The Female Founder Show

Betsy Fore on Building Purpose-Driven Companies

• Bridget Fitzpatrick • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Betsy Fore, founder, investor, and former toy designer, joins The Female Founder to share how bold ideas, personal values, and resilience have shaped her journey from building consumer products to launching a venture capital fund. She discusses lessons learned from designing for global brands, scaling two mission-driven startups, and supporting underrepresented founders through her nonprofit and investment work.

Fore reflects on her early career in the toy industry, the rapid growth of WonderWoof and Tiny Organics, and how her personal experiences—including motherhood and family health history—sparked a deep commitment to nutrition and children’s wellbeing. She also breaks down how values-driven decision-making, mindfulness practices, and understanding one’s purpose can strengthen both leadership and long-term impact.

Join us as we discuss:

  • How early creative work at Mattel, Hasbro, and Star Wars shaped her entrepreneurial mindset
  • Building WonderWoof and scaling a consumer product from launch to major retail distribution
  • Tiny Organics’ mission, rapid growth, and partnership with national health initiatives
  • Launching Native Rising and Velveteen Ventures to support Native founders and planet-first innovation
  • Using values, neuroscience, and mindfulness to guide decisions and sustain purpose-driven leadership

Thank you for tuning in to The Female Founder Show with host and entrepreneur Bridget Fitzpatrick. If you like what you heard, please give us a review and let us know what you think?

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Announcement:

This is the Female Founder Show with host and entrepreneur, Bridget Fitzpatrick, exclusively on ASBN.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Hello everyone. Today on the Female Founder Show, I'm thrilled to sit down with Betsy Fore, an entrepreneur, investor, and change maker who's making history while paving the way for others. Betsy is best known for being the first Native American woman to raise Series A funding, and she's the founder of Tiny Beginnings and co-founder of Natives Rising. This is an organization helping Indigenous women pursue careers in tech and entrepreneurship. Now, from developing award-winning products to partnering with Michelle Obama's Veggies Early and Often initiative, Betsy has built companies that not only succeed in business but make a real difference in people's lives. Her story is one of resilience, purpose, and using success to lift others up. We'll talk about her early career, the determination behind fundraising, what she's learned about leadership, and how she continues to create impact through her ventures and her new book, Built on Purpose. Betsy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Betsy Fore:

Thank you. I'm so excited today.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Good, good. Now I would love to talk about your early career. Can you talk to us about what you were doing even before you became a founder?

Betsy Fore:

Definitely. I um I can take you way back. I uh was the first person in my family to go to college. I became an industrial designer because I grew up in the garage tinkering in the garage with my dad building motorcycles. He's a motocross racer. Um and I thought, oh my goodness, I could I could invent toys for a living. Like this this seems like a dream, right? Never having to grow up, that kind of childlike wonder. Um and I invented toys for George Lucas from the Star Wars franchise, uh, for Mattel with Barbie, Polly Pocket, WWE, um, Hasbro Games. I mean, it was just an absolute dream. Um, and I thought, it doesn't get better than this. But then after every point in my career trajectory, it's it's always gotten better on the other side as well. Um, but I think that's kind of the gift that keeps on giving is that spirit of gratitude, right? And the idea that you can uh approach the each new idea or thing that you're tackling with that same level of enthusiasm, even when it doesn't work out. Uh, because I believe every success, you're on a mountain of failures, actually. Um, but it's usually the success is what everyone sees when when really it's all the things that you know it took to kind of get you there. So yeah, after graduation, I became a toy inventor in Chicago in the Westloop. It was the first city I ever visited as a teenager, and I'm actually back there full circle after spending over a decade in New York and London. Um, I had heard about someone who was building kind of the next Pokemon of the UK at the time uh called Mashi Monsters. His name's Michael Acton Smith. Everyone knows who he is now because he was the founder of Calm, the Meditation app. Uh, but previous to that, he had several companies, and one of them I actually flew out and helped him to build. I flew out to London not knowing anyone, and I walked in the door uh to our old, old, old offices in Battersea, um, asking to meet with Michael with this massive portfolio in hand and these foam core mock-ups I had made based on his digital characters online. Um, and I said to him, you know, I could build this into a physical franchise. I mean, by the fifth time I was actually able to meet him face to face because I kept coming in thinking, why not me? Right? I'll I'll I'll just walk in and give it a go. I later found out that uh Brit, you know, British people don't normally do that. You need to have an appointment. I guess Americans, you know, think that as well, right? You need to definitely, you know, have these scheduled in advance. And um, for me, it was just like, why not me? And I just kept walking in. And then finally, when we did meet, uh, we chatted for over two hours. He brought me on to lead all of product at the company, which we grew to over 90 million registered users online, over 300 people in-house. And I was able to, yeah, lead all of product there. It was just an absolute dream. We beat even Lego in Star Wars uh for the physical product side during those years as the number one toy brand in all of UK. Um, and so I so even this leads me up to this point of founding my first company uh because I saw Michael do it as the sole founder CEO at Mind Candy. I thought maybe I could give this a go too, because I had a problem I was really looking to solve. My dog at the time, who's now 14 years old, he was one year old then in the UK, was a little overweight. And I thought, I've tried everything to get him to lose the weight. Um, I've got a Fitbit for myself. Why don't I have one for my dog Whiskey? Um, and so I built on a hackathon one weekend in Shoreditch, London, the first Fitbit for dogs. Um there wasn't one on the market yet, or I would have bought it for him, right? Um, and so I launched that and I left Mind Candy as Michael was leaving to found com to build this full time. And I actually launched it at Herod's in London at the penthouse, um, had celebrities using the bow tie, uh, launched it at in Colette for Paris Fashion Week, and then came over to every Best Buy in North America, every Petco on NCAP, launching the Pet Tech category, Oprah's Favorite Things list, uh, Forbes are doing your dirty. It was just like a magical first-time founder CEO journey that I'm sure we're gonna get into in a minute. But it was like, yeah, it took a long time coming, uh getting there, right? Because everything builds on itself.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Yeah. And it sounds like you had that why not me attitude the entire through when you're working with Michael and then when you're working with this first company. I think that's so important and probably has a lot to do with the your early success, right?

Betsy Fore:

Yes. I think, you know, my parents taught me growing up that um if I could dream it, I could build it, and they actually showed me what that looked like. I think um, you know, I grew up uh between the middle of the countryside um in Illinois and my reservation in North Dakota in Turtle Mountain, Chippewa on the Canadian border there. And so I grew up seeing my uncle own Azure's Autobody on the Res and believing, wow, he started his own business, charted the course for his family and made a life for himself. Maybe I could too, right? But I didn't see, I didn't see examples of like tech founders or or native founders or even many women founders, right? As I was going out um and and starting this journey. So I every step of the way, I just never even really thought about that. I just kept asking, you know, why not me? Um and and what do I have to lose? Which was one of the greatest blessings of my life, actually, is that um I I I feel uh because I came from a background where you know I could be underestimated and have been many times. That's actually been one of the greatest blessings because I'm able to um, you know, really keep continue to say, I have nothing to lose, right? And let's go for it and let's figure it out. Um and I think that if we all look deep within ourselves, we actually all have that opportunity every day, right? To do something that scares us and to say, yeah, why not me? Yeah.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

So that company was on Oprah's favorite things and all of these others. Um, talk to us about that a little bit. Is that um were you bootstrapping that company at the time, or was that one that you had raised for?

