Madeleine Zook (00:01.878) Both, it's whatever you feel like.

Bennett Maxwell (00:05.253) go with Madeline. All right, welcome to another episode of the deep with another podcast. I'm super excited to have Madeline. So I got a little hesitant so now the local to show.

Madeleine Zook (00:06.1) Okay.

Madeleine Zook (00:15.082) You got it, you got it.

Madeleine Zook (00:21.11) Thanks for having me, I'm excited to chat.

Bennett Maxwell (00:23.705) How did we initially get connected? I mean, I was on your podcast and I also, can you tell the listeners about your podcast as well?

Madeleine Zook (00:30.77) Yeah, so my podcast is called The Art of Franchise Marketing, where it's very, very franchise focused. You are, I think, referred by many franchisers and our focus is on responsible franchising, keeping it fun and making sure that the owners stay at the primary focus of all of the growth. So we had you on and now I'm here. Finally, finally get to be on yours.

Bennett Maxwell (00:37.286) Thank you.

Bennett Maxwell (00:55.397) Yeah, it has been a lot of back and forth. What is your background? What did you do before getting into franchising and how long have you been in the franchise world?

Madeleine Zook (01:02.946) Sure, so I played semi-professional basketball before the franchise world. So nothing super fun, but enough where when I retired, I was like, oh, I actually need to make some money. Was a marketing exec for a while, did the coffee filling and the picking up the dry cleaning and then took a role.

Bennett Maxwell (01:10.805) Sounds fun.

Madeleine Zook (01:24.562) at a franchise brand at the time was Made Pro. I was there for about a decade. We then grew to 10 plus brands, were acquired by Private Equity, met my husband who was a franchisee there, fast forward all the years and now we own four different brands in the home service space upwards of 30 to 40 units, depending on how you carve up territory.

and then also have worked on the supplier side as a consultant. I have a franchise recruiting firm. We've worked in the digital marketing space. So basically everything and anything franchising, I have somehow managed to put my little claws on. I was like, this is it. I'm leaning in.

Bennett Maxwell (02:06.457) you're not in and you're just like in all the way.

That's what I feel like I'm super new to this. Less than three years, I think, still. We're coming up on three years. But I'm like, I think this is what I'm doing. It doesn't need to be cookies, but franchising is so cool to build a model and then be able to, I guess, share that with other people. You can create so many different jobs and opportunities. And then you have all these little mini partners. Our 60 stores, that would have cost a lot of money to go.

open up but instead we went and found franchise partners and it's uh yeah I've loved it.

Madeleine Zook (02:45.278) And I think it's fun for entrepreneurs because it's, in essence, it seems boring. Like I scaled a system and now I just tell other people what to do and it's simply not that. I mean, there's always a challenge. There's always new growth and you can expand to services. You can expand brands, you can bring on partner, you know, there's just so many options there while always having a tried and true system that's, you know, definitely takes a lot of the risk away and also part of being in the business world is like, you often don't have that.

getting to go into an office and seeing all these people, if you own your own business. And so in franchising, it gives you that piece of community as well. So it's, I think it's the best of both worlds, but I'm also partial. Ha.

Bennett Maxwell (03:25.761) Yeah. Well, go on, rewinding to the basketball. When you stopped doing basketball, was there, was it a hard transition? Because I imagine, I mean, I did sports, I only did it in high school, but I still like, that was my identity. Like I did, it was football. And as soon as football is done, wrestling starting, as soon as wrestling is done, rugby's already started. It was just like, I'm a sports guy, right? And you going to that higher level, I, I'd imagine that there's

Madeleine Zook (03:30.964) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (03:41.378) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (03:55.749) something similar but also to a much larger extent. Did you go through anything like that, like really detaching sports from your identity and how'd you get through it?

Madeleine Zook (04:05.882) Yeah, I still struggle with it. And like, thank God for decently good genetics, because when I retired, I haven't been back in the gym since, obviously to the not great for my health wise, but you know, I was in the weight room in fourth grade, you know, training and I fell in love with basketball and it was, it was my entire identity. I mean, that's why I chose schools. That's why I chose colleges. That's where, you know, my brother remembers most of his childhood being on the

Madeleine Zook (04:35.756) retired, it was a big shock to the system in terms of what my day to day looked like. What was I even, I don't want to say living for, but what was I, what was my purpose? Because it now no longer was team, it no longer was get better for this. It was as much more emotional and subjective.

