Inclusion is easy to talk about at a high level. It is much harder to build into the everyday language, systems, hiring decisions, customer experiences, and operating choices of a business.

That is where inclusion becomes real.

Beauty and personal care businesses make this especially visible because the work touches confidence, vulnerability, identity, and self-expression. Customers are not simply purchasing a service. They are entering a space where they may already feel exposed, self-conscious, uncertain, or deeply aware of how they are being perceived.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Kyla Dufresne, Founder and CEO of Foxy Box Laser and Wax Bar, to explore how inclusion, sustainability, community, humor, and leadership can work together inside a growing franchise brand. Kyla built Foxy Box from humble beginnings into a bold hair-removal company centered on the belief that feeling confident and cared for should be accessible to everyone. The company has removed gendered language from its service menu, is Green Circle certified, supports local communities through initiatives such as Foxy Fest, and is intentionally building these commitments into its franchise model. Foxy_ Inclusive_ and Sustainabl…

What emerged from our conversation is an important leadership principle: belonging is not created by saying everyone is welcome. It is created by examining all the places where someone might experience the opposite and changing them.

Inclusion Often Begins With Language

One of the most significant changes Foxy Box made began with a customer who simply did not know which service to book.

At the time, like many businesses in the beauty industry, Foxy Box divided parts of its menu into male and female services. That structure had not been created with the intention of excluding anyone. It reflected what Kyla had seen throughout the industry when she launched the business.

But a customer pointed out the problem.

They identified one way but had anatomy that made the traditional service categories confusing. Suddenly, something that had always seemed normal became unnecessarily complicated.

That moment prompted Kyla to question the entire structure.

Why did a leg wax need to be classified by gender? Why did so many beauty services rely on male and female categories when the actual service could simply be described by what was being done?

Foxy Box eventually removed gendered language from the menu. For Brazilian services, where the technique, timing, and anatomy genuinely affect the service, the company describes the appointment based on anatomy rather than gender. Foxy_ Inclusive_ and Sustainabl…

This is a strong example of what empathetic design looks like.

The goal was not to make a political statement. It was to remove unnecessary friction from the customer experience.

Sometimes inclusion begins by asking whether a distinction serves a real operational purpose or whether everyone has simply become accustomed to it.

Businesses Need to Audit the Experience, Not Just the Message

Removing gendered language was only one part of the process.

A company can write inclusive language on its website and still create an uncomfortable customer experience in person. That is why Kyla emphasized that the real test of belonging happens inside the store.

How are people greeted? How does the staff speak to them? Does the person providing the service create a sense of safety? Are employees making assumptions based on appearance, identity, or personal expression?

Those interactions matter far more than a statement on a website.

This is why leaders should think about inclusion as an audit across the entire business. The language needs to align with the training. The training needs to align with hiring. Hiring needs to align with the behavior customers actually experience.

If those things contradict one another, customers will believe the experience rather than the promise.

Bold Brands Still Need Emotional Intelligence

Foxy Box has intentionally built a playful, cheeky, memorable personality.

That energy is part of what differentiates the brand.

But boldness also creates responsibility.

Kyla talked about the importance of understanding the difference between being memorable and being offensive. Humor works when it creates connection. It becomes harmful when the joke depends on making someone feel ashamed, inadequate, or unwelcome.

That line can be particularly important in beauty, fitness, wellness, and personal care because those industries already operate close to people’s insecurities.

A campaign that accidentally communicates “there is something wrong with your body” may generate attention, but it can undermine the very sense of confidence the business is trying to create.

Kyla shared an example of a franchise location using a humorous sandwich-board message that crossed the line from playful into potentially body-shaming. The incident ultimately prompted the company to create an approved library of signage so franchisees could preserve the brand’s bold personality without unintentionally damaging the broader experience. Foxy_ Inclusive_ and Sustainabl…

That is a powerful example of a growing business turning a mistake into a system.

Empathy Can Be Hired For

Culture becomes much easier to protect when leaders know what qualities they are actually looking for.

Kyla and her team went through an extensive branding process that helped them define the traits that consistently showed up in their strongest employees, whom Foxy Box calls magicians.

They identified three qualities: a positive attitude, empathy, and self-responsibility.

Those qualities became practical hiring criteria.

Empathy matters because hair removal is a vulnerable service. Customers are often physically exposed, and the employee needs enough emotional intelligence to create trust, reduce anxiety, and respond appropriately to different personalities.

Self-responsibility matters because the business runs on appointments. Employees need to show up, accept feedback, and take ownership of their work.

A positive attitude matters because Foxy Box believes energy is contagious.

Together, those traits form a useful filter. When a team member is struggling, leaders can return to the original criteria and ask whether the person genuinely has the qualities the role requires.

That gives culture more clarity.

Instead of saying someone “just doesn’t fit,” leadership has a shared language for understanding why.

Customer Comfort Comes From Human Connection

One audience question asked what estheticians can do to help clients feel more comfortable in their own skin.

Kyla’s answer came back to connection.

Introduce yourself. Ask the customer how they are doing. Give them privacy. Notice their discomfort. Use humor appropriately. Make the experience feel personal instead of mechanical.

Those things may sound obvious, but they are often the first things lost when schedules become full and businesses become busy.

The danger is turning the customer into the appointment.

When the business becomes too focused on throughput, the service can become transactional. The person arrives, receives the service, pays, and leaves.

But vulnerable services depend heavily on trust.

A customer may be able to receive the same technical service in many places. What makes them return is often the person who made them feel comfortable while providing it.

That is why connection is not simply a soft skill.

It is part of the customer experience model.

Community Impact Can Become Part of the Operating System

Kyla’s instinct to give back started long before Foxy Box became a franchise.

When she was working independently, if a customer shared a hardship, Kyla often tried to help. She recalled a client facing a large veterinary bill and responded by organizing a waxathon, donating a portion of the proceeds to help cover the expense.

At a small scale, generosity can happen spontaneously.

The challenge is preserving that instinct as the organization grows.

Foxy Box eventually transformed that spirit into Foxy Fest, an annual initiative tied to community giving. What began as an event involving musicians, performers, and fundraising for women transitioning from abusive relationships became something franchise locations could participate in across the system.

Today, locations can organize events, raffles, or other local initiatives, particularly around International Women’s Day and the month of March, and direct the proceeds toward organizations serving their communities. Foxy_ Inclusive_ and Sustainabl…

That is the evolution from personal generosity to scalable generosity.

The original intention remains, but the system allows more people to participate.

Sustainability Requires Operational Commitment

One of the most substantial examples of Foxy Box turning values into systems is its environmental work.

Hair removal generates waste.

Wax, strips, gloves, hair, and other single-use materials often cannot enter conventional recycling streams. Once the company saw how much material its locations were sending to landfill, Kyla said it became difficult to ignore.

Foxy Box partnered with Green Circle Salons, an organization that collects waste from beauty businesses and redirects or repurposes materials through specialized processes. The company has since incorporated waste management into its franchise operations and build-outs. Foxy_ Inclusive_ and Sustainabl…

That transition was not effortless.

The waste had to be separated and stored. Pickup systems had to be developed. There were additional costs. Pricing needed to accommodate those costs. Franchise locations needed designated areas to manage the process.

It took time to make sustainability operational.

That point matters because values become meaningful when organizations are willing to absorb some inconvenience in order to live them.

It is easy to support sustainability when it requires no changes.

The real commitment begins when the value affects the operating model.

Sustainability Should Influence More Than Waste

Foxy Box has expanded its environmental thinking beyond waste disposal.

The company evaluates products based on packaging and sustainability practices. As it develops its own product line, it is considering recycled and recyclable materials. Kyla also discussed plans to partner with Veritree so that future services could contribute to tree-planting initiatives.

The broader principle is worth paying attention to.

Sustainability is not a single program.

It is a lens for decision-making.

When choosing products, packaging, vendors, build-out materials, or operational partners, businesses can ask where something comes from, what happens to it after use, and whether the supplier’s practices align with the organization’s values.

That does not require perfection.

It requires awareness.

Membership Can Create Belonging, Not Just Discounts

Foxy Box also operates a membership model through its Fox Club.

Like many memberships, the model currently provides practical benefits such as service perks and discounts. But Kyla spoke openly about wanting to evolve the experience further.

That is an interesting challenge for any membership-based business.

A membership becomes much more powerful when it shifts from a financial arrangement into a sense of belonging.

