“I Have No Idea What I’m Doing”

Good day Beartarians! Wiscobear here to share a little of my story.

I don’t often sit down and think about how I ended up where I am, but when I did to write this article I couldn’t stop smiling at how obvious it is that God’s been leading this whole journey. In the moment it never really felt like it. I often fought with God and tried on multiple occasions to walk away from this path. Spoiler alert: I eventually gave up and decided to trust him. My life motto that I’ve acquired over these last few years is “I have no idea what I’m doing”. I want to brand that and slap it on business cards and t-shirts…. it’s funny because it’s true. But something I’ve come to discover is that you don’t really need to know because God’s in control anyway. My parents and I own a tea shop in a small Wisconsin college town known as Ripon. We’ve been at it for 4 years. But this story is about my journey to becoming a kombucha brewer and it starts about 2 years ago…

There’s SO MUCH that has happened that I want to share with you all, and maybe in the future I will. But I think for now I don’t need to focus on all of the details and trying to get all the stories in. Because the journey was never about all the things that happened, and all the things I went through to get where I am. It’s about how God has been growing me all along the way. It’s about overcoming self doubt, taking steps of faith, and seeing Him work amazing things.

My story is not about me at all, but about how God can use a regular, small town girl to do something kind of cool.

I started my adventure brewing kombucha as a joke. A friend brought me the supplies to try my hand at it, and I gave it a shot as something to occupy my free time. Obviously I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I quickly found out that the product I was making was wanted by my town. It became popular enough for my little hobby to grow beyond just brewing one gallon every week or so, to having two, 7 gallon batches on constant rotation. So I was blessed with success, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. Kombucha is just now starting to become popular in Wisconsin. My state has 2 major breweries and a handful of smaller ones, but more importantly there are no other handcrafted brewers close to my town. So being a business woman I saw the opportunity to get in on the ground floor and establish my brand before the inevitable health fad swept our way. If I didn’t, someone else would, and I knew if that happened I would regret not taking my chance.

Life is never that simple though. Even though the business prospect motivated and challenged me, I was wrought with self doubt and insecurity. I’m a perfectionist, especially when it comes to my work. I want to be the best at whatever it is that I’m doing at the moment, so when it came to kombucha I wanted to be the best brewer with the best product and the best business. I wanted to outshine every other brewery in existence, anything short of extraordinary would be failure to me. Now obviously that’s extremely selfish and messed up in many ways, but that’s not how I saw it. I genuinely felt that if I wasn’t doing my absolute best and sinking every last piece of myself into brewing a product that stood out from the rest, then there was no point in trying. This pursuit of perfection and struggle with self doubt led to eventual burnout.

But along the way God used every single thing that happened to grow and strengthen me.

I had people try to steal my recipe and brewing secrets – that taught me how to protect my business and showed me that I must be doing something right if people are trying to copy my ways.

I got involved in a very dysfunctional business partnership – this taught me to never compromise on my beliefs or my family, and to always trust my gut instinct. Ironically it’s also how I acquired the name “Honest & True”.

My business moved locations twice in 4 months – this was just all out tiring but showed me how God’s hand was in control of everything.

The health department shut down my operation for almost 6 months because I didn’t have paperwork I wasn’t aware I needed – this was ultimately what made me face myself and wrestle with why I was on this path. It also taught me not only how to work in, but also around, the beast system that we live in.

These are just a few of many things that led me to finding myself sitting alone in my shop, in March of this year, a day after Wisconsin announced their state wide shutdown for coronu. I had spent my time, energy, savings, and every bit of myself to invest in this business. And suddenly I was here, still shut down by the health department, sitting in a quiet storefront making $0 a day. I was done. Why had I just gone through everything I did to end up here? What’s the point of that? I looked out my windows at the eerily empty streets and asked God for guidance. I can’t explain what happened, but I suddenly understood. I just… got it. My business is, and never was mine. It’s God’s, I’m just the person that’s supposed to take care of it. I didn’t need to worry about losing it because if I did that would be okay, God has the authority to decide if it’s done. But I don’t have the right to complain or worry if I wasn’t going to do what I knew I was supposed to be doing – brewing.

I remember looking back to the windows of my brewing room and realizing how long it had been since I brewed a batch. I let the struggles and the stresses take the joy out of my craft. I saw it as a burden instead of a blessing. A fire was lit in me. That day I brewed my first batch in months, and a week later when I advertised it on social media it sold out by the end of the day. Ever since then I no longer struggle with that nagging feeling of self doubt. Because I’m not doing this to make a name for myself, I’m just here to make a good product for as long as God allows. The name “Honest & True” adorns my windows and business cards as a reminder to be just that, in all areas of life. I want people to see those words and know that they are getting a product made with integrity. And in times such as these, nothing is more valuable and cherished than that. I’m not the greatest brewer and I genuinely never really know what I’m doing. I’m not that successful, most months I don’t even know how I’ll pay rent. But somehow I always do.

All I know is, when you give up control, let God lead, and stand for truth; he can lead you down some amazing paths.

So bears, for me it was kombucha. What is it for you?