Building Unbreakable Brands

Building Unbreakable Brands - Anne Bauer Interview

Introduction
What if your family business could talk—what would it say to you?
My guest today is the sixth-generation leader of a resilient business that has reinvented itself multiple times since 1891, from outfitting covered wagons to supplying airlines around the world.
We talk about what it's like to balance honoring five generations of history while giving yourself permission to lead differently, why intuition and creativity are vital to business evolution, and what it means to treat your company as a "tapestry" woven by those who came before you.
And of course, Henry joins us as the voice of the next generation with his questions about family stories and traditions. All this and more, coming up on Building Unbreakable Brands.
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Main Interview
Meghan Lynch (00:08): Welcome to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast where we talk to business leaders with a generational mindset. I'm Meghan Lynch. I'm an advisor to family businesses and CEO of Six-Point Strategy, which helps generational brands honor their past while evolving for the future. My guest today is Anne Bauer, a sixth-generation family business owner, leadership coach, and energy healer who supports rising gen leaders and legacy-driven enterprises to align structure, strategy, and energy. Welcome, Anne. I'm so excited to talk with you.

Anne Bauer (00:47): Thanks, Meghan. I'm really excited to be here.

Meghan Lynch (00:51): I love the fact that you come from not just a family business, but a sixth-generation family business. That's a long time. That's a lot of generations. So I was hoping that maybe you could just walk us through a little bit about the story of your family's business. The company was founded doing covered wagons to now supplying airlines. So can you just walk us through that journey?

Anne Bauer (01:41): Absolutely. The company was incorporated in 1891. That's when we have our articles of incorporation dated—it's entirely possible that they were operating before then, but just incorporated officially with the state of Missouri at that date. That was during the time when settlers were moving west across the United States and the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails intersect here in Kansas City, in the city market of Kansas City, Missouri.

Back then there were these supply outposts or these supply guys that were known as the racket man, and they literally had a covered wagon with pots and pans and dry goods. They were stationed in the city market so that as travelers came through and they needed more supplies, they would come up to a racket man. The lore that I've always heard is because the pots and pans made a lot of noise on the wagons, that was where the name came from.

(02:55) They would pick up some extra goods, anything that they needed to continue on with their journey. When our company was incorporated, it was incorporated as Racket Merchandise Company, which of course, naming your company racket is not the best. If I could go back to Sylvester Hoagland and be like, "Man, I don't know that racket is the brand we really want to stick with here." But at the time, that was the vernacular. That is what the company is still called. I've had a lot of airlines say, "You guys are really like racket's a weird name." And I'm like, "Yeah, we've had it for six generations. It feels like we shouldn't change it at this point." Over the years it started as that covered wagon supply outpost, and then eventually they opened up a brick and mortar store that was more like an old dime store or hardware store.

(04:00) You could buy housewares, things like that. As the company grew in future generations, they had several locations around Kansas City and people would come in and you could buy everything from pocket knives to crockery to just anything. My dad talks about one of the first things that he had to do when he started working for the company was counting screws in barrels. That was one of his initiations. We had retail locations around Kansas City and then also started supplying restaurants in Kansas City with dishes and pots and pans and things like that. When my grandfather was running the company and we had the retail locations, we were doing restaurant supply. That was during the time when the rise of commercial airlines really was in its heyday. So TWA was headquartered in Kansas City. They were headquartered at the municipal airport, which is directly across from another historic landmark of Kansas City, which is the Kansas City Stockyards. Back then, of course, flying on the airplanes was an event—you had bone China and lead crystal and you dressed up and you always got a meal on the plane. Very different than our experience now in commercial airlines.

(05:48) But when TWA would park their planes on the tarmac and they'd open the doors, flies would come in because of course the stockyards were so close. So TWA reached out to my grandfather and said, "Hey, can we start buying fly swatters from you all?" The fly swatter was our super glamorous into the airline industry. We started supplying fly swatters to TWA, and by the time my grandfather retired and my dad took over, we were supplying everything from China to crystal, to blankets, to salt and pepper shakers, not only to TWA, but to Pan Am and all of the airlines in the United States. When my dad took over, he was reading the temperature of the future of retail in the US and thought, "I think the time for mom and pop stores is really over and the airlines are doing great, and I'm going to close down the retail locations and go all in on the airline industry." That's what he did. We now supply airlines all over the world. We've got customers in Asia and the Middle East and in Europe. So that's what we do and that's how it evolved.

