Dreams Reimagined: My Path from Bakery to Farm

Welcome aboard the 'Farm to Heart Podcast,' a story-telling, wisdom sharing place where I will share my journey and invite others with similar stories of resilience and reinvention. This short episode begins with a quick personal narrative, providing you with a glimpse of the trials and triumphs that have shaped my entrepreneurial spirit. I hope to inspire you, to help you ignite your dreams, and to reassure you that it's okay to pivot when life throws curveballs at you. Stay tuned for uplifting conversations that are sure to enlighten and inspire you. This podcast is a tribute to heart-centered entrepreneurship and personal growth, and I’m thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Let’s plant the seeds of your dreams together!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Farm to Heart Podcast, a podcast for heart-centered entrepreneurs and dreamers alike, seeking to plant their seeds and grow a life of alignment, purpose and their own version of joy-filled success. I'm Sarah Rutter, a former award-winning bakery owner, turned mama, animal rescuer and multi-passionate entrepreneur with a desire to help others ignite their dreams and create a life they love without the burnout. So whether you're seeking guidance on personal growth, launching or growing your current business, or simply looking for inspiration to ignite your entrepreneurial spirit, this podcast will be your loyal companion. So join me as we plant the seeds of your dreams, nurture their growth and cultivate a life of purpose, abundance and fulfillment. So saddle up and let's go. Welcome, alright, well, hello. I first just want to start off by saying that I recorded this entire episode and then realized once I was finished that I never plugged in my microphone. So I am the perfect example of starting messy, of starting just scared but just starting, and so I hope that even in this first little short episode, that that can be something that inspires you, because it's not perfect, it's going to be a little fumbly and I'm probably going to say words like um and like a few times. So I just appreciate your grace in this first episode, as I kind of get the jitters out a little bit, but I'm so excited to get this thing rocking and rolling with you.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I am Sarah Rutter, born and raised in Colorado. My parents still live here and are still married. They have been married 45 years, I believe. I am the youngest of three children. I have an older sister who also lives in Colorado and an older brother who lives in Florida. I have my degree in hospitality and event management, but I knew pretty early on in getting my degree that working in corporate wasn't something that was a good fit for me. So I kind of that's when I started brainstorming what kind of business I would want to start and it was pretty, pretty easy for me to decide that a cupcake shop was the right thing to start off with. I have been married to my husband, calvin, for 11 years. We met at a bar in Golden Colorado. So if you are out there and you are single, just know that it is possible to meet your future spouse at a bar. Still, it can happen. And we have a two and a half year old little boy named Brett and he is wonderful and I just love, love, love being his mother more than anything.

Speaker 1: 2:51

I started my first business, gold Mine Cupcakes, in 2013 and I asked my mom to be the co-owner with me. She is the reason that we one of the reasons her and her and my grandmother but she is one of the big reasons that we even know how to bake and that we grew up baking with her. So it seemed only fitting to ask her to be the co-owner and she was still a full-time nurse at the time but she did. She signed on to be the co-owner with me and my dad and I would go sell cupcakes at local farmers markets and then my mom and my sister would go to farmers markets on the weekend with me and to help sell cupcakes, and then we sold them at local bridal shows and stuff like that. And the business just grew in the first two years and we were baking out of my mom's kitchen and very quickly outgrew my mom's kitchen. And then we got the opportunity to open up our brick and mortar shop in downtown Golden, colorado, in May of 2015 and it was such a god thing and I will go more into that in episode two. But the whole thing just could not have been more aligned and meant to be, and so it was really amazing to see it all come together.

Speaker 1: 4:03

And so at that time, my mom had just retired from nursing, like two weeks before the shop opened, and then the cupcake bakery opened and we just jumped in and didn't even know what to expect whatsoever and it was pretty mind-blowing how quickly we grew and how busy we were just right off the bat. And so my dad continued to work for us. He worked up front at the counter. He did wedding deliveries we were still doing farmers markets at the time. He kind of did a little bit of everything for us, and then my mom and I were the two main bakers and then my sister worked part-time for us when we first opened and then came on full-time and a few years later so it was pretty crazy we became one of the top 15 bakeries in the country. We were recognized as number one in the state several years in a row. We were asked to have a reality TV show about us, which we turned down. We got asked to apply for several baking competition shows.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So it was just, it was crazy, it was a wild ride, and then I'd say in about 2018 is kind of when I started feeling the first signs of burnout Kind of just ignored them. I pushed through them. I didn't want to accept that I had reached that point, and so I just really pushed them to the back of my head and and kept going. And so it wasn't until COVID hit in 2020 that I really I was forced to slow down and I really realized how exhausted and burnt out I really was and I felt like a failure. I felt like I had let my family down and I just knew that I needed to make a change, and so it was a really, really emotional time trying to figure out that whole situation, but eventually we came to the conclusion. In September of 2020, we decided to sell the cupcake bakery. And then also in September of 2020, right when I decided to sell the shop, I also found out I was pregnant with Brett. We also sold our first home and then we got the offer accepted on the farm here in Blackhawk. So it was just crazy, like it was some of the highest highs and some of the lowest lows, and it was an insane month, but so beautiful and just really I saw God's hand playing out in in our lives that when we decided to surrender and just kind of let him take control. We moved to Blackhawk in the end of 2020. And we had Brett June 1st 2021.

Speaker 1: 6:36

And then I started Sweet Freedom Farm. I named our farm Sweet Freedom Farm and made it into a business in February of 2022. And so we just wrapped up our first summer of events. We had a few weddings here, we had a few equine inspired coaching events, we had a one day retreat and we had several pasture picnics where people came and we set up a nice picnic in the pasture for them and they got to hike around our trails and meet the horses and it was. It was really great. And we became a horse rescue this past summer, which is a whole another story for another time.

Speaker 1: 7:13

So it was a crazy summer, and this was all while trying to navigate motherhood still and then navigate a business that was completely different from the first business of the cupcake shop. So it was just a really wonderful summer of lots of learning curves and lots of growth, and that is a also just a big reason why I wanted to start this podcast as well, because it was such a beautiful reflection of what can happen when we truly follow our dreams and follow the purpose on our hearts and that it's okay to pivot, it's okay to see that maybe your life isn't where you wanted it to be, or maybe a dream that that was a dream isn't your dream anymore, and it's okay to just turn a corner and go a different direction, and I am a walking example of that. And so that is just some of the stories that I want to share here on the podcast, but then also hearing from other people too, about their their burnouts that became a breakthrough and their pivots in their life that led them to following more of their purpose and their passions. I can't wait to get this train going with you guys, and I just am so excited for this opportunity just to speak to you and feel so blessed that you are allowing me to be in your ears. All right, well, I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening today.

Speaker 1: 8:35

If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite listening platform. You can also leave a review anytime or send me a DM on Instagram at farm to heart. Sarah, I would love to hear from you and hear more about your story. You can also help the podcast even more by financially supporting the tech and time costs of each episode, starting at just $3 per month. Click the support, the show link and show notes to learn more. Today's show plus more farm fun can be found on the blog at sweetfreedomfarmcocom. I can't wait to talk to you again next week. Have a beautiful day everyone.