Meet Amanda Jorgensen

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Jorgensen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Resilience has been the heart of what has kept our business alive, our marriage healthy, and our hope for an optimistic future. Our business was born out of grief, and it would have been easy to allow our tragedy to keep us paralyzed. In 2022, Amanda experienced a near death ectopic pregnancy after running a Ragnar race while her fallopian tube was rupturing, and she thought it to be a UTI. Returning to work the next week, she was rushed into emergency surgery where she almost bled out before reaching the operating table. No one would have thought twice if she took a moment to grieve, allowed herself to unravel. But she had two girls that were counting on her and her multiple jobs as a single mother to provide. At the time, Brad and Amanda were only dating for a few months, and practically strangers. However, Brad stayed by her side while she recovered, provided for her in her loss of income, and gave her a place to grieve. Amanda again, was set back from pursuing her career as a firefighter after disclosing the the fire department she was in an interview process with about her recent surgery. When she wasn’t accepted to proceed to academy, had all of her usual coping methods of CrossFit, running, and fitness in general stripped away, she needed to do SOMETHING to manage the grief and post partum depression that followed her pregnancy. So she started to bake cookies for her friend who was also recovering from an ACL tear. It was there that she had the idea to bake cookies for the holidays and offer them to the Crossfit community, and Brad was right in tow. Still unable to lift even the stand mixer, Brad began finding ways to help. He managed inventory, made spreadsheets to help her keep track of orders, and when the opportunity came through his friend at work inviting us to a mini farmers market, he was the one to research the Cottage laws and keep us in code. His belief and willingness to promote Amanda’s product was what started this business. But the resilience didn’t stop there. We went from home kitchen to ghost kitchen with nothing but equity from a house he sold, and high hopes. Only for us to learn the biggest lessons about business and resiliency, to pivot. We pivoted out of the ghost kitchen, into a shared kitchen, and now have a distribution network that is slowly, but steadily growing. However none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for the resiliency Amanda and Brad both brought into their relationship stemming from their upbringing. At a young age, Brad experienced homelessness and was in the foster care system before his Aunt was able to provide him stability. He later joined the military where he faced numerous near death experiences. Upon discharge Brad experienced severe PTSD and still experiences symptoms of his TBI. He’s survived a heart attack at 26, and was able to provide stability to his two kids through his divorce. Amanda, brought her share of resiliency to the relationship and business through her childhood as well. At a young age her mother was taken into custody by the Arizona State Hospital, and held there, diagnosed seriously mentally ill (SMI), and wasn’t released until her later teens years. The years leading up to her mother taken into custody were full of her mother in and out of the home strung out on drugs, while her father, did the best he could to create stability for her older brother and younger sister, and lost himself in his work. She’s endured her fair share of religious, physical and sexual abuse. Was married by the church at 18, had her first baby at 18, and left shortly after her second at 25. She has fought as a single mother with no job skills, no income, and no community behind her. Both Brad and Amanda have been able to bring their resiliency to their relationship and business, and have confidence that they will be able to bring comfort to their community of schemers, one protein cookie at a time.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

We are focused on weaving in philanthropy into our business model. We are currently hosting a virtual 5k Fundraiser for the Wildland Firefighters Foundation (WFF) the weekend of May 23-25. Our goal is to do an annual fundraiser to help nonprofits we care about, and eventually would love to build a nonprofit specific to domestic violence and helping women (and men, cause they are victims too) into homeownership after walking away from their abusers. This is a cause Amanda is passionate about and would love to help at least one person make a smoother transition into pouring back into their community by providing them resources along their healing journey, and helping them break the cycle of abuse. In addition we are passionate about helping veterans integrate into society after leaving the service, and would love to build out or be involved in a program that does that as well in the future.

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?

Accountability: So much of business ownership relies on accountability, as well as success. To be able to look at a failure, a wrong hire, etc. and hold yourself accountable by asking what role you played in it, is a HUGE skill that will ultimately place power back into your courthouse to make the changes need to succeed. A lot of the victim mindset boils down to not taking accountability and will absolutely kill growth.

Learning what your value is. Learning how to price yourself, your services, or your product based on actual data on what it’s costing to provide the service/product/etc. A simple cost of goods broken down between cost of supplies, overhead and time provided is absolutely necessary.

Baking. When Amanda started this company, she had no professional culinary training. She had taken a culinary arts class in high school, and was always in the kitchen baking during her first marriage, but other than that, she’d only seen her Nana and Mom in the kitchen baking a handful of times. Baking had been a love language for Amanda’s Dad’s Mom, and for her Mother when she was healthy. It was through her fixation of her cookies for nothing other than not to fall apart in the midst of the lowest lows of her adulthood. She’d spend her afternoons baking the orders that came in, and find herself grieving on the floor. When she’d pull a batch out, if it wasn’t to her satisfaction, she’d tweak the recipe again and again and again. Through doing this she learned exactly how ingredients talked to each other. She learned through every “not quite right” batch, exactly what she needed to change for them to be perfect in her eyes. This process led her to an understanding of baking that carried over to more than just cookies.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

We are always open to collaboration! We are always looking for accounts that are interested in our wholesale programs who would be willing to try our 90 day risk free program where we only charge for cookies sold. We are also open to a business partner with the right skill and motivation to get behind our vision and help us continue to scale.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theschemingcookie.com
• Instagram: theschemingcookie