Meghan Lynch (07:00): That's amazing. What a great winding story. It sounds like a lot of the history or the theme of the business has been say yes, do the thing and then continue to grow relationships. Is that pretty much how it's been or has there been some other kind of secret to success that's allowed you to keep growing and diversifying like that?

Anne Bauer (07:35): I think there has been, despite the fact that it is a multi-generational family business, there has been a through line of real entrepreneurial spirit. I think each generation has stepped in and thought, "Okay, what can I do now?" I tell this story when I took over our family business about 12 years ago—I took over and of course didn't want to screw it up, right? I'm like, "Oh man, it has thrived for five generations. I cannot be the one to drop this ball." So for the longest time, I tried to do everything exactly like my dad did, and it looked great on the outside, but I felt really constrained. It felt like I was putting on a little suit and trying to pretend to be him every day.

(08:46) Eventually I realized that that was really constricting my energy and my creativity. I realized that if there's one thing that our family history has taught me, it's that you need to be creative to grow and evolve. That's really been, regardless of what the actual systems and things that are in place, that's the energetic throughline here. I realized that I was really having trouble accessing that. So I began this process of shedding that suit and giving myself permission to be myself as a leader, which felt really scary because not only was I the first woman, I was also the first generation that was also responsible for raising the next generation at the same time that I was running the company, which was not something that any of the other presidents up until me had ever been tasked with. Finding that balance, figuring out how that felt was a really big task.

(10:15) That was a big part of my work taking over the family business—really paying attention and figuring out how I could access my creativity in order to be able to continue to grow and evolve and keep that entrepreneurial spirit while still honoring the history of the business as well. You don't want to come in and throw the baby out with the bath water, but you also don't want to stay stagnant. You don't want to keep doing the same thing without thinking and looking for opportunities moving forward as well.

Meghan Lynch (10:28): Was there a moment or some kind of trigger event that helped you recognize that you were feeling stuck or was it kind of a slow burn to get there?

Anne Bauer (10:43): That's a great question. I want to say a little bit of both. I had been having the feeling for years that there was something else that racket wanted to do, which I think sounds maybe a little strange. Within the work that I do as not only a coach and a consultant, but also as an energy healer, one of the things that I do is I really work with and listen to the energy of the business as well. I was not a practitioner at that time, but I can now recognize that the energy of racket was saying, "There's something else here." I just had this feeling that there was something else that was wanting to come on board and I could not see what it was. So I started getting curious and diving into personal development myself.

(11:53) I got a coach. I started learning about energy healing. I followed the things that sparked my curiosity, which was a big leap. It was also like, "I have no idea what this is related to, but all I can say is I keep getting this little tap or this little spark of curiosity and I'm going to follow it and trust that at some point the pieces will start coming together." That was a process for, I'd say probably 2018, 2019, and then in 2020 when the pandemic happened, all the airlines stopped flying, and I had a ton of time on my hands.
I remember I was in my house and I was sitting in a little sunroom off of our bedroom and I was looking out over the neighborhood, and I just remember thinking, "What are we going to do?"

(13:01) I have no idea how long the airlines aren't going to be flying. I have no idea what travel's going to look like on the other side of this thing. I have no idea what's going to happen. My dad called me at that moment just to check in, and he said—and I still, it's one of those things where I'm like, it was my dad talking, but it actually felt like a message from someone greater—he said, "Anne, you need to remember that racket has not always done the same thing, and we don't need to always do the same thing moving forward."

That was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment because it helped me realize that this pause was actually an opportunity and not just the devastation that it felt like in that second.

(14:03) Now I can actually look back at that and say, that was actually an incredible moment for me and for the company because we were able to thankfully weather the pandemic and the airlines came back online. But in the meantime, I started coaching and consulting, and that business has also really picked up as well. So it was kind of like I'd been feeling something was going to happen, but I didn't know what, and then during the pandemic, it was that tipping point where it was like, "Well, now's the time, so let's see what you got."

Meghan Lynch (14:47): I love that. One of the themes throughout the conference that we attended together was this theme of reframing and growth mindset of what happens if these negative events that might happen are not happening to you but happening for you? It sounded like you kind of had that moment of, "Oh, right, yeah, maybe the pandemic isn't happening to us, but it's happening for us and it's giving us an opportunity to evolve not just the company, but maybe you yourself as a leader as well."

