We were lucky to catch up with Lillian Reyes recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lillian, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
This is an interesting question because “resilience” generally means adaptive to change, and a lot of people–my husband included–would say I’m resistant to change. However, I view “resilience” as “the ability to move forward” despite all else.
For example, my husband and I lived apart for 5 years. He living in Ohio and later North Carolina for work, and I stayed, with our small child, in our home state. People thought I was crazy to stay “on my own” and not move with my husband, which tends to be the expectation. Granted, I did have amazing help! During this time, I was working full time, and in law school and my best friend helped me out so much by picking up my son from school and taking care of him like one of her own, so that o could continue as long as I could. It wasn’t in the stars for me to finish law school at that time (completed my 1L year), but the fact that she and her family did that for me allowed me to move forward with a goal. Resilience.
After that season ended, I went back full throttle to my day job (financial analyst in a fortune 500 company), added the role of PTO President to my resume, and happily found out we were expecting our second child. All of that–the desire to be present in my children’s lives and make sure they didn’t feel my husband’s absence too deeply–forced me to do whatever it took to keep their lives grounded and “normal.” People told me all the time “I don’t know how you do it” and the answer was always “I have to. I have to keep moving forward.” Resilience.
Fast forward to 2019 and my husband was able to move back home, and just as we were transitioning to our new normal with having him around…COVID. And once again, we had to pivot how we do things. We had to move forward. In full transparency, my “move forward” looked very different from others. My family stayed indoors and used that as an opportunity to do more things together. We played more bored games. We watched more movies. We did more crafts. We cooked and…..we baked.
In March of 2020, I decided that I would turn this “free time” that Covid imposed on us all to learn something I had always wanted to learn: decorated cookies. I have always baked and have always loved it, but decorated cookies wasn’t something I’d ever really done. So, I dove in head first. Make lemonade, right? I took tons of virtual cookie classes, read tons of blogs, and of course, like many, enrolled on YouTube University (haha)! It turned out….I’m not that bad and…I really enjoyed it. I used that hobby as a learning opportunity, and found it sparked a passion. In the shadow of the gloom that was over us all, I found something (other the the blessing of my family’s health and safety) to be happy about! I found a way to move forward. Resilience
Two years later, my husband and I started our Cottage Food Home Bakery. And while I still work full time, and put the kids first, baking for others brings so much joy and mental break from the rigors that we all feel from working full time. It was my way of moving forward onto new opportunities. Resilience.
The bottom line is that we always have to keep moving forward; always have to look ahead for our sake individually, but also for our families. We have to be resilient. It’s that innate need to keep it moving, to keep progressing, that drives my resilience. Whether it’s to keep moving forward in my day career, or to continually improve my confectionary skills and offerings to my clients, it’s important for me to always demonstrate resilience, resolve, and ability to pivot to show my children (and prove to myself) that we can overcome anything!
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
By day, I’ve been in the world of Finance and Accounting for basically all of my career. I’ve worked my way up from various roles within that arena, and most recently have been in the role of Payroll Manager over the Americas region for a technology company.
Then in 2021, Lilly’s Sweets and Treats officially launched with our 12 Days of Christmas Holiday Cookie Advent calendar. This hobby turned side hustle has provided so many challenges but so much satisfaction! Despite having an MBA in Global Management, starting your own business, even one from home, is so eye opening! It’s been so fun! And I have the best partner in life and business with my husband! This business was actually his idea and he’s supported me the entire way! He’s my fulfillment guy, my delivery guy, my shipping guy, my pricing and labeling guy! He also can talk me down from the ledge when I’m just at my wits end!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Passion! You have to love what you doing, especially in job like baking for others. You’re literally a part of so many special events and life milestones!
Drive! There are going to be such hard times against such successful rewarding ones. Clients are relying on you and your expertise and they’re paying you for a service; they’re putting all their trust in you to enhance their event!
Resilience! I know we just spoke a lot about that, but you HAVE to be resilient in this business. You’re going to have a lot of highs, but sometimes those lows can really hit hard. You can’t let it get in your head. While it’s cliche, you have to dust yourself off and try again. A miss is an opportunity to learn, grow, and apply the knowledge. There’s a reason they say knowledge is power!!!
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
I’m going to answer this question in terms of my baking business. My husband, Richard, has been my biggest supporter. He was the one who encouraged me to pursue this passion. He’s told me for YEARS to believe that I have talent and could go somewhere with my baking. Well just forget the fact that he also said he couldn’t keep eating all the treats I was making for fun!
He has been so supportive and encouraging! When I am down on myself or something is going wrong, he lets me vent, but is the voice of calm and asks “how can we fix this” or “how would you advise someone in your shoes to fix a similar issue?” One of his favorite lines is “what would your cookie people say?”
This brings me to how I build and develop the skills I do have. I belong to an amazing community of bakers who place importance on community over competition. We cheer, support, encourage, commiserate, celebrate, empathize, collaborate. Our group is the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group (and the spin off membership group The Cookie College) and this is a safe place to ask questions, receive tips, learn and share with each other. This group is just phenomenal and the amount of knowledge that is freely shared is immeasurable! The group is led by a Twin Sister team of Marketers Extraordinaire! And they share information on everything from learning to build your SEO presence to photography staging, to client responses.
Between the support from my husband and from this group of incredibly talented people, I sometimes feel I’m standing 10 feet tall!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shop.castiron.me/lillys-sweets-and-treats
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmoms?utm_source=qr&igshid=MThlNWY1MzQwNA==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lillyssweetsandtreats?mibextid=ZbWKwL
