When opportunity knocks, sometimes it comes in the most unexpected ways—like someone breaking into your home to steal a salad dressing. That’s the unlikely spark that launched Gregory Vetter’s entrepreneurial journey, one that would forever change the way Americans think about clean eating.
On this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, Gregory shares his remarkable story: how he turned his mother’s homemade salad dressing into Tessemae’s, the nation’s #1 organic refrigerated salad dressing brand. His story is more than a business tale—it’s a lesson in resilience, innovation, and redefining the American Dream.
From a Missing Salad Dressing to a National Brand
Gregory’s journey began in the humblest way. A friend—who didn’t even like salad—confessed to stealing Gregory’s mother’s homemade dressing. That was the “aha” moment. If the product was so irresistible it could inspire theft, perhaps it was good enough to sell.
Armed only with conviction and cold-calling skills, Gregory approached local grocery stores. With no packaging, no brand, and no experience, he brought samples in Tupperware. The response was immediate: “This is the best salad dressing I’ve ever had.” That first yes opened the door to a 15-year journey that saw Tessemae’s become a pioneer in the clean food movement—introducing gum-free dressing, Whole30-approved products, and a national reputation for innovation.
Scaling Dreams and Facing Hard Truths
But entrepreneurship is rarely a straight line. As Gregory candidly shares, success brought challenges: supply chain crises, investor pressures, and hostile takeover attempts. What began as a family dream turned into a battle of lawyers, negotiations, and financial strain. Eventually, the company was handed to private equity for pennies on the dollar.
For many, this might have felt like a nightmare ending. But Gregory reframed it: “Leadership comes down to leading by example and leaving things better than you found them.”
Redefining the American Dream
That reframing became the core of Gregory’s bestselling book, Undressed: The Unfiltered Story of My Failed American Dream and How It Led to Success. In it, he unpacks the lessons of failure—how losing what you built can actually unlock clarity, resilience, and a more grounded understanding of success.
Today, Gregory leads Homegrown Brand Accelerator, helping emerging entrepreneurs avoid the pitfalls he faced. From produce businesses with zero food waste to launching Mexico’s largest avocado oil brand in the U.S., his playbook is now a blueprint for others.
Building Businesses with Purpose
Gregory’s work now emphasizes something far beyond profits: purpose. His ventures align with values like sustainability, clean food, and personal well-being. He also hosts retreats designed to help leaders find their most “optimal state”—balancing time, health, family, and purpose.
He reminds us that money can’t buy four essential things: your time, your soul, your health, and your children’s love. For him, these are the real pillars of success.
Lessons for Entrepreneurs and Leaders
Gregory’s story is full of takeaways for anyone navigating entrepreneurship or leadership:
- Ignorance can be fuel. Sometimes not knowing the rules lets you break them creatively.
- Conviction matters. Believing in your idea—before anyone else does—is often the hardest step.
- Protect your dream. Be cautious with investors; alignment of values is as important as funding.
- Failure is a teacher. Reframing setbacks can lead to stronger, wiser ventures.
- Purpose outlasts profit. Businesses built on doing good create lasting impact.
As Gregory puts it, quoting JFK: “The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.” When work aligns with purpose, excellence follows.
Listen In or Watch on Youtube:
This conversation is for anyone who’s ever wondered how to turn an idea into reality, or how to rebuild after dreams don’t go as planned. Gregory’s story is proof that even when things don’t end the way you imagined, they can still lead to something greater.
Discover how you can turn your observations into innovations—just like Gregory Vetter.