Anne Bauer (15:24): Yeah, a hundred percent.

Meghan Lynch (15:27): I feel like that kind of evolution, especially when you have the weight of five generations of legacy on it, and you spoke to this a little bit, it feels risky. There's this feeling of like, "Oh yeah, we need to evolve. But also if I change the wrong thing, am I going to be the one who loses this?" If it changes too much, if I pick the wrong thing for us to go into, I'm being entrepreneurial, but I don't pick the right thing to get us into. How do you continue to hold that tension and that weight when you're dealing with these kinds of evolutionary opportunities?

Anne Bauer (16:18): I love this question so much. I feel like it's actually a two part answer.
(16:27) The first is that I can look back, even though we have been in business for five generations, I also can look back and see the evidence of where the previous generations also tried some stuff that didn't work too. At one point when we were supplying in the late eighties, early nineties, we were supplying all these airlines, and we also then branched into hotel supply, which was successful. Then we opened a manufacturing facility to make our own bottles of miniature shampoo and conditioner. That business, despite my dad's best efforts, was never super successful. So right after 9/11 when we were restructuring—that was another big moment of pause in the airline industry—he ended up selling that part of the business. He talks about it. I wouldn't necessarily consider it a failure, but he's always like, "Oh man, that thing, I could just never make it work."

(17:39) So I can see evidence of sometimes you try things and they may not work, and that's also okay. Using that as a little bit of evidence for myself that it's all right if I try something and it's not super successful. The other part is really untangling my own energy and identity as the leader of this family business, untangling that from the energy of the business itself. Obviously as the person who is tending to and stewarding this business for this current generation, I want it to be successful and I am going to be devoted to making it as successful as I can. And my value as a person and as a member of this family is not contingent on how the business is doing.

(18:56) That took a lot of work, honestly, Meghan, because I mean, I was a firstborn daughter, people pleaser. I felt like I got good grades because that's what you do. So especially when I first took over the business, I felt very responsible for "this is make it or break it, and if I screw this up, I'm going to be voted off the island. I will be completely disowned. It will be the end of the world." That was part of that constricting energy that I had coming in. It was so much pressure. So I really learned in healing those patterns, seeing them and realizing this is not pressure that anyone is actually putting on me and this is not for me to carry anymore, was also super beneficial. It feels honestly way more fun now because business should be fun. When you don't have your entire existence tied to whether or not you win the game correctly, it's a lot more fun to play.

Meghan Lynch (20:18): I've got a good friend who does improv training and she's always saying, "Follow the joy and ease because you're in such more of a generative place when you are surrounded and following, where is it joyful?" And even if it's not easy, where is it easeful and where can you find those moments of like, "Oh, no, this feels a little bit easier than this other thing that I'm trying to make work." It sounds like some connections there of just finding some ways to put yourself in a generative space, headspace and energy space, which I imagine, again, if you're in a generative space, then it also helps the business and the team feel that ease and that joy as well.

Anne Bauer (21:14): Yeah, a hundred percent. That takes some real intention too. I remember the very first coach I worked with, one of our very first sessions I was trying to decide about something in the business, and she goes, "Well, what would be more fun?" And I was like, "What kind of question is that?" And now I find myself asking my clients that. I ask my daughter that when she's trying to make a decision, and it really is, I think it's a guiding light that we don't use nearly enough.

Meghan Lynch (21:52): You're listening to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast all about brand stewardship and crafting an enduring legacy. Today I am speaking with Anne Bauer. Through her signature framework, the three pillars of legacy, Anne empowers leaders and advisors to co-create sustainable, grounded and relationally resilient businesses that thrive across generations. So Anne, I want to talk a little bit about—we've talked a bit about your past and your work and how it's kind of built into the coaching work that you're doing now—but I'd love to hear a little bit more about your three pillars of legacy and how your framework is taking that structure, strategy, energy, and bringing that into the way that generational businesses are being led.

