Closing A Business To Save A Mission with Amber Cebull

What if closing a beloved, award-winning brand is the most honest way to protect your mission? We sit down with Amber, founder of Gather Beverage Co., for a raw, timely look at why her clean, functional non-alcoholic elixirs—internationally recognized and fiercely loved—still couldn’t outrun the realities of scale, education gaps, and a market not yet ready for a true premium NA tier. The products were exceptional. The numbers were not. And that’s where this story gets powerful.

Amber takes us from co-owning a brewery during the pandemic to pioneering organic, preservative-free concentrates that used adaptogens, nootropics, teas, and kombucha to mirror the depth of craft cocktails. Along the way, we talk through the hidden cost drivers most founders miss: volatile inputs like certified organic juices, the craft constraints of small-batch syrups, regulatory red tape, and the brutal truth that you can’t pass price increases through if your category doesn’t recognize a top shelf. Education is a mission, but it’s also a cost center, especially when “natural flavors” still confuse buyers and quality gets flattened on the NA shelf.

Then we pivot to what’s next—and why it matters. Amber is building a platform to spotlight holistic chiropractors, nutritionists, and functional providers, clarifying their specialties and helping people find the right fit through interviews, education, and a practical directory. If diet and daily inputs drive most symptoms, access to the right guide becomes frontline healthcare. We also get candid about when to quit (hello, The Dip), how to keep your mission heavier than the grind until it isn’t, and why small-brand acquisitions by big companies can still advance the movement if consumers keep voting with their dollars and reading labels.

If you’re a wellness founder or a curious consumer, you’ll leave with sharper questions, cleaner criteria, and permission to choose impact over inertia. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage to pivot, and leave a review to tell us: what would you quit to grow?

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Transcript

Amber’s Email: Closing The Business

Meet Amber & Setting The Table

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to She's the Boss, the podcast where female wellness entrepreneurs talk ambition, money, and ownership out loud. I'm your host, Lee McSwan, a certified holistic nutritionist turned wellness business coach. This is where conversations are unfiltered, the rules of entrepreneurship get rewritten, and nothing is off limits. Money, motherhood, friendships, legacy, wealth, power, and what it really takes to build a life and business on your terms. Let's get after it. All right, bosses, before we get into this episode, I just have to give you a little bit of a backstory on this particular one. The evening before we were about to record, I got an email from Amber. And she had said that she was putting her business out of its misery. Those were her exact words. And I had sent her a follow-up message saying, Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, of course. And then I asked her a very specific question. I said, How do you feel about having the most lay it all out on the table, an honest conversation about this very reality that many entrepreneurs and women in business have had to experience and going through the pivot that is sometimes necessary despite years of blood, sweat, tears, heart and soul that we put into our venture. And she wrote back and said, Let's do it. I have so much to say about the food industry and the beverage industry and the struggles that many small businesses are faced with today. So I'm absolutely honored to share this episode with you because it is one that I didn't take lightly. I understood the vulnerability behind someone's bravery to share their story, especially in the wake of just closing the business. It hadn't even been publicly announced at the time of recording. And it was very fresh and very real for Amber. And I just was really happy that we were able to have the conversation at the time. And that's also why you're getting a midweek podcast bonus that's being dropped today, is because of the timely nature of this. And just to give some context to people that are following Amber and who have followed her business, this is the episode that you will want to hear. So thank you, Amber, for your heart, your soul, your dedication, and your real conversation. I also have to apologize for the audio quality on this one. Around a quarter of the way through, my laptop completely died. It was fried. I rushed it to the Apple store right after we finished recording. So I did have to record part of the episode on my iPhone. So sorry about that. I hope you enjoy it. Amber, welcome to She's the Boss. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

So good. So good. Sound good. That sounds like a self-reassuring thing, you're saying. Yeah. It's like an ever-changing spectrum of emotion being a female entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It absolutely is. Let's start off by before we get into the meat and potatoes of today's episode. I just want to know what you had for breakfast today. Being a wellness entrepreneur and a wellness person, this is always one of my favorite questions to ask, my guests.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah. So I am usually pretty accountable on breakfast, but I was super lazy this morning. I have this super clean protein. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called a quip protein. Yep. So yeah, I did a smoothie. I do Elmhurst cashew milk in my smoothies. It's only two ingredients, so it's pretty clean, no fillers. And just banana and that inside a smoothie. So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

So you're in Florida. We can't even think about smoothies right now in Calgary because we are sitting at minus 30 right now. So our breakfast yesterday was soup. It's gonna be soup again today. So I love that we are just polar opposites in terms of the climates we're in.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

You have to come down here and I get a break.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I I grew up going to Florida, actually. My grandparents had a house in Kisseme or Kissimmee. I don't even know how it's pronounced officially, but I always called it Kissimmee because it sounds cute. Whereabouts are you exactly?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

In Fort Myers. It's southwest Florida on the Gulf Coast. You had all the big hurricanes.

