Nour goes to Sweetgreen HQ 🤝

Behind the ✨ manifestation ✨

I don’t care what all of my ex boyfriends used to tell me, manifestation IS REAL..and I’ve lived to tell the tale 🦄

Last week Nour (aka me and my trusty friend Kate) went to Sweetgreen headquarters in Los Angeles for a company wide farmers market curated with a small selection of local brands that align to Sweetgreen’s mission of “Building healthier communities by connecting people to real food” Nour was one of the invited brands and Sweetgreen so generously paid for each employee to take home a bottle of Nour (employee’s got to choose their favorite flavor, and they were just as stoked as me!) 🥬

Here is me after getting home and grappling with what just happened….no other option than to take a 1 am selfie to prove I was living in the realm of existence…or maybe I’m channeling my girl crush Emily Sundberg

I made this post on Linkedin highlighting a summary of how it went and who was all included. Let’s just say that when the founder and CEO of Sweetgreen tries your salad dressing paired with his salad and takes a bottle of your dressing home…you kind of have no other option than to believe you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Then when The VP of engineering tries your sumac serrano green goddess dressing and tells you to bottle it up and also sell it as a wellness shot…you have no other option than to pause, take a deep breath and let the pride wash over you. Everyone on the Sweetgreen team was beyond kind and supportive, it was actually a comment I made to a SG team member that day because it really spoke volumes to how happy everyone was to be there and I can only assume a reflection of company culture.

MEGA Sweetgreen crispy rice salad dreams 🔥

What most people don’t know is I started manifesting a trip to Sweetgreen headquarters many moons ago. Over a year ago I was incredibly sick from mold exposure in my apartment (thank you 1920’s bungalow) and I was living out of a hotel in West Hollywood for the whole month of February. Unlucky for me, I was without a kitchen. Lucky for me, Sweetgreen was within walking distance, a block away on W 3rd St.

So as one does, I’m walking in once, twice A DAY to get my crispy rice bowl with blackened chicken. Well before I know it, the team members and I are HITTING IT OFF! They know me, I know them, and we’ve got a comradery like I’ve never had before with a fast casz, they even started asking “do you want your usual?”. You might as well have slapped a “regular” pin on my shirt and called it a day. I was ready to move in.

Here’s a video of me hoping to heal myself with a Sweetgreen salad in one of the darkest, most hopeless moments I’ve had in LA…I thought I would maybe have to go back home to Minnesota and I wasn’t sure when I would start to feel better (food is medicine)❤️‍🩹

Towards the end of the month, I decided I was going to ask for the manager and formally introduce myself. I ended up speaking with my sweet guy, Kendall. He was so enthused to hear about my salad dressing brand, Nour. He was so supportive of this idea I pitched him the idea on the spot: The Sweetgreen Nour salad. He told me he didn’t have an internal partnerships email to share with me, but instead he offered the generic “hello@sweetgreen.com” encouraging me to reach out. Well folks, I am pleased to share with you today that although I did go home and start making a deck to pitch to Sweetgreen and draft a whole entire email with Kendall CC’ed so he could follow up, I never sent it. She shoots, she doesn’t even attempt to score

(Michael Scott and Wayne Gretzky would be so disappointed)

In my heart of hearts I knew it was probably too early to approach a company as big as Sweetgreen, imposter syndrome was invading every crevice of my being. “Was I really at the right stage of growth to approach a company that’s IPO’d?” “What would they get out of partnering with a small brand like me?” I made up all of these excuses on why I shouldn’t send the email on top of just trying to get healthy from my mold exposure which completely took me out. At the end the day, I never needed to send that email in that moment. I started living my life as if it was already happening. That’s the mental shift, or special sauce that’s changed everything.

Once you start living as though your dreams are already your reality, that energy shift is so powerful that you can’t help but start operating your life and holding yourself to this magnetic magical energy. I call it “living in delusion, delusionally divine” That would be the name of my memoire btw…coming 2030 after world domination lol.

Without making this too gender based, business is still in many ways…gender based. It’s a “man’s world” and the systems are majorly owned, operated and made for men. I mean even the pinnacle essence of blush pinks and nurturing femininity in childhood (Barbie and Bratz) were made by men. So i’m not (not) saying think with your womxn dick, but I am saying get in touch with your highest self, and insert yourself into the conversation, give yourself a seat at the table before anyone offers it to you. I dont expect anything from other people, and especially not given to me on a silver platter. It’s never from a place of narcissism or self-entitlement, but rather an approach that is manifested from respect + integrity towards what I’ve built, honor within my process of creativity, and above all, trust and belief in the mission I have of nourishing more people and helping them connect back to themself, others and the food that grows on this earth.

I love this idea; “There there are two people in the world. The person who thinks they can and the person who thinks they can’t. They’re both right.” I think that’s a Jay Shetty quote in my notes app. This is a conversation between me and my friend Kate back in October that really reminds me of this sentiment…

I’m sharing this text thread with you to give you a behind the scenes look at what running a business at age 26 can look like. Solving your own problem built on your own passion turned business…yikes most people said when I told them I was starting Nour. Most people I told actually advised me not to create Nour. If I started Nour today knowing what I know now, I would be 1000x more freaked out and intimated, but thank god I listened to my gut and took the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. It’s never all rainbows and sunshine but when you have friends and family who lift you up, somehow the whole world starts to feel like it’s at your finger tips.

My aunt Joanie will never cease to remind me that she thinks I can “sell anything”which is why I receive this text from her more times than I have been able to count

This idea of “selling the Brooklyn bridge” means you can sell anything. Are you shocked to know I quit Girl Scouts because I didn’t believe I could sell cookies? Thank god for inner child work lol

A question I started asking myself a long time ago. Why not me? A simple 3 words that will set you free and unlock everything that is meant for you. Actually though, if you have an original or niche offering that you believe makes this world a better place to live in, if not you then who?

BEFORE YOU GO! Tell me your dream Nour dressing pairing with what Sweetgreen salad in the comments…who knows…maybe if you manifest hard enough it will become your reality 😉😉😉

BIG THANKS TO THE WHOLE SWEETGREEN TEAM!!

BIG LOVE and thank you for reading 💛

Annie