Holly Helt has turned a tragic event into a life-fulfilling mission. Through her company Chiki Tea, Holly is re-igniting and breathing new life into the Japanese Tea community and changing the lives of Japanese tea farmers along the way. This is an incredible and inspiring journey of life, passion, love, and adventure – all things which Holly encompasses in her two books, Green is the New Black and Tea Hunter. A wonderful role model of an entrepreneur who has built a highly successful business from the heart. Highlights:
Biggest Challenge
Getting used to the highs and lows of entrepreneurial life and finding balance
Words of Wisdom
- Learn to manage your emotions- don’t get too high when things are going great, this will stop you from going so low when things get tough
- Focus on and do the next indicated step. This will prevent you from getting overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done.
- Take inspired action!
Links and Tips
Try this incredible tea and get youthful-looking skin like Holly!
Support Holly and the Tea community at Chiki Tea time on Facebook
Check out Holly’s 1st Book, Green is the New Black
And don’t forget to listen to your gut!
Full Interview
AO: Hey everybody welcome today’s episode if she Owen’s success, today I’m very excited to be joined by the Fabulous Holly Helt. Holly is the founder and CEO of Chiki tea Japanese green tea cafe and online retailer specialising in premium grade matcha and loose leaf tea Shipped worldwide direct from Japan. So Holly as a green tea lover myself I’m very excited to hear about your journey and delve into all of your experiences so what inspired you to start your business question mark
HH: Well I grew up in Nagoya in Japan from the Ages of 3 I been drinking green tea and I absolutely loved it but as life takes you on a journey I got into the corporate world and every day I was drinking my green tea and share it with my colleagues and I realised I wasn’t fulfilled in my corporate life but I felt it was what I had to do then threw some circumstances I realised that my passion was green tea and I’d be doing a disservice to humanity if I didn’t share my knowledge and my passion about it so that’s why I created Chiki Tea, to spread the Joy of green tea with the world and you know as I’ve got deep into the tea community over here, I realised there’s a real problem over here because some of farms are becoming extinct because the young people just don’t drink Japanese green tea anymore they turned to coffee and it’s a real problem so Miro over here is being embraced by government officials by the media buy everything as a kind of Saviour the foreigner who sweeps in to save the Japanese tea industry and I think that has a lot to do with how well we have been doing over here because I’m on the media as the ambassador of Japanese green tea just read it to the west and as a result help the industry to sustain itself because the Farmer’s I getting old and young people who would have inherited the key field have moved on to the cities for the big jobs and I working for American all British companies and whatnot so be young people are not interested in being farmers anymore so I’m working with a lot of the government officials over here to find out how we can sustain the industry
AO: Wow People moving on to coffee that’s such a sadness because green tea has so many qualities that it gives you for your body that help you
HH: It’s incredibly healthy and what’s a salad if they have the best Japanese tea here but is not exported only 1% of Japanese tea is exported and that’s not even the good stuff and the reason I’m doing what I’m doing it because I access I set up a subsidiary and I have access to the artisan small artisan producers that are produced in peace fabulous teas that don’t get exported and I’m the one who’s helping spread them overseas because the young people just are not interested and they have the best teas right at the doorstep so the other thing the media is hoping that I do is inspire the young people and so at the Cafe we have presented a very modern take on the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. We don’t serve it in a bowl, we serve it in a demitasse with cheesecake that I make in the bakery we have put a complete American European bakery in it when we make granola cheesecake and what’s not but we pair it all with the Japanese tea and it gives the young people an excuse to drink their grandmothers brew without those stiff traditions surrounding it. So it’s exciting what we’re creating and seeing how it’s being embraced over here and I just hope that we can inspire domestically as well as internationally.