Breakfast, Weather, And Warming Up

SPEAKER_01 4:59

That's all right. So recently you had a major shift to the direction that you were going in. Now, before we get into the massive pivot that was very recent, very fresh for you. Can you talk about what you built, what you were doing prior to the very recent change in direction?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah. So I'll try to give you the Cliff Notes version. It's a really long kind of process, but I used to co-own a brewery, a beer brewery in downtown Fort Myers. And during the pandemic, we weren't allowed to sell beer. You know, for obvious reasons. It was only things that were necessities, but we didn't have any less bills. So I got added randomly to this Facebook group, and it was called pandemic beer chugs or something like that. And it was see a chug, send a chug, or something like that. It was so toxic. And I'm watching these videos, and I'm just, this is what everyone's doing to cope with the pandemic. I watched people talking about how much they were drinking for a sport, and I was, whoa. And to that point, we had hosted so many festivals and events and things like that. And I had started to get my footing in wellness about five years prior. And I had told my partner at the time, I'm really uncomfortable with this. I don't the fact that I use beer and food truck food to draw people in when it's so counter to my personal beliefs. So all of that kind of birthed this random idea, which was I'm gonna, I'm going to create this beverage. And I created a canned CBD beverage, and this is in 2020. So before a lot of them were around, I think there was only one or two other ones. Untitled Art was a really popular one. And I also decided to open a non-alcoholic craft cocktail bar inside the brewery. It's a huge brewery, 5,000 square feet. So I took the back little section of it and I opened a non-alcoholic craft cocktail bar. And I started to get into all of the at the time what was available, which is ritual and liars and sort of these non-alcoholic spirit replacements. Pioneers at the time, but loaded with filler ingredients. And, you know, I was diving deep into the realm of wellness and going to holistic chiropractor and understanding what are these things, you know, doing to my body. And honestly, it started more with the flavors of them, though. And so I had all kinds of functional things that I was making at the time: tinctures and teas and so I. And then I met a chef and we had kind of started building these really complex craft cocktails that could actually meet the flavor profiles of their alcoholic counterparts in a way that the non-alcoholic alternatives couldn't do because we were using kombucha and we were using teas and we were using all these functional ingredients. And so we'll we'll take we'll make that long story shorter by saying that partnership inside the brewery fell through. I lost my ability to produce that canned CBD beverage, which was performing so well at the time. Nobody was using broad spectrum CBD. It wasn't high-quality stuff, it wasn't water soluble, everything was kind of floating on the top of them. And I took that CBD formulation and everything we were doing in the craft cocktails, and I decided to partner with the chef to make what I called at the time craft or cocktail concentrates. They were kind of wars, but not really. Obviously, they weren't mimicking any other spirit replacements. Um, and we took that and we launched a whole we, we ended up calling them elixirs. And we relaunched in 2022. So we closed 2021, we relaunched, took a year, and launched at the end of 2022 as Gather Beverage Company. We reimagined the logo into a Phoenix logo, which was appropriate because we were kind of reinventing ourselves. I think that's a theme with me at this point. And we did really well. We won international gold medals, we won a silver medal for our first product. We have we had we got really intense. We ended up launching six products in the first three years. Then we launched three different canned beverages, and it was it was a huge process. We learned so much. All of the different elixirs, they were kind of different functionally, different ingredients, really, really clean, fully organic, no preservatives, no fillers, adaptogens, herbs, nootropics, stuff like that in them. And still to this day, there's really nothing on the market. There's a couple, so three spirits, which existed prior to us existing, is one of the pioneers in that, in that area. But really, there's nothing. And so it's really cool, but it's a very, very small batch. It's very crafted. We use coffee caramel syrup that has Rishi and Ashwagandha in it, and that the caramel base is handcrafted from organic cane sugar, and it takes hours to make. And so it's everything that we are doing is massively pioneering in the industry, but it's really, really craft. And inside the non-alcoholic industry as it stands, there's not a big appreciation for that.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

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From Brewery To NA Craft Cocktails

SPEAKER_00 10:19

So did that take you from the very start to here?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, I think so. It it's interesting. I wonder if that that non-alcoholic thing is kind of related to maybe where you you are, because what we're seeing here in Canada and what I've heard across the UK, and so many kind of festivals and stuff, and ecstatic dance parties and whatnot that that I've that have been on my radar, they are substance free. They are there are so many mocktails and alcohol-free alternatives there. So I'm curious if you think like if you were in a different location geographically, do you think it would have been more well received?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Um, so here's the thing about it, it's very well received. The problem is that there is, in the United States at least, there there is a lack of education surrounding what people are getting when they purchase a RTD, which is ready to drink can, or another one of the spirit replacements or anything like that. They don't have a good understanding of what are natural flavors. And you know, to my understanding, natural flavors are pretty ubiquitous, like globally. Um, and unfortunately, there's not like a way for peat, it's almost like the perfume in the fragrance industry. There's not a way to understand. So you could have natural flavors, like a quip, for example. You know, they're a the protein that I use, they use natural flavors, but I had to go and research with them and be like, what are they? And they're like these, they're distillants of, you know, but which is completely different than a natural flavor that has synthesized chemicals in it to extract it. And so it's that learning curve for people. We're we're here in 2020, everyone was back here, and now they're here, but we're still over here. So there's there's no top shelf of the non-alcoholic beverage industry yet. It's really like, oh, you know, what's your mocktail menu look like? It's not like, oh, well, here's the the Grey Goose and Patron section of non-alcoholic versus the Tito's and well vodka. You know, it's it's just it's it's very different. And so from everything I've been able to glean from across the spectrum of the non-alcoholic products that are available, that's kind of the vibe. I will say the World Alcohol Free Awards um is in the UK. We won our first gold medal with them, and they have much more of a like comprehensive appreciation for the options that are available. So a lot more of the like functional, crafted small brands are doing well with them, but they're functional, crafted, and small. So, you know, their their ability to get exposure is limited.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