Betsy Fore:

Yes, I did wind up raising capital for it. However, in the earliest days, I didn't have a friends and family around. So even though I had built this massive success at Mind Candy with Michael at the time, I hadn't ever raised venture capital or even angel funding. And so I didn't know what that looked like. And when I was um trying to raise in London, it was hardware was a brand new category and pet tech did not exist yet in the early 2010. So it was extremely difficult. Yeah. And then when I looked into the US market, there were there were more things happening in hardware, of course, at the time. Um, however, I just looked into grant opportunities because I was like, I don't have a network, I don't really know where to start. And I applied to grants. I wound up getting one in St. Louis, an Arch grant, um that brought me back to the US. It was a 50K grant, and I'll never forget it because it led me to raising tens of millions of dollars years later. Um, as you know, um these things do, where it's like that one small spark, right, can turn into to the flame, like the bigger, the bigger thing that you can't even imagine at the time. But I just remember feeling so much gratitude for that 50k check because my judges were Maxine Clark, CEO and founder of Build-A-Bear, and Jim McHelvey, the CEO or the of Square with Jack Dorsey at the time. And, you know, I just remember thinking because they then came on as angels and shared it with their networks and became a snowball effect where we I raised um millions in angel investment for that company. Um, but I had multi-millions in POs that I needed purchase orders to deliver on, right? To these massive retailers. So so many learnings building my first company, Wonder Woof. And I did it completely the opposite with my second company, Tiny Organics.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Okay, so I would love to talk about that first. What was the exit like with Wonder Woof? And then the transition into the next company.

Betsy Fore:

Yes. So with Wonder Woof, it had gotten to a point where we had been approached for acquisition and and went down that road for about two years. Um, and I got to a point where I said, I'm I'm really ready. Like we're gonna, um, we we did sell the company. It was not the device does not exist today. Um, it was more for the data, and I remained on the board of that pet company at the time. Um, but I was also pregnant at the time with my first son, Sebastian, and I thought, what's the greatest gift I could give him outside of my love? It's probably a love of vegetables from the very first bites, um, because I grew up on a sugar roller coaster, and like many people in my family um, you know, had um issues with diabetes and you know, we uh heart disease and um things that you you see on especially in the reserve on the reservations and within native communities, but I think in America at large, right? Um I thought how could I combat this to really rewire the gut health of a generation to prefer vegetables as opposed to sugar for their comfort food? Now, this might seem really wild, like how did I go from, you know, building in the hardware in the tech space, right? Um, and then into baby food. I mean, I knew nothing about, I still don't know about um making food, right? Like I had to learn it all as I went. Um, but I think the the thing there that was kind of the magic or the secret sauce is it's all about who you bring around the table. And because I had raised Angel uh um for so long with with Wonder Woof from Angel Investors, I didn't have the valuation validated from adventure capitalists to then raise VC funding. So I did the exact opposite way with Tiny Organics, where um I interviewed for different entrepreneur and residence roles. Um, I was interviewing different firms throughout New York City where I was based at the time. Um, and I wound up selecting one that I then moved forward with to um build out the um 100 founding families, as I call them. Uh, and they're really our hundred first believers at Tiny. So I sent one email to the Park Slope Parent Group where I was based at the time. We got hundreds of inbounds. I had to cap it within a two hours to just meet the need of the 100 founding families that were joining us. Um, we created these recipes, the 12 hero products. Um, this was, of course, pre-pandemic, but parents were meeting us out in the park, um, myself and my founding team, uh, to deliver these foods to their baby, and we were watching them eat and like getting the feedback firsthand. Um, it was pretty wild to experience because I was eight months pregnant at the time. So I think they probably trusted us, but these were like unmarked cups. You know, this wasn't like a fully fledged company yet, and yet that's where we started and grew to then 10,000 and then beyond and beyond, right? To where I grew the company on direct sales alone to over 13 million in revenue in the first 24 months. Um, I then went on to be the first Native American to ever raise a Series A round of funding for that company, uh, which made me realize I needed to give back, right? And under and figure out how to get more Native founders around the table and funded. So I founded my nonprofit after that.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Congrats to that. That is so huge. Very groundbreaking for sure. And Tiny Organics is the company you were talking about. And you partnered with Michelle Obama's Veggies Early and Often effort. Can you talk to us about what that partnership actually meant for the business?