concepts whirling around rather than just, you know, tournament, get better, get recruited. And so that was tough and it took a while, it took maybe a year or two before I found something else that I loved and thankfully it was marketing and you know, that is something that has stuck with me since I was very little, but it was...

diverting my passion towards something else and also being careful not to hook on what my value is as a person onto something external. Cause the value of who I was hooked on to basketball and once that went away, I felt like nothing. I felt like who am I? I'm no longer like the basketball girl.

what do I do? And so I've been very cautious now of like, even though I love marketing, it's making sure that I'm keeping an identity outside of that. And it's something that I struggle with still. I mean, I have basketballs on my wall and I try to reflect back.

and think that this was something that molded me to be where I am now instead of something that it was a failure at, or I didn't get to keep as part of my identity and people don't know me as Maddie who played basketball anymore and that's okay. That's just a part of the story, but it's tough. It's definitely a tough hump to get over.

Bennett Maxwell (06:18.173) into the purpose, so you mentioned the purpose change, what was the purpose of basketball, what is it now, and how did you find that new purpose?

Madeleine Zook (06:26.282) Yeah, so the purpose with basketball was quite frankly, very cut and dry. I just wanted to be better and I wanted to be the best and I wanted to win. That's something that I still carry with me, but for basketball.

you know, I loved the competition. I loved the sport. I loved the pace. So it was very easy to translate all of the pieces of the basketball and the athletics and the exercise that I loved back to one thing, which was winning games, which meant getting recruited, which meant going to the biggest college. And now it's...

those same kind of morals in terms of wanting to win, wanting to get better, wanting to know and be the best, but instead of it hooked onto winning basketball games.

I have driven my purpose back to being the best at helping. So something that I say is part of my everyday kind of when I decide where I'm going to put my time is I can't be the best version of myself unless I'm helping the next person. So whether that is in a nonprofit that I own or it is helping small business owners find marketing success or helping franchise brands through their private equity acquisitions,

Madeleine Zook (07:41.776) helping someone, helping with a purpose and being able to also quantify that. As little as it might be, it might be like, hey, I handed my nonprofits called Together She Can and we take people's unused toiletries and re-gift them to homeless centers. So it could be as easy as I gifted 10 people shampoo today that they didn't have access to, or it could be, hey, I helped with a multimillion dollar acquisition, but either way I took my...

the things that I'm great at and use them to help someone else. And that's been, that's been really helpful.

Bennett Maxwell (08:18.533) And you said something that really stood out to me on the purpose, not attaching the purpose to something extra. Because man, that's difficult. If my purpose is I'm a professional athlete and then I'm no longer a professional athlete, then it's like, shoot. But you defining it as helping others, that is always useful. Whether or not they view it as help or how much, how they quantify it, it's easy for you to kind of check that personal development or purpose fulfillment and be like, no, I did help.

Madeleine Zook (08:31.416) Yes.

Madeleine Zook (08:43.042) Mm-hmm.

And I think it's hard too because a lot of people just assimilate help with something that you're doing for free or out of the goodness of your heart or you're paying for it. But really help can be what I found and I talked to my husband about this a lot, is like help is anything that you want it to be. So the fact that...

you know, Jesse, my husband was like, okay, well, if you're assisting in like the marketing of a private equity acquisition, he was like, how is that helping anyone? And in my eyes, because for him, he's like, you're just helping make millionaires more money, right? And a lot of times people assume help is helping someone that has less than you or, you know, whatever it may be. And so a lot of times what I coach on is that

For me, it's just using my skills to help someone that doesn't have those. That can be for financial gain. That doesn't mean I'm not helping. That can be for a soul-fulfilling mission. That doesn't mean that it's any worse or better or worse. I think so, I think it's really making sure that you're looking back and being like, making sure that whether it's helping, whether it's whatever you deem your purpose is, it's all tied back to...

your beliefs as a person and not what the external definition of what help may be or giving back. I mean, I think it's all very unique to you as a person.

Bennett Maxwell (10:10.061) what advice would you give to somebody that hasn't done that? Like, was it, for me, when I exited the solar and got into this, like it was like therapy, reading books, asking people for help on, you know, and I like did spreadsheets of core values and then miss a statement. For me, that was like just absolutely game changer. And I did have to like kind of sit down and say, this is what I'm doing. Did you do something similar or was it kind of developed? I mean, how do you go from my purpose is to be the best basketball player to

Madeleine Zook (10:32.183) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (10:39.245) I just want to help people and I want to make sure that purpose is on me and not on external sources.