So how important do you think it is to have an audience that is not only receptive because your product is clearly top-notch, but the that learning curve, that gap and that timing in the market and for the consumer, it's almost like you were ahead of your time and the market was just not caught up to where you needed them to be. So it's like all this education has to happen, which is timely, it's costly. There's a huge energy output to kind of retrain what people have known because 100% agree with you. When people see natural flavors, they're like natural, buzzword, woo-hoo, healthy. And you're like, no, you have no idea what that actually means. And same with fragrance, it's 3,000 potential unlisted chemicals going into something that is essentially trade secret. We don't get to know. So, like, what is your opinion on timing and marketing message and just the readiness of the buyer?

Building Gather: Elixirs And Awards

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah, I mean, that's huge, right? So, one thing that I just want to bring up real quick is for for people, for you, for anybody um that catches that catches this, I think it's really important to know something called your human design type. And this is so random and sort of like off the wall. But knowing that, and it's it's birth chart related, but not necessarily astrology related. It's more like energy type related. Um, knowing that my energy or human design type is manifestor helped me understand why I am so early to the game all the time. Why do I identify patterns that they see things that other people don't see? And so knowing that and being willing to be like, okay, this is just this is where I go in the world, you know, um, versus someone of a different energy type might need to enter something at a different point and be ready to sort of take that and then run with it. You know what I'm saying? I think what what the benefit that the billion-dollar corporations have that we don't have is that they have the ability to have the time to study a market that is entered to by an entrepreneur or a small business before they say we're gonna use all our resources and take it all from them. Not to say the small businesses can't be successful, just like I feel like that's you know the benefit of being a corporation. Like we're gonna look at the data, whereas we're the small businesses in the trenches creating the data. So when it comes to timing, you know, I have a history in marketing and I still do it a little bit because I got to subsidize my dreams somehow. Um, but it is it is a very interesting thing to be at the front end of something and pioneering something and be the person that is educating people because I think it's a really important role to play, and you really have the ability to cultivate trust and be a pioneer. But at the same time, you have to be really well resourced to do that. Because if you run out of money and they're not ready to buy, then here I am. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

It's so it's so disheartening, right? Because it's like the dream is there, the idea is there, you guys were winning international awards, and yet you're still up against the very reality of what like a startup is. And okay, but let's get into it. What exactly happened? Where did things go? You win these awards, you know, your I'm sure your customer feedback was fantastic. Why couldn't it sustain itself?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Um, so there are a few things, and I think looking back on it in hindsight, it's kind of like a it's a situation where it's like you don't know what you don't know until you're in it. And I think it's really great to have big dreams and to want to do something. But like a lot of us as entrepreneurs, like, we're always gonna be owner operators until like we plan bigger, right? And so I knew at some point that I was gonna have to scale production, but I didn't plan for that. And I didn't take the time to understand my numbers properly sooner. And I didn't partner with the right people, and I put responsibility on the people that I partnered with that that I think should have been my responsibility or I should have brought in an expert for or something like that. And so I will tell you that if I really wanted to go with this business, it could be successful 100%. But it's it's it's the it's the red tape of being a small business that gets put in front of us. I, you know, and for whatever you think about the government or about how the system is or whatever people want to think about that, I think to an extent, it it is built for us to fail. It is built for us to be the test rats in the lab and for them to look at us and take the data and be like, okay, we're just gonna take this pie and we're gonna industrialize it and put a bunch of chemicals in it, and then we're gonna sell it to everyone. Because if we keep telling them that they're inadequate and not enough, they will keep buying what we have to sell. And I think that's part, that's another part of why, why we don't do better is because I'm a very authentic person and I have almost no ability to not be honest with people. And when when their finances are like an absolute disaster and the economic climate is what it is, from a from just like a conscience perspective, it's hard to continue to market a product to people. Sorry.

