Corie Sheppard Podcast

Episode 243 | Adam Aboud

• Corie Sheppard • Episode 243

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In this episode, Corie sits down with the founder of Adam’s Bagelry for an unfiltered conversation about business resilience, brand building, and the mindset it takes to last over 30 years in the game.

They discuss:

  • The origin story behind Adam’s Bagelry — and how a bagel shop in New York sparked a lifelong business
  • The impact of the 1990 coup on Adam’s first store
  • Growing a family business out of his mother’s kitchen
  • Scaling from baked goods to sauces, retail, and now expansion
  • The role of trust, presence, and community in building customer loyalty
  • Why staying relevant means embracing change — from social media to local fruit

This episode is filled with gems on entrepreneurship, legacy, and doing business your way. A must-watch for creatives, business owners, and anyone passionate about building something that lasts.

New episodes drop every Monday — 6am on all audio platforms, 8am on YouTube.

👇🏽 Subscribe, rate, and share if this one speaks to you.

#coriesheppardpodcast #adamsbagelry #trinidadbusiness #caribbeanentrepreneurs #familybusiness #trinidadfoodscene

Corie:

Hi, my name is Corey Shepard and David Ware has made me introduce myself to the Corey Shepard podcast today and our guest here is Adam Abud of Adam's Bagelry. So we're going to Good. Good, I don't put David out there. You know, david and them pushing the boundaries, you know what I mean. They make me very uncomfortable, makes me comfortable.

Corie:

I have to tell you I have some history with Adam's. You know, before I go into the things we want to talk about, I was born and raised in St James, right, right, and my father opened my business in South and the both of us were at TST. We kind of decided who will leave first. You know who will abandon ship, who will take the job. But I didn't know. He was living to drive down the highway every day. He opened the office where he's living down in South.

Corie:

You, I used to sit down by the tables. There's one particular table in the back that had a plug at the time and I used to wait, you know, and the girls, they know me. So I come in and if that table ain't free, I go and I work until I could, and they used to make the space. Once the table clear they say jump across. So it's been a long time that I've been looking forward, looking forward to having you here, long before I would have ever reached out. I tell you, legendary status, but you're good at last, right. So I want to ask you about that jump, because I was reading an article about you that said that you were living abroad. I was at school abroad. You were at school and trying to figure out an idea for business, but this wasn't your first business, adams. This wasn't your first business, right? What was your first one? You would have done.

Adam:

Ladies outer garments. I had a ladies clothes store in Polar Spain, right, and how that went. It was going good, great, until 1990. Yeah, when that happened then yeah, then I got cleaned out.

Corie:

So with 1990 and the looting and the burning and stuff, you would have been a victim of that. Really Very.

Adam:

I cried.

Corie:

I could imagine.

Adam:

I reopened after that in 91 for about six, eight months next door Praise, not in Golden Owl Plaza, but at the time Voyager Paid off some debt and so on and so forth. And then I realized you know something, this polar string thing no, I'm kidding. Ah, and I went to Lime in New York for about a month with one of my roommates from high school. Came home after a month my father says oh, where did you come from? Lime? Nothing every day. I say yeah, we went for bagels in the morning. We went to work. I came back home watch TV, play video games. He said bagels. How's your bagel shop?

Corie:

I said busy and that's where the idea was born, so near along to that part, you know, and yeah and I went back to New York about four months after.

Adam:

I actually got a job in a bagel shop Wellwood Bagels in Lindenhurst on Long Island and worked there for a month, Came home, got my start my aunt, Hannah Junura she does a Christmas like a pop-up in Hilton in those days and I made bagels in my mother's kitchen for two days, went there and sold out in a half an hour. Then I started making and delivering and that was about a year before I really opened adam's so you started from home, really just doing it from home and and pushing us out.

Corie:

So you went to new york deliberately to get the experience, to learn the business, yeah, to see if that's what I wanted but at that point you're not, you're moving out of town, but you move out the clothes business completely so you didn't want to do it clean so what caused that? Just didn't want to do it Absolutely clean. So what caused that?

Adam:

Just didn't like it anymore, just cool yeah, trauma yeah, maybe I don't know.

Corie:

Okay, gotcha, now, when you go to Adams now, are you talking about starting off from home? There's still this family environment that you've built, including your own family, right? I remember going in there when I was growing up.

Adam:

My mother was there from from 1992 to three years ago, 2022.

Corie:

Pretty much every day, right? She used to be there all the time. Is you all going into that way deliberately because of daddy encouraged you to go that?

Adam:

way, no, it just evolved into that my mother always worked. She was over at, I think, tony Sabka in the old days, right, and when I opened she just kept coming down. A lot of the recipes are hers Cinnamon rolls, muffins, the beef pie, the Arabic beef pies, potato pies, pakchot pie All those are the recipes. It's actually in that Arabic book that they made. The Syrian Lebanese woman made, right, ah, the recipes there? Yeah, so they picked the recipes from all the older heads you know and put it in the book.

Corie:

So I guess that's easy to accomplish.

Adam:

When you're working from home, it is a family business regardless. Well, I started actually making bagels after that um christmas fair that hannah had for about eight months, and every day I was busting my skin making bagels, making bagels, delivering um all over trinidad. Bagels, bagels, bagels and um. Mom was very supportive. I destroyed every piece of equipment stove pot, pan, everything in the kitchen. Very supportive woman, yeah, and she just stayed with me when I opened. She used to come down um, at the beginning I only made bagels and italian buns in the bakery, okay, at that location, right, and she would make the cinnamon rolls and the barrel I just told you about, david is. She used to make the cinnamon rolls at home and Odie used to come down and deliver it to the bakery and we used to sell it. Oh nice, that kind of stuff.

Corie:

Nice, but bagels was a big thing in Trinidad then.

Adam:

No, no, it wasn't at all Bro when I sell 40 bagels and I'm looking at in the back of my head I'm thinking bank boy, oh God, how are you going to pay back this loan? I just buy equipment. Yeah, I just paid on a property. And that's when I called the actually people who sold me the oven. They gave me Italian bread recipe, same recipe I used until 30 something years later. How, um, they gave me a whole wheat version and it just evolved. And every time somebody came in you all don't make croissant I said, all right, let's make croissant and we.

Corie:

You know that's how it works, so my son has some hope.

Adam:

But you come here, come asking me about something he's gonna get his biscuits man you see, he can't say anything easy as that.

Corie:

Easy as that. So the market is pretty much new to you. About the bagels, you had to kind of explain to people Absolutely.

Adam:

I was the first bagel manager. My sign used to say the king of bagels. I see. Then I got married and my wife said no, no, you're not the king of anything, I am, nah, I joke.

Corie:

Well, I have evidence, I have a ring. I can tell you how that goes.