Discounts can encourage retention. Community creates identity.

There are many ways that can happen: early access to products, surprise benefits, invitations to events, special experiences, community initiatives, or opportunities for members to participate in the larger purpose of the brand.

When someone begins thinking of themselves as part of a community rather than simply a repeat customer, the relationship changes.

The strongest memberships give people something to belong to.

Franchise Culture Begins With Who You Let In

As Foxy Box grows, Kyla believes one of the biggest cultural safeguards is franchisee selection.

She is candid that this can be difficult because she naturally likes people and wants relationships to work.

That is why the company created criteria.

A franchise prospect cannot simply have capital and enthusiasm. Leadership looks at qualities such as empathy, attitude, leadership capability, and alignment with the broader purpose of the brand.

Kyla asks herself whether she would personally buy from the candidate.

That is a valuable question.

Franchisees become extensions of the brand in local communities. They will hire teams, interact with customers, make decisions under pressure, and interpret the culture every day.

A poorly aligned franchisee can consume enormous resources over a five or ten-year relationship.

Growth becomes healthier when leaders are willing to say no early.

A Franchise Can Create Consistency Without Erasing Community

Foxy Box refers to its larger network as the Foxy Box family.

That idea is reinforced through training, hiring practices, regional gatherings, and regular sharing among franchise owners.

Franchisees discuss wins, struggles, ideas, and updates with one another. More experienced owners can help people who are still learning the business. Regional meetings create opportunities for relationships to form outside of structured calls.

This is one of the strengths of franchising when it works well.

The system provides the operating model, but the network provides shared experience.

An owner does not have to solve every problem alone because someone else inside the system may have already encountered it.

That requires a culture where people are willing to share rather than protect information.

Community inside the franchise ultimately helps strengthen community around each location.

Growth Tests Whether the Values Are Real

Foxy Box has ambitious growth plans.

That makes protecting the culture even more important.

Rapid expansion increases the temptation to accept the wrong franchisee, hire the wrong employee, or compromise on standards because the numbers look attractive.

Kyla believes this is where leaders need clarity about their “hell yes” and their “hell no.”

Not everyone belongs inside every business.

That may sound exclusionary in a conversation about inclusion, but the two ideas are not contradictory.

Customers deserve inclusion.

Employees and franchise partners need alignment.

A company that wants to create an empathetic customer experience needs leaders and operators who believe in empathy. A company committed to sustainability needs franchisees willing to execute the systems. A company built around positive energy cannot consistently tolerate behavior that damages that energy.

The more clearly leaders understand what the culture requires, the easier it becomes to protect as the company grows.

Love Gives Purpose Staying Power

When we asked Kyla what role love should play in business, she connected it directly to longevity.

Entrepreneurship is difficult.

There are periods of growth and periods of uncertainty. Systems fail. People leave. Markets change. Expansion becomes complicated. The numbers are not always encouraging.

If the only reason someone started the business was financial opportunity, those moments can make quitting much easier.

Purpose gives leaders something deeper to return to.

For Kyla, that purpose includes helping people feel confident, creating inclusive spaces, supporting communities, protecting the environment, and building a business people are proud to belong to.

Profit matters.

But love gives people a reason to keep solving the problems required to create it.

Key Takeaways

• Inclusion becomes meaningful when it changes actual business systems, language, training, hiring, and customer experiences.
• Businesses should regularly audit whether categories, terminology, and procedures still serve a real purpose or simply reflect outdated norms.
• Bold branding can remain playful without relying on shame, exclusion, or humor that makes customers feel worse about themselves.
• Empathy can be treated as a hiring criterion, particularly in businesses where customers are physically or emotionally vulnerable.
• Technical service matters, but human connection is often what makes customers feel safe enough to return and recommend the business.
• Community giving becomes scalable when spontaneous generosity is transformed into repeatable programs that local teams can participate in.
• Sustainability requires more than messaging. It may require operational changes, added costs, new infrastructure, and stronger vendor standards.
• Membership models become more powerful when they create belonging and identity rather than relying only on financial discounts.
• Franchise growth should be selective. The wrong partner can create years of cultural and operational strain.
• Consistency does not require eliminating local connection. Strong franchise systems allow owners to participate meaningfully in their communities while protecting the brand promise.
• Culture becomes most vulnerable during rapid growth, making clear criteria for who belongs inside the organization increasingly important.
• Love gives purpose-driven businesses the resilience to keep going when entrepreneurship becomes difficult.

Final Thoughts

Kyla Dufresne’s journey with Foxy Box is a reminder that inclusion, sustainability, and community are not separate initiatives that sit beside the business.

They can become part of how the business works.

Inclusion can show up in the words a customer sees while booking an appointment. Empathy can show up in the person hired to deliver the service. Community can show up in an annual event that gives every location a reason to contribute locally. Sustainability can show up in what happens to a piece of waste after it leaves the treatment room.

None of these decisions alone transforms a company.

Together, they create a pattern.

That pattern tells customers what the company believes. It tells employees what behaviors matter. It tells franchisees what kind of business they are joining.

Most importantly, it turns values into something people can actually experience.

That is ultimately what belonging requires. It is not enough for a company to say, “Everyone is welcome here.”

People have to feel it in the details.

Check out our full conversation with Kyla Dufresne of Foxy Box Laser and Wax Bar on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

Most organizations say culture matters. Far fewer manage it with the same discipline they bring to operations, finance, marketing, or customer experience.

That is a problem because culture is already operating whether leaders design it or not. It shows up in how people respond when something goes wrong, whether employees feel safe enough to disagree, how leaders handle difficult conversations, and whether people believe they are part of something meaningful or simply occupying a role inside a system.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Rob Flanagan, CEO, President, and Culture Co-Founder of Hounds Town USA, to explore what happens when culture is treated as an intentional business system rather than a collection of aspirational values. Rob brings more than 20 years of franchising experience and a background in transpersonal counseling psychology, where he studied human behavior, self-awareness, mindfulness, empathy, and change. Today, he applies those ideas while helping lead a pet care franchise with more than 100 locations. The Mindful Culture at Hounds T…

His perspective challenges a familiar assumption in business: culture is not the soft side of performance. It is one of the systems that produces performance.

Culture Cannot Depend on One Person

Rob has spent much of his career helping emerging brands scale, and one pattern kept appearing. Small companies often begin with tremendous energy because the founder or a handful of passionate people are deeply involved in everything. The values are communicated naturally because the people who created them are present every day.

Then the company grows.

More people arrive. Systems become necessary. Departments form. Processes become more formal. The organization gains structure, but something about the original energy can begin to disappear.

Rob came to believe that the problem was often not growth itself. It was that culture had never been separated from the personalities carrying it.

If one leader is responsible for keeping the culture alive, culture becomes vulnerable every time that person is absent, promoted, leaves the organization, or simply becomes overwhelmed. That is why Rob began thinking about culture the same way he thinks about other business functions.

Operations need systems. Finance needs systems. Marketing needs systems. Culture does too.

The goal is not to remove the humanity from culture. It is to prevent humanity from depending on the availability of a single human being.

Values on a Wall Are Not Culture

Rob illustrated this distinction with a memorable story from his first traditional job at Long John Silver’s.

Like many employees, he watched a training video about the company’s mission and values. The words sounded appropriate. Cleanliness was presumably part of the expectation.

Then reality showed up.

During what his manager described as a “coleslaw emergency,” Rob watched as a trash can was emptied, filled with coleslaw ingredients, and used as an oversized mixing container.

The story is funny now, but the lesson is serious.

An organization can have all the right words and still have the wrong culture.

Enron famously had values. Countless companies have polished mission statements, culture decks, framed posters, and beautifully designed careers pages. None of those things prove how the company actually operates.

Culture is behavioral.

It is the distance between what the organization claims and what people experience.

That is why Rob tries to demystify culture. It does not have to mean ping-pong tables, elaborate perks, or inspirational slogans. It means defining the way people are expected to work together, building those expectations into the business, and measuring whether the experience matches the intention.

Culture Starts Slipping Before the Metrics Show It

One of the advantages of treating culture as a system is that leaders can begin looking for leading indicators rather than waiting for obvious problems.

Rob pays attention to energy and participation.

When people who normally contribute stop offering ideas, something may have changed. When employees begin protecting their department rather than communicating openly across the organization, there may be a trust problem developing. When people respond to important questions with some version of “I don’t care,” that can signal something deeper than a bad day.