Education Gap In NA Beverages

SPEAKER_01 19:11

No, I think it's okay. It's I I really appreciate your honesty. I also really appreciate your uh your ability to see the gaps. And I think that this is what creates this is what differentiates an entrepreneur who tried something. It didn't go to plan, but they learned something or several things or a hundred things along the way that will then make the next endeavor that much more resilient. And I think you you uh have this ability to look at yourself, you have radical honesty with yourself and you see what other people did and didn't do for you, but it's only gonna set you up for something bigger and better the next time. You're also like with Gather Beverage Co. You're in a very difficult market to begin with, right? Like food cost, it's insane. Like we are seeing a massive amount in inflation um across the board. Supplements that I used to pay like$50 for are now coming up to$100 a bottle. It's it's wild. So that that is also a very real piece of running something in the food and beverage industry, right? Like it's it is constantly a cost analysis that has to numbers have to number.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, they do. And that's you know, my um my romantic partner, his family is in manufacturing, and he was talking to me last night and he was like, you know, ultimately when it comes to manufacturing costs, you either pass it through or you raise your prices. And, you know, I've I've sat there and I've watched our organic lemon juice, you know. And unfortunately, the way that the FDA works currently and the products that you have to use to create things, you know, you can't juice, even though I'm using the peel from citrus, that's organic. I can't use that same juice in an orange. I have to use a bottle juice. So that was why we launched our cans, right? Because we had all this lemon juice and and um orange juice and lime juice that was sitting there. And I'm like, well, I'm not gonna like just toss it or just keep drinking it all. Like, you have to do something with it. So that was how we launched our cans. Um, but anyway, from a cost perspective, it's it's wild. It's wild to just watch everything increase so much. And then as a small craft manufacturing operation, those those breaks don't come until you scale. And so it becomes this sort of like, how do I scale a handmade crafted caramel? And how do I scale these 10 gallon? Batches that I'm doing at a time into something that is large scale without compromising the ingredient quality. And then am I ready then to take on the people that I'm gonna have to take on to make that happen? And I can't tell you the different ways I tried to skin the cat. Like I was like, the craft beer industry isn't doing well right now. What if we approached local craft breweries to make our stuff? Because it's it's basically brewed kind of like beer, um, but not, you know, obviously it doesn't, it doesn't ferment. Um, but there were just so many ways that I was like, well, let's pivot here and let's pivot here. But it was like pivot till you're dizzy because it's just you just get you get put into a corner of like, I can't pass through these costs any higher because there's no top shelf in this industry. I think to sum that up, though, it's honestly just like every day when you wake up as an entrepreneur, you have to do an equation in your head. And what fuels it is your mission, right? This this belief that like I'm making the world a better place by putting this product out here, by educating people on the ingredients that they put in their bodies. Because for me, it was not the products were great, but the products were a medium for me to do what is my purpose in this world, which is to show to bring people into their vitality. Our slogan with the business is changes within. And I think that not to go too far on a tangent, but I think that a lot of people have are really unaccountable when it comes to their own wellness and their health. And they're unwilling to a certain extent to come to terms with the situation that they put themselves in and how codependent they've become on the government to sort of rely on like what's healthy. And so the vision with that brand was always like, I'm I'm using these things that are amazing things, don't get me wrong, but I'm using these things as a catalyst to bring people into their own wellness and to help them take one little step into their vitality. So if I can convince them, you replace your filler preservative laden alcohol alternative with this little elixir. You start looking at your labels, you look at our labels, you see the difference, you see why we're more expensive, you see our better quality. And then you translate that over to the packages that you're buying at the grocery store. And you start to ask yourself, well, like, what else? What else? What else? You know, it's just, as you probably know, this rabbit hole of like, oh my God, I'm poisoning myself every single day, you know, and it doesn't have to be that serious. I think people get really intensely overwhelmed by like, holy cow, all of these things, where do I even start? But that's the place that you started, you know, like Gather Beverage Company was a movement. It was not, here we go. It was, it was not just it was not just the product. And I think for that reason, and I I'm gonna come back from this tangent in a second, for that reason, it makes it slightly easier to step away from. But to go back to what I was saying, every day as an entrepreneur, you wake up with that drive of what is your mission? And you weigh it with all of the burdening things that are constantly crushing you down as an entrepreneur, and that's your bookkeeping that's overdue. And can I afford some help this month? That's, you know, increased production costs. It's all these different things. And in your little scale that you have, your mission. This is why in my with my marketing clients, it's always like, what's your why? You know, your mission always has to be the the one that weighs more than all of these other things. And with Gather Beverage Company, it just it just doesn't, it just doesn't weigh out anymore. And so that's that's how I have to look at it logically.

Timing, Market Readiness, And Costs

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I I love that we definitely share the same mission about missions because I I believe that success is defined differently for every single individual and every single enterprise. But what leaves somebody fulfilled, when I think about like the end of the road, if I'm on, this is a little bit morbid, but if I'm on my deathbed, I want to be so proud about the change and the legacy that I get to leave behind for my grandkids' grandkids. I don't think anybody is on their deathbed being like, that Herme's bag that really sealed the deal for me. Like I am successful. No, like at the end of the day, that's still stuff. And I'm so blessed that I get to have these conversations with women like yourself who don't give a shit about the luxury things. That's not, those are nice things. I'm not saying I don't appreciate those. I don't say, not saying I don't have a couple of those things, but they really are actually so meaningless in the grand scheme of things and what we want to do and what we're here to do. We're not here to collect a bunch of materialistic shit. We're here to literally start a movement for the globe. And I love so, so much how you're basically saying that gather was the gateway. It allowed your mission to start. And I know that like I can feel it from you from like 5,000 kilometers away, that whatever you do next, that mission will be at the forefront. And it's it's just the the catalyst is there. You are making that happen. Um, so I just love that so much. And I just I'm just curious too, like we know that a small business is a drop in the ocean compared to what we're up against. Like there are basically 11 major corporations that own the entire supply chain from the top all the way down. So I'm really curious what your standpoint is or what your belief is around what were once small enterprises like CTA is coming to mind, um, that get bought up. How do you how do you feel about like essentially a mom and pop business going into one of these massive corporations? I have my own thoughts and feelings about it, but I'm curious yours from your standpoint in this industry.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

