Episode 16 - Jo Dailami, Why We Find Support

This week’s guest is Jo Dailami. Jo is a people and culture-centered development leader, entrepreneur, and founder of Dailami, a drinkable yogurt brand focused on high protein, collagen, and fiber. Jo has taken experiences from her life to create for others. With over eleven years of experience, Jo has built a career around collaboration. In addition to her professional work, Jo volunteers with Bolder Way Forward, supporting initiatives that expand opportunity and advancement. Now as both a leader and founder, Jo is passionate about helping individuals grow with purpose, intention, and create lasting positive change for everyone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Waking the Why, a podcast about uncovering the purpose behind life's crucible moments. Each episode, you'll hear from real people who turn their struggles into strength and their stories into light. If you're searching for meaning, walking through something hard, or just love stories that stir the soul, you're in the right place. Hello, friends, and welcome to Waking the Why, where we discover the purpose behind life's crucible moments. My name is Stacy Peterson, and our guest today is Joe DeLamy. Thank you so much for being here, Joe. Thank you for having me. So excited. You guys, I'm at Joe. It's been a little over a year now, right? So we've both been volunteering for an organization called Boulder Way Forward, which is a movement here in Utah to help build a better Utah for women and girls, which impacts all of our families. So that's been fun, right? So much fun. Working on these modules to help create awareness specifically around the gender pay gap. So that's been kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, it's been incredible. You've been amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

You've been amazing in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Well, to start out, Joe, tell us your story. Give us your little bit of your background.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah, my story starts as a little girl, as all of ours does. But we all experience pain and trauma and difficulties. A lot of mine was front-loaded. I got a lot of it very early and then had no capacity to move through it, to understand it, to process it.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

And so instead I internalized it. And it became my identity of an unworthy person. So you can imagine if that's the way you view yourself, if your if your self-identity is so fractured, the decisions you make from that space, the life you build from that space. Um and I carried that pain through my 20s and hit a point that it was intolerable. I could no longer endure, you know, you have the pain of that those experiences, and then the pain of your choices because of the experiences. And it hit a point that was very pivotal for me of I can't continue life in this way, and I also don't have the skill to do it differently. I tried so many times.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

You know, when I don't think we recognize at times though, that the way the choices that we make um are aligned or could be a direct reflection of the things that we experienced as young. So when did you realize that? When did you connect the dots that that was all a part of it?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

I think for me, it was extremely, you know, we we all move in our lives very unconsciously often. Yeah. Right? Like we don't always know this is what's driving it. At that pivotal time, thank goodness, I'm my 28-year-old self, oh, I I love her so deeply because she stepped on a scary path of being willing to get help. And I think it was in that process where I was like, oh, of course, I logically understand these things were big and hard, but I don't think I understood how they were driving so much dysfunction.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

So all of that work of facing that mountain that had to be climbed and walking in that unknown path and that vulnerable path, the reason I share it is because I can sit now. And I know this podcast is very much about a why.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

My why is so rooted in all of that. It's it was born from that. And working through it and facing it and dealing with it and getting to a better side puts you in a place where you're like, oh, it there is another side. And I want to, I want to help others get there or be a support to them, you know, because I needed a support.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So my business is so so driven by that why, and my advocacy work is so driven by that why. And there's just so much purpose in the things we go through.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

You know, life's a journey, yeah. And I think it is about understanding kind of what we experience and how that builds who we are today. Um, but when you say your 28-year-old self, I imagine that it wasn't just like a one-day pause, reflect overnight. Wow, you're healed, right? How long did it take you to kind of sort through all of the I'll call it trauma that you experienced as a as a young child to get to where you're like, now it's driving you in a positive way?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, that's such a great question, and I'm glad you asked it because in the beginning I had so much frustration with myself because I felt like I'm doing all of this work. Why isn't it? And I'm still doing these things sometimes. I would still fall back into patterns or beliefs. It took me years. I'm still on the path, I'm still working for it. But I I can say the healing was incremental, but even the work I did in year one had tremendous impact on how I felt internally. Yeah, so I would say very quickly I experienced shifts, but it's also like these micro ongoing process.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah. Was this a journey of your own, like self-discovery, or were you part of a group like did you go get help from others, or was this you working through it?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I think a big part of trauma, or at least mine, was hyper independence. I think allowing even a therapist to help me initially was like wild for me to even consider. It's not that I didn't have great people in my life, I did. But having great people in your life and receiving help are two different things. So I would say, I mean, it took a long time. It took a long time. My my husband, um, who is my very best friend, I think that was a great process of letting him help and support my sisters. Like, like I said, they were always there, but like really letting them was also a a process. Yeah, yeah, but it was more singular. It was more singular for sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