Madeleine Zook (10:46.482) Yeah, I mean, no, a short answer is no, because I'm very type A and also not too detail-oriented. So for you to be able to sit down and do the core, your mission values, I mean, that's something that I would dream of doing and something that will always be on the to-do list even when the company is 20 years old. So what I do find though is that it's very overwhelming to approach a situation such as finding your life's purpose or starting a business. It's so overwhelming that

it becomes almost an impossible task. And they always say like impossible is nothing, but that's not the truth because when you're in it alone or when it's just you making that decision, it's everything, right? So it's very easy to say.

everything lies on this decision that's just impossible to make. I always say take that first step. So when I created a nonprofit, the first thing I thought was, oh, I'm going to make this little thing. I'm not going to make it a 501, like whatever it is. I just want to help some people. And then people started donating money. So the next step was, oh shit, like I need a bank account. That's legal. Got that. And then they were like, hey, you now need a EIN number. So then the

Madeleine Zook (12:01.2) profit so I don't go to jail. And part of that process was, I can't afford legal fees, how do I do it? Legal Zoom. You know, so it's, you take one step at a time and next thing you know is, you know, we're donating thousands of these gift bags out. And if you had said, okay, Maddie, you're gonna go and you're gonna start this now, go, I would be like, there's no frigging way, that's impossible. But it's that first step that leads you to the next. And of course, I'm a big fan of, you're like, use your network. People have been there, they wanna help you, they wanna give back and there's,

expert in something to do it, but you do have to be all in. You can't always be one foot out the door. It's just something that's going to hold you back financially, time-wise. It's kind of like if you're going swimming and you're like, I really want to go swimming. I'm having a great time, but I'm always going to keep one hand on the ledge. You're not really swimming. You're just kind of holding on. So it's scary, but if you...

Bennett Maxwell (12:53.073) Thank you.

Madeleine Zook (13:00.638) If you can take down the tasks into more bite-sized pieces, it's definitely doable.

Bennett Maxwell (13:05.401) I like that advice a lot. And I think most people, you know, we want to, whether it's true or not, we want to be seen as good people, right? So it's, oh, I want to make more money. And then why? Oh, because once I made it, then I can start helping. And it's like, well, what is making it? Cause I thought I would, I would have made it, you know, I feel like I'd made it years ago and now I'm here. And then I'm like, no, I haven't made it yet until I make the next one. And it's just this endless cycle of more, more. And I relate with you on the

you know, just take the action. It doesn't matter if you know what you're doing or not, just try it, network, figure it out. But specifically on the nonprofit, because that was something that I wanted to do as well and attach to the business. And I mean, we're still raising capital. We still haven't reached profit at the corporate level, but we've also still never turned down the opportunity to donate cookies. We still started a nonprofit under our first wellness centers. And it was just like, I believe if you don't do it now, there's always gonna be a tomorrow.

Madeleine Zook (14:03.395) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (14:04.953) So anyways, with that being said, when did you start the nonprofit and why did you choose that as far as what to help out with?

Madeleine Zook (14:13.378) Yeah, so it's funny because we fell into a really, really great...

sexy niche of helping? I don't know. So basically, when I was on the franchisor side, our home office was in Boston. I live just outside the city, so when I would commute in, I'd always see homeless people every day. Almost sometimes the same people. And I was like, I don't have money to give them every single day, but I feel for them. And so I also had to travel a lot for work, and one day I was cleaning out the apartment, and I was like, what do I do with all these great soaps and shampoos and the lotion your aunt gives you? And you're like, why did you give me this for Christmas? This is not what I wanted.

all that stuff that you just don't throw out. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to package them up and give them to people in need, because at the worst they get mad and they say they don't want it. And at the best, you know, you just gave someone soap to be clean with. So I started doing that and then my friends wanted them. And then the company was like, oh, why don't you just leave a bag of these? So people who are commuting can keep them on them. And it just exploded from there because essentially what it came down to was

I wasn't asking for people's money. I wasn't asking for people's time. I was asking for the stuff that they don't need so that I could then give it to people who needed it. So basically I was like, give me all the stuff you don't need. I'll take all the operational and you can still feel good knowing that it's going to someone in need and it's not your money or your time. So it kind of exploded and rolled from there to...

Today, we probably get two or three email inquiries a day asking for people to, or people asking to donate their toiletries. And just because I have three kids, COVID, all that, I don't think I've touched the website in years. And so like the SEO and the search and all that, it's...