Those shifts often happen before turnover increases or employee surveys deteriorate.

This is where attentive leadership matters.

A disengaged person in a meeting may simply be sick, tired, or distracted. Rob shared an example of noticing an ordinarily extroverted team member becoming unusually quiet. Instead of assuming there was a culture problem, he checked in and learned that she was simply feeling ill.

The point is not to diagnose every change in behavior.

It is to notice.

Culture becomes accidental when leaders stop paying attention to what people are showing them.

Apathy Is More Dangerous Than Disagreement

Rob drew an important distinction between empathy and apathy.

Disagreement is not necessarily a sign of unhealthy culture. In fact, healthy organizations often contain plenty of disagreement because people care enough to challenge ideas.

Apathy is different.

When people stop caring, they stop taking responsibility. They protect themselves. They stop raising concerns because they no longer believe anything will change. They may continue doing the job, but they are no longer emotionally invested in making the organization better.

Rob describes the alternative as tactical empathy: intentionally trying to understand the perspective of another person, whether that person is an employee, franchisee, or customer.

Empathy does not mean agreeing with everything someone says. It means caring enough to understand the experience before deciding how to respond.

That creates a very different organization from one where people simply protect their position.

Psychological Safety Requires More Than Saying “Speak Up”

Companies frequently tell employees that their opinions are welcome.

Then someone disagrees with a leader and discovers whether that promise is real.

Rob believes psychological safety has to begin before a conflict ever occurs. At Hounds Town, cultural conversations start during the hiring process. Candidates learn how the organization thinks about values, behavior, feedback, and what it means to participate in the culture.

Hounds Town even uses the term “culture co-founder” to describe the responsibility team members have in shaping the environment every day.

That framing matters because it gives culture agency.

Employees are not merely recipients of whatever culture leadership creates. They are participants in building it.

Rob also makes an important distinction between having a voice and having a vote. People may not have decision authority over every issue, but they should have the ability to speak honestly without being punished for doing so.

Leaders can destroy that safety without ever raising their voice. A dismissive expression, an impatient response, or quickly moving past an uncomfortable opinion can teach someone never to bring the subject up again.

The employee does not need a lecture about psychological safety after that.

They have already learned the real rule.

Listening Does Not Require Agreement

This is where mature leadership becomes important.

Making someone feel heard does not mean implementing every suggestion.

A team member might challenge an initiative, question an assumption, or propose something that ultimately does not fit the broader strategy. The leader can still respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness.

“What are you seeing that I might not be seeing?”

“Tell me more about why you think that.”

“I hadn’t considered it that way.”

Those responses preserve the relationship even when the final decision stays the same.

People can tolerate disagreement far better than dismissal.

When leaders consistently demonstrate that uncomfortable feedback will be heard and considered, people become more willing to share the information the organization actually needs.

That is not merely good culture.

It is better decision-making.

Systems Should Create Guardrails, Not Robots

One of the risks of systemizing culture is going too far.

Culture should not become another rigid SOP that dictates exactly how every human interaction must occur. That defeats the purpose.

Rob thinks about cultural systems as guardrails. They create enough clarity that people understand the expectations while preserving enough flexibility for judgment.

He gave the example of employee travel. Some organizations use strict per diem rules. Hounds Town chose a more flexible principle: spend the company’s money as though it were your own.

That requires judgment.

If someone early in their career makes an expensive choice, leadership can have a conversation about it. The purpose is development, not punishment.

This is where culture and trust become inseparable.

Rigid systems often exist because organizations do not trust people to make decisions. But if every possible choice has to be governed by a rule, people never develop judgment either.

Guardrails allow people to practice responsibility.

Care Can Be Systemized Without Becoming Mechanical

One of the strongest examples Rob shared involves pet loss.

Hounds Town is a pet care company, so the death of a pet can have profound emotional meaning for franchisees, customers, and employees. When someone connected to the organization loses a pet, the company works with an artist to create a portrait based on a photograph and sends it to the grieving person.

The important part is that the gesture does not live only inside Rob’s memory.

There is a process.

Team members know what to do. The picture is collected. The artist is contacted. The gift is sent.

That means the act of care can happen whether Rob is in the office, traveling, or unavailable.

This is exactly what building love into scalable systems looks like.

The system does not make the gesture less genuine. It makes it more dependable.

Hounds Town approaches birthdays, anniversaries, employee transitions, one-on-one conversations, and performance discussions with similar intentionality. The goal is to make sure care does not occur only when someone happens to remember.

Kindness becomes part of the operating model.

Autonomy Helps Culture Scale Across a Franchise

Franchising introduces an additional cultural challenge because each franchisee is an independent owner with a different personality, motivation, community, and vision.

Rob embraces that individuality rather than attempting to eliminate it.

Hounds Town has a brand culture, but franchisees are also encouraged to define their own mission and values for their local businesses. One owner might be motivated by creating a family legacy. Another may want to expand into multiple locations. Someone else may care deeply about giving back to the community.

The franchise system provides structure while allowing the owner’s individual purpose to come through.

That distinction matters because ownership should still feel like ownership.

Rob shared the example of a franchisee who cares deeply about community giving. That value may not be one of the brand’s primary stated values, but it became meaningful inside her local culture, including how she hires and how the business participates in its community.

Consistency does not have to mean uniformity.

A strong franchise system can protect the customer-facing promise while still giving local owners enough agency to build something that reflects what matters to them.

Recruiting Should Start With Why Someone Would Want to Belong

Rob is particularly passionate about job advertisements.

Many job ads begin with responsibilities, requirements, and qualifications. They tell candidates what they will do before giving them any reason to care about where they will be doing it.

Hounds Town reverses that order.

The organization leads with mission, values, and culture. Responsibilities still matter, but they come later.

The underlying message is simple: if this environment excites you, keep reading.

That approach treats recruiting as cultural alignment rather than simply filling a vacancy.

It also increases the likelihood that people joining the organization understand what they are choosing.

A company should not present one personality during the hiring process and reveal an entirely different reality once the employee arrives.

Transparency about culture gives both sides permission to decide whether the relationship fits.

Personalization Starts With Remembering the Person

Rob’s background in transpersonal counseling psychology also influences how he thinks about franchise support.

One principle stayed with him from his training: even when someone’s experience sounds familiar, it is still their experience.

A therapist may hear similar stories repeatedly, but to the person sitting across the room, the story is personal.

Franchising works the same way.

A franchise system may support hundreds of owners through similar challenges. But each owner has a different family, different goals, different motivations, different fears, and a different definition of success.

Hounds Town captures some of that context in its CRM. Team members may document a franchisee’s family information, personal goals, communication preferences, or meaningful life events. If someone’s daughter gets married, for example, that information can create an opportunity for another leader to call and acknowledge the moment.

That may sound like a small detail.

But details are what make scale feel personal.

Systems do not have to erase intimacy.

They can help us remember it.

Culture Needs Leading Indicators Too

One of the most practical lessons Rob shared is that culture should be measured before it becomes a crisis.

Hounds Town uses surveys, quarterly conversations, annual conversations, and recurring questions about how employees are experiencing the organization.

One of their long-term cultural aspirations is powerful: when someone eventually retires, the hope is that they will look back and say Hounds Town was the best place they ever worked and the place where they developed most, both professionally and personally.

That goal creates a useful measurement question long before retirement.

Do employees currently feel they are developing?

If someone says they are growing personally but not professionally, that becomes information leadership can act on. If the opposite is true, that matters too.

Culture problems should not have to become resignations before leadership notices them.

A strong system looks for yellow flags while they are still yellow.

Mindfulness Gives Leaders Space Between Emotion and Response

Rob’s psychology background and meditation practice also shaped the way he approaches difficult conversations.

His practical advice for leaders is remarkably simple: take a breath.

Mindfulness does not have to mean lengthy meditation sessions or spiritual practices. In the workplace, it can simply mean developing the ability to interrupt the automatic response.

When an employee is frustrated or angry, leaders naturally become defensive. The body reacts before the mind has fully processed what is happening. We prepare to argue, correct, explain, or protect ourselves.

A single breath can create just enough space to choose something else.

Rob also recommends simple grounding techniques, such as holding a small object and noticing its texture for a few seconds. The point is not the object itself. It is returning attention to the present moment before reacting.

That pause can transform the quality of the conversation.