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From Observation to Innovation,
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Andi Simon 00:00:02 Welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. Ours is a podcast designed to help you get off the brink and to see opportunities that are often right in front of you so that you don’t stay stuck or stalled, that you can actually take those advantages, those opportunities, those observations, and turn them into great big innovations. That’s what we’ve done, and that’s what we like to bring to you, our interesting people who are going to share with you their stories. Now listen to the story. As an anthropologist, we live our stories. We know that. But your story may be holding you back, or your story may be opening up opportunities and you haven’t yet walked through the door. And I always think those doors open for a reason. And today is a very big door opener. So let me tell you about our guest today and listen carefully. Gregory Vetter, the gentleman on the screen with me here is an extraordinary individual. I’ll read you his bio and then he’s going to tell you his journey. But he’s got some wonderful things to tell you about, both about how you design a new, innovative product, what happens if something happens to it, how you saw back up again. But it’s going to be fun. So Gregory is a well-established innovator and disruptor in the clean food movement. He’s going to tell you how he ended up in the clean food movement. It wasn’t a straight line, you know, from high school to college to I want to be in the clean food movement. But maybe it isn’t Wordsworth in that he’s the oldest of the Venture brothers, and he had the brilliant idea of launching. And I’m going to say this probably wrong, but it’s just amazing testimony after being inspired by his mother’s widely popular homemade dressing recipe. What Gregory knew, and the American consumer base was soon to discover, was the idea would soon resonate widely and give rise to an entirely new clean food category. Now, it’s been interesting. I’ve been working with the International Fresh Produce This association. There’s a whole lot of things coming through our life today about cleanliness and produce, but this is really important. He and his broader family, brothers Matt and Brian, cultivated the business and in a mere five years translated their vision into becoming the number one organic salad dressing brand in the refrigerated space. All of those are important. The emergence of games paved the way for clean manufacturing and a mass scale by virtue of inventing the only gum free dressing bottling process. So he’s going to tell you about a problem: the opportunities and the manufacturing process led to the creation of the fresh condiment category, and the first Whole30 approved bottle dressing and condiment in the nation. Now, with the wind in his back, he and his brothers launched Alta Fresh Food Company and pioneered a better way to get great tasting salads to the masses through their innovative method.
Andi Simon 00:02: He’ll tell you about the process and a breakthrough in R&D. After the triumph at Sam’s Club supplier of the year, he had a process that was propelling them to the forefront of fresh fruit solutions. Now, Greg has had some ups and downs with fresh fruit, but he’s going to tell you about what he’s learned, because out of the lessons from this success in the food industry, he launched Homegrown Brand Accelerator. Homegrown was developed with a singular purpose in mind to empower the next generation of brands by making the playbook available to whomever had the desire to build the next great American brand. Which is why he’s here today, because you may be ready to do this. He also authored the best-selling book, Undressed: The Unfiltered Story of My Failed American Dream and How I Led to Success. So Greg is the winner of Ink Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, lots of other awards, and he’s here with us to share his wisdom with you, our wonderful audience. Now, as you’re listening, take notes and then remember, at the end, Greg will tell you how to get in touch with him and the kind of programs he offers in leadership development and brand development. But there’s something magical in what his story is today. Greg, thanks for joining me.
Gregory Vetter 00:04:10 Yeah, thanks for having me.
Andi Simon 00:04:11 I’m delighted. Tell the listener or the viewer who is great, what’s your journey been like? You know, I can read your bio, but it comes out so much better when you tell it.
Gregory Vetter 00:04:21 Yeah, well, I was, I was a public-school boy who was exposed to wealth for the first time in college when I was playing lacrosse. And I was fascinated and wanted to understand and see whether or not it was possible for me to change my own stars. Were these people magic? Were they special? Did they know something that I didn’t know? And so I was hell bent from the beginning of doing something. I didn’t know what it was going to be and so initially, I got a job selling insurance over top of a bodega, looking over a cemetery. But I made it work. I realized that I wanted something more. So every day at lunch, I would go, and I would stand on my head in the dark, in my bedroom, with a journal next to me, waiting for an epiphany. One never came. But then I would go down, I’d make myself a big salad with a protein on it. And my mom always made this one dressing for me and my brother. She would give it to us once a month. It was in two-liter bottles. And one day this dressing was missing from my house. I lived in a little townhouse with my wife and so I looked 3 or 4 times. I couldn’t find it. I thought I was taking crazy pills. Finally, I called her. I’m like, hey, did you take the salad dressing? And she goes, no, I didn’t take two liters of salad dressing to work. And I go, well, I can’t find it anywhere. And she goes, well, maybe someone came into our house and took it.