Anne Bauer (22:44): Absolutely. There are three pillars that I ground my work in, and I always start by saying these three pillars are not monoliths. They're actually really intermingled. So they are clear communication, healthy boundaries, and energetic awareness. The first two are ones that I think most folks have at least heard about on the internet or in business and executive development spaces. We all know, yes, clear communication is really important, healthy boundaries are really important, but the energetic awareness part in a lot of ways informs why those things are so important. The way that I hold that is different maybe than how other people have heard discussed before.
So clear communication energetically is really important because words actually move energy. When we are feeling stuck about something, that's why talk therapy is so effective. We're actually sitting down and using our words with another person to unearth something that is disrupting our system.

(24:15) That's the general idea. Now, the way that it shows up in family business is—and I always want to say when I'm pointing out the places where these things can come up as little hiccups or riffs, so much of the time this is not an intentional or a devious energy that is causing these things. I find that actually it's so much love and well-intended energy, but it still causes little problems.
So in family business, sometimes we see this problem with clear communication because we're trying so hard not to hurt other people's feelings. We love our family members, and so we balk at having hard conversations because we don't want to ruffle feathers and we don't want to upset anybody, and we want to keep everything really calm. But the problem is that if there is something that is needing to be addressed and we're not using our words and doing the thing that I think all family members can relate to, where you're like, "Maybe if I just think about it at you enough, you'll figure it out."

(25:37) I definitely do that. "Why isn't anybody else unloading the dishwasher?" or whatever. So if we're not actually using our words, that energy can get really stuck and we can get really cranky. There can be miscommunication if we're not actually using our words in a really clear way, and things can start to get really confusing or misaligned. Using our words to really create a clear path of connection and communication is super, super important. So that's kind of like square one.
Square two of course is having healthy boundaries around that. Because the truth of the matter is that when we're having those conversations, somebody might feel upset sometimes, and we need to be able to really ground ourselves in our own energy and know that they're allowed to have their feelings. And that doesn't change where we are or even what needs to actually happen here.

(26:49) Again, that can be tricky in family businesses because we care about the other people so much. There's that old expression, "If mama ain't happy, nobody's happy." We really affect each other because our energy is so intermingled and interwoven. When somebody's off, we all feel it. So it's important to be aware of that and to really work, especially within conversations where we're talking about how to make big decisions in the business and things like that, to be able to really stay in our own energy and not get pulled off course by what's going on with everybody else, either getting wrapped up or trying to control their experience, but really letting everyone have their own experience.Then obviously the energetic awareness part, that third pillar is really woven through those first two. But then the other piece that I like to presence for folks is that especially in family business, because we are so interwoven, we tend to be together a lot.

(28:06) We have this long history together even before we start working together. So there's a lot of interconnectedness. I think in modern corporate America, we have this tendency to feel like "Well, lock it up, just move forward." And that doesn't work great, especially in family businesses because we read each other's energy all the time. A lot of times we call it reading the room, but we've all had that experience of walking into the kitchen and something's wrong and nobody has said anything, but we know, right? "Oh, he had a bad day," or "somebody's really upset."

So we call it reading the room, but really we're reading the energy of the folks in the room. Being aware of that, not only that you are affected by everybody else's energy, but that they're affected by yours too. As much as we like to think, "I'm just going to lock it up and power through," it's not going to land the way we may be intending because our energy may be saying something entirely different. So to start recognizing that and really working to make sure that all of that is really aligned is really, really important.

Meghan Lynch (29:37): There's so much there. And I feel like I'm sure listeners are thinking like, "Oh yeah, a lot of this really rings true." As you're talking, I'm nodding along to all of the examples that you're giving. I love this idea of interconnectedness and just the unintended consequences of some of our energy and what we're bringing into the room. I'm curious if you could tie that back to your own story and work about times when you have had some of that unintended consequence and what you've done to realign things when that happens.

Anne Bauer (30:34): Absolutely. I think one of the biggest shifts that I've made as a leader in doing this work—because of course, because I'm also running my own family business, I am my number one client. I'm doing all of this myself day in and day out. One of the biggest things that I noticed, the difference is I have a real tendency, or especially had a real tendency that if I needed to communicate something that I knew the other person might not like, I would first of all try really hard to just avoid it completely. But I don't have a great poker face. So I would get weird is what would happen. I would avoid eye contact. So it would, corporate culture wise, make things really odd because then I'm kind of avoiding this person a little bit and maybe trying to figure out how I can just get in there and fix it myself without anybody knowing, which again is also a boundaries thing.