Instead of two people exchanging defensive reactions, they have a chance to understand one another.

Mindfulness becomes a leadership capability when it creates space between stimulus and response.

Love Should Be the Leading Role

When we asked Rob what role love should play in business, his answer was immediate: the leading role.

For him, other elements of a meaningful business become byproducts of love. People need to love aspects of the work, the people they are doing it with, and the impact they are trying to create.

But Rob added another dimension that is often overlooked: self-love.

Leaders who are deeply disconnected from themselves may struggle to create environments where other people feel safe bringing their full humanity to work.

This does not mean the workplace becomes a therapy center.

Performance still matters. Accountability still matters. Profitability still matters.

The difference is recognizing that human beings create those outcomes.

Businesses cannot demand people leave their humanity at the door and then wonder why engagement, creativity, trust, and connection disappear with it.

Key Takeaways

• Culture becomes scalable when it is treated as an intentional business system rather than something dependent on one charismatic leader.
• Values and mission statements do not define culture unless everyday behavior consistently reflects them.
• Early cultural warning signs often appear as disengagement, guarded communication, departmental protection, or apathy before traditional metrics reveal a problem.
• Psychological safety requires leaders to demonstrate through their responses that honest disagreement and uncomfortable feedback are genuinely welcome.
• Employees can have a meaningful voice even when they do not have the final vote on every decision.
• Culture systems should function as guardrails that build judgment and accountability rather than rigid rules that turn people into robots.
• Acts of care, such as acknowledging the loss of a pet, can be systemized without becoming less sincere. Systems make compassion more dependable.
• Franchise systems can preserve consistency while giving owners enough autonomy to express personal purpose and local values.
• Recruiting should communicate mission and culture before focusing exclusively on tasks and qualifications.
• Personalization at scale becomes possible when organizations intentionally remember the goals, relationships, milestones, and stories behind the people they serve.
• Culture should be measured using leading indicators so leaders can respond before dissatisfaction turns into disengagement or turnover.
• Mindfulness can be practical. A breath or short grounding exercise can interrupt automatic defensiveness and create space for a more productive conversation.
• Love in business includes care for employees, franchisees, customers, the work itself, and the leader’s own humanity.

Final Thoughts

Rob Flanagan’s perspective challenges the idea that culture is too abstract to manage.

Culture may involve emotion, trust, belonging, empathy, and human behavior, but that does not make it less important than finance, marketing, operations, or growth. In many ways, those business systems depend on it.

The question is not whether an organization has a culture. It does.

The question is whether that culture is intentional or accidental.

Intentional culture does not mean scripting every interaction or manufacturing emotion. It means creating structures that make the desired behaviors easier to live consistently. It means teaching leaders how to listen, giving people agency to contribute, paying attention when engagement changes, and building care into processes so that it does not disappear when one individual is unavailable.

It also requires enough mindfulness to recognize that people are not machines moving through workflows. They bring emotion, identity, family, hopes, fears, and experiences into the workplace because those things cannot simply be switched off at the door.

When culture is treated as a living business system, something powerful happens. Profitability, retention, trust, engagement, and performance no longer have to compete with humanity.

They can become outcomes of it.

Check out our full conversation with Rob Flanagan of Hounds Town USA on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

Some businesses sell products. Some sell services. And some create moments people remember long after the transaction is over.

Hospitality is often where those moments become visible. A cup of coffee, a warm greeting, a thoughtful gesture, or a small act of personalization can completely change the way someone experiences an event, a workplace, or a brand. What matters most is not always the product itself. It is how people feel while receiving it.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Natalie Fairchild, Founder and Chief Inspirational Officer of Pacific Perks Coffee, to explore empathy, hospitality, employee experience, caregiving, culture, and how leaders can build connection into the way a business operates. Natalie founded Pacific Perks in 2007 and has since grown the company into a mobile café experience designed to promote businesses, reward teams, and celebrate important moments. More recently, the company has moved into franchising. Coffee_ Care_ and Inspired Lead…

What stood out most from our conversation was how intentionally Natalie thinks about experience. For her, hospitality is not an extra layer placed on top of the business. It is the business.

The Experience Begins Before the Coffee Is Served

One of the most powerful ideas Natalie shared is that the customer experience begins long before the event starts.

If a client is hosting a company gathering, marketing activation, wedding, or celebration, they may already be carrying stress. They are thinking about timing, guests, logistics, weather, traffic, and whether everything will come together the way they hoped.

Pacific Perks tries to reduce that stress before the team ever arrives on site.

That means confirming details, communicating proactively, arriving early, making contact with the event organizer, and letting them know that everything is under control. Natalie put it simply: if a client has to call asking where the team is, something has already gone wrong.

That standard says a lot about empathy.

Empathy is not only understanding how someone feels after they tell you. It is anticipating what they might be feeling before they have to say anything.

That is one of the clearest ways businesses can make people feel cared for.

Small Gestures Create Disproportionately Large Experiences

The details Natalie described throughout our conversation were often surprisingly small.

A team member might ask the event organizer what their favorite drink is and have it ready for them. A perkologist may make eye contact immediately so a guest knows they have been seen. A team member may introduce two people during an event because they sense a business connection could happen while a latte is being made.

None of these things are expensive.

But they are memorable.

That matters because customers rarely remember every operational detail of an experience. They remember how the experience made them feel.

The old Maya Angelou insight that people remember how you made them feel comes alive in hospitality because emotional impressions are constantly being formed through small interactions. A missed acknowledgment can make someone feel invisible. A thoughtful greeting can make someone feel welcome. A proactive update can make someone feel relieved.

The experience is being created one micro-moment at a time.

Great Hospitality Depends on Seeing People

Natalie uses the word “see” frequently when talking about her employees and customers.

That is not accidental.

People want to feel recognized. They want someone to notice when they walk in, acknowledge that they are waiting, remember something about them, or take enough interest to ask how their day is going.

This does not require a complicated customer experience strategy.

Sometimes it requires eye contact.

Natalie described the frustration of entering a business where employees are busy behind the counter but no one acknowledges that you are standing there. Even if the staff cannot serve you immediately, a simple recognition changes the experience.

That principle applies to leadership too.

Employees want to feel seen.

They want leaders to notice the work they are doing, ask about their lives, remember something about their family, recognize their contributions, and follow up when something important is happening.

Seeing people is one of the simplest leadership practices available, yet it is often one of the first things lost when organizations get busy.

Appreciation Works Best When It Feels Personal

One of my favorite examples from the conversation involved a Pacific Perks company picnic.

Instead of purchasing only traditional prizes, the team created personal experiences and gifts based on what each person could offer. One employee offered a sourdough-making class. Someone else had chickens and offered fresh eggs. Another person offered babysitting or house-sitting. Natalie offered a day at the lake with swimming, miniature golf, dinner, and s’mores.

The gifts were not valuable because of their price.

They were valuable because they came from the people.

That is what made the appreciation feel genuine.

Leaders sometimes struggle with recognition because they treat it as another HR program. They create standard rewards, automate anniversary messages, or provide generic gifts that may be appreciated but do not necessarily create connection.

Personal appreciation carries a different emotional weight because it communicates that someone has been noticed individually.

The more human the recognition becomes, the more meaningful it often feels.

Culture Is Felt Before It Is Explained

As Pacific Perks moves into franchising, Natalie is thinking carefully about how to preserve the culture that made the company successful.

That challenge is familiar to almost every growing organization.

Processes are relatively easy to document. You can create manuals, checklists, operating procedures, training guides, and technology systems. Culture is harder because culture is partly emotional.

How do you teach someone to care?

How do you teach them to make people feel welcome?

How do you ensure that a future franchisee does not simply execute the operating model but also understands the spirit behind it?

Natalie’s approach begins with selection.

She is willing to turn away potential franchisees if she senses that their leadership style, priorities, or pace are inconsistent with the culture she wants to protect. She wants people who believe in building a business around relationships, employee well-being, and thoughtful growth rather than simply maximizing numbers.

That is an important lesson for any company scaling culture.

Training matters, but who you invite into the system matters first.

The Employee Experience Becomes the Customer Experience

Pacific Perks refers to its event staff as “perkologists,” and Natalie spends a great deal of time thinking about how those employees feel before they ever interact with customers.

That is because relaxed employees are better able to create relaxed experiences.

The company has detailed systems for loading, scheduling, timing, travel, checklists, and arrival. Those systems reduce unnecessary uncertainty and make it easier for team members to focus on hospitality rather than worrying about what they forgot.