Madeleine Zook (16:01.35) It's there, the demand is there. We have partnerships with Bamba's and Sephora's and Warby Parker and are consistently still donating thousands of gift bags out on a monthly basis.

but it ended up falling into a need that was easy to fill. So I think that that's kind of how it came about. You know, a girl in Boston who was trying to clean out her apartment and then realized, you know, why are we being wasteful? And I'm very good at marketing and I'm terrible at operations. So I made a website, you know, stood up all the Google pages, the social media has got on the news. Next thing you know, I had like the Intercontinental donated like 200,000 mini shampoos and they were all in my garage.

So I was like, operationally, I need help, but marketing-wise, they get it out.

Bennett Maxwell (16:50.622) That's awesome. There's Magnolia soap. Megan, do you know her at all? She has a nonprofit, but I think it's soap and toiletries and things like that as well. That's super cool. Do you use that? And maybe let me give a little bit of a preference. Business sucks. It's hard. It's debilitating. You lose sleep over it.

Madeleine Zook (16:54.214) Yes. Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (17:02.858) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (17:12.384) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (17:15.693) And when that happens for me to go back onto like, well, if I didn't have a business, what would I be doing? Well, I would be trying to spread more joint fulfillment, which is the mission statement. To as many people as possible, and I'd be doing that through mental health and through empowering entrepreneurs. And then I can think, oh wait, I'm already doing that. So like having more to the business than just trying to make money is really what keeps me going. And I wanna, I guess I'm asking you the question, is it something similar? Like, are you able to like,

take a shitty day at work and be like, hey, I'm just gonna focus on the nonprofit take because at least that's working and that makes me feel good. And, you know, I guess going back to something a little more familiar.

Madeleine Zook (17:55.206) Yeah, so I think there's two folds to this question. And it took me a long time and a mentor of mine, whose her name's Andrea, she's a president over at FastSigns. And I was struggling with, you know, it was early on in my career and it's the time of which you never know, do you ask for a raise, do you ask for promotion, what are other people doing? But I have really great work-life balance. And, you know, she said to me, what...

motivates you and it's okay if it's financial. I think a lot of people say boohoo, you're only motivated by money. That's not what life's about. And sure, but also that doesn't mean it can't motivate you. So I was always very financially motivated, mostly because of the freedom that it brought me. But in that case in point, you know, in terms of my career, I was always financially motivated to get to the next level. Not necessarily I want another week of PTO, or I want

you know, the free lunches and the culture get togethers, because that's just not what lit me up. That wasn't, you know, as motivating for me. So realizing that it's okay to be financially motivated in a way that's deeper than just like I wanna make money. It's, you know, what strives me to continue growing in my career was the first step in realizing that. The second step was realizing, you know, I have three kids, seven, five, and one, and I don't know how these stay at home moms or these part-time moms do it. I think it's incredible.

what they have to do and I realized very early on like that's not my strong suit. I cannot watch my kids all day. I wish that I could. I wish there was more of me that could but I always I need to be doing something else outside of the house in order for me to be the best mom and wife. I always thought that maybe it would be just all in our nonprofit.

But then I realized like the entrepreneur side of me wasn't being fulfilled in terms of the financials because it's a non-profit. You know, I don't pull a salary from that. It all goes into the business. So I have found that to your point, it definitely is a balance in terms of the fulfillment side and understanding where my strengths lie and mentally what keeps me out of balance. It can't all be private equity, making millionaires bigger millionaires. It can't all be

Madeleine Zook (20:13.808) balance of a little bit of entrepreneur stuff, a little bit of high level, maybe small business, and of course, of course the nonprofit. And then you can sit back and say, what a really shitty couple of meetings in Atlanta. Like I'm just focusing on these nonprofits. I'm going back to this and remembering, you know, what really fulfills me here, this makes me happy. And then the same thing, you know, could be said on the nonprofit side. I've had some pretty terrible run-ins with, as you can imagine, like the homeless community

where you're like, I need to take a step back. And I think the biggest thing that I've realized is having the avenues to take steps back has been beneficial overall. I'm not saying like your business has to be multi-businesses or multifaceted, but to your point, it's definitely helped having different sectors of the business.

Bennett Maxwell (21:03.17) Mm-hmm.