(31:53) So it really would create a lot of confusion about who was responsible for what. Suddenly I'm kind of sticking my fingers in places that I don't need to be doing, which I think family business owners—I mean, anybody who has not had that experience let me know because I have never heard of anyone who's running a family business who hasn't been guilty of this at some time or another of overstepping or micromanaging, things like that. That would come up a lot.
One of the things that I realized that I needed to do was really ground myself in the truth of how I was feeling about it. So I will start conversations by just saying, "I want to talk to you about something and I just need to say that I'm feeling nervous about it because I don't want to hurt your feelings."
(32:49) "I do value, I feel like you're doing an amazing job and there's this piece that I'm noticing isn't working quite right. So I'm wondering, I would like to talk about it, and I'm wondering if we could figure out how we can make some adjustments so that it's going to work more effectively moving forward." But I'll start by really saying, "The truth for me is that I'm feeling nervous about this," or "I was kind of hoping this would just resolve itself, but sadly it has not, and let's talk about it," and being a little bit more honest and authentic, not only in my communication with my team, but with myself too, and going, "Oh, you're nervous and you're doing the weird thing. Okay, let's go ahead and have the conversation."

Meghan Lynch (33:39): I think that it goes so far to have the self-awareness to be able to name some of those things and then to go even further and practice that clear communication piece of just saying them out loud using words to somebody else. It is amazing how it just kind of puts everybody, not just at ease, but also kind of brings people towards you. I know if I'm having a difficult conversation and I say, "This conversation is difficult for me," it actually almost like the other person will come towards me and try to help me.

Anne Bauer (34:16): Oh, good. Yeah, me too. We're in this together.
Meghan Lynch (34:22): Or "this is hard for you and I could make it easier." So I think it goes so far. I love that example. We were also talking a bit earlier about just resilience and adaptability, particularly in generational businesses. I'm curious if you could bring back these three pillars and clarity and communication and energy, and how do those help us be resilient and weather some of these storms, whether it's COVID or AI or disruption that we're all dealing with.

Anne Bauer (35:10): I use these pillars all the time myself. Anytime something challenging is happening, whether it's in the business, whether it's in the family, I literally will go back and look at my own webpage and go, "Okay, this is what we're doing. This is what we're really grounded in." It is really, really invaluable.
One of the things that has been really coming up for our family lately—so in addition to the family business that I run, the sixth generation airline company, our family also has a fourth generation cattle ranch, and then we also have a third generation citrus operation. My brother is taking over the cattle ranch, and then my little sister is taking over the citrus operation. The citrus operation—well, first of all, my sister's nine years younger than me and seven years younger than my brother.

(36:30) So she's really at the beginning of this generational transition with my dad. The citrus operation is a much more hands-off type business. There's a grove care company that we work with, but in terms of management, we are not there picking the fruit on the ground. So it works well for my sister because she's also a pediatric nurse, and so it's something that she can actually do both.

We always laugh that she left and became a pediatric nurse because she saw my brother and I go through working within the family business and was like, "No way I'm doing this. I'll see you guys." Now that the time has come and she's really stepping in and starting to take over the citrus company, she and my dad have a totally different personality dynamic than I do with my dad or my brother did with my dad.

(37:36) So they have had some really difficult moments, and they're still really in it too. Anybody who's gone through a generational handover knows, you have moments where it is real messy. So in those moments when one of them blows up or somebody walks out and slams the door, we'll kind of go back and say, "Okay, what's happening in each of these three pillars? What's the communication that needs to happen? Where's your energy? Where's their energy? Are we both grounded in ourselves or are we maybe trying to get the other person to do something and we're not clearly communicating it? What's actually at the root of this blow up or this tension?" So we use that all the time in those moments and are still very actively doing that day in and day out right now.

Meghan Lynch (38:43): That's amazing. And that's really fun that you each have an opportunity to lead within the family business and kind of find your own path. That's really exciting. You're also working with intuition and talking about energy in a space that's usually very strategy driven. There's a right way and a wrong way, and there's frameworks that we apply and there's data that we can look at. I'm curious—obviously this work is personally important to you and has been personally transformational to you. What do you wish that more family business leaders understood about really listening to some of these inner pieces or the soul of their business?