Natalie also emphasizes flexibility.

Employees can manage availability around family commitments, trips, school schedules, and other parts of life. She described this as giving people permission to live their lives instead of making them feel guilty when they cannot take an event.

That kind of trust influences the way employees show up.

When people feel supported rather than controlled, they are more likely to extend that same care to customers.

This is where employee experience and customer experience become inseparable.

Systems Should Reduce Stress, Not Add to It

Natalie’s operating model includes detailed checklists, scheduling systems, training, and proprietary technology.

What is important is the purpose behind those systems.

They are not designed simply to make the company more efficient.

They are designed to reduce stress.

The clearer the process becomes, the more room employees have to focus on the guest. If the loading checklist is reliable, they do not have to worry about forgotten equipment. If the schedule clearly communicates when to leave the warehouse and when to arrive, they can focus on being present once they get there.

Good systems create emotional capacity.

That is something leaders often overlook.

A complicated process consumes energy. A confusing tool creates frustration. An unclear expectation causes anxiety. Every ounce of unnecessary operational friction reduces the energy employees can devote to customers.

The best systems do not make people feel more controlled.

They make people feel more capable.

Emotional Awareness Can Be Developed Through Reflection

Natalie looks for employees who naturally possess empathy, but she also trains for it.

One exercise asks new team members to think about a terrible customer experience they have had and describe why it felt so bad. Then they do the same with an exceptional experience.

That exercise is powerful because it does not simply tell employees what good service should look like.

It asks them to remember what good service feels like.

By reflecting on their own experiences, they begin identifying the small behaviors that made the difference. Maybe someone ignored them. Maybe someone remembered their name. Maybe a server noticed a problem before they mentioned it. Maybe someone went slightly beyond what was expected.

This creates empathy through perspective.

Instead of memorizing a customer service rule, employees connect the behavior to an emotional experience they already understand.

That kind of training can be far more durable.

Growth Should Never Come at the Expense of People

Natalie is thoughtful about the pace of Pacific Perks’ franchise growth.

She wants the business to expand, but she does not want growth that damages the culture or creates unnecessary pressure on the people involved.

That is why she pays attention to potential franchisees who appear overly focused on working constantly, scaling quickly, or pushing toward a number without enough consideration for quality of life.

She wants growth built on a strong foundation.

This is particularly important because hospitality businesses are deeply dependent on human energy. Employees who are exhausted or disengaged will eventually transfer that feeling into the customer experience.

A business can optimize itself so aggressively that it removes the very humanity customers originally loved.

Scale should strengthen the experience, not hollow it out.

Caregiving Can Teach Leaders About the Limits of Empathy

One of the more personal parts of our conversation involved Natalie’s experience as a caregiver and her work with the Alzheimer’s Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Caregiving strengthened her understanding of empathy, but it also taught her something equally important: caring for someone else does not require destroying yourself in the process. Coffee_ Care_ and Inspired Lead…

That is a difficult lesson for many compassionate people.

There can be an unconscious belief that loving someone means absorbing their pain, matching their stress, or sacrificing your own well-being to prove that you care.

But exhaustion does not necessarily make someone more supportive.

Sometimes it makes them less able to help.

Natalie had to learn how to create healthier boundaries, take better care of herself, and recognize that she could support someone without becoming consumed by what they were experiencing.

That lesson translates directly into leadership.

Leaders can care deeply without taking every problem personally. They can empathize with employees without absorbing every emotion. They can create space for others while still protecting their own capacity.

Self-care is not separate from empathetic leadership.

It is one of the things that makes empathetic leadership sustainable.

Flexibility Is a Leadership Practice

Natalie also challenged the assumption that good work requires people to remain in an office for a fixed number of hours.

At Pacific Perks, the focus is much more on getting the work done and moving the business forward than on being physically present from eight to five.

She was candid that she does not perform well working extremely long hours and does not expect her team to treat exhaustion as evidence of commitment.

That philosophy shows up in the company’s flexibility around family schedules, personal commitments, and daily work rhythms.

Trust becomes the operating principle.

When someone’s schedule changes, the expectation is not that they apologize for having a life.

The expectation is that the team communicates clearly and fulfills the work.

That is a fundamentally different way of thinking about accountability.

Accountability does not have to mean control.

It can mean clarity, ownership, and trust.

Celebration Should Be Part of the Operating Rhythm

Pacific Perks begins weekly meetings with gratitude and celebration.

Employees share something they are grateful for or something they are celebrating personally or professionally. The team recognizes new jobs for spouses, pregnancies, successful events, client wins, leads, and everyday accomplishments.

These rituals may seem small, but repeated rituals shape culture.

They tell people what is worth noticing.

If every meeting begins with problems, targets, missed deadlines, and performance gaps, employees learn that those are the things leadership pays attention to.

If the organization also makes space for gratitude, recognition, progress, and personal milestones, people learn that they matter beyond their output.

The point is not to ignore performance.

It is to create a fuller picture of what work can be.

Love in Business Can Be Practical

When we asked Natalie what role love should play in business, she did not treat the idea as abstract.

For her, love shows up in kindness, flexibility, joy, recognition, connection, and the willingness to make work more human.

She also encouraged leaders not to overcomplicate it.

Try one small thing.

Change the way a meeting starts. Offer one sincere acknowledgment. Ask an employee how they are doing and actually listen. Personalize one part of the customer experience. Give someone more flexibility. Celebrate one thing that would normally go unnoticed.

Then see what happens.

This is one of the most practical ways to build love into scalable systems.

Culture rarely changes because of one enormous initiative.

It changes because enough small behaviors become normal.

Key Takeaways

• Hospitality begins before the service itself, and proactive communication can dramatically reduce customer anxiety.
• Customers often remember small gestures more than major operational details because those gestures shape how the experience feels.
• Making people feel seen can be as simple as eye contact, acknowledgment, personalization, and genuine curiosity.
• Employee appreciation is more meaningful when it reflects the individual rather than becoming a standardized recognition program.
• Strong cultures are protected first through hiring and franchisee selection, then reinforced through training and systems.
• Customer experience and employee experience are deeply connected because supported employees have more emotional capacity to care for guests.
• Good operational systems reduce stress so employees can focus more attention on the human experience.
• Empathy can be developed by asking employees to reflect on how exceptional and poor service experiences made them feel.
• Growth should never become so aggressive that it damages culture, employee well-being, or the quality of the customer experience.
• Empathetic leadership requires healthy boundaries because caring for others does not require leaders to absorb every problem themselves.
• Flexibility and accountability can coexist when teams operate with trust, communication, and clear expectations.
• Gratitude and celebration become cultural systems when they are built consistently into the rhythm of the organization.
• Love in business does not require a massive initiative. Small, repeated acts of care can gradually shape the entire experience.

Final Thoughts

Natalie Fairchild’s perspective reminds us that hospitality is not primarily about coffee, food, events, or even service.

It is about people.

The coffee becomes meaningful because someone remembered your favorite drink. The event feels different because the team arrived early and made the organizer feel confident. The employee experience becomes memorable because a leader noticed something happening in your life and cared enough to ask about it later.

These moments are easy to dismiss because they seem small.

But culture is built from small things.

Customer experience is built from small things.

Trust is built from small things.

And when those small things become consistent enough, they stop being random acts of kindness and become the way the business operates.

That may be one of the most important lessons in hospitality leadership: people do not need perfection to feel cared for. They need to feel seen, supported, and genuinely welcomed.

When a company can systemize that feeling without making it feel scripted, it has created something far more valuable than a good service experience.

It has created connection.

Check out our full conversation with Natalie Fairchild of Pacific Perks Coffee on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

Some knowledge is easy to document. You can write down a checklist, create a standard operating procedure, record a training video, or build a step-by-step process that explains exactly what someone should do.

Other knowledge is much harder to transfer.

Experience, judgment, timing, intuition, and the ability to notice what matters often live inside people rather than manuals. They are developed through observation, repetition, mistakes, and years of paying attention. That creates a significant challenge for organizations because when too much knowledge lives inside too few people, the business becomes fragile.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Kaz Matsune, sushi chef, founder of Breakthrough Sushi, bestselling author, mentor, and keynote speaker. Kaz has spent decades practicing and teaching the craft of sushi, and his work today brings lessons from the sushi counter into leadership, organizational learning, and team development. His framework, “Steal With Your Eyes,” explores how people learn through observation, practice, humility, and the intentional transfer of knowledge. Sushi Lessons for Stronger Team…

His perspective reveals something business leaders often overlook: teaching people more information is not necessarily the same as helping them learn. Sometimes the most important leadership skill is creating the conditions where people can see, understand, practice, and eventually pass knowledge forward themselves.

