Joe Quattrone 00:36
So we’ve got Laura Schmidt on the show today, now me and you sat down with her. And we already pre recorded this podcast interview, to give the audience members a little bit of a flavor of what you think they can come to expect if they invest the next 20 to 30 minutes in the show. What are some of the key topics you think we’ve touched on? Yeah, I

JM Guthrie 00:56
I mean, I think the coolest thing about this interview, Joe, is that it is such a representation of what we’ve been saying throughout where there is not a black and white or a one in zero answer for people that are on the me total walk, right? There are people across the spectrum, there are folks that are drinking less, still maybe a few days a week, there are people who are all the sudden drinking not at all and are trying to get to tomorrow, there’s people everywhere, and then there’s others that have been able to sustain a alcohol free lifestyle for some time and just are good with it. And that’s really where LoRa falls in. And I think it’s a great story, and a great model of just where you can get to as a human being specific to your walk with alcohol free, both due to the inspiration of those around you. And you know, in some cases, just historicals and data points that you kind of want to get away from as you go forward.

Joe Quattrone 01:51
Yeah, I mean, I really loved when she talked about, you know, being able to be consistent and show up for her husband over so many decades. Like he knows what he’s gonna get from her. And she knows what she’s gonna get from him. And I think that’s such an underrated aspect or facet of just relationship management in general. I mean, you know, me and you have talked about various different stages of when we were drinking in the past and how, you know, you can say some things to your partner or your spouse that maybe you don’t mean to say, or you don’t want to say or it could be masking, some sort of accountability you should be taking for your actions. With her at least over the past several decades. She hasn’t had to worry about that. And how refreshing could that be, if you’re on the walk with me total is that you don’t have to worry about, you know, covering up for your crutches like alcohol,

JM Guthrie 02:39
yeah, and just showing up on a day to day basis for all those people in all those relationships and being totally fine with it. You know, I think even I can take in, you can take a little bit from her about just her absolute confidence in who she is and what she’s about. And, you know, it’s not easy to be as obviously authentic and genuine as she is. And, you know, the conviction around the strength of her relationship with her husband and her kids and her family, and obviously, in her workplace. But then on top of it. The entire idea about being completely good with all of her actions. You know, she talked about people that blame alcohol for indecision, or saying shit that they didn’t really mean. Like, that’s another great lesson to continue to learn. We talked about this remembering stuff, being good with how you’re acting, not having excuses, all those sorts of things.

Joe Quattrone 03:35
Yep. So audience members, this podcast is all about words and how important words are. So we hope that you’ll enjoy the episode with Laura. Let’s get into the show. Entrepreneur, mother and positive person Laura Schmidt spent the past 12 years building what her family endearingly calls a sock empire. A business in a brand notes to self is changing the world one positive message at a time.

JM Guthrie 04:05
Sock Empire holla

Joe Quattrone 04:07
Welcome to the fuzzy ish podcast. I’m your host Joe Quattrone and with me today, as always, is JM Guthrie, and we’ve got a special guest today. personal friend and client of mine, Laura Schmidt. Who is the sock Queen of the Midwest? Laura, say hi to everybody.

Laura Schmidt 04:24
Hello.

Joe Quattrone 04:25
I shouldn’t even limit you to the Midwest. This is the sock queen. Queen. At least the sock Queen of the US. Yeah. So Laura, I have to ask knowing that I know where you hail from and our audience doesn’t. There’s a big very big thing brewing in Kansas City right now. I know it’s all the rage in your circles. Tell us about how you’re feeling about big Trav and big Taytay what’s going on in Kansas City right now.

Laura Schmidt 04:53
You know what, we are so excited. So on Sunday. I normally watch the Chiefs game, but I happen to be busy and was in my office in the next room and my husband was watching it. And I heard Taylor Swift and I was like, she’s there. And I couldn’t believe it. And oh my gosh, so exciting and, and then just every place I’ve been since then, everyone is so excited about it. It’s all the people are talking about. We’re so excited that she loves our Kansas City Chiefs, we, you know, hope that she and Travis stay together forever. We are hoping that she comes to our neighborhood and buys a house and oh my gosh, it’s exciting. I even tried to get a little marketing buzz out of it by writing a letter to both of them and sending it out on email and dog by social media just said, if anybody knows either of them, could you forward it to them and you know, just tell them how excited we are. And you know that if Travis wants to buy any chief’s gear for Taylor, I have, you know, Kansas City Chiefs themed, I believe SOX and stuff like that. So it’s been fun. Great.

