Hi Katie and Sarah, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Work ethics are only productive when you and your team are reading from the same page. If you can’t work within and around your collaborators ethics you may create hostility. At Once Upon a Cocktail, we believe that the foundation of a great team lies in mutual respect for each other’s unique ethos and skill sets. Each team member brings their own expertise to the table, and we celebrate this diversity. We foster an environment where honesty is the policy, questions are encouraged and challenges are embraced.
Katie: My work ethics are not healthy, I will work on your birthday, wedding, and Christmas but I do not expect the same for my team mates. I am aware there are no fine art emergencies, but with Once Upon a Cocktail I personally have everything at stake and on the line. So I will keep pivoting and re-directing until I can get this company into a situation where I can re-evaluate and gain a healthy perspective to work. My ethos is to “go hard or go home!” And as someone who is always between visas in the USA I take that statement to heart. I have immersed myself in the USA and I will do whatever it takes to make something/anything stick to stay here.
Sarah: I never feel as though I’m working enough. It takes somebody else (usually my husband, often my friends) to tell me I’m working all the time for me to get any sense that I’m doing a lot. I try hard to take a bit of time out every day for family, and a day every week for family and friends, but it’s hard during those times to let go of the fear that I’m dropping balls or letting people down. Those fears as well as financial concerns are pretty incredible motivators.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
We created Once Upon a Cocktail – West Hollywood, a recipe book that is a bonanza of history, culture and cocktails, written as a love letter to a city.
It takes you on a journey through the eyes of the creators, community, and friendship all celebrating over a drink recipe from one of the 54 venues represented. Once Upon a Cocktail – West Hollywood is for tourists and locals alike, whether you are a visitor who is looking for a guide of where to go or a resident who wants to reconnect to their city. It has something for everyone!
We soft launched Once Upon a Cocktail with eleven activations in Fall 2023, we sold 70% of the inventory before the book production landed. We creatively maneuvered financials, broke down walls, and never took no for an answer. We made the impossible possible. We picked up some tricks on this journey and believe the only progress you can make is by sharing knowledge and uplifting the people around you.
We’re now working on other types of activations to keep momentum around the book strong. We have cocktail classes coming up, and many more ideas on the table, such as a Once Upon a Cocktail bar crawl and a mixology competition partnering with Tales of the Cocktail. The digital copy of the book is just about ready to be published. We also have some things in the works around growing Once Upon a Cocktail as a brand, including pitching a TV show and taking Once Upon a Cocktail to another city for the second book. Email [email protected] to be added to our newsletter for all of the exciting updates as they happen.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
If you are starting your journey, we believe the three areas to consider developing are, always having your teammates back, the ability to hustle and show flexibility and to enlist the involvement of as many people as you can. Looking back, these were our three superpowers that helped us to create and deliver our book.
You can only improve on these skills by trial and error, there is no magic pill, failing is the best way to learn. Just be the best flexible BOB (Body Opponent Bag) you can be! Get back up and try again. Success is when you can keep standing tall, keep moving forward and be indifferent to the outcome. There is always another pivot and another door to go through! Nothing is finite, only in death.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Katie: Overwhelm is what you feel when you have no control. So I suggest taking control of the small things. Ask yourself what can I achieve and take ownership of. Pick a small thing that is achievable and accomplishment will help dissipate that suffocating feeling. Another thing I do is I sleep, I get those zzz’s in, after you rest it’s amazing what another day’s perspective can bring.
Sarah: I’ve spent most of my professional life feeling overwhelmed! Always wanting to try new things, embrace challenges, and say yes to opportunities results in frequently being in over my head and having to figure out what I’m doing as I go. The anxiety that comes from this used to shut me down, but understanding it better allows me to cope and keep moving forward. Some strategies are around just pushing through. Fake it ‘til you make it often works. Check your body language, you can use it to change the way you feel. spread out your arms and legs to take up space. Steeple your hands. These things make you appear confident even when you aren’t, and then magically you start feeling the confidence. The same with smiling. A smile is a very powerful thing that can both disarm others and make you feel happier. And you don’t have to be around other people to use these strategies, because they will still often work on your own psyche even when you’re in a room by yourself. I also find that spending a bit of time with myself in the morning, working out, eating something healthy, and planning how I’m going to tackle my day is incredibly helpful in putting my head in the right space.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.onceuponacocktail.world/
- Instagram:onceuponacocktail.
world - Youtube: https://youtu.be/AKL5BDaY56s