You know, no one broke into our home and took our salad dressing. And she goes, well, I don’t know what to tell you, Greg. And so I go, you know what? To prove a point, I’m going to call some people I know don’t eat salad just to prove no one broke in. And so I start calling some people, and I get to this one guy that literally didn’t have a full-time job, didn’t eat salad, ate fast food every day. And I said, hey man, random question, did you take my salad dressing? And he goes, yup. Woke up this morning, was jonesing for it, hopped on my scooter, knew the code to your house, took it, and now I’m crushing a salad. And I’m like, what? Can you bring it back? And I sat in my kitchen, and I thought to myself, what kind of man steals another man’s salad dressing?
Andi Simon 00:06:43 A hungry man.
Gregory Vetter 00:06:45 And then I thought, well, what kind of salad dressing is so good that someone would break into my house and steal it. So I called my wife back and I said, hey, so-and-so took the salad dressing. She laughed. And I go, I’m going to quit my job and I’m going to start a salad dressing company. Dead silence. And she goes, that’s the greatest idea I’ve ever heard. I have a weird feeling that it’s going to work. So I took the only business skill that I had at the time, which was cold calling. I started calling local grocery stores, telling them that I was a world-famous food manufacturer, which was not true. And I got a meeting. And so that is really the beginning of this wild and wonderful journey that lasted 15 years of us building the number one organic salad dressing brand in the country.
Andi Simon 00:07:43 Well, as you built it, I’m sure it didn’t start from the guy stealing it and your wife saying, that’s a good idea. How do you actually take an idea? Think about it. You want to get people off the brink? Do you want them to go do something? Because you are one of many. But maybe the only one who begins to see. There’s something really big here. I called; I got an appointment. What do you do next? How do you manufacture a salad dressing? Put a brand on it and get it into distribution. Distribution is often harder than making it. It’s way harder. Getting the first yes is easy. The key was complete ignorance and conviction. So I went in for the meeting. Well, one, I called my mom, and I said, I need you to make the greatest batch of salad dressing that’s ever been made. And she goes, why? I’m like, I have a meeting with the grocery store. She goes, for what? I’m going to start a salad dressing business with your recipe. You’re in on it. We’re doing it. She’s like, you’re not a company. You’re not a brand. What are you going to do? I go, just make the dressing, I’ll take care of the rest. And so she made a batch of dressing. I put it in a little Tupperware container with some romaine lettuce, and I took this guy a salad. And so he came to the meeting. He looked at me like I was a crazy person because I didn’t have packaging, and I held up this Tupperware container. I go; I brought you a salad. He takes a piece of wet lettuce out, licks the dressing off, looks at me and goes, that’s the greatest salad dressing I’ve ever had. Here’s 200 pages of paperwork, fill it out. You can be in for the grand opening of our new Annapolis store, which was a couple months later. So then I had to figure out how to become a food manufacturer. So I literally just started googling my way through each page. You know, what is a Hassett plan? How do you find a certified kitchen? Where do you find a food scientist for the nutritional label? And so I googled my way through, and I just had this conviction that I’m going to take this as far as it will let me go. I don’t care if that’s the first week. I don’t care if it’s a year. But I’m going to go until this journey ends. And so we got in for the grand opening of this new grocery store after overcoming a thousand hurdles to get to that point. And in the first week, we end up setting a national sales record for selling the most salad dressing in one store in five days. Because I was standing there handing out samples every day, telling my story. And once I realized that you were allowed to hand out samples, I go, well, why doesn’t everybody do this? And the grocery store goes, I don’t know why you’re telling me I can come in here. However many times I want in a week and hand out samples, I go, yeah. So I go, okay, well, I’m just going to do that. So I started demoing in every store we got in, and I ended up demoing with my brothers and then a staff that we hired in every grocery store in the country. And so we went from one store to four stores to ten stores to 60 