Before You Lead, Learn How to Observe

Kaz’s first day working as a sushi chef did not unfold the way he expected.

He arrived eager to learn how to fillet fish, make rolls, and prepare nigiri. Instead, the head chef told him to stand behind the sushi bar and watch.

For hours.

At first, Kaz found the experience boring and frustrating. He had been hired to learn, yet no one seemed to be teaching him anything. But eventually he began paying closer attention. He noticed how chefs selected different plates depending on the size of an order. He realized that because he was standing nearby, he could anticipate what they needed and hand them the correct plate before they reached for it.

That small observation changed his understanding of what was happening.

He was learning.

The lesson connected with a Japanese concept he already knew but had not fully practiced: me de nusumu, which Kaz translates as “steal with your eyes.” Everything you need to learn may already be happening in front of you, but only if you are paying enough attention to see it. Sushi Lessons for Stronger Team…

There is a powerful leadership lesson in that idea. We often associate leadership with action, instruction, decisiveness, and having the answers. But leaders who are constantly talking may miss what their teams are showing them.

Observation is not inactivity. It is information gathering.

Sometimes the most intelligent first step is to watch.

Leadership Begins With Being a Good Learner

Our conversation naturally moved toward a broader question: can someone become a strong leader without first becoming a strong learner?

Kaz does not think so.

Great teachers have to remain students. Great leaders also have to understand what it means to support, observe, listen, and follow something larger than themselves. That does not necessarily mean following another person. It can mean following a framework, a set of principles, a proven system, or values that create consistency when circumstances change.

This matters because leadership can easily become distorted by ego.

People get promoted and suddenly believe they are expected to know everything. They feel pressure to speak first, solve every problem, and demonstrate certainty. Over time, that expectation can reduce curiosity precisely when curiosity becomes more important.

Kaz offered a different picture of leadership. Sometimes the leader stands at the top, providing direction and setting expectations. At other times, the leader belongs underneath the team, supporting everyone else so they have what they need to perform.

Those roles are not contradictory.

They are different expressions of leadership.

Knowing Something Is Not the Same as Understanding It

One of the most interesting distinctions Kaz made was between knowledge and understanding.

Knowledge is information. You can explain how to slice tuna. You can describe how rice should be shaped for nigiri. You can write down the correct sequence of movements and create a detailed instructional guide.

Understanding goes deeper.

At some point, the learner has to physically do the work.

They need to feel the knife moving through the fish. They need to understand how much pressure should be applied to rice. They need to recognize the difference between the correct movement and one that looks similar but produces an inferior result.

Those things are difficult to communicate entirely through language.

Kaz describes understanding as something closer to feeling. After enough practice, knowledge begins to move beyond conscious instruction and into physical awareness, judgment, and eventually muscle memory. Sushi Lessons for Stronger Team…

Businesses experience the same challenge.

You can teach someone the customer service process, but that does not automatically give them judgment about when to deviate from the script. You can teach a manager how to conduct a difficult conversation, but that does not mean they know how to recognize fear, resistance, or defensiveness while the conversation is happening.

Some capabilities have to be experienced before they are fully understood.

That means organizations need more than documentation. They need observation, practice, feedback, repetition, and opportunities for people to work beside those who already possess the judgment they are trying to develop.

Expertise Should Make You More Curious, Not Less

Experience can create confidence, but it can also create blind spots.

The more successful someone becomes, the easier it is to assume they already understand what is happening. That is why Kaz believes strongly in maintaining a beginner’s mind, an idea connected to his own study of Zen and his experience living at the San Francisco Zen Center.

The paradox of mastery is that the more deeply Kaz studies sushi, the more aware he becomes of how much he still does not know.

That is a very different form of confidence.

Early in our careers, confidence often means proving that we know the answer. As we mature, real confidence can become the ability to say, “I don’t know,” without feeling threatened by it.

That is where humility becomes powerful.

Humility is not the absence of expertise. It is the recognition that expertise is never complete.

Leaders who can remain curious are more likely to notice changes in their environment, listen to people who see things differently, and recognize when an assumption that once served them has become outdated.

Vulnerability Can Strengthen Leadership

Kaz also talked openly about nervousness.

Even after hundreds of workshops and years of speaking, he can still feel nervous before getting in front of a room. Rather than interpreting that feeling as evidence that something is wrong, he has learned to reframe it.

Physiologically, nervousness and excitement can feel very similar. The heart rate changes. Energy rises. The body prepares for something important.

Changing the language from “I’m nervous” to “I’m excited” can change the way someone interprets the same physical experience.

That may seem like a small distinction, but language shapes how we experience ourselves.

It also challenges another leadership myth: leaders always have to appear completely confident.

They do not.

A leader can admit uncertainty and still provide direction. They can feel nervous and still step forward. They can acknowledge that they do not know something without losing credibility.

In many cases, that honesty builds credibility because people no longer have to pretend either.

The Bus Factor Reveals Organizational Fragility

One of the most practical ideas Kaz discussed was the “bus factor,” sometimes described more positively as the “lottery factor.”

The concept is simple: how many people would have to suddenly become unavailable before an important project or part of the business could no longer function?

If the answer is one, the organization has a serious knowledge concentration problem.

A particular employee may know how a critical system works. A founder may be the only person capable of closing certain deals. One engineer may understand a piece of software no one else has touched. A single manager may hold years of institutional knowledge about a client or process.

Those individuals may be extraordinarily valuable, but their value has also become a vulnerability.

The answer is not merely traditional succession planning, where one person transfers knowledge to one other person. That can simply move the dependency somewhere else.

The stronger solution is distributed capability.

Leaders need to create opportunities for more people to observe, learn, practice, understand, and eventually take responsibility. Knowledge should spread through the organization instead of remaining concentrated at the top or inside a handful of specialists.

Observation Has to Be Designed Into the Workplace

Kaz shared the story of a chef who had worked alongside him for years.

For a long time, Kaz did not believe the chef could teach one of his sushi classes. But the chef had spent years watching how Kaz taught. He had observed the sequence, the interactions, the rhythm, and even some of Kaz’s jokes.

Eventually, when he was given the opportunity, much of that knowledge was already there.

This is an important reminder for modern workplaces, especially distributed and remote organizations. Observation used to happen naturally. A junior employee could sit near a senior colleague, overhear how they handled a difficult call, watch how they structured a meeting, and pick up countless behaviors that were never formally taught.

Remote work has made some of that learning less automatic.

That means leaders may need to intentionally recreate it.

Invite developing employees into meetings where they can observe how senior leaders think. Allow people to shadow client conversations. Give someone an observer role where they are explicitly permitted to watch without the pressure to perform. Afterward, talk about what they noticed and why particular decisions were made.

Observation becomes much more powerful when it is treated as a legitimate form of learning rather than passive attendance.

Ask More Questions Before Giving More Instructions

One audience question focused on how managers can tell whether an employee needs more instruction or simply needs more time to practice.

Kaz’s answer highlighted something valuable about his leadership style: he asks questions before assuming he knows the problem.

He shared an example involving a chef preparing spicy tuna differently from the expected recipe. Instead of immediately correcting him, Kaz asked whether he had ever instructed the chef to do it that way.

That question served multiple purposes.

Kaz genuinely wanted to know whether he had previously given an unclear instruction. It also encouraged the employee to think about why he was doing what he was doing.

Questions help managers diagnose before prescribing.

An employee may misunderstand the instruction. They may understand perfectly but lack repetition. They may be working from an assumption no one has corrected. They may have seen someone else perform the task differently.

If leaders jump directly to correction, they may solve the wrong problem.

Curiosity creates a better diagnosis.

Focus on the Process Instead of Forcing the Outcome

One of Kaz’s most memorable sushi lessons involves something very simple: cutting a roll.

Many students press down on the knife because they think cutting requires force. The result is that they crush the sushi roll.

Kaz teaches them something different. Let the knife do the work. Move the arm back and forth rather than focusing on pressing downward.

The language matters too.