Joe Quattrone 06:01
Let me rewrite it for the audience real quick. You’re on the fuzziest podcast, we’ve got our guests, Laura Schmidt. She is the owner proprietor CEO of notes to self socks. That is trademarked, go check them out notes to self.com. She’s making some pretty incredible socks. I’m an owner of I’d say about 10 pairs myself, because they’re 100% Cotton made in the USA. This is not gonna be

Laura Schmidt 06:24
100%. But

Joe Quattrone 06:28
they feel 100% cotton. Yeah, so this is not a big deal. We’re not trying to just have a 20 minute ad for notes to sell socks here. But Laura shares something very much in common with me and JM, she’s not a big alcohol consumer. So I felt like she was going to be a right fit for this podcast. But you all in the audience know my feeling. This isn’t just a podcast about being alcohol free or sobriety. It’s about what people do with their temperance, and Laura has built an amazing business. So let’s jump into that a little bit. Laura, I know this was something that didn’t necessarily come to you earlier in your life, you’ve done a handful of things you’ve had, it seems like two or three careers at this point. Now. You started this business about 12 years ago, what was it about, you know what you were doing in corporate America that made you feel like you had to get out there and venture off into your own and do something like this and create this cool company for the world to consume?

Laura Schmidt 07:29
I appreciate you asking Joe. You know, basically, I really feel like everything I did prior to that has led me to what I’m doing right now. I started in the corporate world for eight years in technical roles and outside sales for AT and T and then I started a direct sales business and did that for several decades while I was raising my family. And then I got to a point where I was ready for a challenge. And started I took a couple of outside sales jobs full time in addition to my direct sales business, and was just trying to figure out what I could do next to learn and grow. And I got this idea and my whole life, I’ve used positive affirmations like I am confident on sticky notes on my bathroom mirror to help me with my confidence. And when I read that the subconscious mind is most open early in the morning and late at night. In that half awake half asleep time, when the conscious filters aren’t quite up yet. It hit me. What if I put the positive affirmations on the toes of socks, then twice a day, you’d be training your mind to think better thoughts without even trying? And so that’s my story, but of where this idea came from, but I really feel like everything I did prior to that when I was in direct sales, it was with Mary Kay Cosmetics. And that was a company that was very positive. And I learned so much about positive thinking and training your mind and having an optimistic outlook. So this

JM Guthrie 09:06
little pink Cadillac,

Laura Schmidt 09:08
I did. I drove many pink Cadillacs, you get a new one every two years. So yeah, free cars for many years.

JM Guthrie 09:17
So yeah, yeah. As soon as you said direct sales, I wanted to ask what it was. I’m glad you told us and it’s even cooler that you had many pink Cadillacs super soon.

Joe Quattrone 09:27
So you too can connect quite a bit because JM is probably one of the best salesmen on the east coast as Chief Revenue Officer type but I’M also drives a Cadillac One of them. Okay, well, the big beast Escalade is not paying at all now. Yeah, but I love a Cadillac.

JM Guthrie 09:45
I got to ask you. I mean, I think the affirmation thing is really interesting. And as much as I actually want to go back to whether I think that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is scripted and a bit of a conspiracy. Well, I’ll leave it alone. But we’ll say it’s questionable, it’s questionable to at least, to think that he becomes the spokesperson for one of the vaccine companies, she has this huge movie coming out in two weeks. And all of a sudden, they’re the rage across the entire planet in every channel you can consume. But I hope it’s true love to, for you, and for the rest of Kansas City, and certainly for all the people that are following along. We talk about the subconscious aspect, and you talk about giving yourself that motivation. And putting it out there in the morning and at night. We agree, right, like we talk about that all the time on this show. And I, you know, I think we Joe mentioned that we want we’ve talked about drinking on this show to some degree, and how we have come from being people that consume alcohol to this place of understanding better, and being able to manifest some of the thoughts that obviously you so clearly right on your socks, can you talk about, just generally, the your ability to share those messages with others with clarity of mind, right, so, and I know that your story isn’t quite as, you know, filled with other aspects of life like ours, but I think it just be helpful for our readers to understand just what meaning those thoughts are on a daily basis. But what I’m really trying to say is, I believe I can absorb what you’re saying so differently today than I could two and a half years ago, when I was consumed by when my next drink was. And I’d love to just hear from you, your thoughts on how we can best manifest this thinking in a positive fashion, not only with your socks, but just generally in the way that we work on a daily basis?