Anne Bauer (39:40): I think the number one thing is understanding that your family business has its own energy, and it has been—I'd like to think of it as a tapestry that has been given to you. So it is woven by the intention and attention of every generation before you. When it lands in your lap, it can be first of all, huge and heavy and overwhelming. That was definitely my experience.
But then though, I believe that our work as family business leaders is to really develop a relationship with this tapestry and really pay attention to and do our very best effort to understand what it is that has been woven into it, and to get really intentional about whether or not we want to continue weaving that same thing, or if there are certain pieces that we want to, with so much gratitude drop and say, "Okay, this has served us well, and also we're going to take the pattern in a slightly different direction moving forward," and knowing that that's okay, and to really get intentional about what it is that we are weaving in moving forward as well, I think is really, really important.

(41:14) For me, and I think for my clients, the idea of being in collaboration with the energy of your business is both a revolutionary idea and an incredibly helpful and supportive idea because it goes from, "This is all on me" to, "Oh, actually, it's all of us. It's us, me and all of the ancestors before and the energy of the business, and we are all doing this thing." It's my job to really listen and be intentional about what it is that we're moving forward. It just changes. It really shifts the energy from "I've got to get it right" and all the things that our brain really gets wrapped up in doing. It helps us really open and relax and realize like, "Oh, this is not about solving a puzzle. It's about growing a garden." It's the difference between something that we have to sit down and solve all by ourselves versus something that we're actually doing in relationship to other elements and powers around us.

Meghan Lynch (42:41): The idea of this kind of woven quilt or tapestry on you—I love that example or that metaphor, because you can both feel the weight of it, and also it just does help you think about it in a different way. I think even gives you some—you were talking a little bit about boundaries and personal distance. It's also, it's this thing on your lap. It isn't you. You're not tied into it. So it can also give you a little bit more of perspective.

(43:20) I just keep going back in my brain to this moment where your dad's calling you during COVID and saying, "We haven't always done the same thing," and really giving you permission to take the weave in a different direction or to drop things that aren't serving you. I do feel like that phone call is something that every next gen leader needs to hear, needs to get. I just think about family businesses that I've worked with and how freeing it is for them when they figure out, "Oh, we have this land that's important to the family, but what we do on the land, we could raise cattle on the land, we could grow citrus on the land. We could run a hospitality organization on the land. It could be anything as long as the land is central," and just having that freedom and opportunity to use your language really shifts energy that they feel towards the business and the legacy.

So if you're working with a client who's starting to kind of feel that weight, but without the creative energy, do you have a small step that they can take or one next thing that they could do to just start being able to listen to what's possible or shift the energy that's happening?

Anne Bauer (44:58): Absolutely. I think one of the main things, and this is probably some of the square one homework that I give all of my clients, which is to start giving yourself some intentional space to just be in your own energy, because so many of us, we're all busy and we're running companies that demand our attention. I totally understand that feeling of, "I got to get up, I'm going to drink my coffee, check my email, hop in the car, we got to go." I totally get that. Creative insight has to work really hard to shove itself in when we're not giving it some space to actually come in. I mean, it's trying to fold up a note and shove it through a door that's already closed versus opening the door and saying, "Hey, I'm accepting letters of inspiration right now."

(46:16) For a lot of people, I mean, this can look like so many things. It can look like a meditation practice. It can look like yoga. And then having that moment of Shavasana at the end where you're laying quietly and still. But for some people it can be just sitting and having a cup of coffee with a notebook and writing down anything that comes into their mind, or having a book that really inspires you and just making sure that you're really giving yourself time to read a little bit of it every day. This really can be—I mean, it doesn't need to be a huge chunk of time. It can be even just 10 minutes can start shifting things in a really incredible way. Between me and my husband, it looks like lots of different things. It looks like going for a walk without a podcast, which don't get me wrong, I love a podcast, but having a few moments to let your mind go in whatever direction it wants to, and just giving some actual space to any kind of inspiration and then trusting that and not feeling like you have to be getting it right.

(47:47) If I had originally tried to justify why it is that I felt interested in energy work, when I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my airline business, how do you connect those dots? That's real weird, right? But still, it kept coming in. There was just such a curiosity. So I was like, "Alright, this may be weird, but I'm going to look into this a little bit and then I'm going to go to this retreat and see what it's like. And oh, well, now I'm really interested and now I think I want to train with somebody for a while." Just giving yourself permission to really follow those little nudges is really, really important.