stores. And we opened up our own manufacturing plant because no co-packer could co-packer it for us, because no one had ever made salad dressing without thickening agents in it. And the next thing we knew, press is picking us up. And, you know, we’re Ink Magazine’s 3535. And, you know, we’re getting in every major grocery store in the country. And all the while, we have this mentality of we need to demo it so people can try it, because our brand is somewhat irrelevant. We can’t ever sacrifice the quality because that’s the only reason people are buying it. And so we’ll do anything in our power to maintain the quality of the product, so people keep buying it so that we can keep growing. And so that just continued to allow us to grow nationally. That’s how we really started the clean eating movement, because it was the first product that tasted great, was organic before organic was mainstream, was a clean label before anybody knew what that even meant. And so then all of these food trends and all these diet trends started becoming mainstream, and we got to participate in every single one of them because we only had five ingredients in it, or seven ingredients, all of which you could pronounce. And so the journey kind of went until investor greed took over. And then we went from this American dream story into somewhat of an American nightmare story. And we started defending hostile takeover attempts and hiring professional negotiators. And, you know, the entire time I’m going, I mean, what all this for salad dressing. We’re going through all of this for salad dressing and then it ended up ending the journey did not end how I thought it was going to end. We hired an investment banker to sell it because that’s what the professional negotiator came to an agreement with all the parties. They valued the business between $300 and $500 million, and the sale didn’t go through. And so then everybody attempted to basically just take everything for themselves. We ended up restructuring the business. And, then I found myself in a conference room handing the business away to a private equity group for pennies on the dollar. And I went home, and I reflected on what a wild and wonderful journey that it was. What went right? What went wrong? What can I learn from everything that happened to me? I think leadership comes down to leading by example and then leaving things better than when you found them. And so how can you take such a magnificent journey, even though it ended in a way you didn’t want and make the most out of it? And so then I found myself writing a book. And, it’s had a lot of positive impact for young entrepreneurial people or people just in pursuit of a dream. Regardless of what that dream is. And now I have six other businesses and they’re all doing well. And, you know, I’m on programs like this telling the tale.
Andi Simon 00:14:56 Well, let’s talk a little bit about this. You’re not the first person on our podcast, and I did one with a woman not too long ago, same story. I mean, she was building and building and building, and the investors came in and she gave away a little more than she thought she was giving away. And next thing you know, she was going away and she said, I don’t know what happened. My idea was growing great. I brought in some investors. I never realized what I was actually doing on the net now. So sometimes we think a woman was naive about the finances, but it’s not hard for us to be blindsided by people who sound like they have the right intentions only to find out that they have self-intentions and our intentions aren’t the ones. Is the product still out there? And what is it called?
Gregory Vetter 00:15:45 Yeah, it’s just Tessie May’s salad dressing. So it’s still sold in grocery stores across the country. I don’t make it anymore and I don’t buy it anymore.
Andi Simon 00:15:57 Green clean or. You have no idea if it’s still the same.
Gregory Vetter 00:16:00 I think they tried to maintain the integrity of it. I’m not really sure, to be honest with you. I don’t follow it anymore.
Andi Simon 00:16:08 But you ran away as fast as you could, and your mother still loves you, I’m sure, Greg, I mean, this is interesting. Let’s take it in steps. You took an idea and turned it into a great innovation, and then you made it a huge market leader, and then everything fell apart. The financial part of it was fragile. The first part was all in good Google learning, and the second part was Google didn’t teach you. And maybe I needed a better Google guide here. Give me some idea about how others should avoid this or at least learn from it because I have a bunch of books that talk about that.