So I love it, honestly. Um, how I feel about it is every day we vote with our dollars and we choose the world that we want to live in. And because we are the lab rats, when the large corporations see, oh, this is what they want, and then they gather that pie, let them gather that pie. And then as consumers, what do we do? Oh, that pie is associated with them. We're going to this other small business now. So I think that small businesses that get acquired, like, yes, they get, you know, they're evil, they're all this stuff, but like, like we are pawns in their game. And if we don't start using the same game pieces to play the game, they're just gonna win. So we might as well play with the same pieces and like get in. So, from my perspective, if someone tomorrow like was like, hey, we want to buy all your recipes from Gather Beverage Company and we're gonna give it to Diageo. I oh my God. I have I like it's funny because there's all of this stuff coming out about how Diagio is tanking an alcohol. They're if for nobody that knows they're like the the alcohol conglomerate. They own the largest portfolio of alcoholic like brands in the world. And early on with them, they had an incubator program. They've closed that since I don't know why it's not smart. Um, and we submitted an application through their incubator program to get seed funding and like basically be coached into scaling. Um, and they told us no, because at the time we sold CBD. Um, but I'm glad they told us no, because I don't I don't think we could have done it right if we went through that or I couldn't, I don't think I would have learned the same lessons, but they didn't tell me that we were a very compelling application. Um anyway, well, I don't know why where I was going with that tangent, but I love it. I do. I think I think the more that we go out and make purchases that are aligned with what is best for us, that corporations will have no choice but to follow suit. And when they make those acquisitions, and yeah, maybe they buy them and they change ingredients because they have to industrialize them, it's still a huge indicator that we can make an impact that they can't touch. So I like it.

Why It Couldn’t Sustain

SPEAKER_01 30:41

I I love that as well, too. And I completely agree. It is that vote and it's it's shaping the direction of the industry, the food industry, the beverage industry. And essentially, that is the American dream, right? Like you start this tiny little business and then you're selling it to like whether Diaggio or Pepsi and Co. or Johnson and Johnson, whatever, it's still that shift and that family's lives are absolutely transformed by this. And now they have the money, potentially tens of hundreds of millions of dollars, that they can then go and start the next thing. So it is, I share the same sentiment with you when people are always so discouraged that their favorite brand got bought out. And yeah, I I do understand that too, to a certain degree. And we as consumers have to use some discernment. We have to stay on top of the ingredients. That's just the way that it goes. I know I used to work in a health food store and we basically had a policy that we didn't carry any lines that were owned by like Clorox or Johnson and Johnson, whatever. Eventually we had to drop that policy because every single company was getting bought up. And even though the supplement label itself remained the same, the types of ingredients being used were altered. So that was really our job was to educate people. And if they didn't want to purchase from that company because it was owned by whoever, Procter and Gamble, then we would offer them an alternative. Um, so yeah, very interesting. So you end up closing the doors on Gather Beverage Company. How many days ago was that?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I haven't even announced it yet. Um because we still have bottles to come through. Um, and I'm I'm finding my readiness to make that announcement because it's a very emotional thing. But I think I have gone back and forth waffling so many times about it that I'm really glad that we're doing this podcast because then it will, it's gonna be out there. And whether this is the reason, we'll find out, or and then I'm forced to make an announcement, or I I do make that announcement beforehand, regardless, it holds me accountable to, like you said, start the next project which I can be more successful at with the resources available to me currently. So it's today and two questions.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Yeah, you did. It's bittersweet. And I just want to know what what's next on the horizon for you.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