Madeleine Zook (21:05.258) Because at the end of the day, we're doing this 40 hours a day, all day, every day. It's kind of like basketball. You're not only focusing on dribbling. You're not only focusing on passing. The more you can kind of keep it well-rounded as a human as possible, I think that's gonna what benefits yourself, your mental, and then also helping kind of sharpen where you wanna go. So that's my long-winded answer. I'm very long-winded.

Bennett Maxwell (21:33.273) I think doing door-to-door sales, the key between really good and average or not so good, I think was just your emotional intelligence. I would define it as you can't let your highs be that high, you can't let your lows be that low. It's very challenging because every day you start at zero. Sometimes you start at negative. You're like, I sold a solar deal yesterday, and they called me this morning and they canceled, so I'm negative 10 grams. That's a shitty way to feel. It's really regulating.

Madeleine Zook (21:47.491) Mm-hmm.

Madeleine Zook (21:58.167) I'm sorry.

Bennett Maxwell (22:02.701) your emotions so you can be in a good state to go make the next sell. I do think that's the same thing with business. If you're focusing on different aspects of the business, sometimes your marketing is going to be doing great and you kind of lean on that even though the bank account doesn't have enough money or something. So to ride the different highs and lows so you can find some sort of middle ground.

Madeleine Zook (22:07.342) Sure.

Madeleine Zook (22:22.734) Sure.

Madeleine Zook (22:28.974) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (22:30.073) just for the mental stability, because it's so up and down. Well, at least my business is. At least everything I've ever done is. It's all it's.

Madeleine Zook (22:36.236) Literally, yeah, well, and I'm the same. And like, it's funny because my dad is full Korean, my mom is full Irish, so like.

I would say like, I have a temper and I can drink. So like all my emotions are always high, high and low, low. And my husband is just like literally a like linear line, like barely goes up or down. And I'm just like, he always has to bring me back to the middle of like, this isn't the worst day of your life. This isn't the best day of your life. Like it always falls somewhere in the gray area and reminding myself that business and life is not black and white is very difficult for someone as type A as me. But also it's comforting to know

There's never really a wrong, wrong or right, right. It just, there's too many factors that influence your story and your business success.

Bennett Maxwell (23:22.397) talking the worst day. You don't have to tell us your worst day or but just think one of the worst things that were time periods you know in basketball franchising mom wife whatever if you could speak a little bit to that how did you pull out from that and then looking back what we're able to learn because that's something like we know that in the most difficult times we always learn the most but during the most difficult times it's hard to tell yourself that

Wait, I'm supposed to be grateful for this? I'm not grateful at all. So anyways, that's the question.

Madeleine Zook (23:53.603) There you go. So.

With the one year old, I had a very, very difficult pregnancy. I had the hyper emesis where I was vomiting three times a day. I then got gestational diabetes and then I had hypertension which turned to preeclampsia, which turned to eclampsia and ended up in the hospital for two weeks and then delivering two months early. So you can imagine the seven months of that while having two young kids at home, a whole bunch of franchises and still trying desperately not to

to get fired from my full-time job was very trying. And it was, I am the driver of everything in my life. Like I can't even sit still when I'm watching a movie because I need something to do with my hands. So you can imagine being that sick for that long.

It took a toll not only on my body and on my mental, but on my family. I mean, every aspect you can imagine, it played a toll on to the point where it was almost like, everyone's like, once you have your baby, you'll see it's all worth it. Like there were times where I was questioning it because I was just so sick. I'm like.

I can't imagine being happy or holding this child and feeling good because I was so sick for so... It's like basically having the flu for seven months straight on the worst day of the flu. And that's something that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Thankfully, when my daughter was born, she was great. She was just small and I was okay, which is...

Madeleine Zook (25:24.602) a blessing and something that not everyone gets to have. So we're certainly thankful there. But I think one of the biggest things that got me through was being able to ask for and receive help. It's very difficult to do that. No matter who you are, you always feel like you're putting someone out of their place. Do you pay them their time? And I'm very cognizant of people's time and finances. And...

to feel like I was putting someone out or be accepting help was difficult. But until I realized like people want to help and you have to let them, not letting them doesn't just hurt you, but it hurts them too. Like they want to be involved and help you somehow. So that was the biggest thing. The franchising community, I mean, I'll tell you, Bennett, like there was...

10, 20 people I have never met in my life, but found out that I was in the NICU and they sent diapers and they sent DoorDash gift cards. And like, I've never met you in my life. And you just know that like someone in the franchising community needs help. And learning to just also just say thank you was hard and understanding that like that's enough. So I think the biggest thing for me was understanding like you can lean on people, they will be there for you. And...