AO: Fantastic well we are all about inspiration here, so you’re in the right place that’s very exciting. Tell us about that lightbulb moment
HH: Ok so the lightbulb moment was forced upon me I actually worked in China I live in China the Chinese government asked me to help them market key to the west. They flew me over for 6 months and I help them in the tea industry so when I moved back to New York I thought wouldn’t it be cool to set up my own tea company and suddenly the name Chiki pea came to me this was in 2003 so I had the name Chi from Tai chi which means energy so the Chi was discovered in China and Ki is the Japanese word for energy so energy connected. I had the name in 2003 but I didn’t act on it for eight years because I had fear oh my goodness I’m not good enough I don’t have any money I have so many different excuses but then my brother actually committed suicide and that’s spurred me into action. It’s life isn’t short enough something like that I view it as a gift actually something that he gave me I know that sound strange but through the act of committing suicide my dear Darling brother helped me step through my fear to actually just do it, even if it’s messy to actually just get off my butt get myself motivated and just start planning and creating and I know that he is on the other side carrying me on his Wings he’s over there with my mother probably in cahoots right! But I truly believe that it was a path that was dealt for me and so I bless him for that gift
AO: Thank you so much for sharing that that must be really difficult and we really appreciate it for everybody all of our fantastic listeners you should not take such a terrible tragedy to give you the courage to go out and do these things and that’s why we have fantastic Holly here take that advice and go out over cupboard and take action. So what were the first steps and actions that you took specifically to get started you said he didn’t necessarily have all the knowledge and you had all those fears so what did you do to starts making steps?
HH: It’s quite funny because Chiki tea has been so many different iterations the very first with t salons I opened my home in Wimbledon to start holding tea tasting these tea parties and just teaching people about Japanese tea, well I did a few of those and clearly that turned into market research because I knew that was not a sustainable business model I mean you could only have 6 people around my table how is that good for business right so it was lovely and it was a hobby business but I used it as market research and I turned the home into a pop-up shop and I wrote a book which was very important for me cold green is the New Black and I am actually writing to more books right now and we’ll have that translated into Japanese because it’s sold out over here.
I then set up the website which has now what different models do it I didn’t know so much I didn’t know about e-commerce but it’s about making mistakes and actually loving those mistakes because with each mistake you get better you think I won’t do that again! one thing that really did help me get clarity was I decided to go to Japan and I took a girl with me who videoed the whole thing we spent 18 days going from the top to the bottom of Japan I was over there looking for suppliers and just looking for packaging looking for everything and I videoed the whole thing. when I got back I sat down and I turn to my partner and I said I’ve got to move to Japan and I looked at the clock on in the kitchen and it said 11 11, I didn’t know what that meant at the time butter later realised that 1111 is like the Gateway all the portal into the right path. Well, I knew deeply that I was going to move to Japan and I was going to do research for 1 year because my 18 day trip was not enough and literally within 5 minutes we had made the decision that was not even much talking about it we just knew and this is where my gut is leading me and I totally rely on my gut for all my decisions and for inspiration. That is a vital tool and women in particular have a very strong gut feelings if you exercise and you trust your gut. So keep trusting your gut and it will never let you down. but we moved over here and this is where synchronicity is very important we moved over and within 3 days I had a house given to me and I showed you around earlier I had this house given to me and two days after I had the house given to me, I had a car given to me there are no coincidences in life who is doing this to me is it my brother on the other side who is an Angel now how is this happening who gives a person a house for free? then I have the issue of a visa so I had a friend over here he went to the immigration office with my book and various different things and the explained to her there was no box to put me in but to give them a couple of days because they could see what I was doing was very important for Japan so to hang on just a tick and they would try and figure it out. So immigration is on my side there always opposite right they tried to keep people out of the country. so they rung my friend up and they said we “have found a loophole, if Holly can study tea ceremony and she finds a teacher that can teach her tea ceremony we can give her a cultural visa for one year” so my friend said that’s funny my husband take piece harem only my husband takes tea ceremony and I’m sure his teacher will teach you. So within a short time I had a car I had a house is that not a miracle. I had everything going for me it was unbelievable how that happened
AO: That is amazing!
HH: Yes I moved over here and you know what that 1111 that is so wedged in my mind it was absolutely the right decision to make.