Betsy Fore:

Absolutely. So I I talk about it in my book because I believe that founders are the ultimate manifesters, where we build something out of nothing in this like deep belief. And I remember manifesting and thinking about how the ultimate, like my ultimate wish list dream partner for tiny organics would be the former first lady because she had founded Veggies Early and Often in the White House a decade prior to this. Um, and that year, I didn't know it yet, but at the Food Navigator conference where I was speaking in Chicago that year, um, her team was there thinking about creating a board for Veggies Early and Often with um founding companies that were doing this work in the childhood development space. And so they reached out to me. And so I just by me putting that energy out there into the universe, I believe, you know, it it allowed it to come to me. Um and by partnering with her, we were meant to be on stage together in March 2020. But of course, that went virtual, right? But um I think just having that ringing endorsement of, you know, here we've partnered to create to really rewire the gut health of a generation to prefer um whole real um vegetables in particular. Um, that made it where it was literally as we launched, we had that partnership. And I think part of the reason they were so aware of us already was because my first advisor I'd brought on was Dariush Mozaffarian, um, the dean of Tufts School of Nutrition and Policy. And we had created an innovation council there, but he was helping me to understand what ingredients baby needed when during each phase of development as we were building that company. So I think when you're building your company from the from the jump to have those uh strategic advisors within different buckets, so like marketing, product, social impact, right? Um, for me, this was food science, right? So depending on your industry, um, I think that they're the ones that have actually always gotten me there, right? And I've done the same thing with my venture capital for my launch now, where we have about a dozen advisors for um each of our verticals that we invest in.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, let's talk about that for a little bit. I mean, you've really you went from ground grassroots research with the with tiny organics and then massive success and partnerships with people like Michelle Obama. And then that then you went, so you exited that company, and now you're now you're helping people with all of the experience and all that you've been through with these companies. It's unbelievable. Can you talk to us about that?

Betsy Fore:

Yes, definitely. And so I think, you know, as you go through the founder journey, and I think just as you go through life, you realize I've built this thing, I've created it out of a deep love and conviction that I had, but I am not the thing, right? I put it into the universe, or I the way I describe it is I I paint the picture on the canvas. Um, and at that point, you know, I allow others to to enjoy it, and I can actually step away, right? If if if that's the thing that's gonna create the greatest ripple of impact, right? And what I what how I believe I could um you know be able to give back in this in this one life. And so for myself, it was remaining on the board of Tiny um whilst going off to develop Natives Rising, the largest community of Native founders and technologists. Our members represent over 100 tribes nationwide. Um, and I'm really, this is the legacy work for me because all the skills that I had learned building companies over the past almost two decades, I wanted to figure out how to use for the good of Indian country and for, you know, to allow access and generational wealth for the very first time within our communities. Um so I did that through starting to invest about six years ago through two different funds, X Factor Ventures, which is part of Flybridge in Boston, where we've backed over 100 female-led uh seed rounds in the nation. Um, there's 23 of us partners that are female Series A and Beyond founders ourselves. So I do my deals with one of our partners, Kate from Maven, who's you know, multi-time unicorn, right? Building that company. Um, the healthcare deals I do are with her, or I'll work with the founders of Figs who have IPO'd, right? Another great partner that we have on board. And it's these incredible women coming around saying, we're gonna fund other women, right? Um and we've actually seen over 3% of every female-led seed round. Um, we sorry, we've backed over 3%. We've seen over 10% of everyone in the nation. So that's also just incredible network access that we have and ability to really help having lived that life as a founder prior. Um, and it allowed me to create a track record where when I moved from New York to Chicago, I joined a firm called Long Jump Ventures, um, where uh we've written the most pre-seed checks and underrepresented founders in the Chicago area. Um, and that's also been just a labor of love, but it's allowed me to have a track record of over 40 deals before I ever launched Velveteen Ventures. Um, and at Velveteen, we're investing in children and planet for the next seven generations. My partner, Karla Brollier and I are the first two Native women to launch our own venture capital fund. Her background is phenomenal. She's a unicorn when it comes to the climate space. She grew up in rural Alaska watching the permafrost melt firsthand, then dedicated her entire um life to fighting climate change. She set up seven climate funds, most recently for Yvon Chinard of Patagonia. Um she built the Purpose Trust and then the Home Planet Fund for him, deploying to indigenous tribes uh worldwide. Um, and so when she came over to join forces, um, we had already worked together previously, building a nonprofit called Native Women Asset Managers. And there's about a dozen of us in uh Canada and the US and just all coming to support one another. But I think when we merged our two worlds that um that are really so intrinsically linked, right? Myself really building in the children's space for so many years and wanting to invest in companies uh that I could really be hands-on and help with in that way. Um, and then of course, we need our children to inherit a thriving planet, right? So that's the idea behind the fund itself. We're not an impact fund, we're a proper venture capital fund because we plan on making massive returns for our LPs and for our community.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