You can ask for help and you can receive help and it's enough. You don't have to reciprocate. You can just thank them. And that was...

overcoming that so then now that I'm you know back to full speed and having learned that it's been it's been really great in understanding how when I need help how to approach that and also as I'm helping others how to approach that situation as well um because it is it's a very we're humans that are meant to self sustain and survive so asking for help is not always natural

Bennett Maxwell (27:15.421) And we treat other people very differently than how we treat ourselves in the sense of, no, I want to help you. I don't want you to offer to pay me. Like, I'm just wanting like, shut up, let me do it. But when somebody tries to do it to you, you're that annoying a-hole. And you're just like, come on. And then the other thing that's to you said that thank you rather than, oh, thank you so much. I promise I'm back on my feet. I'm going to repay it. Where it's like, no, just thank you, accept it, shut up. And if it, you know, pay back if you want to or not. But

Madeleine Zook (27:30.732) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (27:40.991) Yeah.

Bennett Maxwell (27:43.417) I think both of those are super, super good lessons for anybody. And when you get a compliment, and a lot of people, myself included, I don't feel like I do this so much anymore. It's, oh, no, no. You know, oh, it was this and then you kind of brush off rather than just be like, thank you. Like I did try hard, you know, thank you. That's kind of it. I appreciate you acknowledging it. It's a better reaction for me. It's a better interaction for them, you know, and it's anyway, it was kind of a hard little hump.

Madeleine Zook (28:00.03) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (28:05.389) Hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (28:12.761) to jump over, but I do think that's way better for all parties. And trusting that the other party is an adult, you know, like they're not gonna give you something and want something back without telling you to. And if they do, then screw them. Like they need to communicate if they want something back or sorry, and kind of just trusting that like we would treat ourselves, because that's how we wanna be treated. I wanna give you something, and I just want you to receive it and be grateful, so that way I get to feel good about it. Don't ruin it. So.

Madeleine Zook (28:22.046) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (28:26.642) Right.

Madeleine Zook (28:32.213) Yes.

Madeleine Zook (28:41.91) Exactly.

Bennett Maxwell (28:42.385) Anyways, I like, what were the things that you did during that? I mean, that sounds like hell. Seven months, I hate throwing up once. Can't imagine multiple times a day, months.

Madeleine Zook (28:48.403) It was.

Madeleine Zook (28:51.982) I'm talking like, I couldn't brush my teeth. You even like barely lean over, it's game over. Like I basically had to just be sitting still at all times. Yeah.

Bennett Maxwell (29:02.673) which she asked for somebody of you. I should say our personality, man, yeah, you can't, you're like, I can't watch TV. I'm playing games on my phone while I'm watching TV just.

Madeleine Zook (29:07.361) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (29:12.286) Oh yeah, I cannot. I've tried like making necklaces, scrapbooking, and I just, my husband's like, can you just watch the movie? I was like, I'm trying. I can't do it.

Bennett Maxwell (29:22.074) I understand that. So how the hell did you get through it? Were there any actionable items that you did on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to help you get through that?

Madeleine Zook (29:32.774) Yeah, so, you know, when you're that sick and...

you're pregnant, which is a whole other just isolated, like, whole what is happening here. I definitely went to people that have been or were in my shoes. So I joined a lot of the communities or the, you know, connected through doctors and other people going through it because I realized that it was going to take me a lot longer. And also I didn't have the room to make the wrong decisions, right? This is not only my life now, it's my baby's as well. So I reached out

people that were in my shoes for help and something that I carry on today. If I don't know something about an FDD, I'm not gonna try and figure it out. Like, let me ask someone who's been there for most things, I would say. And after that, you know, one of the biggest takeaways I found was...

a lot of women were comparing themselves to how they think they should be when they're pregnant, what they see others doing versus what they're... And they were like, just set one reasonable goal for yourself. And literally that could be to get up and shower.