Gregory Vetter 00:16:53 Yeah. I think it really comes down to just trusting the individuals wholeheartedly that are getting involved. And I think there is a little bit with entrepreneurs because in the beginning, if you are the first one out of the foxhole, you know, you’re convincing everybody that, hey, organics are going to be a thing. And clean eating is great, and this is all going to work. And nobody believes you for years. And so then people start caring and you’re excited that they care. Finally, somebody understands what I’ve been saying for so long and you paint the picture and you’re out doing the deal, but you really never understand someone’s true intentions. And so I do think there’s a lot that you can potentially avoid. And it really comes down to character assessment because are you going to need outside money sometimes. Yeah, you are. How can you really understand somebody at their core? I don’t know if you can ever truly do that. There’s a lot of filters you can try and implement, and there’s a lot of tests that you can do. And everybody writes the books of how to interview somebody and, you know, take them to a public place and see how they treat the waiter. And, you know, you can try those things. And I did try all of them. But at the end of the day, outside factors do play a major role. We navigated it through Covid well because we had our own manufacturing plans. The supply chain crisis was really the breaking point where everybody decided, okay, we don’t know what the future holds. We need to get rid of this thing as fast as possible. And then in that moment, it’s everybody for themselves. And that’s one of those moments where you think you know somebody, or you think you can trust somebody, and you just don’t know at the end of the day. So all you can do is fight the good fight and try to protect the shareholders to the best of your ability. But at the end of the day, suing someone if you have the money is a great way to destroy a business from either the inside or the outside because it’s a distraction. It’s unbelievably expensive. You don’t really get to raise money. Past that point, because now everybody’s a risk. Yeah, well, what happens if you lose? I’m not going to give you money if you’re going to owe this person $15 million and so it is one of these strategies that when you’re young and you’re entrepreneurial and you’re naive, you’re never like, well, someone’s just going to obviously they’re going to sue me into submission and take everything I’ve built. No one thinks that. And even if you do think it, there’s no real way to defend it outside of setting up a cash war chest for lawsuits in the future, which, again, when you get to that point, there does come a point where you’re like, I don’t know if this is worth it. If people aren’t willing to fund these lawsuits until the end of time. And so that’s really the stuff that when you’re young and you’re a spring chicken with all the energy in the world, you’re like, I can do it but then it does get to a point where you got a board and you have investors, and they go, is it really worth spending $350,000 a month on lawyers? Eventually people are going to say, no, it’s not. And I think that’s the big thing. There’s a point if you’re on a bus to a destination where there’s the perfect moment to get off. And I think once we navigated Covid, we’re kind of like, all right, we are built for the long haul. but obviously in retrospect, there was probably a moment in there where, you know, we got an offer from somebody to buy it, we probably should have sold it and not gone through all of that.
Andi Simon 00:21:28 But, you know, my husband had a private equity guy with him for 18 years. So, you know, it is difficult. Just difficult. Of course, he was happy when he sold the business. It was good to say thank you very much. Goodbye. But it’s interesting. Many of the women entrepreneurs who I work with look to revenue as a cash for growth because they’re so knowledgeable. I won’t say stupid, but they just don’t have the feeling that they have the sophistication to really navigate anything from angel funding to bank funding to other kinds of capitalization for it. And they grow slower. And it is, and I say this for our listeners and our viewers, that these are decisions that you make, and you need to be knowledgeable about what the cash flow is, the cost of goods. Do the supply chain payments look like what the manufacturing is? I mean, nothing sort of starts out positive. It all starts out in need of, and you need to either have a lot of good family money, or you’re going to find yourself in a conversation with those who can help fund it. And it is not easy when you stop. I love the title of your book. The story of my failed American Dream was that nightmare. Your dream came true and how it led to success. What were the successes that you can think about in this wonderful book?