So I told you about my mission with malness, and ironically enough, I have already started I'm gonna give you like all. I'm just give up, give you all of it because you told me you weren't gonna give me limits on how much I talk and I'm a manifest or something. My throat chakra is like huge. We're just gonna go. Um, but I have a ton of chiropractor friends. Southwest Florida is a mecca for holistic wellness, and I have a ton of holistic chiropractor friends, nutritionist friends. Well, maybe I have like only two nutritionist friends, but um basically I know a bunch of holistic practitioners and I'm watching people move very slowly in the direction of wellness, very, very slowly, but it's happening, okay? And that's very exciting. But I'm in a group, it's on Facebook, it's called Mindful Mamas, and I think it's and dads at this point, it's just like mindful parents, where people ask for health recommendations or just parent, honestly, it's it's the spectrum of everything, but largely it's anything related to like being mindful about your existence. And they ask, there's a lot of symptoms that get shared. There's a lot of different things. And each chiropractor, and most people don't see them as this, but each chiropractor, whether they've said it yet or not, has a specialty. They have something that really lights them up, whether that's applied kinesiology, whether that's uh neurological stuff, whether that's um more like in the therapeutic pain management, whatever, whatever their specialties are. Yes, their training is, you know, they get a whole wide breadth of training, which is a whole other topic, but no one understands what their specialties are. So I have this really out there, super long-term vision of what I've kind of found out. And, you know, we discussed the whole manifestor thing and me seeing patterns and um I have this belief, and it is a little unhinged, but it is this belief that in the next 20 years, we can replace traditional medicine with chiropractic specialty entirely, and holistic practitioners and functional medicine providers and holistic MDs, and that I want to bring that information to people with a platform that I create, um, specifically in education, in interviewing people, in just bringing people out there in a network that just allows people to just perpetually go down the rabbit hole in learning about their wellness. Um, so that's that's what's next. And I'm not gonna tell you like, you know, too much specifics of the platform because I'm so in the early stages, but we did the first interviews round, and I'm already like, oh, we need to do a spin-off episode on women's health, and we need to bring this person and this person, this person. And and so it's like it's the the different all day long. I go in rabbit holes about holistic health and learning more about the ingredients we put in their bodies and what every single so okay, sorry, I'm I'm going everywhere, just as what it is. Um, in that first interview series that we did, we had three different chiropractors, a nutrition and a nutritionist. And every single one of those chiropractors said the biggest factor in how they see patients and and making change and where symptoms come from and all these different things is their diet, resoundingly. It was oh, hormone issues, inflammation, gut issues, diet, diet, diet, pain, diet, all of it, diet. Okay. And so this alignment of my mission of like, I'm gonna help people live in their, their, you know, their most vital life. Gather beverage company, you're right, was an incredible catalyst for that. And I'm still like, I'm still letting it go, you know, like you can't see me, but I'm like holding like I'm holding my hands up. Like I'm just I'm ready to let it go. I'm not ready to let it, I'm getting there and letting it go. But this project allows me to just bring all of these people that are struggling so hard to get people's message to resound. It's one of the things that I'm so good at is doing something that I call like brand forensics and understanding people's whys and then communicating that out to the world. And so, like, that's that's what's next. And it's a little, it's a little long term and kind of crazy, but I think it's what everyone's kind of going for anyway. Like, it's not, it shouldn't surprise anybody that's in wellness to hear that that is that's a vision that I have.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

So oh my gosh, that's so exciting! So, is this kind of gonna look like a directory type thing where you basically find the practitioner for you?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

That's my goal.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so my goal is cool.

Pricing, Scaling, And Red Tape

SPEAKER_00 38:06

It's not even and nothing is done with it. So, like, hopefully, nobody is just like, I mean, honestly, please, if I don't do it, let somebody else do it anyway, because it's a you know, whatever. Um, but yeah, that's that's the goal. The goal is to use my voice, my ability to just like talk and talk and talk, my network, um, to get started in helping practitioners of all kinds start to understand how do I reach my target audience, um, and then partner with people that can help them do that, right? So if whether it's a business coach like yourself or it's a marketing agency that's focused specifically on chiropractors, um, but also education and things like that, you know, that's it's getting it's getting those people connected to the practitioner through education and a platform that allows them to find them and to find the people that are right for you. Because the other thing that I've heard from all of those chiropractors and the nutritionist was I asked them all the same question when I was done. And it was if someone is here, I love, I love to use the spectrum analogy for wellness because I think it is visually really good and can just end. Um, but if someone is here on the left side of the wellness spectrum and you want to get them all the way to the right side of the wellness spectrum to where you are, what is your advice to them? And every single person, without talking to each other, said, just find the right person that resounds with you that wants to help you. And none of them were like, you have to work with me, you have to work. They didn't mention their business at all because their vision is not selfish, like it is with um pharmaceutical companies or corporations. It is, I just genuinely use it. I'm gonna cry. So it's okay, it's okay. Using the light that I have and the power that I have and the mission that I have want to change the world and I want to help you change your health, but it doesn't have to be me. And to me, that was just like such a magic thing in that room that day.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Oh my gosh, that is so incredible. And I think this is the unique gift that people in the holistic practitioner space have is that their mission is so much bigger than the bottom line. Um, there's and and this is this feeds into a lot of my mission too, because like as a holistic nutritionist, we don't get hired by the governing bodies. We are not dieticians. So we really only have the root of entrepreneurship, or, you know, maybe we work for a naturopathic clinic or a chiropractor clinic or whatever functional medicine provider. But the the problem that I saw, and this was me really feeling like, oh my gosh, this in order for this to shape the way that people live on this earth, we have to have wealthy wellness practitioners. And it's such a hard thing. It's almost like a mindset shift that I notice with people because I know a lot of nutritionists who like they work multiple jobs, they're just not making ends meet. And then they don't get to spend as much time doing the thing that actually shifts the way that people live their lives and they they lose their mission. So, my whole thing is like, let's get people properly paid so that they can go all in on this. And it really starts with a shift in how people are accessing healthcare. It needs to be this type of work has to be frontline healthcare. It's not sick care. Like sick care is done. That model is created, it exists, it's fantastic. I get in a car accident. Thank God for the hospital, thank God for the pain medication, all those things. It's not one or the other. It's harmonizing health care. And so I don't even know where I was going with that whole TED talk. It just feels really important to showcase the fact that wellness providers have never been more necessary. They have never been more vital to the health and well-being of the planet. And I say this all the time: money in the hands of good people does great things. And I feel like you share that mission as well too. This new business venture that you're on. Oh my God. Like when you were talking, I was getting chills. I didn't know what it was before we started talking. So I got to kind of hear you say it and just envisioning it is incredibly, incredibly powerful. And I think it's, I don't know. I'm just gonna toot your horn here because I think it's so it's so freaking cool. And we all need to come together as a community um and just like demand the change, right? We have to demand the change we want to see.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Yes. Um, I think where you were going with that is where someplace you should still go with that, and I'll let you go with it after this, which is to talk about how you help people do that. Because I think in in the people that develop the empathy to change the world and have these missions come from backgrounds and childhoods and trauma where we've been conditioned to believe that money and power is toxic or it belongs to corporations or wealth is is not um honor, not not honorable, but you know what I'm saying? Like it's like there's something in this grind of like earning it and like, and I if I'm if I'm wealthy, I lose my perspective of these things. But no, if you're wealthy, you just become more empowered to do that. And I think that's where you come in. And I think I'm so excited to establish a partnership with you in this, where these people that are that are working on building their business up to be able to afford a marketing agency or be able to get higher paying clientele or whatever it their goal is, so that they can continue to spread the mission and not go out of business business like gathering. Beverage company, like it's needed.