Adam:

But yeah, we took King of Bagels out and we just, we changed the logo twice, we renovated four times. Jackie's very creative, she went to school in Italy. Ah, got it, got it. And you're right, you have to keep up, you have to be relevant, you have to be current. Yeah, things change fast. And now anybody opening anything, now doing it top notch, yeah, yeah.

Corie:

That quality, that quality level had to be there. And in the beginning you're just doing baked goods. There's no restaurants yet, it's just big goods. You come and you're buying yourself. So who's your main competitors that time? Who are you looking at in those days? I?

Adam:

wouldn't like to um. They had vida fr France, alright next to. Celeron nah, they done. And that was I felt threatened, but they didn't last because everything they sold was imported and more expensive. Oh, I see.

Corie:

I didn't realize that. So, yeah, okay. So you keeping up, keeping up with the innovations, trying to keep up with the market. I was reading, reading something I think it was Republic Bank had published a long thing about the stuff you did.

Corie:

Yeah, it was Kerry Andrews. Great, great piece, Amazing writer. Yeah, heavily detailed, Like you could picture the things you were talking about. I love him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in there I was surprised at how much you referred to understanding the market, looking at competition. Because I'll tell you, right, a lot of the sentiment in Trinidad, right, talking to people, is that if my name is Abud and I'm born me opening a business, you know, I retired. I wish I was used to opening a Trinidad. I wish I was one of your sons. I done that. I opened no business at all. I wish, I wish. So where's the drive coming from to continue to look at the competitive nature of this place?

Adam:

I don't, I know what's out there. I am aware, right, I don't. I don't think I'm not a super competitive person, mm-hmm. I love what I do. I do it with my heart and soul. I will never stop doing it till I close my eyes, mm-hmm, and I'm passionate about it, and I think, with passion and loving what you do, that alone sucks the success into your life. People love seeing things done well, which does Jackie's part. She's the one with all the high standards, and so I am more the social. You know PR, down on the floor fixing problems. I'm operational. I know how to run every machine. I know how to make bread. I know how to do everything on the ground. I absolutely hate office work and bank work and that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, my son is now in the business, I see. Thank God for that.

Corie:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're taking care of someone. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. You find that a lot of times you talk to entrepreneurs off the or to get out of the kitchen, or to get off the floor and to go up in the office somewhere.

Adam:

Well, I'm just. I'm the opposite. Clearly, I can't wait to get out of the office and go down in the kitchen, but because you know what, you have to love what you're doing. You have to. If you don't love what you're doing, and then we'll do, in my opinion it's not worth doing it.

Adam:

I have two general meetings in my bakery every year and I now have 70 something people working at adams. It doesn't even look it because they're all in the back, have three different kitchens, but at that meeting, every single time, the two main things that pump up, pop up are punctuality, attendance and if you don't love what you're doing, go and find something to do that you love doing and push yourself. If you, if you're not already a photographer and you love photography, seek it out. Do something you like doing, because really, life, life short, yeah, it is, it is, it is. You can't get up and just be like, oh, I don't feel, no, no, some people have a choice. But I think with the right I don't want to say therapy but with the right mindset, you can make your choice yeah, that's something that um like.

Corie:

You hear people discussing that all the time. You know, because when you talk about finding something that you love and finding the passion behind it, a lot of people, when they introduce the business or the idea that they want to start a business, it starts with I want to make x. It's all about the money. Forget the money.

Adam:

Forget the. Fortunately I had a father, sent me to school, paid my bills, you know, not super rich, not wealthy at all by any means, but conservative, and he did what he loved doing and we learned from him. I see what was his business Golden Rose Plaza. They used to have the biggest retail store in town until they had union problems and things many, many moons ago and they shut it down and they opened a mall, plaza of Golden Laws. But he was always on the floor.

Corie:

So when you were young, you had the advantage of seeing the business around you innit, yeah, we used to hide in between all the clothes we used to on film?

Adam:

I can't tell. Do you remember Woolworth?

Corie:

Yeah well, I know of it.

Adam:

I used to run across the road in Woolworth to sell sweeties by the pound, right, by the ounce. Now you know where I was going.

Corie:

I feel.

Adam:

So I feel as a short pound when they win their final and in Port-au-Spin in those days every half and I used to see two cars coming down Frederick Street. We could run across Frederick Street and I was 62. In them days I had hardly any cars. Yeah, I got you. It was amazing. People were kind and nice. You didn't feel threatened in Port of Spain. Yeah, might be different now.

Corie:

Very different now. Yeah, very, very different. Now you bring up Woolworth, right, it's an interesting thing you bring up because Woolworth was a foreign entity, right, I saw, maybe I was talking in a class the other day. I had a lecture, part-time and I was telling them about the forex shortage and all this thing that started some years ago. And I was trying to tell the class then because there was a point we went through, where it was, franchises used to pop up every day and I say, with this forex shortage, you will start seeing them closing down, because I remember seeing Poetropical go and Long John Silver's group. That's right, and you know what I'm observing now? A lot of the little I don't know what to call them, like the Savannah and RPT Avenue. They have a lot of these little food courts, yes, where people doing what you would have done initially, like come up with their own idea from scratch and make locally growing brands, as compared to buying into a franchise, something that I feel is important, your, what do you call Royalties, royalties.

Adam:

And so in the US and the big companies, let's say Prestige, starbucks, but Prestige also earns foreign exchange. So I think internally they could remit their royalties.

Corie:

Yeah, they might be big enough, but a smaller, a smaller, you're in trouble. Yeah, you could be in some problems. So that's not something you would have thought about then, because if you're in New York, then you're working on a bakery. You never thought about just approaching them to buy a franchise?

Adam:

Einstein's bagels, of course. Yeah, you did.

Corie:

But yeah, I don't like to attach myself to or be beholden to anybody, I suppose, then you can't do it your own way. You lack your freedom.

Adam:

You know, I know Right, I like what I do.

Corie:

That is evident when you're there, like I look at you a lot when you're there, I have a stalker. I've looked at you all the time. Happy, eh Happy, no, genuinely Happy with people, with your team and all that.

Adam:

If you watch me, my WhatsApp says Born good. You know, yeah, that's what it says. That's it.

Corie:

I'm happy all the time. Good, that's good. When did it turn from? And it was in that location initially. The bakery was that. Yeah yeah, oh, that was the original location. I read something about you being in town In the early days.

Adam:

I was in Henry Street.

Corie:

Right.

Adam:

Yeah, but I got robbed twice. I got burgled once. My brother-in-law came from LA. He had a big restaurant in LA Back to Trinidad to live. I sold it to him. He kept the name maybe two, three years. That wasn't them, so we shut it down.

Corie:

So it wasn't named Adams then yes, so it's your name behind it Adams Pickles all the way through, got it. So I want to ask you about that expansion. But I mean, when you talk about going through the coup, going through several robberies and burglaries, you know those things are that could rattle you up. How do you keep going when things like that happen?