When people hear “cut,” they often instinctively imagine applying pressure. Even changing the instruction to “slice” can alter the movement. Kaz eventually became even more specific by teaching the process rather than the desired result: move your arm back and forth and allow the knife to travel through the roll.

The same principle applies to leadership.

Organizations often overemphasize outcomes. Hit the sales target. Increase retention. Improve customer satisfaction. Grow revenue.

Those are goals, not processes.

Leaders still need to identify the behaviors, systems, tools, and actions that make those outcomes possible.

A dull knife requires more pressure. The right tool, properly maintained and used with the right technique, produces a better result with less force.

Teams work the same way.

When leaders constantly push harder without examining the process or the tools, they can crush the very thing they are trying to improve.

Pause Before You Solve

Kaz has developed a simple framework he calls Pause, Ask, and Map.

The first step is to pause.

When something goes wrong, leaders often move immediately into problem-solving mode. They diagnose, prescribe, and act before fully understanding what is happening.

The pause interrupts that reflex.

It creates room to observe what is happening externally and what is happening internally. What am I feeling? What assumptions am I bringing into this situation? What might I not be seeing?

Then comes the question.

One of Kaz’s favorite questions is, “What am I not seeing right now?” An even more difficult version might be, “What am I avoiding seeing?”

Those questions require a level of self-honesty many leaders struggle to practice.

Only after observing and questioning does the mapping begin. What needs to happen next? What is the process? Who needs to learn something? What capability is missing?

The sequence matters.

Pausing before solving can prevent leaders from using yesterday’s assumptions to solve today’s problem.

Love Becomes Visible Through Intention

When we asked Kaz what role love should play in business, his answer was simple: everything.

For Kaz, love is difficult to reduce to a definition because it is ultimately something that is felt. But it can still become visible through intention and behavior.

He shared a small example from Breakthrough Sushi. Years ago, he and his wife created a sushi sign that included a heart. It began almost casually, but the symbol became part of the experience. Guests started taking photographs with it. Kaz also puts small heart symbols on equipment and containers his team uses.

None of those things alone creates a loving culture.

But they reflect an intention.

Kaz described his broader intention as wanting people and situations to become better. Even when he corrects an employee or points out a mistake, he tries to remember that the purpose is not to prove the other person wrong. It is to help everyone improve.

That distinction matters because people can often feel the difference between correction rooted in ego and coaching rooted in care.

Love in business does not eliminate standards.

It changes the intention behind how those standards are taught, reinforced, and shared.

Key Takeaways

• Observation is an active form of learning, and leaders should create environments where people can watch experienced colleagues before being expected to perform.
• Great leaders remain great learners. Curiosity, listening, and humility should increase with expertise rather than disappear.
• Knowledge is information, while understanding develops through practice, repetition, judgment, and experience.
• A beginner’s mindset helps experienced leaders challenge assumptions and continue noticing what familiarity can make invisible.
• Leaders do not need to pretend they know everything. Vulnerability and the willingness to say “I don’t know” can strengthen trust.
• The bus factor helps leaders identify where too much critical knowledge is concentrated inside too few people.
• Knowledge transfer should build distributed capability rather than simply move dependence from one individual to another.
• Asking questions before giving instructions helps leaders determine whether someone needs clarification, practice, or a different kind of support.
• Strong leadership focuses on the process that produces an outcome, not just on applying more pressure to achieve the result.
• Pausing before solving creates space to identify assumptions, notice what is being missed, and respond with greater clarity.
• Love becomes scalable when care, intention, learning, and support are reflected consistently in how people are taught and led.

Final Thoughts

Kaz Matsune’s journey from the sushi counter to leadership teaching reminds us that some of the most important knowledge in an organization cannot be captured in a manual.

People learn by watching. They learn by practicing. They learn when someone lets them try, make mistakes, reflect, and try again. Eventually, what began as information becomes understanding, and understanding becomes judgment.

That is why leadership cannot simply be about giving people answers. Leaders have to create environments where others become capable of finding answers themselves.

This also changes the way we think about scalability. A scalable organization is not one where a handful of extraordinary people keep doing more. It is one where knowledge, capability, judgment, and confidence continually spread through the team.

Sometimes that process begins with something surprisingly simple: standing still long enough to see what is already happening in front of you.

The sushi counter teaches the same lesson that strong organizations eventually learn. You do not always get better results by pressing harder. Sometimes you need a sharper tool, a better process, more attention, and enough humility to let the work teach you something.

Check out our full conversation with Kaz Matsune of Breakthrough Sushi on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

Some of life’s biggest transitions are publicly celebrated. Weddings, graduations, new jobs, new homes, and babies come with rituals, gifts, gatherings, and clear social permission to ask for support.

Other transitions happen much more quietly.

Divorce, breakups, grief, moving, career changes, and other major life disruptions can require just as much emotional strength and practical rebuilding, yet people often move through them with far less structure around support. They may be expected to explain what happened, justify why they are starting over, and somehow manage the logistics of rebuilding while still processing the emotional reality of what changed.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Genevieve “Jenny” Dreizen, Co-Founder and CEO of Fresh Start Registry, to explore what people really need when they are beginning again. Jenny and her sister, Olivia Dreizen-Howell, created Fresh Start Registry after both experienced major relationship transitions and recognized how difficult it can be to ask for help when life has suddenly changed. The platform now provides registry tools, curated product bundles, a vetted expert guide, educational resources, podcasts, and community support for people navigating divorce and other major transitions. Building Community for Fresh St…

Their work is built around a powerful idea: starting over should not be treated as something to hide. It should be supported with dignity, practical help, and human connection.

Starting Over Is Not the Same as Failing

One of the deepest barriers people face during major life transitions is shame.

Jenny talked openly about how language shapes that shame, especially when people describe a marriage that ended as a “failed marriage.” Her perspective is that the end of a relationship does not automatically invalidate everything that came before it. People learn, grow, build lives, raise families, change, and sometimes reach a point where the healthiest path forward is no longer together.

That does not make the relationship meaningless.

It also does not mean someone failed.

This reframing matters because people often hesitate to ask for support when they feel they should be apologizing for where they are. If someone believes the transition itself is evidence that they did something wrong, receiving help can feel uncomfortable or undeserved.

But rebuilding is not something to be ashamed of.

It can be an act of courage, clarity, and self-respect.

Practical Support Matters Because Emotional Capacity Is Limited

One of the most important insights behind Fresh Start Registry came from Jenny’s own experience of moving into a new place after ending an engagement.

She had left with very little and suddenly found herself managing a long list of decisions. Furniture had to be delivered. Utilities had to be set up. Passwords had to be changed. Accounts had to be separated. Basic household items had to be purchased. At the same time, she was processing the emotional reality of the relationship ending. Building Community for Fresh St…

That combination can be overwhelming.

When someone is in the middle of a major transition, even simple decisions can become exhausting. Choosing sheets, bowls, towels, or a couch may sound trivial from the outside, but those choices arrive on top of hundreds of other decisions involving finances, children, living arrangements, legal matters, identity, and the future.

This is where practical support becomes emotional support.

Helping someone replace basic household items is not just about the objects themselves. It reduces decision fatigue. It helps make a new home functional. It allows the person to feel less alone in rebuilding.

People Often Want to Help but Do Not Know How

One of the challenges Fresh Start Registry is designed to solve is the disconnect between people who need support and people who genuinely want to provide it.

Friends and family often ask, “What can I do?”

The person going through the transition often has no idea how to answer.

They may be too overwhelmed to create a list. They may feel uncomfortable asking for things. They may worry about appearing needy. They may not even realize what they need until they are standing in an empty kitchen wondering where the can opener is.

Jenny experienced this firsthand. People around her wanted to help, and some brought thoughtful gifts. But what she often needed were very practical household items, and there was no easy way to communicate that without feeling as though she was asking too much.

That is one reason the registry model is so useful.

It makes support visible.

The person starting over can identify what would actually help. The person who loves them can act without guessing. The awkwardness is reduced for both sides.

Support Does Not Have to Cost Money

Another important part of the Fresh Start model is the recognition that support should never be limited to purchasing things.

Some of the most meaningful help Jenny received involved people showing up physically and practically. Someone helped break down moving boxes. Someone helped assemble furniture. Friends offered time, attention, and labor.

That kind of support can matter enormously.

A friend can FaceTime with a child while a parent makes a difficult phone call. Someone can research a lawyer, organize a meal, help draft an email, make a grocery run, or simply sit in the room while the other person handles an overwhelming task.