Gregory Vetter 00:23:03 Well, I think the first one was a complete reframing of what the American Dream actually is. I think the other part is clarity on what really matters in life. And then I was always in pursuit of the playbook. Now everybody dangles the playbook over your head. Give me half your business. I’ll give you the playbook at the end of it. I had the playbook. And so when you combine an understanding of what the American dream actually is, and then what’s actually important in life with then a blueprint or a roadmap to do it again, with avoiding a lot of the same mistakes that you’ve made in previous lives, if you will. It allowed me to approach all the different things that I was doing, without a lot of the headaches and issues that I had the first go around. And so the reason I was able to launch and help other people launch their businesses was I had experienced a lot. And that playbook is worth its weight in gold. And so when you look at how I was able to take every dream I ever had before I started testing, everything came true after the fact, and it was one of my favorite quotes from Joseph Campbell is the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. It’s a great quote. And I had to enter that cave of failure so that I could actually get the treasure, because I needed to understand what I was actually capable of, what I was made of. And then again, the playbook side of it, we actually built something really special, regardless of the finale. We took something from nothing. We built it to be an industry leader. We changed the way food was consumed and understood. And we can do it again, which we have.
Andi Simon 00:25:34 Tell us about the do it again stuff. Because I think that the first one was a rite of passage. And, you know, when you think of it from an anthropological perspective, you were going through a rite of passage of discovery and all of them, you couldn’t, you couldn’t anticipate them because you had no idea what they were. And they came at you like spears coming at you in ways. I didn’t have any armor because I didn’t know I needed armor. And then Eve was gorgeous and made it purposeful and passionate, but full of problems. Now you can take all that wisdom in your playbook. And what kinds of things are you doing next?
Gregory Vetter 00:26:14 So we have a produce business. We invented a way to deliver basically fresh food solutions to retailers with zero food waste. and so that has been really wonderful. And then I started a brand accelerator. And so I help brands and CEOs and businesses scale and kind of avoid things and give them information on maybe this is a better source of funding than this and help them evaluate situations. Through that brand accelerator, we’ve launched a bunch of different businesses. We’ve launched a Porta John business, which has been a very interesting journey. We’ve launched an alcohol business. We’re helping launch Mexico’s largest avocado oil group in the United States. and then there’s a list of other things that we’ve done. But the entire process of starting manufacturing plants, creating products, doing all the branding and marketing ourselves, doing all the selling ourselves really created a blueprint for us to go and launch anything that we want to launch. And so that’s where I’ve been spending all my time in recent months and years.
Andi Simon 00:27:43 Well, you sound like you’re taking the wisdom of turning yourself into an expert consultant. Now, maybe you’re actually going to run some of these because you may be like to run things, but then the next stage here is really a gift back to others. and that is really a gift. You have a purpose that gives you meaning and gives them the wisdom that you can’t find in Google. You can’t ask Google. Maybe you can now from the book. How did Greg get into the water he ended up in? And how did he get out of it to begin to help others? It’s a beautiful story. and I bet your mother is still happy that her wonderful dressing is still making people happy there. It’s interesting to me because there are a whole bunch of women entrepreneurs and I speak about these women because I’m close to them. But they are developing companies which want purpose and profits. And I may just refer some to you because the profit part is always challenging, but it’s not for profit. It’s for profit with purpose. It’s not that different from what you’re articulating, because there’s more to making the money than just making the money. Doing good with a clean and fresh and organic is purposeful. It matters. You know, it isn’t just simply that I have a better salad dressing that tastes better. It does better. It lives better. It does better for the people who use it. And that is really the kind of purpose that these women have decided is the way they want to build business for tomorrow. And it is in all different sizes and shapes and flavors. But they’re bringing something quite extraordinary to the business market. And in some ways, you are as well. It isn’t enough that I didn’t do well. I’m not sitting home and eating bonbons. I’ve turned it around and I’m making businesses benefit from my wisdom. Do you have a little bit of a future view of where you might be going next? Just curious. You could say no, but I think you may have.
Gregory Vetter 00:29:50 Yeah. I think a lot of my time and where I enjoy spending my time the most, is helping young entrepreneurs and not young in age, but young in the journey. I really get a lot out of that because, you know, not to say I’ve experienced everything because I haven’t, but I’ve experienced probably more than most. So I spent a lot of time doing that. I enjoy it, it’s really fun. It’s rewarding. I enjoy creating and launching brands and scaling them. and then also this whole new kind of retreat situation. I’m really enjoying that component of my life as well, which is just the deep dive into getting people to their most optimal states, because I think a lot of people like to talk strategy, or they like to talk health, or they like to talk family or whatever. The reason I’m still alive and kicking and smiling and being a good husband and dad and brother and son and everything else, is because I think all of those components are really important and they all need to be addressed. So, that’s what my future looks like right now.