Adam:

Bus going up the road. You know You're coming for the stuff and you get on the next bus or it's just gone. Yeah, they leave you right there. If you want to be left there, I don't know. You have to be a little strong-willed in your head to deal with little obstacles, but obstacles are a part of life.

Corie:

Yeah, even the fact that you're calling them little obstacles or something, something is just his mindset. That's a little obstacle. Yeah, I'd even try that until it kicked me out. Yeah, absolutely, that's good. So you always have somewhere to go for biscuits and gravy and so on right, yes, somewhere we can head to. So when did it turn into a restaurant, and was that a concept? That's the way.

Adam:

No, that's not the direction I was going in at all was supposed to be a bagel shop. Bagels and cream cheese. What I learned in New York, nice 12 different kinds of cream cheese, 8 different kinds of bagels. Come in, buy bagels, buy the bag, buy your cream cheese and you're gone. That's it. Small Low vads, yeah, uh huh, not in Trinidad, after maybe 6-8 months opening, but you don't sell bagels and cream cheese. You're selling bagels, you're selling cream cheese. Oh, you were selling them separate.

Corie:

On the sun Of course Got it.

Adam:

They made me take a little open a little kitchen, put a little rubberweight table in the front of the bakery, Started with bagels and cream cheese. Right, Business started to get good. Two, three lovely customers what about bacon and eggs, egg and cheese? Back there and I started making wiggles. And that's how. And it wasn't a restaurant, it was one table in the front. I got it and that property had a backyard. You see where you step down into the restaurant. All that was outdoors, Serious. So we decided put up a trellis, let's put some more rubbermaids outside, have a little outdoors. After the first week bro the heat in the hot sun, nobody's sitting outside. We covered it, walled it off, air-conditioned it and that was it.

Corie:

And so since then it's fully, but much more expansion. But there's one particular thing I want to ask. We just expanded again. I saw, I saw, I saw. But what I want to ask you about with your restaurant, this is there, right Beside the warmth, that you feel that family vibe, because, again, when I came there, your mom and I, I suppose, plenty of other family members, there's a time of day you could have clocked right. Yeah, so I come in early so I can get work done, and somewhere around nine ten o'clock you'll see a table pulled together and a whole group come together the PTA St Andrew's.

Corie:

School up the road.

Adam:

They have meetings there, the Syrian Lebanese women. Right now they don't use downstairs anymore because it's too big. They're using upstairs. Right, have a boardroom upstairs. Oh, they had to go upstairs, yeah, but you know what? You're hospitable, you make people happy, you make people comfortable. They keep coming back.

Corie:

Well, random question, because when I came to the restaurant I always just admired this huge painting he had going across the back of the restaurant. My good friend Is that friend of yours who did it.

Adam:

Martin Superville.

Corie:

Very very amazing artist.

Adam:

He has a gallery in Tobago called the Art Gallery and it wasn't supposed to be what it is. No, no, it was supposed to be. The whole bagel shop restaurant had an almost Italian theme French, italian, french windows and so we changed all of that. It was supposed to be one of those I think they call it Trump Deloitte where you see disappearing vineyards and things, oh, okay, like distant things. And I commissioned it and four or five months later I was like Martin, where am I? I'm here, where am I? You see, artists have to be inspired.

Adam:

I was in Tobago for, I think, no, to be inspired. I was in Tobago for, I think, great Britain, no, cannes Hall or something. And I went to the studio and the canvas sitting there on the wall, white. I said, jesus, not even a piece of black ink. He said, right now I'm doing dancers and so on. I said, well, do dancers, I don't care what you do, just put that yeah, but this dance is gonna be place of life. It's a feel. Yeah, something else in 2001, I think, or 1990, as early as that, as early as that. So, no, but I support local. Yeah, I love martin, he's my friend, um, he helps me, I help him. That's really weird, right? Uh, right now we're on a big drive because of the us um shortage well, shortage of foreign exchange, and so I'm starting to doa lot of my desserts with local fruit, bashan fruit, popo. I want to try to do some things with sapadilla, because I love sapadilla, mango you can still get sapadilla here, boy.

Corie:

Still you'll sell more fat pork before you start recording.

Adam:

I didn't know, that's still a rule yeah, gotcha, gotcha those kind of things fighting girls make sense.

Corie:

I was glad you said that because, again, going back to that class, it's entrepreneurship class, so I tell them, I say, listen, entrepreneurs are just, you know, even when you say, boy, there's a problem. That's why it's almost like you live in the world where you're never gonna have a problem, where you're gonna get a fire away.

Adam:

I have to find a way. The the only constant in life. I have a few sayings. Passion is one. The only constant in life is change, and the only thing you have to do with change is adapt. So you're catching your skin to get grapes. I just call it names grapes, apples, cherries, raspberries, blueberries. These are local fruit. What do you think of foreign fruit?

Adam:

when we use it, it's sugar, so you change it up a little bit when you get the foreign stuff, you throw it back in the mix, yeah, but if you can't get it, but you know what happens to like.

Corie:

The market itself also adjusts, because not just the entrepreneur. So when somebody come by you a custom guy, an apple, whatever it is and you tell them, try a sapper, which you famous for, try a sapper, the other is that's what the other? Uh, you might find that even our taste and preferences for the local fruits might change I make a sorrel cheesecake now it'll blow your mind yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam:

I should have eaten before I do this.

Corie:

You know, david, this is a bad idea. I eat none. We're going to talk about food, but coming from our family environment and again, I own a family business as well and we started off home, where it was just me and my father in our little room and we're trying to figure things out. It's all the energy in the world, same as me. I started off in my mother's kitchen.

Adam:

Yeah exactly.

Corie:

And then when you advance and you start hiring people, it's difficult, I find, sometimes to translate the passion that I have to the passion that the team has. But somehow you seem to figure out some things there.

Adam:

I have a completely unorthodox, amazing management style Nice, completely unorthodox, amazing management style that everybody in my family hates because I'm friendly with every single one of my staff. David will tell you that I'm just normal. Yeah, it's a big problem because, you have already seen, familiarity breeds contempt, yeah, yeah. So it's really, really hard to get your friends to realize that line and respect it, so sometimes I'm not as effective as I'd like to be. So that's where Edmund, my son, now steps in any business for the last two, three years, and he's also has my style, but I think they don't know how to read them as yet. So they have a little more respect for him than for me. Now they respect me, but I'm a joker.

Corie:

I haven't fun doing what I do, yeah, yeah, yeah, I always see interacting with them all the time and one of the questions I work in there 32 years this is what I wanted to ask you.

Adam:

It is not the norm.

Corie:

You know, you know this I know absolutely not.

Adam:

No, I have two people working there 32 years. I have three more working there, probably 29 years. I have people retiring. I shouldn't say this on camera. I'm coming back to work because I need them and they know what they're doing. I like that. They're still young at heart and they love what they're doing.