Laura Schmidt 11:45
Absolutely. Well, like one of the affirmations that we have one at one of the sock designs says, I’ve got this on the toes, and then competence on the bottom. And first off confidence, I think, is like one of the greatest qualities a person can have. Because if you have confidence, you can be brave, you can be smart, you can be strong. But I also think that the words on our socks are tools to help people with whatever they’re going through. I mean, we have stories about people going through chemotherapy, wearing Armstrong socks to every treatment, if it was somebody that just, you know, decided to not drink alcohol, I could see them, you know, wearing our I am strong socks, or I’ve got this or I am smart, you know, smart enough to know that like, I don’t know, the way I look at it now is that like, my body is a temple and I wouldn’t put something in it that could hurt it. And I want to take the best care of it.

Joe Quattrone 12:51
If you’re trying to play pickleball the next morning, you don’t want to be hungover you can swear your I love pickleball socks the night before when you go out to the bar to remind yourself of how much you don’t want to be hungover while you play. Pickleball

Laura Schmidt 13:03
I can’t imagine I can’t imagine. And thank you for mentioning our I love playing collection by Pickleball is like one of my favorite things right now. And honestly, if somebody is just starting to refrain from alcohol, I think they ought to replace it with pickleball. Because it is like it is the best sport ever. It’s easy to have you guys play pickleball

Joe Quattrone 13:28
I’ve watched it a little bit and I’ve gotten the pickleball racket in my hand. I bet I batted the ball around with a couple of people. I’ve never played an official game though.

JM Guthrie 13:38
Yeah, less times than I would like to have. But I have practiced pickleball a couple of times.

Laura Schmidt 13:44
Did you like it?

JM Guthrie 13:45
I do. I liked it. The kids liked it. A lot of my friends like it, just generally with where life is and all the things going on it. There’s not a lot of time for pickleball at the moment, but I think it’s awesome that it’s something that you can play at every age too.

Laura Schmidt 13:59
So exactly in it. Yeah, there’s something about it too, like you could play against your kids. And it could be a competitive game or even if you were a lot better than them or they were better than you it can be an equal game. And I mean, I’ve talked to so many people that have said Pickleball has changed my life. Because like, we’re all busy. And we may not take time to like to go to coffee with everyone that we would like to go to coffee with, but you’re trying to stay active. So if you could meet for pickleball there’s a little bit of visiting going on with it. I just love it.

Joe Quattrone 14:34
Nice. So, again, for the listeners out there, fuzzee’ish podcast.com Check it out. That’s where you can find all of our socials YouTube Apple podcast, Spotify, Google podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, please go and check us out. Don’t forget to leave us a rating and review. That’s how we know that we’re providing top notch excellent content for all of you to consume. We’re here with Laura Schmidt, owner proprietor, co-founder of notes to sell sock So real quick, because we had some pretty monumental news in the world of the Guthrie family this week. And I think all three of us when we were doing our Show Preview together could kind of relate to this on some level, mainly because we’ve all had, at some point in a generation in our family, someone or a couple or some people that have tried their best to break the generational ties to alcoholism and stuff like that. JM, why don’t you go ahead and dive in and tell us what happened in your family, or what you learned about your family most recently. Because I think in my family, at least, with Barbie and Joey Q, Jr. We had a very similar not quite down the teetotaller route. But my parents definitely, completely cut off alcohol at an early age. I know LoRa cut off alcohol at an early age, trying to, you know, make sure that those cyclical Patterns of Life didn’t infect their future. Tell us a little bit of what happened in the Guthrie family that we found out about. And let’s just have a quick sync on that. Yeah.

