody who's out there who's still doing the live check thing, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when is that going to happen to you?
NE: Yeah.
CM: It is incredibly costly and time consuming
NE: And labor intensive
CM: To deal with.
NE: Right.
CM: Just move to the ACH.
NE: Yeah.
CM: Just move to the ACH.
NE: We still do write checks but I would strongly encourage any small business to get with your bankand your small business person.
CM: Talk about what the options are.
NE: There are so many programs available for your handwritten checks.
CM: Yes.
NE: Okay.
CM: So yeah, no great tip. But you know, I think what's interesting about bringing, you know, bringing in an admin, it really as a leader forces you to of you to re learn how to lead. And I don't know about you, but for me it's a completely different mindset from I built this, I've done the jobs, I've done almost every job in my company that I've built, but that doesn't mean I should be doing them. And it's okay to let go of the wheel. And, you know, you’ve had a ton of windshield time. I've had a lot of windshield time in my life, but like, I always required it to drive home. Like I need to stop gripping the wheel. So, like, I kind of stop white knuckling this. Yeah, and let somebody else drive for a while. Because if somebody else is driving, I can work in the back and get more done.
NE: Exactly.
CM: And it's tough.
NE: Yeah.
CM: So you coaching yourself like that, It's a whole new skill set. It’s not something that is natural
NE: No, and for instance, my mom, nobody really 100% knows all the stuff she does.
CM: So that's job security.
NE: Well, she just makes things work.
CM: All moms do that on some level.
NE: On some level, every mother does that.
CM: Yes.
NE: So I have I was like, Amber, I want you to just document what my mother does.
CM: She like Homer Simpson. She comes out of the bushes, she watches.
NE: For the first like two weeks I think she sat next to my mother at her desk and was, like, writing things down. So essentially, what part of, I've been working with a, i guess a leadership coach.
CM: Yeah.
NE: And he's of all he's encouraged me to create like what does everybody do? What is the process? Because obviously as we bring on new hires and new employees, they're just not going to know you have to train. So if they have something to reference then that's part of that time that you don't necessarily need to train. They can read it.
Right, well, you're creating structure
NE: Correct.
CM: Otherwise you're just you're reinventing the wheel every time. And that's, that's that's not where you want to be in a business at all. That's not what you want to be doing. That just means you're just turning in this wheel over and over.
NE: Typically my dad talks about when he started working, he was hired by York International. He joined their engineering program, out of college, and they had a six month training program. Everybody went to York, P.A. then they would basically line the engineers up. You're going to go industrial, you're commercial refrigeration, you're air conditioning, you're commercial air conditioning, you're chillers, you know, and everybody, then you would segment out and you would learn everything about that product. And this back, you know, when York was a huge company in York, Pennsylvania, they're still a gigantic company.
CM: Yeah, yeah.
NE: But, so, my dad talks about that. He was like, basically that was the most important six months that kind of created his path into refrigeration. He was the commercial refrigeration guy.
CM: Yep. You were the dude.
NE: Yep. So he learned everything about commercial refrigeration. Then they gave him a car and told him to go to New York. So thats what he did. And then he ended up in LA and all over the place. So that's my dad's progression. So from his experience, we created the engineering training program.
CM: That's amazing.
NE: And that I did it. And it wasn't very constructive initially. But over the years, as we've hired new people, that is more or less what we do like, especially if they're new to the industry altogether. It doesn't matter if you've been selling widgets for the last 20 years, the only way you can get out of doing the training program is, basically it's a lateral move.
CM: Right, right. Understood. No, I think that's important. And, you know, you're putting your spin on it.
NE: 100%
CM: You're creating this knowledge base, this IP that can't be easily picked up and taken elsewhere.
NE: Correct.
CM: And that's, you know, it's a service to your employees, but it's also a huge asset to your business. So question for you. Think about now, you know, it's been years since that conversation with your mom and dad where you like, what do you want to do? And you chose this path. Thinking back to those years, is there anything that you would tell yourself maybe, you know, let's skip over the pandemic years because they were special.
NE: Yes.
CM: But you would tell your former self, you know, if it was just if you had just a minute to be like, hey, by the way, sometimes through people, it's, you know, I wish I had known this or, you know, it's I've worried about this, and I shouldn't have. But is there anything, any past advice that you would give yourself now that you wish you had known?
NE: I guess, focus on what you can control. Because I think if you look at the big problem. And you're like, I'm just going to drown. So you're already setting yourself up for failure.
CM: You're already drowning then.
NE: Yes. And I mean and Covid actually is what taught that to me is because there was really not much I could control. Yeah. The only thing I could control was how we responded to it. So I’ll be honest, I did literally act like a five year old kid not getting their way initially like in the corner. Having a full on tantrum. And I wouldn't say that was the best light of myself, but then I'm like looking at myself. I'm a middle aged woman. Why am I acting like this?
CM: You're allowed to have those moments like I was so people like, you know, you can give your worries, your anxiety, whatever label you want to put on it, space. But then after it's had its dedicated space, that's it.
NE: Yeah.
CM: So for me, because I'm like you, I'm Type-A.
NE: Yeah. I just I can get spun up on things that are completely out of out of my control or even the things that are in my control. And, you know, when you're running a business, when you are responsible for people, you're responsible for customers, family, bills, it's all on your shoulders.
CM: Yeah. And especially during that time period, now too. But back then it was an even bigger elephant, it felt like, and you can get really spun up into a tantrum, etc., whatever you want to call it. And something I learned during that time period was okay. I actually would set a timer and I'd be like, I'm going to give myself however long, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. I can feel it all. Be as angry as I want, be as sad as I want, cry, scream into a pillow. It doesn't matter. You know, I was home. Nobody saw the screaming into the pillow.
NE: Exactly right.
CM: But then after that 30 minutes. That's it.
NE: It's over.
CM: It's over. I've given it space and I have to put it away and move on. I still use that to this day.
NE: Yeah. I actually, do more of, so I work out, I didn't always work out, but, so I schedule my time, and it's in a few hours a week. And it's, it just I it shuts my brain off. Yeah. If you call me during that hour.
CM: I'm not answering.
NE: No, the music and the place I go to the gym at is so loud I can't even hear the phone ring.
CM: That's a good thing.
NE: It's great. It's great to shut your mind off. And that is my retreat. It's my break. It's my pause from everything because it's personal and professional.
CM: Yes.
NE: So that actually is something I probably would have told my younger self is find that one thing where you can shut your mind off. Yes. Recently, my physician, my primary care provider, said you do have a hobby outside of work and your kid, and I’m like, do I have a hobby? I mean, that's it. Then he said that and he was honest. He was like women after they have children, tend to lose their hobbies. So he, like, you need to find a hobby.
CM: Yeah.
NE: He said one hour a week. That's it. One hour. Just find a hobby. So I've been exploring hobbies.
CM: Good for you. Now, I think that's great advice, too, because you know, children or no children. Your business is also a kid.
NE: Yes, yes.
CM: And it’s just as demanding, just in a completely different way. And it can eat up your entire world, right. It just has to be something that shuts your brain off. And then you'll know that you found the right hobby.
NE: Yeah. Exactly
CM: For me, it's music. So it's been music. Music and movement, but always been music. And my brain will shut off completely. Won't shut off watching a film, it won't shut off reading a book, It won't shut off doing the 10,000 other like, things around my house because I CM: love to like, build stuff or judge things or whatever. I'm always doing a construction project, but none of that will shut my brain off. But music will.
NE: Exactly.
CM: So when you find something that shut your brain off, you found the right hobby.
NE: Exactly, exactly. So that is one thing I would tell my my past self is like, find that whatever that is and try to stick with it. Like, especially when.
CM: It's sacred.
NE: It is so busy. You still need that time because it makes you better.
CM: It does. Stepping away makes you better. People think that if when things are tough, you just dig in and dig in and just throw your shoulder against it more and more and actually you're just wearing yourself down. You have to step away.
NE: For sure.
CM: To bring it back. So now I would definitely tell my past self the same thing.
NE: Yeah. And the other task that I would say like that, that definitely that. And then, not to take it so personally. That's a really hard one to say because, like, you spend most of your waking hours at work.
CM: Oh, and it's family. It's yours. It's personal. It feels very, very personal.
NE: So I would say that is like probably the biggest takeaway. Now, I don't like the saying it's not personal.
CM: I hate that, I can't stand that. To me business is personal.
NE: Yes. Yeah. But I think if you take it in the waves of business as it comes, then you're still invested. And yes, there is disappointment if you're always happy.
CM: Oh, you're not doing something right.
NE: You're not doing something right.
CM: You're not trying hard enough. You're not breaking anything.
NE: Yeah. You're just so that would be my my tips for my past self.
CM: I love that it's that we’ve been both been saying some similar things back to each other. Well, thank you for being on today. I super appreciate you coming in. And, you know, talking about the family business and how a chemist moves into refrigeration.
NE: Right.