Corie:

Of course, Quite deprived man. Yeah, I see people. Well, I guess myself too, Because I get old. You know, I get to be from youth. I mean, they get to be from youth and they were working there right then and there.

Adam:

I have doctors and lawyers eating by me now that.

Corie:

I fed as kids From.

Adam:

Black Mons in St.

Corie:

Andrews Heck, yes, they come in right on the road.

Adam:

There they were kids when I opened 32 years ago. They're now adults, with children and jobs and professions. Let me tell you it's the nicest feeling you could imagine Feeding the kids, that you fed children. It makes you feel old, but I'm not an old at heart person. No, no, no, no. But it is a glorious feeling.

Corie:

In building that environment. You focus on things like because you go to business school, they go tell you about organizational culture, trust.

Adam:

Your customers have to trust you. You have to make sure that everybody who walks out that front door walks out a happy person. By all means, by any means, sorry, just make sure. The experience is amazing. I said, joe, I need help with my kitchen boy. He said, well, let me come and give you a little consult for two days. I'll stay in the kitchen, see what's going on and I'll give you advice. So he came in the kitchen. Two days later he came in. I didn't even have office. Then he came on the table. He sat with me. He said Adam. I said, yeah. He said how are you feeding all those people with that little kitchen? I said well, this is why I called you Joe. He said you know something? My advice to you if it ain't broke, go fix it. The kitchen was nine feet by 15 feet and I had 50 seats. I was feeding.

Corie:

Yeah, nice people, kitchen. Sometimes it's evolved. Of course I mean oh, oh yeah, as a customer I could tell you it's amazing to see the evolution, because I was telling you before we started that, born and grown St James, I went and lived in South. So of course, when I moved to South now I ain't coming to Adams every day again. So imagine my surprise now when I walk in a day and a whole thing open up on the left that wasn't there at all no, yeah, I see it though, and wait, that thing on the right that's going through to the towel shop where Bellalino was right.

Adam:

Bellalino is my wife right soon to come into a theatre near you shutting that down. I shouldn't tell you, I can't tell you.

Corie:

That's my spot, you know, so I don't know where to find a list of stuff from Bellalino now, too, made us.

Adam:

We acquired the property next door where the hardware used to be. We're going to put up eight shops.

Corie:

Also, I'm no longer parking and bothering people when I go there. I see you're parking 40 more car spots. Really, which was one of the drivers to go next door, so even as you expanded it went from bagel and bakery basically to a restaurant and then it turned into a retail a little bit Gourmet shop. Yeah, gourmet shop. Well, Well that is a waste of time right now with the foreign exchange problem.

Adam:

I see you go there. You have to find local things to sell. It's crazy. You apply for US. You have to go in a queue, they're just killing business.

Corie:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot. We'll get somebody here who can talk more about that soon. I hope, I hope, yeah. So what's your plan there with no food?

Adam:

on that wing, our retail is coming out. We're putting a couple. I can't tell you Okay go ahead. It's going to be beautiful. One of the things I always noticed Young, energetic and current.

Corie:

It's a festival.

Adam:

I don't know if it's a party If you want to come down, and so on. It's not going to be a party of it. Okay, good, but it's happening. But it's going to be tastefully a lot more variety for the customer. Yeah, it's just going to be nice. We in that I can't, I'm very guarded.

Corie:

We in that, we in that, we in that I'll be beautiful. Yeah, for sure. I always notice something about your retail, though it seemed to be that, even though it was gourmet, you kept your eye on what local, absolutely, yeah, all the local products. One thing I always saw is that Even? The chillers Right yeah, so supporting small business, that's something you're consciously looking at doing.

Adam:

No, this is about entrepreneurship. When somebody comes to me to sell one of their cottage industry products, like pepper jelly or guava jam or something they're making at home or cucumber dip Guess what, brother, you make money, I make money, it's business. That's how easy it is to do business with me. You sell it to me at a fair price, I sell the customers at a fair price, you make money, I make money, everybody happy. We're going on, you know, and you have more variety on the shelf and you have a different hand, all right. So I have Jason Huggins doing sauces for me. I have Barry, you know, barry, no, chef Vinba, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Barry now Makes um, dressings. Uh, cocoa, pine pepper sauce All that on my shelf and they're in their own shelves. Um, paul Mouser. So we used to make Chicken liver patty.

Corie:

Sure, sure, but you make, adams does sauces as well. Yes, branded, oh god, that's a different story.

Adam:

That is a different story.

Corie:

Oh, you're getting to that now. What would that come about?

Adam:

We used to make all the sauces in the bakery Ah, my salad dressings, my pepper sauce, my garlic sauce, my shadow benny sauce, everything. And it got to a stage where it wasn't on a shelf and people go, god, I need some of that dressing, the honey mustard dressing and I want to take for my daughter in Florida. She loves it so much. I'd fill a bottle of Doja Jam and I'd give it to them. Oh gosh, the shadow bunny, amazing. I seasoned this with it and I put it on my shark and ting, ting, ting, put it in a bottle and give it to them.

Adam:

I was giving away my life. Then it's all natural evolution. So we started making it. I put it down, everybody asking for the thing, because they're telling their friends, of course. We start a package and I'm about to put a. If you see the label, how horrid it was at the beginning. Anyway, drop a label on it, put it on the shelf and it started selling. Yeah, all of a sudden, why you all have the product in high load? Why do I have to come here and hook up with the hardcore? Oh nice, stop making it in the bakery, open a little.

Corie:

Oh, that's why we're making it in the bakery still.

Adam:

Yeah, we used to make it. When we made pepper sauce in the bakery, the customers had to run out. Yeah, you know the hybrid.

Corie:

What? But yeah, yeah, now it's everywhere. Like I was telling you, my work is in grocery.

Adam:

I see my work is in grocery. I see it. I see it initially, so it makes sense. Yeah, we went from us and super farm and linda's, because I'm a shareholder at linda's. So we went from about 30 outlets selling resources and we give it a hard go and it went straight up to about 280. Makes sense here? Whole market locations, yeah, yeah, whole market, and that blew the source business out.

Corie:

You talk to people who want to be entrepreneurs or who are coming up. A part of it is this I have to succeed and I have to focus on me. So why would you put other sources on the shelf by you when you have your own source to sell?

Adam:

Because I have variety for people. Like I said, you make money, I make money. I make more money on my source because I don't undersell it, I don't oversell it. So Because I don't undersell it, I don't oversell it, correct? So there's a suggested retail. So it's the same price in Adams. It's in high lows, it is in extra foods. I don't want to say I make more money. Adams for my sources Limited makes their markup, selling it wholesale, and we make our retail markup.