JM Guthrie 16:04
And I think Laura I’d love to, I mean, not to go too far into your history, but understanding the sort of you said the body’s a temple, just sort of the origin of your desire to abstain from alcohol. And generally, the path that you’ve been on would be cool to hear as well. And maybe there’s a quick follow up to this. But yeah, so you know, as you guys know, we’ve been on this path now for several weeks around fuzzy ish. And in particular, sort of our mantra of me total, which we’ve talked a lot about how Joe said, Have you ever heard of a teetotaller, and we all kind of talked about, oh, the x’s on the hands and abstain from everything. And, you know, I won’t, you know, take any of those things in my body, those sorts of things. And for some of us, that’s not necessarily the case. And so that’s fine. And our whole thing has been, it’s not zero or one, you know, it’s different for everyone. And I think being inclusive to the whole community is really our entire mantra here and what we’re trying to focus on. But cool enough, a family member of mine who’s had a challenge with alcohol consumption for most of their life, listened to the first couple of podcasts, and was really moved by the idea of me totally, and it resonated with him. And he started to share some details of family history. And it’s actually not even the Guthrie side, it’s my mom’s side. I can Irish Catholic family, multiple generations. And it turns out, my great, great, great, great grandmother, my mother’s great, great, great grandmother. And my mother’s great great grandmother was part of the Women’s Christian Temperance, union WCTU. And, interestingly enough, temperance was another word that Joe, so nicely, helped me to learn as part of this process with me total excellence through temperance, but turns out alcohol was a problem for her as well. And she realized it and became part and actually a leader within a group of women that really stood up for the idea that alcohol was poisoned to some degree. And that abstaining, and really keeping prohibition live forever, was what they set off to achieve. And obviously, that didn’t happen. Four generations later, alcohol is as prevalent in society as it’s ever been. But we, you know, we, Joe and I, when we were talking about it, and carried the reality of the universe sort of coming together, and now finding us in this road of me total, and obviously, all of our collective passion around this idea of creating community where people can feel comfortable to talk about it. And it doesn’t have to be a certain prescription. It really is different for all of us. And I think LoRa having you on today has been really awesome, because I think your story actually is a little bit different than some of the other folks that we’ve talked to, you know, I think this has been a lifelong, or at least most of your life direction, which is awesome. And something that I think the story is really important for us to hear as well.

Joe Quattrone 19:08
You said something in your show notes to us before we brought you on about you and your husband and how refreshing it is that you don’t have to worry about what person he is because he’s never drank so. And for him, he doesn’t have to worry about you being volatile, because there’s any kind of mood swings or mood changes and stuff like that, because he knows what he can get out of you talked to us a little bit about that now that it’s been a decade or two since college and and you’ve been able to do that consistently. And you can be that consistent person for your husband, tell us about how important that is for you.

Laura Schmidt 19:45
Yeah, it is important and I will say that, like alcohol, it affected my life in a really big way. Before you know, like when I lived it at home with my family and in fact when I’m the oldest of six kids. And when Garrett and I got engaged, I was 21 years old. I was 22 when we got married, and my brothers, kind of jokingly, but since they were serious about it, one of my brothers said, I don’t know if I trust him. And it was because he’s the only person they’d ever met that didn’t drink. So, you know, we came from a family with big weddings, and everybody drank. And, you know, it was just part of our culture. My grandfather, my dad’s dad, immigrated here when he was 13. By himself, you know, and grew up not speaking, the language was Croatian. And anyway, it was a big part of our history. So when I met Garrett at que se we were both he was, he was finishing up that school, I was finishing up undergrad, when I met him, and he didn’t drink. It was like, he also was one of the first people I’ve ever met. But it was so refreshing. And I think I said this before, in the notes that I was always drunk, growing up, not in high school, because I played sports, and I didn’t want to get kicked off the team. But in college, I did just because everybody else did. But I was really never comfortable with it. And what I wanted was to fit in, you know, every, I wanted to have something in my hand. So I felt comfortable, you know, but I never liked the bar scene or anything. So. And I will say this too, like, I think for a lot of people where alcohol is part of their world or other people around them. There’s often something I heard, well, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that I was drinking. And like, Boy, that’s a tough thing to hear that, you know, and I my whole business is about words, my tagline is words make all the difference. And, you know, words are powerful. And whether you were drinking or not, you said the words and the words affected the recipient, the same way, whether you are under the influence of alcohol or not. So I just, it’s like, it’s freeing to me. And we mean, I can go to a gathering with people that are drinking and be just as lapped just as much as them and have just as much fun. And I don’t need alcohol.

