Nurturing Families – Mrs. Fields Cookies

a Message from NEAL

Having a friend, sibling, partner or spouse whose advice we trust can be of great help to us in formulating and carrying out a life mission. Seeing a loved one successfully establish their mission can influence us to move forward with creating a mission of our own.

This week’s newsletter provides an example of spouses motivating and helping one another, in parallel, with their life missions. Debbi Fields, who first began baking gourmet cookies with funds she earned working as an Oakland A’s ballgirl, saw firsthand how her husband embarked upon his mission of forming an investment firm. This inspired her to create her own cookie company.

It is a prime example of how the impact of our life missions can ripple outwards and affect those we love in profound ways, and of how we can be called to action by the missions of those around us.

Wishing you fulfillment,

Nurturing Families - Mrs. Fields Cookies: Supporting Each Other’s Missions

Debbi became one of the MLB’s first ballgirls, when she landed a job with the Oakland A’s at the age of 13. She loved to bake and would bring homemade cookies to the clubhouse. Owing to the compliments she received, she began using her $5 per hour salary to purchase better ingredients–genuine chocolate, real butter, and true vanilla. In an era of crunchy cookies, like Chips Ahoy, her soft thick cookies were truly gourmet.

The former high school cheerleader and homecoming queen married Randy Fields in 1976 when she was 19. Randy was a Stanford graduate who was in the process of launching an investment firm he called Fields Investments Group. With Randy’s mission underway, Debbi Fields was inspired to launch a mission of her own.

She had no capital or business experience. But she had a cookie recipe and a dream. When she told her family and friends of her idea to start a retail cookie shop, they tried to talk her out of it. But Randy believed in her. At 20 years old she found a bank willing to invest $50,000. As described in Women’s Business Daily, “She found a 300 square foot store [in Palo Alto] and purchased second hand equipment. She cut corners in these areas so she could spend top dollars on her ingredients.” Prioritizing quality over profits, she donated to charity any cookies more than two hours old.

The Fields are an excellent example of two supportive spouses each assisting one another with their missions. By 1988 Mrs. Fields Cookies had grown from a single shop to over 200 stores in 5 countries. Randy created an innovative computer system to improve the efficiency of the cookie production, making Mrs. Fields a technology leader. “Although many assumed that Randy was the driving force behind Mrs. Fields operation, he always rejected this idea and claimed that Debbi was the indispensable one.”

In the 1990s, Debbi sold her stake in the company for $100 million. The company currently operates in 34 countries. “I think success is something you earn every day…” she has said, “It’s easy to get comfortable, but it’s important never to lose touch with that feeling of opening day–that enthusiasm and excitement, that desire to touch every customer.’

“The more we did for our customers, the more they did for us.”

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