Adam:

I don't believe success is an internal thing where you need to want to succeed. But I do believe that if you love what you're doing and you're passionate about it and people see that in you people like to attach themselves to positivity and success and that kind of thing and that drives the whole thing the money is followed. It might be the gazillions of dollars that you want, but once it's enough. I'm just surfing the wave brother right now. End, I'm just surfing the wave brother right now. Anything I customer want again. This one want biscuits and gravy. He gonna get it, he gonna get it.

Corie:

I tell him. I say, I say this is all about the experience. You know I'd seen some companies and a part of this I told you before I started. I tell you I interview any legends. They tell me you know legend. Right, but here was the issue I always had. I went to Lockjack. I went to it when I was at IOB, actually, and they had just changed over to Lockjack. We were one of the few groups who first groups who graduated from Lockjack was us. We moved into that building when I was new and for two years of my MBA, plus a year of thesis and all that you had to submit, you would learn about Starbucks and the experience, or Walmart, or Amazon or some of the companies that now are huge.

Corie:

But I just find that we are giants here and I don't understand how come in our syllabus we don't have the Adams or the people making sauces by you, why we can't tell our own stories? Yeah, you could.

Adam:

Absolutely, that's a good idea, actually. Okay, that's like me using local fruit.

Corie:

Exactly Well, we should use the foreign exchange as a point to tell them stop bringing these foreign textbooks.

Adam:

Yes, you have a lot of locals. That, that, that, that pump in.

Corie:

And you know I'm surprised. No, I'm against course.

Adam:

Right, exactly, you have lot, even, like I say, food alone. A lot of opportunity. Yeah, these syrians coming from a village in war open a gyro shop and buy any building today. Now do one of them, just buy on the avenue. I don't want to tell you which building and how much pay, but they're making money. They're innovative.

Corie:

I admire them so you feel like if people could do it here locals.

Adam:

Absolutely from scratch too. I did it from scratch.

Corie:

Well, is he asking?

Adam:

My brother opened a sign shop from scratch and he loves it. He's a creative, so he's complaining a lot. We got every single sign that comes. Now I'm making bread. Let's say 22 bread. Every day is the same recipe. Quantities might vary a little bit. My brother Simon, every single thing he touches is custom.

Corie:

It's bespoke Everything he does is crazy. And the deadlines in that business is no joke.

Adam:

It's kind of all the time Christmas cricket, oh yeah, I suppose them big events, but yes, I absolutely agree that we can use local companies as tools educational inspirations?

Corie:

Yeah, and I would well, maybe through David, but I would always be hesitant. I would say, boy, I could ask him to come on or not, but we all willing to tell stories. I find that it's. I used to go to Trinity and talk to the boys.

Adam:

I see I asked him what I was in Trinity. I was a complete failure. I used to come 34th out of 36 kids in class, kind of right place, and I used to like the man who used to come first and second in class. You understand, I was going to be at his house. You're right, rich boy your father go mine.

Corie:

Yeah, that was me.

Adam:

I was there Wrong aboot. It's not going to happen Wrong aboot. There's a lot, you're right, a lot of local businesses that could inspire kids and inspire entrepreneurs.

Corie:

I feel so, of course, especially by the time you're in lockdown.

Adam:

Jason actually did the entrepreneurship program at Babson College in Boston, I see, which is like one of the best on the East Coast, and 80% of his class were all foreigners from well-to-do families that already had businesses, like me, that the son wants to get into business but wants to take it to the next level, and that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, I want a private label my pepper sauce. You have an Indian friend from India that says, bro, you don't have to make it in Trinidad and send it for us. You know, you give us your formula that is market.

Adam:

No, yeah markets. If I make 10 cents on a bottle, on how many people?

Corie:

if.

Adam:

I make 10 cents on a bottle of pepper sauce and I sell it to 10% of the population, that market is a lonely description.

Corie:

Then you have to talk to Adam. You always expect me to say then you can't talk to me. No, no, no.

Adam:

Then you can talk to me Now. Sell me a token. Now. I have a cent for you. I'll be sold some. I'm a send for you, though I'll be in the south of France. I'm a send for you now.

Corie:

Yeah well, I don't see why you or anybody else who has your experience, or even your son now, who has his own experience and background, come and do guest lectures, even if it's guest lectures.

Adam:

Come and talk about the experiences. I agree there's a lot of locals who would buy into it.

Corie:

Oh yeah, okay, good, a lot Good.

Adam:

I'm glad you said that I'll make sure, if you need a link up, call me.

Corie:

All right, good, If you feel like. Oh, Joe.

Adam:

Pires yeah, well, he's running his father's business, but you know he does other things.

Corie:

He has restaurants? No, but even that. You see, I find that sometimes, when you talk to people, that mentality't do that, because my father is not a business person.

Adam:

The thing is to take something that fruitful and squash it. You know what I make it for you? Yeah, I could imagine. So the pressure is still the pressure, whether you come from a family that already has an existing business. You're going into it, and so I think the pressure might be greater for them to take over running businesses successful, to keep it successful, because, remember, spoil, child Of course they wait and fail to fail.

Corie:

Yeah, there's a book I read called Shoots Leaves to Shoots lives in three generations, if it's not two, and they were talking about these huge business owners like Rockefeller and they and how, after the son come in, he do business the daughter come then and then, and then, by the third generation, they're back to work in class.

Adam:

It's a real interesting thing, so that pressure is a saying to that.

Corie:

Yeah should sleep, so send me that on yeah, I'll send it.

Adam:

I'll send it to you.

Corie:

Yeah, yeah, good book you know, it's something else so you are in, uh, consciously make efforts to bring your children into the businesses that you you're doing.

Adam:

No, do you want to hear that one? So my daughter, sienna, was a professional student, right Bright like a hundred-watt light bulb You're, david laughing Went to St Joseph's Convent top of her class all the way through sixth form. Went to University at Warwick, did, which is a business degree. The girls you don't expect them to come did. Um, she has a business degree, she. The girls you don't expect them to come into the business anyway.

Adam:

After the business degree, we wanted her to do a master's. She said no, I don't want to do a master's, I want to go and cook, I want to do a culinary degree. So we sent her to New York to one of the schools. She did the culinary degree and then she went to um work at. Sorry, she did a pastry and dessert degree. She went to work at Dominic Ansell in the village in New York for eight months. She finished, she had her figure. Let me bring her in the bakery now. She did a couple of things in New York. We could really stare at any game. She comes home. She said no, no, no, I want to go into a culinary degree now. So we sent her back to the same school. She worked in New York for another eight months at Lafayette Bakery. I said, yeah, this is it, it's going to blow out.

Adam:

Now she comes back home, professional student. She comes back home and after about four months in the building she said I'm ready to do my master's now. Okay, daddy Senator, to our master's at no less than Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Tennessee Top of her class. Letters from her dean.

Corie:

Top top of her class.

Adam:

Letters from her dean Top top of her class as she comes back home. Thank God, she gave me a year in the bakery. She tweaked a lot of things, she reformulated a couple of formulas, she got married, had a child and that was the end of that. The other one's still in Boston Missed my payoff.