You should be so proud of yourself, and I'm sure your family is extremely proud. Now, for founders from those underrepresented communities, what's one piece of advice that you would give them when they're looking for that investor attention?

Betsy Fore:

Yeah, I think I what I would do earliest days is what I actually went out and did, which is um try to find like-minded communities that can support, even if it's not with dollars initially, you can get access to the networks. Um, and there's so many more that exist now than when I got my start. Um, I think that grants can be a great avenue for founders. And there's always startup pitches happening, it seems like every week, right, across the nation as well. So that's a great way to get out there, get feedback about your pitch, um, you know, and and build out that network. I think um when you don't come from, yeah, the background where you'd have that kind of access to capital, putting yourself out there saying, what do I have to lose? You know, why not me? I think is just having that positive spirit and the reframe around everything that you have to offer to the world will will allow you to approach it from that spirit of reciprocity, that spirit of I have a lot to give here, right? Um and I talk about this um quite a bit in my book because I interview 26 different founders. Some of them have IPO'd, some are unicorns, um, but over half are women and a third are Native American. And I would say majority came from backgrounds where they did not have this access. So their stories are just incredibly inspiring to understand. How do I do that? How did they do that? Right. Um and it's coming out next week, 11/11. So excited. I have a copy right here, one of the very first editions with HarperCollins Business. So yeah, it's been a labor of love over five years in the making, uh, creating this book. So um just such a joy to bring it to life.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

I cannot wait to read it. Now we talked about this before we started recording, um, how important everything that you've been through is just has been now dumped into this book. And I know you talk about um uh your inner why in the book. Can you talk to us what that means?

Betsy Fore:

Yes. So this was the thing that I didn't know what it was called really, but I always knew it was there. It's actually the thread of our values that are weaved into everything that we do in life. Um, so it's a process that I take my founders through that I invest in and that I've taken myself through for years now, where um I studied NLP, um, so became a neurolinguistics uh practitioner. Um, it's it means like rewiring your brain and to get out of the negative loop and into the positive and why something will work versus the opposite. Um, and what I do is apply that art of neuroscience to um the reframe around how can we incorporate our values, right, that are intrinsic to us. Um, I have a list of about 50 values that I um have in the book uh as part of the workshopping. And seven of those are the seven grandfather teachings of my tribe, um, the Anishinaabe as well. Um and so I think you know about things like love, humility, bravery, right? Like how when you when you think about these values um and what you really hold in the highest regard, it's not just about pondering, oh, that's nice to have, right? Yes, we all have values. It's about actually applying them. And the way you do that is through neuroscience and it's through the processes that I share in the book where you you feel and you embody the values. And it's that energy that you live by that then permeates into everything that you do. Um, and so one of my favorite exercises I talk about in the book is anchoring, um, which is so simple and anyone can do it at any moment. It's it's it's putting your thumb and forefinger together and um it takes about three minutes to implement it into your in into your wiring um and then have it fire uh when you need it most. So essentially it's bringing you back to a time when you really embodied whatever you're you're trying to value or feel, right? Is that confidence, is that love, is that um, yeah, is that courage? Um, and to really visualize and take that moment to to remember every detail when you felt courageous, when you felt brave, right? And it can just be one moment. I'm sure there's many, many moments throughout your life, but to be able to just call on that one moment and feel the feeling, because what I learned through the process was that you have to feel it to reveal it. Um, you really have to embody the values, right? That you're that you're saying, these are my highest um, you know, things that I that I hold in my heart and in my life. I think when when you can live within that energy, um, and really the energy of abundance, right, versus scarcity, um, that's when the universe and everything around you just winds up. We all have those founders in our lives or builders or people, right? That it feels like, how is all these are these good things just happening to them and everything's flowing to them? It's that energy that they put onto the world. Like it's so, and when you when you understand it and you see it, it seems so obvious. Um, and yet, you know, within the way that I was raised, and I think many underrepresented founders as well, is trying to take your mindset from a scarcity to an abundance mindset, right? And that's really what the the core of the book is about. Um, so if you're looking for kind of the the spiritual journey meets the nuts and bolts of building a successful business, that's that's um built on purpose. That's the book itself. So um the deep inner why is that through line, but it's really about embodying these values. And I take you through the different processes and really the heart and the healing work to get there.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Okay, I love this. I'm so into this, by the way. And I've seen a lot of videos and I've read books on, but I love how you say incorporate the values. I don't think I've seen that angle, as well as the doing something physical by putting your thumb and your forefinger together. Um, yeah, along with that, I think that's that makes so much sense. And it does. Yeah, it takes you back to a center space.