It's it's amazing um what that independence can lead us to do and can alienate us from those around us, right? I I will say I'm a super independent individual. In fact, I remember when our first year of marriage, um, my husband said, You don't need me. And I remember sitting there going, yeah, you're right. I don't. Yeah. But I want to learn to need you. And that was super weird. And I thought about, I read a book recently, and it was talking about um kind of how how we grow up, the things that we experience, even just simple phrases that are known within our home that kind of shape who we are in our mindset, right? So my dad used to always say, the Lord helps those who help themselves. So it was just like, I gotta help myself. I'm doing this all on my own, right? And there's there are lots of phrases like that. And um, but I didn't realize that even being independent, being a strength to the extreme, could really get in the way of life's decisions and the joys that we experience, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Absolutely. It's like the joy is really it. Like I can see now in my business, like my favorite part is the co-creation of it. Yeah, and it's hard for me because sometimes I'm like, I've got to do it all, and I wanna, you know, do this. But when I go, no, someone else is like that. We can like it's a together thing, it's it's more fun, it's it's more rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can have it, it is, it can have the sound side too. But yeah, when you get to build something collectively, I know, or when you get to share things and really receive. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

It's just so let's talk about your business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So, what are you doing and how long have you been doing it? I love it so much. I know. So I I left a very good corporate job three years ago because I I don't know how to say it more than I just I'm like, this is the this is not your path. It's a great path, it's not yours, but I had no idea that was another time that I stepped into a very big unknown and it it served me. So um, my husband and I, Dalame is is our is our food brand, and it was born from, as I mentioned, the pain of a lifelong struggle with food. I had no ability to nourish myself or to use food as a tool for like having energy and clarity of mind and feeling good. I I did not know how to do that. Yeah, and so my relationship with food was very much a part of my healing journey and and learning that. And so my husband 10 years ago started making this really clean, protein-packed yogurt. He would take a clean yogurt, add into clean protein, collagen, berries, all of this stuff. And it was just this super food, this thing that you're just like, oh my gosh, if I do if I eat that, I've done something good today. Right, you know, for me, that psychological win was huge. So I started eating it. We ate it every single day, and while I was sorting through, like, what am I going to do? What is this thing that's calling me? He was whipping his yogurt up, and he's like, you know what? There's a thousand protein bars on the shelf. There's two high protein yogurts, and none of them are like this. Like, what about this? Oh, I love it, and I was like, it was right here. I was like, that is I have goosebumps. That is it. Yeah, that is it, that is the thing because it sounds crazy to say that yogurt supported me the way it did. Yeah, but it did because I had so much chaos around it that it really did feel like, okay, I've got I've got this thing, and it's it's nourishing me, and I feel full and good and strong. And so um, we've we have spent two and a half years on formulation. It is perfect. I will give you some. It is so good. It is so just nutritious and clean.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Isn't it crazy how long it takes to you think, come on, I have the idea, boom, let's be done. But it just doesn't because you're having to find manufacturers and providers, and you gotta have your quality test. There's just so many things that go into it. It's hard. It is hard. How many times did you want to quit?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Well, that's a great. I never felt like I wanted to quit. I didn't know how I could keep going. I those feel like different things, those are so different, but it's so true. Yeah, where I'm like, why is this not when I think about what I thought day one? It's laughable that I thought how fast it would go. You know, it and so that process of it taking time, but I view time different now going through two and a half years because I can see where that was growing me.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

To be to be where I am today, I need I I probably needed two and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Right, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So, but yes, it's been quite the long process. So the product is made? Yes, yep. We're I'm pitching right now. I'm pitching, getting into retailers and doing all that. Sales is I I'm a sales clerk. I I'm rooted in sales, so a lot of the stuff in the you know, previous stuff, I was so frustrating because I was relying on others and that independence.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yes, I relate.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Someone else's speed wasn't my speed. Yeah right now I can run.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