Adam:

But Edmund, this one, I never encourage my children to come into my business. I encourage my children to do what makes you happy. A happy life is an important thing. So Edmund does SEA. He passes for CEMERIS In those days with BlackBerry. Give him his BlackBerry so he could communicate with mom while he was at school. He comes home about a week later hearing all kinds of things about school and what he's doing, the phone and everything. Pick up his phone to go and see his information. You know 11, 12 years old Edmund Abud, future CEO of Adams Bagels. Wow, data boot address. He filled out his whole profile Future CEO of Adams Bagels. At 11, 12 years old. Wow. I never pushed him and he didn't know and he dared and he kicked in ass if he put that on for it.

Corie:

Yeah, so wait a second, make enough children to make sure one do it. That's what he turned to.

Adam:

No, no, devin you know, live and work in the United States Right.

Corie:

They're not coming back to Trinidad.

Adam:

He's getting older, he wants to not cash out, but he wants to live on Right. We had an opportunity to buy it Me and my brother-in-law, my cousin and we bought it Right. But that happens a lot. Children are just not interested, yeah.

Corie:

I'm a lucky one, of course, that they find their own passions. They find what you found, and he likes it.

Adam:

It's a lot of stress on him because he doesn't want to come in there, and same thing with a mud, trip, fall.

Corie:

There are nice truths about it. Sometimes you go, trip and fall. It's just how you respond to that.

Adam:

I suppose you get bit twice already, but you know what it go in. I want you to get bit a thousand times. I want you don't make the same mistake. My staff could make mistakes. You could burn a full rack of bread. Don't burn it next week.

Corie:

Yeah, learn from it that's all I want, but let's talk a little more about that stuff now, because that your business in particular is one where turnover is typically high. It is difficult all business is the same thing. You find that the rate of attrition and something people complain about in trinidad a lot major. What do you do in that that, you think, keeps them so connected?

Adam:

Because people go tell you they're paying real money. I only have maybe 30% of my staff, that's all right. Let's say 40% of my staff, that's long tenure, I see. So you have somebody who's the same as you, they train them and it's a whole cycle. But the older heads are different. The very will has changed. Young people are not young people anymore. They just want to put a dollar in their pocket party, do their weave, do their fingernails and they go on.

Corie:

Yeah, so I'm glad you're talking about some of the same issues we're having all the time. Everybody has the same issues, okay, okay.

Adam:

From bank tellers to bakery workers, to production, to anything Of course.

Adam:

It's just the whole work ethic in the country needs to change. Yeah, a little bit of a mentality shift, you know. So that's why I don't mind talking to Trinity College students in Form 1. All right, I have classmates David and I that have not made it made it or not super successful. We also have ones that are very successful, more than me. Right, you know what the world is made up of? All different, I guess, strata of, yeah, just yeah, all different types. You have to educate people. You have to let people see value in themselves.

Corie:

Yeah, that's something that, no matter who I talk to, whether it's from the business world or the entertainment, hearing that same story is something that we had to find a way to change.

Adam:

It's hard, yeah, you spend 80% of your time managing people. Mm-hmm, it's hard. You spend 80% of your time managing people and you can't manage your business. Of course, that's a big problem in business. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have HR. You just run through HR managers like, oh, I can't tell you, I can't cope.

Corie:

I'm glad you said that it's hard. Hr and IR right, People are trouble Mm-hmm. But you said that you spend a lot of time getting to know people Like personally.

Adam:

I saw that in the article. If you come to one of my job interviews, you think what is wrong with this man? He's crazy Because it's not consistent. It's not. Half the stuff is not relevant. I want to know if you go to church. I want to know if you play sports. If you play sports, you're focused. If you go to church, you have roots. These are play sports. If you play sports, you're focused. If you go to church, you have roots. These are the things I ask when, when I interview people. I don't want to know if you did. Now it's important that you've accomplished things and you've, you've, you've gotten to the next level. So you're a professional. You did a green bacon and all that stuff. I want to know what's going on. I want to know if you're disciplined enough, if you're focused enough. If you're disciplined enough, if you're focused enough, if you're passionate about what you're doing, enough to be with.

Adam:

Yeah, you know what I'm trying to create, boy, and it's hard because Adams is Adams. I want a line of interviews of people that want to work at Adams because it's Adams.

Adam:

I ain't there yet. I want to be that much in demand, not with my customers, but with people that want to learn. Over the years I've had kitchen managers and so I had a pastry chef from Haiti years ago. She's not with us anymore. She was amazing and she asked me once. We never used to open on a Sunday. In those days and summertime she was having a lot of requests to teach little kids, do a little summer camping thing. She wanted she could have a summer camp in Adams. Guess what? Of course, where did it? Now he's pretty profit. Of course you're charging them five hundred dollars. You're getting, let's say, 20 children. Right, half is mine. You could use your facilities, you could use all the materials. I'm not charging you for that bring them in just make sure nobody get damaged.

Adam:

Right, talk to the insurance company, cover myself, and yeah, so educating people.

Corie:

Important, because there was one um like, when you go to, like, silicon valley and these places doing all these, uh, social media companies and so on, they have a revenue stream from the database that they have. Right, they have billions of people coming on, so that's value, yeah, but one of their revenue streams is people who pay to come to tours to just see the company see how it works. They call our executive. You talk to you for five minutes. I might have had lock jack self had done one, and we went to a series of different companies. You went to the 15 minute talk in google building and you you see how it runs on.

Adam:

This is why we are unprogressive in trinidad, because big companies could sponsor entrance fees for school children to go through the Magnificent Seventh. I'm just saying the archbishop could isolate a part of the archbishop's house. You don't have to be a Catholic to appreciate or to know history. Right, isolate a part of the archbishop's house where they could walk through and get a little history and put up some art on the walls and with explanations. And so Stolmeyer's Castle, qrc how long it's been there? All of them, all of them, yeah, yeah, yeah. Prime Minister's House office yeah, there's a lot of ways to make money in the world. It's just that I think Tr the easy way, yeah, yeah, and the easy way might not be the right way usually.

Corie:

Yeah, there's no easy way or sustainable way, you have to put in time and effort.

Adam:

You want to get out of it. Of course I told I called him Robert. I had a son named the other day, mm-hmm he Alexander who like me drinking. Mm-hmm, I say spoiled child. Your father and telly had nothing to fall out of the sky. You had a wolf fit if you wanted. So every time you see me now you say, hey, nothing to fall out of the sky, but nothing falls out of the sky until you laugh.

Corie:

Yeah, of course you had a wolf fit yeah, I guess a new age kind of thinking, where it's what comes here. You giving this to young people you have to inspire them. Yeah, they have to see light at the end of the tunnel. But even some of them things you're saying- so inspirational no, that's exactly what I mean. I don't like to the end of the tunnel.