Betsy Fore:

So Right, right. Because the most important relationship we can have are not with our customers, not with our co-founders, um, not even with our investors, right? It's with ourselves. And so if we can have those moments of, wait a minute, I'm here, right? It's it's about my values, what I'm bringing to the table, and honestly just showing yourself the love and compassion that you so freely give to others, right? I think um that's when you have this sort of unlock because the the where your attention goes, energy flows. So if we're placing our attention on what we do want and the positive outcomes, right, um, that is what we will wind up manifesting or bringing to ourselves, um, as opposed to, you know, kind of the the negative cycle that we've all sort of experienced over the years where it almost feels like it's becoming like a self-fulfilling prophecy, like, oh, these, you know, you can you can you can literally flip it like a switch if every time you try to reframe from the negative loop to um to that abundance or that thing, focusing on that thing that you want, right? And putting your attention there. Um, because really it's about how do you want to feel, right? If you embody that feeling now, you will feel it, you will become that feeling, right? Um, and those values. And so I've seen it happen with myself, with my founders, with the women we work with at our healing retreats through my nonprofit. Um, and it's the work of a lifetime. It's the work that in my mind is is is the most um, it's the most important of all because it's the work, it's the healing work that you do within your own heart and mind, right? To be able to bring your greatest self or your greatest idea and the spirit of abundance to the world, right? To be able to give your gift to others. Yes.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

And so many people achieve the success that you have and beyond, and then they they still don't feel at peace or happy inside. So it definitely does, it starts, starts with you. I love how you said that. So it makes so much sense.

Betsy Fore:

Yes, definitely. No, I think that's true. Actually, when I was growing up, I remember thinking that the people I looked around and I thought they have the most a lot of times were the unhappiest. And I was like, I remember asking my parents about this. Like, why is that? You know, and it didn't make sense to me. But look, they have so much, right? Um, well, they might have had material possessions, but but as we all know, it's like the the heart work, right? That's that's that's true wealth is the calm the calm nervous system.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm curious, do you have any non-negotiables in your daily routine that that you have to do every day? Because I know um sounds like we're both into the, you know, just basically getting our mindset straight, probably especially in the morning. But do you have anything like that that that you have to make sure you get done?