Andi Simon 00:31:07 Now the retreat is, you mentioned it briefly. A leadership retreat or is this a new kind of venture, and what would the listeners find interesting about it?
Gregory Vetter 00:31:16 It’s about finding your most optimal state of being. And so I think there’s four things that money can’t buy: your time, your soul, your health, and your children’s love. And I think those are some pillars that people ignore along the way. And then within those pillars, there’s areas every single day that you can address. But I think a lot of people choose to ignore a couple of them. And they don’t understand the impact on the area that they care about the most. They’re all interwoven, and they all rely on each other, to get the most kind of optimal output. And so it’s really just a deep dive. And it’s not that I have the answers, but I think asking the questions is really important because everybody’s got their own journey to go on. But that’s really the main focus of the retreats.
Andi Simon 00:32:15 Well, you know, for many folks, work life balance is an endless discussion. But it’s not that complicated to live life and live work. They both matter, and it’s a blend that makes it in your choice which way you’d like to balance them. But your point about children is really extremely important. They don’t ask to be here, and if they are, they want you to help love them and help guide them. And you’re smiling at me because they do become the focus of what we care about and what we do, doesn’t it?
Gregory Vetter 00:32:49 All of it. I mean, I would say all of my time is spent making sure all my kids are doing great and that I’m a good resource for them, and I’m supporting them the way that they need to be supported. And it’s just without them being happy or loving you or achieving their goals. I mean, what are we even doing it for?
Andi Simon 00:33:17 I don’t know, but I think this is great. We’re about ready to wrap. One or two things you’d like the listeners not to forget about Gregory Vetter.
Gregory Vetter 00:33:28 Gregory Vetter. I think we’ll give you any insights. I would also say I’ll end with one of my favorite quotes, which JFK used in a speech, which was the ancient Greek definition of happiness, was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I think that to me sums up the concept of work life balance because if you are working towards a goal with purpose to the full extent of your powers, you will find the happiness you’re searching for.
Andi Simon 00:34:08 I think that’s wonderful. And if they want your retreats or your book, it’s also Gregory. Or is that a place to find out all about you? Wonderful. This has been one wonderful and unexpected conversation. I must tell you. I’m delighted that you’ve come to us. I’m delighted that Bill Brenner found us. And we are thrilled to have shared you today. And I do think you like to share. Like I like to share, don’t you?
Gregory Vetter 00:34:34 I’m good at it, so I’ll do it.
Andi Simon 00:34:38 Let me thank our listeners or our viewers. As you know, our job as corporate anthropologists is to help you see, feel and think of new ways. We like you to know that you don’t have to be what isn’t quite working well enough. Or even if it is, it’s time to improve upon it. And we’ve been doing some wonderful workshops on blue ocean strategy and culture change with companies that somehow come to a point where this isn’t working the way we like. The times they’re changing and don’t say, well, it’s outside, it’s inside, it is the whole environment in which you’re operating, and you never know what’s coming next. Greg Vetter shared with you today his own journey to success, the American Dream, and then the post dream success. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a learning time. And yours can also be. Our books, all three of them are on Amazon. Just look up Andi Simon when you’re done, you can review them because the reviews are cool. But I’m delighted to share with you people who want to help you get off the brink. Remember, like Greg, our motto is take your observations, turn them into innovations, which is what he did. Think about it, somebody stole his mother’s salad dressing. How do you turn that into a business? And then where do you take it? And how do you grow it into something quite remarkable? And the ending wasn’t terribly important. It was the whole beginning in the middle before it ended. It was great. Thank you. Greg, thanks for joining us today.
Andi Simon 00:35:59 Bye now. Have a great day. Bye.