Adam:

That success we're all talking about. It don't have to be monetary, it won't be financial booming success.

Corie:

It could be happy, family, church life, simple, have a little farm, or it could be anything, yeah, but maybe if all of us kind of focus on because you started by talking about passion, just doing what you love, just being there every day I don't think success is based on financial and numbers, right, gotcha, gotcha, honestly, yeah, I used to wonder if you did. You know, because the amount of things you used to get away in your store. I say, but you can't be studying profit whatsoever Because I can't count the amount of times I sit down there.

Corie:

I said, because for that, try this, try this, do this you must try it and I remember the first time I was like where is this, this new or something?

Adam:

it's like no, just just something I was trying to get. Look, I just print a recipe for you. Remember Long John Silver's yeah, yeah, butter online? Before I come, I drop it in the kitchen and say put all them ingredients together. When I come back here, we're gonna um thing, we're gonna make um fish for lunch. But I have little butter cookies I make now. I don't sell them right on a friday and a saturday and I just hand them out right as tell the customer yeah giving away free smiles.

Adam:

Yeah, free smile on a plate?

Corie:

yeah, and you yourself, because even I was looking at something you did. Was it christmas, where you do?

Adam:

they like that every year. Now this year, this year gonna be bigger and better. Yeah, are you keeping it? It's all about being relevant, right? We have a social media fellow there that used to be a photographer and in covid his whole business collapsed. In covid I got to stay open because I was an essential. I was a bakery. Ah. So my entire restaurant staff the restaurant shut down right. My entire restaurant staff, waitresses, cooks, everything was making grab-and-go stuff for the front of the. So I kept every. I was really, really lucky and my staff was lucky.

Corie:

Everybody was at full salary, full work hours, full everything yeah, it's a blessing, so that grab-and-go you just keep after covid and that's it. And we asked yeah, it makes sense, it makes sense, it makes sense. And we added it. Now we have a new little thing coming out. Yeah, the Sundays was a big one for me, because I always remember driving there by a Sunday and I was like, ah, adam's the open on a Sunday. So imagine my surprise that they didn't tell me we're doing Sunday.

Adam:

And the Sunday it is wild. He is so driven, he's so, he's a visionary, he's going to, he's on. You're on speed, yeah, you're so You're so wrong.

Corie:

But even when you're talking about different investments, lenders, owning different parts of businesses, as you go along too, but you seem to find this time and energy to be in Adams every day, that's not changing, for you love it. Yeah, even when you just came inside, you're on the phone and you can't eggs in one basket. You know right, you can't.

Adam:

Yeah, from investment standpoint, and I don't want any more retail. No, I don't mind expanding my retail. What I have now, which is what we've been doing expansions and so but as far as opening another business food or something out- yeah, I want to ask it like so no south, no ship on us, none of them things.

Corie:

What's a possibility?

Adam:

that I love the idea. Right is Adam's coffee shop, but not a foodie, not a we're not cooking, right? If you're having any products on a shelf at all for somebody to have it, coffee, it's just going to be in a glass case, yeah, gotcha, and that you may expend like different branches, Small footprint, great service and amazing quality goods, Good coffee and good pastries.

Corie:

I see so that you're willing to expend Absolutely.

Adam:

I told him already too. I want to build it on a 10-foot shipping container, and I don't want unfancy, I want good stuff. I want to be able to take that container and put it in a car park in Frederick Street.

Corie:

Some fellas know how to do that by you right. There are some containers.

Adam:

Yeah, but yes, and if it doesn't work, pick up a container and take it to Aranguiz and drop it on the road in somebody's car park. And I only want to open from 6 am to 2p. I ate our shift. I see, yeah, it's coffee and breakfast and a little snack for lunch. I don't like time business. Yeah, one shift, tight, close, low but even then, you're staying.

Corie:

You're staying where you are. You're not doing it wrong that's one of my dreams, actually you're moving around to the stores when you do it your presence.

Corie:

Well, there, you know down there, but yes, but yes, and as Adams, not a different brand or anything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, probably Adams. Yeah, and in terms of the way it's progressed over the years and that level of expansion in that space, you see it now. Well, you have a new concept that you're going to launch right there now that growing further in that space is still an intention. Yes, Into the. Bellarino space is still an intention. Is yes, into the ballerino.

Adam:

That's it. Oh, that's it for there for now, but the ballerina is gonna be nice. Yeah, you're buying you something away.

Corie:

I don't tell you some general questions, right, because again a big part of like business school. They talk about this idea of building customer loyalty, loyalty programs, those types of things. How much you feel your presence contributes to that loyalty over the years. Like you, you see some of the same faces for years.

Adam:

You talk about children's children I'm one of those that don't see my value. So, but my son and my wife keeps telling me adams is adams because of you, because I am. You can trust me, I'm reliable, I'm responsible. I ain't going to lie to you. And in a simple, simple way if you order a cup from me for 12 o'clock, I put on the order slip for the kitchen make it for 11 o'clock, just in case something go wrong. We have a order to make it, so I deliver what I promised to deliver. I'm not Jesus Christ, most of the time I'm reliable, responsible. And also, joe Brown told me many, many years ago, poor fellow passed away All you have to do to succeed in Trinidad or anywhere in the world is to keep your promises to your customers and keep them happy. Yeah, and that's what's happened. Yeah, so, but it didn't happen. I didn't have to try to make it happen, it was me. Yeah, it just so happened, it was me.

Corie:

Just so happened, just so happened.

Adam:

My son opened on a Sunday now and I work in 24 hours. But guess what? It's not work. Tony Sampson used to say if you're doing something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Right, right, right.

Corie:

And my mother was that, yeah, she was there very, very, very present. Crazy, yeah, from cash register she comes to eat right there with everybody else and you never understood.

Adam:

I was like mom, go home, your sister's going to have coffee, lime, relax. You're eight, five years old.

Corie:

Yeah, she went here, though, because she loved it. Yeah, kept her pumping, and you and your son both know.

Adam:

Does he keep me pumping? Bro? Let me tell you, I love I need to go out there, I need in the shop with him because he says man, stop, come down, he might get some fried fish, some long gone silvers.

Corie:

It's true, things bring up, things bring up.

Adam:

I don't have more vinegar, though I had to ask you about the idea.

Corie:

Like you hear this thing, bandida, but we were talking about the food bloggers and stuff before and that is becoming a big thing here. I talked to a fellow who owns a wingette, a fellow named Jesse McBarrow. He was doing one of the master's classes and he said that he used one particular influencer. I wish I could remember his name. I'll put it in the footy A girl a red-skinned girl, leah, and she's acting out. I don't understand why that's work.

Adam:

That's work Because I know what, watching From the time food started falling out of your mouth.