And if you do that, you did that, you're accomplished. You don't have to put all the laundry away. You don't have to wash all the dishes. You don't have to take all the meetings. Have reset the expectations so that you don't constantly feel like you're failing. And that was a big mindset switch. Because if I felt like I could accomplish two things, I changed the bed sheet on one of my kids bunk beds, then I'm crushing it instead of like, hey, you didn't do the normal 20,000 things that you do. So that was super helpful in being able

Madeleine Zook (31:08.648) to do that. And honestly, one of the things that came down to two was honing my communication skills so that it wasn't always to your point, like, I'll do the, if you let me do this, then I'll do this tenfold. It was being very clear with my employer, like I am very ill. Here is what my capacity is.

let's try and work together. And if it's not, we need to find another plan of action. Because if I think if it's just always feeling like you're a burden and you'll make it up later or you'll do something else, it's not helping anyone. So being able to hone in on those communication skills with NetSertive, the company I work for, was super helpful in that they were there. They knew.

exactly what they needed to know to be the most supportive employer possible. And that's hard. It's very hard to be vulnerable with someone who has your livelihood in their hands. But I felt that in the beginning, it wasn't that way, and I was trying to kind of mask it, and it wasn't helping anyone. So as much as you think that you're trying to maybe protect your employer, protect your family, you need to do what's right for yourself first, and then everyone else will come after.

Bennett Maxwell (32:18.877) Oh yeah, big... I'm in huge agreement with that. Like, be selfish so you can be selfless. Like, take care of yourself so you're in that mindset, in that mental capacity. I really like that you went and found other help as well. I mean, I see the same thing. I mean, mom being the hardest thing in the world. I'm in Turkey with my buddy and he's got twins.

Madeleine Zook (32:26.114) Exactly.

Bennett Maxwell (32:44.957) I have three kids and after we get done FaceTiming, I was like, would you ever trade your wife? She said never. Like, our wives are a thousand times harder than us and they just freaking do it. Moms don't get breaks. So leaning on other people and also, I mean, whether it's business or whether it's being a mom or whatever, everybody feels like everybody else is up here, but yet they're there. And then if you just really were vulnerable and you realize that everybody's down right here, then that's okay.

Madeleine Zook (32:50.488) Thank you.

Madeleine Zook (32:59.141) Mm.

Madeleine Zook (33:14.464) Mm-hmm.

Bennett Maxwell (33:14.469) There's no need to think that we have to be at that high level. So anyways, I appreciate you sharing that. Do you feel like that being one of the hardest times of your life, do you feel like you also, is it correlated with one of the highest learning experiences of your life too? Do you feel like that's a pretty big correlation that you don't learn as much during the easy times and the harder it is, the stronger you become, relatively speaking?

Madeleine Zook (33:19.224) Yeah, of course.

Madeleine Zook (33:38.222) I think, yeah, I think that that's true in overall, right? You learn more from the hardest times, you have the fondest memories from the best times. But I think that

the realizations and the ways that you're able to tactically implement what you've learned to get to those fondest memories come in the gray area. They come after the hard part is over, things have settled down, you're more, I guess you found more stability in whatever it may be. And now you're saying, well, I never want to get back there. I remember having a great thing before

Madeleine Zook (34:21.42) I take what I've learned, fix what may have broke or ebbs and flows, whatever, but fix it so that I don't have to go through that again. Or if I do go through that, I'm in a better place. So I think again, yeah, it usually, kind of after the hurricane, the morning after, there's still a lot to clean up, there's still a lot to grow from. It's certainly not going to go from the worst day of your life to the best day of your life, in most aspects, I would assume.

But yeah, it's kind of making sure that you're implementing and those realizations come in those quiet moments in between. And that's kind of what I've learned to appreciate. I think one of the biggest things that I've learned this year is from Mary Thompson, who is the COO over at Neighborly. And she said,

Look, I don't strive for work-life balance. I strive for work-life harmony because some days it's all work and no family. Some days it's all family and no work. It's impossible for it to ever be a 50-50. And if you try that way, someone else once said, you're always gonna feel like you're failing on the other side if you try for 50, even if it's 49-51, you're still gonna be like, that's not it. But what she taught me was...

there's gonna be moments where it's just so loud, you cannot even hear. And then there's gonna be those quiet moments. And it's the song that brings those harmonies together and it's taking a step back and listening to it as a whole or appreciating the quiet moments and then appreciating the loud moments for what they are and knowing that this is all part of the song and dance. This is not a calculator balance 50-50, this is kind of a marathon song. And that's helped greatly

of realizing that I'm not failing one way or another. It's just a really, this is a really loud moment. And there will be times when it's really quiet. And there'll be times where I miss the loud and there'll be times when I miss the quiet. So trying to take that approach and appreciating every moment of life for what it is, even when you've got two screaming kids and a pizza that's burning in the oven. Like there'll be days that I miss that, I'm sure.