This is your element and I'm running.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, yeah, I'm running right now.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, I remember um the first year of of my organization and going into individuals. I just felt like here I am trying to convince them to believe in me. Yeah, I'm like, just believe in me. And oh, those moments were so hard. But I I wouldn't trade them for the world because it really, one, created a stronger me. And over time, I mean, I've been in business 10 years now. I realized like I am a totally different person for the better, but I'm also separate from my company. I'm not my company, right? And it's been it's been an interesting, lovely journey to experience. But I'm so excited for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

It's so so fun. It's been the most stretching, you know, probably motherhood and entrepreneurship. Those are the two things that have just really pulled me into you have to step into your best self. You really do.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

That's where growth comes from, is in the stretching, right? And let's talk a little bit about those pit of despair moments. That's what I call them, right? I remember, um, and I may have mentioned this on another podcast, but I remember one time just coming home in the evening after meeting with some investors and partners that I had, and I'm just like, life is over in that moment. Like, I don't even know how I can move forward or go on. I don't even know what to do. And I went to sleep that night sobbing, and I woke up that morning with the sun coming through the window, shining right on my face, like it immediately woke me up. And the thought was the sun always rises. There will be a tomorrow, right? It's just like, just hold on a minute, hold on. Yep, and at times we only know the first next step, right? So tell us some of those moments for you. Oh my gosh, I've had so many.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

The one that that it felt really big and really hard was it took a year to formulate and test. Okay, so that's a whole year, and then I I had to get someone to produce it, and we're small, it's all operates at scale. Yeah, so you have people doing millions and millions of right. So I go through the process of I'm cold calling every dairy plant in America, I'm calling every co-manufacturer, and it's either no, or I got some people that would engage with me, but then ghost me or engage with me, but they were so slow, and it I I it didn't feel right. I'm like, this is not I had in my mind, I'm like, right, I see it different, and I see it a win-win, and I see a place that like as excited about it as we are, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

And I was so discouraged after a full year of cold calling. You're doing the same thing every day with no evidence that it's gonna work out, right? You know, yeah, and I sat in this backyard and I put my face in the earth and I lit, I mean, I was just like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And really, the answer, what I did, I spent a day just reconnecting to the the vision I had, the dream I had, that energy, my why. Like, what am I doing and why? And do I believe in it or not? Because if I believe in it, then you you have that step that you don't know. Yeah, you you you take it, you have to. Yeah, and it's the roomy quote, you know, the the path appears as you walk it. Like that was so true. And so I just I remember I woke up on a Sunday morning early before the kids got up, and I was like, I don't know what the answer is, but I'm gonna find it. And I worked through the day. I took them to the pool with my laptop. I mean, I was just like there, it is out there, I know it. And I came across a creamery I hadn't seen. Snowville creamery in Ohio, and it's female run, female own, and I hadn't talked to one woman the whole time, right? And it was just not that that was a requirement, but a beautiful, you know, addition, and um, they're really connected to food as it's most natural, just like how I feel about it. It was so perfectly aligned. And I reached out and almost immediately they responded. And nine months later, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

So it really is you you can sit with that despair, you can let it wash over you, but like you said, the sun is going to come up, and there is always an answer. There really is. There's always a solution if you are willing to just you've got to move forward.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

I love that you took time in the backyard to just be still. Yes. That's not a natural thing for me to pause. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, sure. There's so many things to be doing, right? And I tend to be like a I'm really good at checklists, I love the endorphins I get from like getting something done, and I'm a doer. Right. And and I found through my entrepreneurship journey, it's just as critical to pause and be still and get the impressions of where we need to move forward than it is to get stuff done.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

It it is probably because I'm the same. Oh, I love it's so good.

unknown 18:36

I know.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

It's like the best, you know. I am a doer, I'm the same. I think it's almost, I feel that I have to carve out time for that.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Because again, if my why, this is my why, and I believe it, I believe it. I also have to believe, I have to let go of that hyper independence and go, there are forces that I have seen show up in ways that I don't I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

And if I don't slow down, I don't leave room for that.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