Mission Versus Numbers

SPEAKER_01 44:03

It's so, it's so needed. And yeah, that is a big, big part of why I left nutrition. Like I had built my six-figure nutrition business. And then I look around and I'm like, oh, people are struggling. Like my colleagues are struggling, my peers, my friends, the people that I went to school with are struggling. And I was like, this can't happen because if we don't have our frontline workers, we don't have wellness. And food is first. Food is, I said this before we started recording, I think. Um, but it's the thing that you do most often, other than have thoughts, right? Like you're constantly eating and hydrating and or not. And that is really the starting place. And I think a lot of us in the wellness industry, we take for granted how much education we have and how um how how many basics we have to go back to for people, right? It's like when when I was, I don't know, in my 15th year of practicing as a nutritionist, I was doing stuff online, but I still would come up to people being like, oh, I should drink water. And I'm like, okay, we're like 101 nutrition here. And it's just having more people share the basics can really shift the health of people's lives. And oh my gosh, it's just such a loaded topic, isn't it? Like, there's there's so much to explore. There's so much need for people to learn the business side of their wellness business because we don't get taught that. I'm I'm speaking for myself specifically, and the the school that I went to, the nutrition education was fantastic. There was no business training. We didn't learn how to do anything. We had to figure it all out. And like you can be the world's best practitioner, but if your message isn't reaching anybody, you one, I think you're sitting on a gold mine. But two, I also think like how unfortunate for the people you don't get to talk to. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Before I was into wellness, when I was just a marketing agency, before I even got involved in any brewing of anything, um, I used to be re, I mean, still really good at it, but the synthesizing of information and translating it through, because everybody uses, like you said, it's they're so inside their own industry, they're using jargon like crazy, and they don't even realize that the lives that they're changing can spread further if they can simplify what they're what they're saying. So it's exactly like, yes, you have it spot on. And I think, like, not to, you know, I know this is a podcast about me, but I always I'm just this type of person that likes to turn it on other people. I like I said, I have a big following of holistic friends and practitioners. And so, like, can you just like give them your like little piece of advice for them? Because I think, you know, for this is your podcast and it's gonna go to your audience, but like, you know, I selfishly I want to put it out to to my friends and stuff too. So, like, what would what would you tell them? So, well, thank you for that, first of all.