Bennett Maxwell (36:31.041) Yeah. And that's, I do a meditation app called waking up the guys at Paris. And I did this maybe two nights ago. My wife's putting my two year old to bed reading a story. And he's like making all the faces of all the different animals and just, and I'm recording them and I'm going through this activity and it's, you know, you can want, you have the gap between where you're at and what you want. That's going to make you happier. Two ways to bridge that gap. Go get what you want.

but that's typically a failing method because then you just want more and you're always like that. Or want what you already have. In order to do that, you can imagine what it'd be like in the future to come back into this moment. Or if you just never had this moment. So I'm like, recording my son, literally crying and growing up and just crying for no reason. And I'm imagining if my son died and that how much I would, so it's like, I'm.

Madeleine Zook (37:04.585) Mm-hmm.

Madeleine Zook (37:18.659) Yeah.

Bennett Maxwell (37:27.573) overcome with these like gut-wrenching emotions of like, man, that'd be terrible, but also an immense amount of pretty much unlimited gratitude of like, wow, at least I have this, like I'm here in this moment.

Madeleine Zook (37:37.196) Yeah.

And it's crazy because I've never heard someone else do that. And I'm sure it's a thing. But, you know, and you look back on pictures of your kids when they were babies and you're like, oh, if I could just squeeze them now. And so I or back then, so I try to play that into like in five months, I'm going to look back at my one year old and be like, oh, if I could just squeeze her this little and I'm like, I have you right now, like trying to appreciate that. But it's yeah, it's very emotional.

Bennett Maxwell (38:01.253) What about the changing diapers? Anytime there's a poopy diaper and my son keeps track, daddy's tears start to come. What do you mean it's mine? All right, you don't know, I changed last, but I tell myself, because this is our third kid, we're not punting on it. I mean, third kid.

Madeleine Zook (38:06.505) Oh, was it?

I'm sorry.

Madeleine Zook (38:13.574) Oh, listen, the third kid, it gets ya.

Bennett Maxwell (38:15.973) I don't know how many more diapers I have left to change. So going to like, I don't want to change a poopy diaper to like, this could be one of the last times. And I know I will look back and miss changing my son's poopy diaper. I know that's gonna happen because I freaking love my kid. So that perspective, and then also if I heard you correctly, a lot of it was that expectation, you know, it is letting go of all of these expectations of control and it has to be this way or that way and just more going with the flow and et cetera. So anyway.

Madeleine Zook (38:18.958) Mm-hmm.

Madeleine Zook (38:24.578) Sure.

Madeleine Zook (38:32.116) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (38:36.782) Mm-hmm.

Madeleine Zook (38:45.228) Yeah.

Bennett Maxwell (38:45.985) Love that, appreciate you sharing that. Last question for you, Madeline, what is the legacy that you want to leave behind when you're gone?

Madeleine Zook (38:47.614) Yeah.

Madeleine Zook (38:54.658) So I think overall, I'm not a big legend legacy person. I think that there's just, unless you are.

Taylor Swift at this point, it's pretty, pretty highly competitive. So I guess for me, like if someone wanted to look back and say, what do we wanna remember her for? It was just always helping others, you know, being her best self to make other people their best self. I would say in terms of once my memory is long gone, the idea that I was able to help create systems and processes that furthered whatever it may be, marketing, parenting, whatever it is.

is being able to have a very minute percentage of responsibility that helped get us forward. And then I would say, you know, what's more, most, what I'm able to wrap my head around most is in franchising and.

there's a good chance that between the four brands and three kids that one or if not all of them will be in franchising at some point. Between my husband and I, we eat, sleep and breathe it, their answer in it, their godparents, everything. So I always say that I wanna leave franchising better than I came into it. And so that helps drive me every day because if we can still...

If we have the chance now to mold franchising for the better, as Aaron Harper always says, responsible franchising, if we can functionally come together and do that, there are generation or our kids generation of franchising is going to be just epic. And I would love to see them thrive in that.

Bennett Maxwell (40:43.685) I love that, that's awesome. Well, Madeline, I appreciate you jumping on the show. Where can listeners connect with you?

Madeleine Zook (40:50.086) Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Madeline Zuck, Z-O-O-K, or you can check out my podcast, which is The art of franchise marketing. Yeah, I'm happy to connect and love talking to people, as you can tell.

Bennett Maxwell (41:04.573) We won 1000 people after we lost. So, thanks for your great presentation. Appreciate it. Thanks, Madeline.

Madeleine Zook (41:06.638) I'm sorry.

Madeleine Zook (41:10.754) Thanks so much.