It is so true. I this just this last week, Cody and I spent time on the Oregon Coast. I just turned 50, so that's so fun. Thank you. It was so fun. So we were like, let's, I needed to go away and I needed, I needed to be still and really kind of connect um with Cody, with God, with just where I'm at. Because prior to that, for the last three months, I've had so much noise going on in my mind, and it it clouds our judgment and it gets in the way of what we're doing and why. And so I love when you say it's just we need to take that time.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, it's everything. I I am a believer now. I wanted to exit my internal more than almost anything for the majority of my life. Yeah, it didn't feel good in there, you know. But now it's the place I want to be most because it really I do believe we have it all inside, yeah, and so much pulls us out. Yeah, but when we can kind of be be quiet and have a minute and and let it let it flow through us, it's like really crazy what comes up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

It's so beautiful. So, is this a venture that both you and your husband are doing together, or what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, so we are co-founders, um, but he's got a big job, yeah, you know, so he's doing his big job, and he's such a wonderful person because he knows how much I would just do all of it by myself if I could. I mean, I love his insight and he's so smart. And so how the days look for us mostly is you know, I do do the things, and then at night I'm like, this is what's going on, and this is where we're at. So he's very involved in the big high-level conversations, yeah. Um, but he's also very yeah, he's a busy guy. So it's it's together but separate.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

For sure. Yeah, it makes complete sense. Well, maybe one last question. Yes. So we we talked about how hard and our pit of despair moments can be. It doesn't matter whether you're starting your own company um or you you have childhood trauma, or like there's we all experience hard in life. Yeah, and that looks very different. And I think when you're looking back on it, I think at times you got to do some work. When you look back on it, you have a different perspective than when you were in the middle of it, right? But man, when you're in the middle, yeah, Joe, it's so hard. Yes. So if you had to give advice to our audience here, what would you what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

I think that what I am so it can make me emotional, profoundly thankful for and proud of, is that I didn't stop. I just didn't stop. Even when it was messy, even when it looked completely different. I thought it should, even when I felt like I was so far behind, you know, I just didn't stop. And I think I held on to the belief that it could be better and that I held on to this big desire to live life with fullness instead of scarcity.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

You know, and that that just kept me going. And so I would say, whatever your why is, you know, and hopefully part of it is just to feel good and experience an expansive life. Hold on to that and and just do not stop. Because there is another, there's another side and it's worth it.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

I love that. I I love the things that life teaches us. It's hard, right? Um, but I think I really believe that if we're willing to look at our life's experiences, we can find purpose in them that then lead to a why, a way in which we can um bless ourselves, our families, and all those that are around us. Like, I'm so excited for your yogurt. Like, I need it. Like, I need it so bad because I will tell you, throughout my entire adult life, food is the last thing on my list. Right. I just don't care about it, I don't put time to it. And so anything that you can do to help me ensure I get my nutrients, I need it, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yes, I got you.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

But I look at it and say, we can find purpose through our paths that we take, and and we can then intentionally do things. You you talked about um having a scarcity mindset versus abundant mindset. And there's just something when you believe that there's enough for everyone. When we when we go around just constantly worried of like, oh, I didn't get that dill, or or no one's buying this, or this person doesn't like me anymore, or they used to be my friend, and we're so worried about all those things, it's it's scarcity and it kind of takes things away from us, right? Totally. But when we I and I I will say I think it's natural to have some of those feelings. And those of you that just naturally think abundantly, you are blessed, yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

But I've learned that when those scarcity thoughts come in, I've become because of my awareness now, I can choose to change the thought to an abundant thought. And it's changed my world, it really has. I'm so grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, our core beliefs are everything, they are they drive everything, and I now know that when I am living in abundance of energy, of love, of excitement, of all like, and I'm just filling that up in myself, it pours out, you know, more naturally. I become the person that I yeah that I really want to be.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Oh my heck, my friends! Isn't she amazing? Joe, you seriously are. I don't don't know how she does it all, right? You got entrepreneur, mother, advocacy, but I think in the end, it's always a you can't do them all at the same time, right? Yeah, and so there's give and take here in there. But thank you so much for all that you're doing, and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Thank you for all your tuning. Thank you for giving me the space to share my story. It's so wonderful. Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Well, my friends, you heard it from Joe. Don't stop. Don't you give or ever give up. When you have your beliefs and there's something that you want to do, go after it. Thank you for joining me on Waking the Why. If today's story moved you, share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget, your why is worth waking up for.