Big Food, Acquisitions, And Power

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Um and my goal with this is to to spotlight the women that I interview, so it's kind of funny. But um my biggest piece of advice is to stop. I because I see this and I've done this, and so I feel very passionately about it and I understand it so deeply, but it's it's really a mindset thing that I'm really trying to help like my one-on-one clients rewire for themselves because it gets them stuck and it holds them back. And that is stop overcertifying yourself, stop getting more education. I actually did a reel about this yesterday, and it was about how when you throw out all kinds of information, whether it's on social media, whether you're in a one-on-one coaching session with your client, and you're talking about lab work and you're talking about parasites and my uh mold toxicity and all these things. What you are doing is creating shutdown in your client, in your audience, whoever is watching you. It is overwhelming to them. They, somebody that's dealing with a health crisis, no matter how minor or major it is, they are not capable of making really massive decisions. They need clarity. And that is your job as a leader in the in the wellness space, is to be the leader that says, here is what you need to do. It's like going into an ice cream store and seeing 150 different flavors. You're like, analysis paralysis, I can't make a decision. There's 15 that sound good. Uh, I'm gonna leave. It's too overwhelming. That's the same thing that I see happening with wellness practitioners, whether it's the amount of education they're sharing or the overabundance of their offers. It's too much. And people that have dysregulated nervous systems, which is anybody whose health is not optimal, they they will not act. They will not buy from you. They will go into shutdown and they will then just feel so alone. They're like, My problem is so unique to me. It's I'm the only one that experiences this. Nobody understands me when really you're not alone on an island. Your health journey, this sounds a little bit harsh, but it's not unique. Everybody has or at some point suffered from some sort of health thing, especially those of us in the wellness field. That's typically why we got into it. And so, my message for people in the wellness space: if your business is not growing the way you want it to grow, stop over-certifying and over-educating people. Get back to basics, streamline your offer suite, stop having 15 offers. You need one core signature offer that is for a very specific person that solves a very specific thing. And instead of investing in more certifications and putting more letters behind your name, get into a group of other entrepreneurs. This is this is why I put myself into a mastermind. I just signed on for a year of coaching in a mastermind because I saw the benefits of it. And then I created a mastermind. And the the transformations that happen in a container of will of women with the same mission, like there's nothing that's gonna expedite you faster. And a lot of these masterminds are not high ticket. They're they're moderately expensive, but it is the best investment you can make in your business. If you have the funds, work one-on-one with somebody. Instead of taking that$15,000 certification, go spend five,$10,000 on a coach for six to 12 months and watch your business grow. Like nothing upsets me more when I see brilliant minds spiraling and not making money in their business. Like I'm like sweating at this point because I'm like, ready to change this? That's your why, though. That's that's it's awesome. Yeah. I'm so excited to see what is next for you. I know that you are in this massive transition phase of your life and your business. And I just want to applaud you for that because so many people keep it going when it needed to be retired. And I think that's the message here is like the business has changed, the mission is the same. And that's really the thing that needs to go forward into the future. And also just having this this is leadership. I just want to tell you this because when you notice that something is not working, instead of dumping more money, instead of like pushing and getting resentful towards it not working, that is when things really crumble. That's when we lose our mission. And so having the confidence and having the leadership mindset to say, it's time to retire this and move on, you've got the longevity factor because of that ability to have that discernment. So I'm just like so happy to have this conversation. I it almost didn't happen. Um and I'm glad it did because I think a lot of people need to hear this. And I think a lot of people need to know that it's not the end. It's it's an alternative route that can probably lead to something bigger and better.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

I think so. It's it's really cool. I there's a there's, you know, there was a question on your list of questions of like, I don't know, they were like small talk questions or something like that, but one of them was um about my favorite business book. And it is The Dip from Seth Godin. And in that book, it's literally an hour long and it's on Audible, or like you can buy it, and it's like this big. I have both. And every like, every every once in a while when I get discouraged, I listen to it. And I'm gonna tell you that like I appreciate you calling me a leader, but like it has been a long time for me to make this decision. So I did I dump a lot of money into it? Yes, I did dump a lot of money. I mean, not like tons of money relatively, but for me, it was a lot of money. I did keep dumping at points where I should have probably not kept dumping. Um, so I look forward to someone taking this as their sign to not keep dumping. But that book, The Dip, it is, I believe the subtitle on it is a little book that that tells you when to quit and when to stick. And it's all about that. It's all about becoming the best in the world at what you do and knowing before you go into it what conditions are going to be the ones you put under and when you're gonna stick. And we can have a mission, and like you said, the mission can transform and it can evolve and and phoenix its way into the next thing. Um, but we have to know when to quit.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

So yeah, and just having the trust in yourself. I think everything is timing related. You know, you're you're saying, Oh, I I should have retired this so long ago. But then there's also that feeling there where you want to know that you laid everything out on the table and you tried everything. Otherwise, I feel like that loop in your brain doesn't ever close. And the what if the what if factor is so real. And at the end of the day, you made the best decision for you, for your family, for the business, right? And so it's not necessarily about the the shoulds or anything. You've closed that what if loop. You know that you poured into it, you got it to where it needed to be. And I'm sure, I'm sure that there are so many lives that changed because they had some of your elixirs, right? Like that is the gateway for a lot of people. Like a beverage, it sounds crazy, but a beverage can be the gateway for somebody to transform their lives. Like, let's not undervalue better or worse. For better or worse, yeah, yeah. You go down the wellness rabbit hole, you're never coming back up. But um, yeah, it's really, it's really beautiful. I can't wait to follow and see how big of an impact you create because that's ultimately what this is is the impact. And you, my friend, are absolutely gonna leave a massive impact. I know everything is transitioning for you, but where is the best place for people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Um, so the my personal Instagram is ironically enough, titled Soul Disaster Relief. Um, my handle on Instagram is that, but I'm Amber Siebel, C-E-B-U-L-L on um social media, anywhere you want to find that. And if, you know, if they wanna, if they want to follow Gather Beverage Co., I'm sure that there will be announcements of new products and things like that. Um, not new products, but new ventures on at Gather Beverage Co social media.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Incredible. Well, we'll make sure that all of that is linked in the show notes so that people can find you. I think um that this new platform that you're launching is definitely going to be something that is consuming a ton of your time. And it's just gonna be so big and so beautiful. And I just can't wait to watch it all. And uh hopefully we can continue a conversation about how we can move this collective mission further down the line. So, Amber, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you for trusting and allowing me to hold it with the audience of She's the Boss. It's been an absolute delight talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for spending a part of your day with me. I want to remind you to take a moment and notice what this conversation has stirred up inside of you. You get to decide what you want to do with that. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, continue to build boldly and own it fully.