Betsy Fore:

So given my work with Calm over the years and Michael is featured heavily in the book, I do just have to say the 10 minutes of Calm is life-changing. And so, you know, Tamara, who who does the um, you know, the lead leads the meditations there, it's just um so so good and calming and really brings you into that space. But also, I don't necessarily have the 10 minutes every morning. Like, for instance, this morning I had to get all three kids um out the door and everyone's under the age of seven. And so um, I didn't, you know, I that was like not an option to do the 10 minutes of Calm before before we had this um meeting. And so I think even just the one minute of intentional breathing. So the book breathe um is incredible if if you haven't read that, but it's it's it talks about the science of it and why um, and we've known this for years, right? But like with meditation, linking it to breath, um, I think when you can actually breathe deeply, and I talk about breath work within the book, um, it it can, it just resets your nervous system, it just makes you feel yeah, more alive and at ease. Um, and even just giving it that one minute of focused breath, it really does make uh a tremendous difference. Yes.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

I think that's probably a good place to start. What advice would you give to those that might that are, you know, on this, they want to manifest, they want to start living a more peaceful, happy, internal life. Um what advice would you give to those that haven't haven't practiced any of this? I mean, I know you have for a long time, I have a little bit, but getting started might be somebody might not know exactly what to do, obviously meditation, but what what would you say to that?

Betsy Fore:

Yes, I would definitely say looking through your value system, what we talked about before here, um, around what what makes me unique? What is it that I want and what do I value and bring to the world? I think when you can focus on your inner workings first, it's really exciting that journey of like uncovering and discovering because I think those things kind of ebb and flow throughout your life. What you valued when you were 20 might be different, you know, today. Um and so what what are those values and how and how does that um look for you? It's it's it's something that, yeah, it's almost like a new relationship or it's something that's like feels really thrilling, right? To get to to look into. And so I think just even that curiosity around digging deeper in terms of what you want and what you value to start there. And then it's that curiosity that will kind of carry you through saying, okay, let me do the heart coherence work. So when I say that, it's like actually timing your breath um with your heart rate. And there's different monitors that are out there that can help with this, but that's something that can also be a game changer earlier on if you even just look up um where to purchase those, either they're on Amazon and kind of all over, but you can, um, it will let you know if your breathing is in coherence with your heart. And I think it starts with the heart and being heart-centered. Um, because a lot of times, especially as founders or or CEOs or builders, you're you're in your head so much. Um, I I realize I woke up one day and said, I've just lived in my head the past decade, right? Trying to put out these fires for the business, trying to build it in such a way. And it's like you don't want to look up one day and think, like, but but where did it all go? Right? Like we we need to. really focus on what matters, you know, and that is coming back to our values and what we really care and cherish in in our own hearts and minds. And so I think when you can when you can bring it down from the head to the heart, right? Um then then you can really lead with that. And um I would say practically that means some of the things we've talked about already around um the the mindfulness and the breath but really the the heart coherence uh will help center you and then honestly what I would do is just get my hands on any book I could or any podcast right it sounds like you've done as well where you can find some of these um sort of tips and tricks or or other ways to to reset and reframe because I found that life in general is all about the reframe, right? Because every there will be failure there will be so many hard things that happen to us but if we can reframe it that it's actually all working out for our greatest good and really believe that and live with that intention like rejection is protection for instance right um this this mindset of everything is happening for me like when you can when you can embody that energy um you you will just be amazed at the love and the light that can come into your life. And so um really it is about the rewiring it's about the reframe and I hope that I can give the gift of this book to many people to be able to do the work and to understand how to get there.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Yeah so talk to us you said November 11th it comes out okay great great we'll make sure we have all the information here as well uh for people to order the book.

Betsy Fore:

Every major retailer and 1111 is an angel number so I was so thrilled I think it was meant to be that we got this this uh launch date um but we'll be doing yeah yeah we'll be doing events um all around yeah the the nation so um I'm in SF this week LA um and then Miami next week and then of course the launch days in New York um and back here in Chicago so if you look up built on purpose you can probably find some of those events if you're keen to join and um yeah I would just love to be able to to gift this to as many as many founders and builders as possible so that um they can they can begin to do the heart work as well as the the headwork of of the build right um but to really focus on what matters.

Bridget Fitzpatrick:

Well thank you for doing that for us I can't wait to read it very excited so thank you so much for all the time that you've given us and congratulations on your massive success and the new book cannot wait to read it so thank you so much for your time.

Betsy Fore:

Thank you so much.

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