Meghan Lynch (48:34): You're listening to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast all about brand stewardship and crafting an enduring legacy. I'm speaking with Anne Bauer who has over 25 years of experience inside and alongside multi-generational businesses and offers a unique lens on how to build capacity by aligning structure, strategy, and energy. And now we are going to be joined by my son Henry, who's going to be here as the voice of the next generation, and he's got some questions for Anne.

Anne Bauer (51:03): Hi Henry.

Henry Lynch (51:11): How are you doing? Good, how are you? Good. Just had school picture day.

Anne Bauer (51:19): Oh, well I like the shirt you chose. That was a good choice.

Henry Lynch (51:34): So your family business started way back in the 1800s. What's the weirdest thing your family ever sold?

Anne Bauer (51:45): Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. So one of the things, I was actually mentioning this to your mom. So when my dad first started working for the family business, when he was a kid, they used to sell nails and screws just in bulk. And so they were in great big barrels, and when they would get the giant barrels of nails and screws from the companies that they bought them from so that then they could sell them to everybody in Kansas City, my grandpa would make my dad go through and count all of the screws in the barrel to make sure that they got the number that they ordered. I always think it's wild to think that that used to be something that anybody would have to just count one at a time. That would be such a boring job. My dad always said that was his least favorite job that he ever had to do.

Henry Lynch (52:53): Yeah, I don't think anyone would like that job.

Anne Bauer (52:58): Right.

Henry Lynch (53:00): So if your family's business could talk, what do you think it would say to you?

Anne Bauer (53:06): You know, right now I feel like it has been saying "I'm ready for an adventure." So we have been talking a lot and thinking about what we want to do with the business or what else we want to do with the business. I feel like it's feeling very excited right now. So I don't know what that adventure is going to look like, but it feels like that's what it's saying right now.

Henry Lynch (53:43): Okay. So what's something your grandparents or great grandparents did that you still think about today?

Anne Bauer (53:54): That's a really good question. Well, I am still working in the same business or in the same building that my grandpa bought and moved our business into. So there are still times when I'm walking around the building where, especially out in the warehouse where I see where his office used to be and I can really picture him there working. He just loved being at the store so much. So I think that's something that I think about so much is that he was so dedicated to the business and really loved it so much. That is something that always makes me smile when I think about it.

Henry Lynch (54:54): Yeah, that's nice. Thanks Anne. I have a joke for you.

Anne Bauer (55:00): Okay.

Henry Lynch (55:02): Why did the airplane get sent to its room? Why? Because it had a bad altitude.

Anne Bauer (55:11): Oh my gosh, Henry, that's so good. I'm going to have to write that down and tell that at my next meeting with my airline customers.

Henry Lynch (55:25): So yeah, thanks so much for being on the show, Anne.

Anne Bauer (55:28): Yeah, thank you.

Henry Lynch (55:29): If people want to learn more about you or your company, what's the best way for them to do that?

Anne Bauer (55:35): So they can go to my website, which is thelegacyevolution.com and they can find me there. I'm also on LinkedIn, it's Anne Bauer—Anne with an E and Bauer like Eddie Bauer, not our family business, although that would've been cool. And I'm also on Instagram as well, Anne Bauer KC. So I'm around and they can find me any of those places.

Henry Lynch (56:03): Great. We'll link to those in the show notes. Thanks again. It was great talking to you.

Anne Bauer (56:10): Yeah, thanks Henry.

Outro
Anne offered so many thoughtful insights today, but one that really stayed with me was her description of the family business as a tapestry woven by every generation. When it's your turn at the loom, you don't have to replicate every thread. You get to decide how to honor the pattern that's already there, and where to bring in new colors, textures, and direction.
For leaders carrying the weight of legacy, the shift from "this is all on me" to "this is something I'm in collaboration with" can be liberating. It creates room for creativity, joy, and the recognition that mistakes and experiments are part of the pattern too. Anne's framework of clear communication, healthy boundaries, and energetic awareness is such a practical way to navigate that tension. Whether you're in the middle of succession, navigating sibling dynamics, or trying to evolve your business for today's challenges, those three pillars are tools worth carrying forward.
To learn more about Anne's work with family businesses, check out the links in the show notes. And if this episode gave you a new way of thinking about your own role in your family's tapestry, please consider sharing it and leaving us a review.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on Building Unbreakable Brands.