Corie:

I can't watch no more Guy Fieri doing it on TV. Well, I suppose I can't watch him either. But his recommendations when you're in Florida, right, and you look for his restaurants, I remember I don't. I'm not a big pancake person. You are one of the few people I would buy pancakes by. And I remember looking up one of Guy Fieri's things, a recommendation. We were somewhere like Dania Point or somewhere in Florida and I see his thing. I said let me go in and think, and it was very similar to where you are, more diner style, but a bagelery and boy, that man, pancakes and bagels, and it was on point so similar to you too, and another pancake or waffle lover really and waffles and chicken and waffles you can get waffles and chicken that's a good compromise.

Adam:

We have that, we have both. We don't have it together. But if you come and I know you, yeah, you're going to get you're going to get through.

Corie:

Yeah, but I saw Guy Fieri and I saw how people you know it was really really good based on his recommendations.

Adam:

Let me tell you social media now. Even if you're doing it yourself, not professionally, it makes a difference in your business.

Corie:

Yeah, you see the impact. Yeah, he was saying that he got Leo a paid promotion. She came and she did. And I was asking him I say because I think that course was a social media thing so I was asking him okay, did you see the engagement go up? Did you see? He said, when she came, everything went up. And then I say so, sales, he.

Adam:

And then I say so, sales. He says sales. This girl Tiana I was telling you about, right, I didn't know she was a pay person, but she's Jackie's cousin. Ah, so she just came in diddy-ting-ting-ting-ting-ting and Jackie said yeah, it's all right, video nice, promoting Adams and so. But you could imagine if we paid her. I said what she said. You can imagine if we paid her to do this. She's an influencer, of course, influencer, somebody who influences the whole world, of course To come and see and taste your product and increase business.

Corie:

Yeah, Bro, it will kill, yeah Not only is it working? If you don't have it, you're failed.

Adam:

You're going down Now in this. It's going to change, of course, because, remember, the only constant in life is change. So social media might go. I don't know what's going to replace it.

Corie:

Yeah, but you will probably adapt to that too, judging from everything you say here today. Yeah, with you. No one of them social well before social media. One of them men put all their family in trouble. He come turn down and he, that 1% thing can't go away. So I'm telling you now, when I publish this, they're going to say oh, you had the 1%.

Adam:

I don't question. Anybody who knows Adams Know he is 1% true.

Corie:

So none of that talk.

Adam:

How will that bother me? If that bother me, I'll shut down and leave already.

Corie:

Yeah, you might have shut down. I might have never sat back after the coup. That was unfortunate for our community.

Adam:

Our community is smaller. Don't leave already. Yeah, you might have shut down. You might have never sat back after the coup.

Corie:

That is um Mm-hmm. That was unfortunate for our community. How come it's smaller? Well, I think you know the statement. It's funny how things are translated, right. One statement. The statement was that they are 1% of the population, but powerful. You know, they have influence, just like influencers, but um, not that we are the 1% no of course, but it translates into that now. Oh right.

Adam:

You understand? That's why none of us take it on.

Corie:

That's why, when I'm in a crowd, and I give you 1% conversations.

Adam:

I move on.

Corie:

I don't like it Well, Lanselio, when I first started and by the way they have 1%ers out there, and not only.

Corie:

Well, this is the thing I always talk about when I record it, about myself. I talk about issues. I think people do themselves an injustice when you say there's a 1% of wealth, as if number one it's some permanent group that you can't. You could work and do something too. If I tell myself anything different, I have a problem. It's better. I tell myself I want to be the best at what I do, I want to be whatever it might be. It's similar to what you're saying, but I wonder sometimes if that is a mentality shift that we will see here. You know, because that 1% statement was really years ago.

Adam:

That's not now still with us strong strong. Everything that happened will be yeah, I think it's just one of those things, yeah.

Corie:

I don't know about him.

Adam:

Yeah, how easy. Yeah, if you know Adam, you know that, yeah, I'm not a 1%, I'll never be. I'm just a man. I want to say I'm one of the people, but I suppose. Well, the thing is my own experience tells me that I come from WS.

Corie:

My skin. My experience tells me that Again, tells me that, again, I do a whole degree in Adams. I might as well do a degree on Adams we can't watch it all the time but I do find that there's a second part that's unfortunate. I find people say 1%, as if you are not like us, you're not a Trinidadian, no, no, very much like you. I go anywhere I want to.

Adam:

Trinidad. Do what I see. I get cussed for being, for saying I'm not an Arab. I have a Trinidad passport.

Corie:

Yeah, they get cussed for that.

Adam:

My wife is cussed for that. But you are Arab descent. I said absolutely, but I only have one passport. Then I go in and you don't stand. Why are you going there? I'm going there because, yeah, the evidence is there, just like any other trinity.

Corie:

Just like any other trinity. Yeah, of course you follow the pan here in the culture. One of the things I see that you always do, which I respect a lot, is that I always watch, and she has a show coming up Rachel Price. I always watch her right she's.

Adam:

I am very inclusive. I don't judge, I don't shun.

Corie:

I just it is what I am. Yeah, and you always sell the tickets, always by Adams I say anything, brother, and I'm not making money from it. I understand, but I don't need to. Yeah, I understand. Well, david, you had to let the man go on Because if I had to leave here by the time, I'm David don't stay for much interviews. David is a man of his word. It's a Trinity thing. I'd invite more Trinity people and also get David to stick around.

Adam:

Anything you want. As far as if you want to get someone to interview, chill. And you're not sure, even if I don't know them, I'll try and know them, yeah.

Corie:

I appreciate that.

Adam:

I think these conversations are important Because I think it's important for your business and your content and everything, but I think it might be a lot more beneficial to young people out there in our country. That's a big thing. That is the purpose we need to inspire these children.

Corie:

They have to see things a little differently.

Adam:

They have to have hope.

Corie:

Yeah, our children are not going to live here, our grandchildren are not going to live here. So if they don't have hope and we keep seeing, you know you live in a world where this one don't talk to that one, you just have a judgment about somebody you never see or hear from. It's a dangerous space.

Adam:

I feel you can only keep yourself back. Yeah, bro, I tell my go into the world comfortable. I don't have to look over my shoulder. I have no load. No load. If I have something to tell you, you can't deliver. But and guess what, I'm a gemini. So half an hour later I'm your best friend move right on that's good, that's good.

Corie:

I appreciate you coming and sharing, sharing it too, you know because you never come south. When I was living south and open my adams down there, I was waiting when I see trotters, but the space where trotters was open, I say adams will come there.

Adam:

This is the time.

Corie:

I'm not sure I haven't been out in a long time. I back up in town and then I see Brent with open mouth. I was living in Chaguan. I said, right, Adam's going to come down here.

Adam:

Don't go passing light off.

Corie:

Yeah, see, so you had to come here. This is where we could get your message passing light off. Get everybody to understand who you are, my pleasure. No-transcript.