The key is specificity.

“Let me know if you need anything” sounds kind, but it places the burden back on the person who is already overwhelmed. Saying, “I can bring dinner, help with the boxes, or research something for you, which would help most?” is much easier to respond to.

Support becomes more useful when it is concrete.

Rebuilding Can Be Especially Complex for Parents

Starting over becomes even more complicated when children are involved.

A family may suddenly need two sets of bedrooms, clothes, furniture, toys, school supplies, and household routines. Parents may be establishing new homes while also trying to create continuity and emotional safety for their children.

Jenny shared how thoughtfully her sister approached the children’s room bundle on Fresh Start Registry. One of the priorities was ensuring the furniture and items could be assembled by one adult because a newly single parent may not have another adult available to help. Building Community for Fresh St…

That detail reveals something important about empathy.

Good support does not simply ask, “What product should be included?”

It asks, “What situation is this person actually in when they receive it?”

That is the difference between designing around a category and designing around a human being.

The Objects in a New Home Can Carry Emotional Meaning

A towel is just a towel until someone who loves you gives it to you while you are rebuilding your life.

Then it becomes something more.

Jenny described how people can look around their homes and feel the presence of the community that supported them. The bowl, sheets, toothbrush holder, or piece of furniture may be practical, but it can also become a physical reminder that someone cared enough to show up.

That is what makes these registry items different from simple consumer purchases.

They become support made tangible.

When someone is starting over, creating a new physical environment is often connected to creating a new emotional one. Small objects can help someone feel that the new life they are building is not empty. It contains evidence of relationships that remain.

Curiosity Is More Helpful Than Judgment

One of Jenny’s strongest pieces of advice is to choose curiosity over judgment.

People going through a divorce or another major life change are often surrounded by assumptions. Friends assume they must be devastated. Family members assume they want reconciliation. Others assume they should be angry, relieved, embarrassed, or celebratory.

The truth may be far more complicated.

Someone may feel grief and relief at the same time. They may feel sadness about the relationship ending and confidence that ending it was the right decision. They may be escaping something harmful and feel deeply hopeful about what comes next.

That is why asking is better than assuming.

“How are you feeling today?” is more useful than deciding how someone should feel.

“How can I support you right now?” creates more space than telling them what they ought to do.

Empathy begins with curiosity because curiosity leaves room for the other person’s reality.

Modern Etiquette Should Help People Feel Welcome

Jenny also brings a modern etiquette perspective to this work.

Her definition is refreshingly simple: etiquette should help people feel warm and welcome. If it does not do that, it is missing the point.

That is especially useful during emotionally complicated moments.

People often freeze because they are terrified of saying the wrong thing. They default to phrases like “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” even when the transition may actually represent freedom, safety, or a healthier future.

The better approach is to pay attention to the individual.

Instead of leading with a script based on assumptions, ask where they are emotionally. Ask what kind of support feels right. Let them set the tone.

Good etiquette is not about perfect wording.

It is about making the other person feel respected.

Support Should Not Become Transactional

One of the most thoughtful aspects of Fresh Start Registry is the way the business model was designed.

Jenny and her sister were intentional about keeping the core resources free for people navigating divorce. They understood that divorce itself can create tremendous financial uncertainty, and they did not want the person going through the transition to become the primary source of revenue.

Instead, the business developed an expert membership model for divorce professionals who already have marketing budgets. Those professionals receive visibility, networking, coaching, podcast opportunities, magazine participation, educational programming, and referrals, while their membership fees help subsidize the resources available to people going through divorce. Building Community for Fresh St…

That model aligns revenue with purpose.

The business still has to make money. Professionals providing real services still deserve compensation. But the company has been thoughtful about where the economic burden belongs.

That is a meaningful example of balancing profit with social responsibility.

Community Can Be Built Into a Business Model

Fresh Start Registry is not only a registry platform. It has evolved into an ecosystem.

People going through divorce can access expert guidance, free educational materials, events, scripts, podcasts, and practical resources. Professionals working in divorce-related fields gain a community of peers and opportunities to develop their practices.

That two-sided structure allows one community to help sustain another.

It also addresses another challenge Jenny identified: divorce professionals can be isolated too. Many are solopreneurs working in emotionally demanding fields. They benefit from networking, shared learning, referrals, and spaces where they can ask questions of people who understand the specific challenges of the work.

The result is a business model built around connection on both sides.

That is what scalable care can look like.

Purposeful Businesses Still Need Patience

Jenny was candid about how long it took for the business to begin turning a meaningful corner.

Like many founders, she and her sister initially underestimated the time required. They kept building, experimenting, learning, and refining the model. Years later, they could finally see the financial progress becoming more visible.

This is an important part of purpose-driven entrepreneurship that does not get discussed enough.

A meaningful mission does not automatically create a sustainable company.

You still need product-market fit, revenue strategy, discipline, consistency, and patience. A socially meaningful business may be deeply needed and still take years to build.

Purpose can give founders a reason to persist.

But persistence still has to be paired with adaptation.

Starting Over Has No Expiration Date

One audience question asked about the biggest myth surrounding starting over later in life.

Jenny’s answer was powerful: the myth is that there is such a thing as “too late.”

People often ask whether it is too late to go back to school, change careers, move, leave a relationship, or begin again. But the time is going to pass regardless.

The real question is what life someone wants to be living when that time passes.

Starting over at 28, 52, or 72 can still be meaningful.

There is no age at which someone becomes disqualified from pursuing more peace, joy, fulfillment, or safety.

That belief is especially important because many people remain stuck not because there is truly no path forward, but because they have internalized the idea that they missed their chance.

Love in Business Means Building Around Human Reality

When we asked Jenny what role love should play in business, she described love broadly through respect, admiration, care, and fulfillment.

Her point was that people do not become completely different versions of themselves when they walk into work. The same person exists at home and in the business. Their emotional world, relationships, values, frustrations, and hopes travel with them.

That makes it unrealistic to expect people to completely separate their humanity from their work.

A business built with love recognizes this.

It does not mean eliminating professionalism or accountability. It means acknowledging that people are whole human beings and designing systems, cultures, and relationships accordingly.

In Fresh Start Registry’s case, that means designing around the emotional and practical reality of starting over rather than treating the person as simply another customer segment.

Key Takeaways

• Starting over should not automatically be framed as failure. Major life transitions can also represent courage, growth, freedom, and the pursuit of a healthier future.
• People going through divorce or other major transitions often need practical help because their emotional capacity is already being consumed by difficult decisions.
• Registries can reduce the awkwardness of asking for support by making real needs visible to friends and family who already want to help.
• Meaningful support does not have to cost money. Time, research, childcare help, meals, moving assistance, and specific offers of help can be just as valuable.
• Empathy means designing around the reality people are living, including details such as whether a newly single parent can assemble something without another adult.
• Practical items can become emotional symbols of community because they remind people that others supported them during a vulnerable time.
• Curiosity is more helpful than judgment because no two people experience divorce, grief, or major change in exactly the same way.
• Modern etiquette should make people feel welcome and respected rather than forcing them into predetermined emotional scripts.
• Purpose-driven business models can still be financially sustainable when revenue is aligned thoughtfully with who has the ability to pay.
• Community can be scaled when the business creates value for both the people receiving support and the professionals serving them.
• Starting over has no expiration date. People are never too old to pursue greater peace, fulfillment, or possibility.

Final Thoughts

Genevieve Dreizen’s perspective is a reminder that people do not only need community when life goes according to plan.

They may need it even more when the plan falls apart.

Starting over can involve grief, fear, confusion, financial pressure, logistics, identity, and hundreds of decisions that arrive at the same time. In those moments, support becomes more than an encouraging message. It becomes the practical evidence that someone does not have to rebuild alone.

That support can look like new sheets. It can look like assembling furniture. It can look like watching a child for an hour, helping research a professional, or simply asking the right question without judgment.

What matters is that the person feels seen.

Fresh Start Registry turns that idea into a system by helping people communicate what they need, helping loved ones know how to respond, and helping professionals connect with the people they are equipped to serve.

That is what it means to build community around a fresh start.

Not pretending the transition is easy. Not deciding how someone should feel about it. Not reducing it to a transaction.

Simply recognizing that when someone is beginning again, they deserve support too.

Check out our full conversation with Genevieve Dreizen of Fresh Start Registry on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog