And push came to shove big time, we ordered the machine and started ramping up, because hey we were going to be making thousands of pops a day- up from about 200 a day. The machine was supposed to get to us within 4 weeks, then it turned to 4 months, then 6 then 8. We had to call clients and tell them we needed more time on orders, we braced ourselves for their wrath, for their refund request, we did everything to make them happy but tell them no. Hell or high water we had to fullfill those orders.

It’s that moment when you move from being so excited about the increase in business to dreading every popsicle stick, every email, every smile becuase it reminds you that you are in so deep that you can’t turn back, you have to just keep going deeper. We had to go back to square one, making pops the good old fashion way-by hand with a blast freezer, scale down our marketing efforts so that we would not piss off any new customers and most importantly not go completly broke. It’s the growing pains that looking back years later, becomes your biggest source of inspiration. There were many nights, where we slept upstairs, we took turns at night, extracting pops, bagging, and boxing and starting the process all over again. I remember my hands going numb at one point and I thought I had carpal tunnel. We were driven to succeed, although our faith was tested on a daily basis, something told us that we had to stay committed to the process. Struggling is a part of the process and you have to trust the process.

Following your dream is a beautiful STRUGGLE…

It’s like what Mark Manson talks about in his article THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF YOUR LIFE “ Therefore, what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence — but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.”

What I know for sure is that the struggle is real, but so is the success if you are willing to live in the struggle every single day as incremental yet transformational progress starts to happen, the little things you know… that photo you posted on instagram goes viral, or the Wholefoods buyer you’ve been calling everyday for six months, finally returns your call, that lady with all the random questions at the farmers market turns out to be a producer at your local news station and calls to interview you, the big 5000 pop order comes in, one of the stores on your wholesale route sells out of product and they want to double their order. It get’s better I know that first hand, but it does not get easier. Whatever you are going through right now is preparing you to level up…are you ready?

Here’s a little throwback video a while after we got our machine in 2010