Joe Quattrone 22:18
Yeah, no, I think that’s pretty powerful. You know, like, you know, we’ve talked about various different iterations with other guests, and even within ourselves where, you know, when you’re going through those struggles, you tend to chalk it up or make excuses for your behavior and what I think, you know, an underlying thing for me, at least I can’t speak for jam, or Carrie, who was our other co host we were missing today is, you know, I can speak pretty intelligently on the fact that I think there’s part of me that was making excuses. And using alcohol as a crutch for why things weren’t happening the way I want them to be one of them too in my life, or why I couldn’t achieve certain things in my life. If you watch previous episodes, you’ll realize that between me and jam and carry, I’m probably on the lighter end of the curve anyway when it comes to the drinking stuff. But I also ran beer portfolios for Gary Vee for years and alcohol was around me every day, I had a beer fridge 40 feet away from me. And it did get a little too comfortable with it. And I remember very vividly having conversations with my wife after you know, casually drinking and being at an unacceptable level of inebriation coming home and being around kids. And, you know, I would always chalk it up to well, I work in beer, I have to be around clients, I need to have something in my hand like I can’t not do this. And I very well could have done it. Like, my clients weren’t going to look at me weird if I decided to abstain from alcohol in their presence. It’s just I was in my own head. I didn’t feel great about saying those types of words to my family. In those moments. I knew I shouldn’t have said those things. I knew it wasn’t about the fact that I had to have an alcoholic drink in my hand. When I was around my clients. I was just making excuses for why I wanted to have an alcoholic drink in my hand.

JM Guthrie 24:12
Yeah, two things you guys said and I think have been really core sort of components of the conversation. One is, there’s just this social acceptance of the fact that you can make a mistake or say something or do something dumb, and then just say I was drinking, it’s all good. And the reality is, it’s not all good. And that is, you know, holding people accountable to their actions. And then ultimately, you know, something else that we talk about all the time is there’s no way to actually find closure and conflict if both people aren’t willing to forgive. And so saying you were drinking isn’t saying you’re forgiving. It’s saying I’m out. I’m out on taking responsibility, which doesn’t work from a pure relationships perspective. The second thing is, and Joe and I have said this a bunch people say I don’t remember. You know, I don’t remember when I was drinking. And the reality is like, in family life in business, you have to remember, and so that’s a BS excuse, it just doesn’t stand up. And I just love LoRa, your willingness to say, I don’t drink, I can still have a great time, I don’t really care what you have to say about it. And I’m going to keep smiling and like you said, have as much fun as anybody else. Without it, that is unique. Not a lot of people say that or feel as strongly or passionately, or with conviction as you do. And so you know, kudos to you, that you feel so comfortable to say so in your own skin. And a lot of the folks that are listening can take some significant, you know, input from that, about the fact that it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter if it’s cool or not cool. It doesn’t matter what society is telling you. It’s how you feel inside. And it’s ultimately the smile on your face and the people that you surround yourself with. So that’s awesome.

Laura Schmidt 25:58
Now, one other thing, like when I think of the time I spent in the corporate world, and you know, outside sales, and like you were talking about Joe, the events where there’s a lot of alcohol, or you’re taking customers out. It’s risky to interact with coworkers or cuss or customers and not be 100%. You know, like, if you’re, if alcohol changes how a person behaves, it lowers your inhibitions on what they will say or share or whatever, like, just business wise. It’s just not smart.

26:38
Right? Yeah. No, it’s not.

JM Guthrie 26:40
What’s your answer for somebody when you’re in a business setting? And you’re out in there drinking? And you’re not? And you’re not? What is your sort of typical answer for the decisions that you’ve made? Or the decision that you did make to be, you know, a non drinker?

