Anne Carden, tell me about your vision.
Yes, so my vision is I'm actually building out
an agency side of my business for a media company.
So just launching a brand new magazine,
just actually got the first issue today.
So I'm going to show them.
Congratulations.
Yeah, I'm super excited about this
because this goes along with my podcast, my books, my brand,
but I wanted a platform, a media platform
because I help my clients with high impact influence
marketing.
And so it now gives them a platform
to be featured in my magazine.
And so that's sort of the reason behind it.
But my vision is really to build that up.
And over the next few years into just a larger company
that maybe I can sell someday because I have already sold
five previous businesses and then do charity work.
Nice.
I don't know whether to go down the charity work
path or the five businesses that you've sold.
Which one do you prefer going down?
I want to see both these visions.
Either one.
I've just been at this entrepreneur thing for I've
been in business for over 40 years.
So I was in corporate for 13 and business management.
And I started my first business 30 something years ago.
So I've been at this a long time.
I love helping other people be able to accomplish
what I've been able to accomplish with business.
And but I also have a passion for anything with kids.
Kids that really struggle, whether that
is in their home life or with illness,
kids in other countries.
It does not matter.
I have a passion to help kids.
So that's where I see myself.
I already do charity work around those things.
But I would love to get into that bigger, maybe even.
And I'm not positive about this, but maybe even
start my own charity around helping kids in some capacity.
That's awesome.
I mean, it's worth exploring.
You never know what doors and windows will come your way,
right?
Right, absolutely.
That's fantastic.
So since I'm on your brand website right now,
I'm going to go down that route a little bit further.
And I'd love for you to tell me about these past five
businesses that you've sold.
What were they?
What types of businesses?
And what does that look like?
Yeah, so the very first business was 30-something years ago.
And I started, it's going to sound crazy to people now,
but it was kind of a craft business.
It turned into a designer doll business that I did globally.
So that was before the internet, before we
had all the luxury of what we have today.
And I really started that out of my home,
out of financial hardship.
I had left my corporate career, my corporate income.
We were struggling financially trying
to live on my husband's paycheck.
It wasn't enough.
And I literally sat down and cried
because my son, my four-year-old, needed shoes.
And we just didn't have a dime.
So I didn't want to lose our home and everything.
So I started looking for a way to make money.
I've always been creative and crafty.
And I started making some craft items.
And long story short, that turned into a business,
basically running a manufacturing company out
of my home and shipping my dolls all over the world.
So I sold the designs when I exited that.
And in about seven years, I employed a lot of people.
I had moms coming in and out of my home.
So I was a stay-at-home mom and was building that up
and built that up globally.
And then I went into the fitness industry,
started teaching classes out of a community hall.
And that turned into two health clubs, two weight loss centers.
And I sold all four of those when I got into coaching.
Wow.
OK.
So kind of like Alex Hermosy before Alex Hermosy even.
Actually, I think Alex and I actually
crossed paths when I was in the fitness industry.
I think he was just getting into his gym launch.
I had already been in the fitness industry
for a long time.
But I think he was out there promoting, kind
of a funny story here.
He was out there promoting his new marketing.
And I was just kind of coming online,
like with Baydress Killian, and he was teaching email marketing.
And so I was just sort of learning that.
And Alex was out there promoting in email
to help people with their marketing.
And I think I even put in for his program,
but I never heard back from him.
So that must have been another time everything fell apart.
But that was a lot of years ago.