Laura Schmidt 26:57
That’s a good question. I mean, I’ll order something like bubbly water or something. Actually, I have a bubbly right here. I, I just, if the question comes up, I just say, No, I don’t. But you know, I don’t mind that you do. Know, and I don’t have anything against it. Just, you know, I just don’t, yeah,

Joe Quattrone 27:16
living your life. Exactly. So I mean, one of these days, we’ll have to work with LoRa and in a different context and get those me total socks printed out so we can distribute them to all of our guests. But LoRa, one thing that does not lower your inhibitions, is that you’ve done some amazing work for charity in the past. I’ve read up on you a little bit, it seems like you’ve donated quite a bit of socks to people in need. Talk to us a little bit about how, you know, being able to think clearly and level headed about your business has led to your decision making around helping people out, and really trying to distribute some of these socks to people in need.

Laura Schmidt 27:54
You know, when I first started, and I got the idea, I thought immediately of people going through challenging times, people that were homeless, you know, and thought, how wonderful would that be if we could share some of our socks with them, you know, to warm their feet on a cold winter night. But also, if it could be words of encouragement that, you know, might be just what they need to take that next step and change their situation, you know, if they’re in a position to do that. So we donate really, to anybody that asks us, like in terms of homeless shelters, our main focus is homeless shelters, women’s shelters, and children in great need. And so far, we donated over 130,000 pairs. Wow.

Joe Quattrone 28:39
And yeah, I mean, alcoholism and drug use is so rampant in the homeless community. So yeah, I mean, maybe some of these positive words of affirmation on socks, can actually make a difference in these people’s lives when they’re, you know, looking at their feet, you know, in the mornings, on the street, struggling to stay warm and stuff like that. So, kudos to you. That sounds amazing. And if people out there want to get in touch with notes to sell for they want to get in touch with you personally, is there a social media handle of choice that you’re interested in pointing people towards?

Laura Schmidt 29:11
Yes, on our website, notes to self.com, we have a contact us form, that’s a great place to start. Instagram and Facebook are notes to self socks. Those would probably be the best places to play around on Twitter a little bit. But just kind of getting started at that.

Joe Quattrone 29:29
Nice. Well, one more segment to go. And then we’ll let you get back to your day. But one of the things that me and JM like to do here on the fuzziest podcast, the kind of sober shows, we like to talk about what’s on our feed. This segment is called Feed heat. And it’s all about those shoes that all of our listeners love that we love. So real quick, I want to ask us all to pull out our shoes and give our audience a look at what’s on our feet today. Starting with our guests, LoRa What are you rocking on the toes?

Laura Schmidt 30:02
Watch? Oh, you’re gonna love this.

Joe Quattrone 30:04
There you oh the Gary Vee Gary Vee old boss. Rolla Gary everybody’s Yeah.

Laura Schmidt 30:11
Yeah. For you know these they say positivity, positivity and optimism all around them

Joe Quattrone 30:18
the OG of affirmations There we go. Yep. I hope you’re listening to this one. Yeah. And

Laura Schmidt 30:25
I’ve got my I love playing pickleball socks on.

Joe Quattrone 30:28
Nice. I’ve got a pair of socks. I had a pair of socks until I just took them off. But I’ve got the faith ones, right. So I have faith. Everybody on the podcast knows me as like the resident pastor of the group and then what I was wearing on the outside of those before it took them

JM Guthrie 30:45
off. Well, you got to be resident pastor, except for my dad. Right? You can except for

Joe Quattrone 30:49
Michael. Wow. We’re talking about the hosts of the show. Jay, hi. Everybody I know in my life, I mean, me and Michael go back and forth on Facebook Messenger all the time. So we know what’s up man in bed like, jam, you have each other. It’s why we get along so well. What’s in your feed jam?

JM Guthrie 31:05
Well, this weekend, there’s a golf tournament called the Ryder Cup in the USA where the European guys play. And so today I am wearing a pair of Air Jordan ones called The USA. It is that red white and blue pool. And I will be rooting for the USA against the Europeans in the Ryder Cup. Say jays,

Joe Quattrone 31:29
USA versus the world. Let’s go to the USA. LoRa it’s been so great to spend a little bit of time with you. I know me and you are going to catch up next week. A multitude of different topics but thanks for stopping by the pod and meeting my good buddy jam and spending a little time with this talk and we really appreciate your time.

Laura Schmidt 31:47
Thanks so much for having me.