AO: And you didn’t know any of this was going to happen you just went for it and it happened which is fantastic and lucky – whatever you call it
HH: But this is the point, the thing I need to tell your listeners, it’s that the fire Inside Me was burning so bright when I thought about moving to Japan that there was nothing that was going to stop me, if you can turn on your internal light there is nothing, and I mean nothing that can stop you. That is the tool that your listeners can benefit from, you just have to find that flame inside you and once you do you can manipulate the universal energies. I don’t want to go all ‘woo woo’ on you but there is something out there and it makes stuff happen and I am absolutely living proof of that because I am just a girl next door, I’m from Texas right, who on earth would think that a) I would I moved to London and b) set up a company in London and then move to Japan and set up the subsidiary this is crazy stuff. I’m just like you.
AO: And the company that started with 6 people drinking tea at your home!
HH: Exactly. I know! Funny
AO: So obviously you had highs and lows and we know there’s lows those obstacles whatever you want to call them the unavoidable tell us about the single most difficult challenge that you have had to overcome
HH: The plumbing – seriously, the plumbing – is really bad over here. The single biggest challenge has to be controlling emotions I am not an emotional person however when I started this company there was such highs and such lows that I had to figure out a way to stabilize that emotional roller-coaster and every entrepreneur will have that. You just have to control those highs because once you control those highs and you lower it down a couple of octaves, the lows aren’t so bad. At one point you probably don’t want to hear this but I googled suicide methods and I thought “who is that person doing that? That is absolute Madness get over it!” what on earth? That was a 2-minute episode and I seriously had to have a wake-up call from that.
So I think the biggest challenge is to learn how to control your emotions to not go so high and to not go so low because it’s going to happen it is absolutely going to happen and it comes with practice and experience, but don’t put so much emphasis on the high, be grateful for what has happened and definitely appreciate it and celebrate it, but don’t go so high that you’re off the charts, because you can go completely the opposite and go under the sea and you don’t want to go there and so that is a tip I tell a lot of people.
At first we didn’t do any PR we just set up a cafe and we just had journalist after journalist and I thought, this is unbelievable I’ve never been in the Press and I didn’t know what to expect I was so excited, I thought holy s*** they want to talk to me, little old me ,so my highs were really high and then we didn’t have any customers the following month and I was low I thought oh no they going to find me out they going to find out I’m not who I really am and all these crazy head thoughts we’re going through my mind and it’s through my CFO who is a really solid guy, he has just helped me realise how to balance out all that high and low stuff. We lose a bit of money and he doesn’t flinch and we have a major win and he doesn’t flinch and I’m like “damn aren’t you psyched?” He is like, yes but let’s just keep it balanced so he has been teaching me how to be balanced and stable when it comes to those emotions. And I’m telling you I have seen entrepreneurs that I just so hyper and so up there, they just think that they can conquer all you need to contain that it’s great to have the fire and the enthusiasm but it has to be controlled in enthusiasm and that is something that might Harris who invented First Direct and Egg told me, Mike Harris told me that, controlled enthusiasm. I didn’t know what you meant I just thought I’m enthusiastic, really enthusiastic and then I realised what he was saying when I had this incredible high and then this really deep low and went on this roller coaster that so many entrepreneurs get on, everybody’s going to get on it but just learn how to control it.
AO: Such great advice and it made me think of this saying this too shall pass. I use that to help me through difficult times but actually you can apply it all the time because whether you’re going through the best time of your life or something horrendous it will pass and if you keep that in mind it makes things more manageable either way and help you keep that balance
HH: Excellent and you know what, I actually say that in my head I say that exact quote this too shall pass it’s brilliant
AO: So your day today it sounds like you have been on quite the roller coaster as you said you’re doing lots of things involved with the government comma so give us a brief insight into what a great day looks like
HH: Every day is different let’s just start with that, are focusing on a great day and I have a lot of great days because I’m doing my passion I’m in my slow doing what I love. it’s getting back to the tea farmers taking a trip down to yami being with my rock star produces discovering new teas, buying the best teas, learning…learning…learning always learning, everyone’s always learning and you can never know enough. Every time I am with the Japanese tea community I’m on fire and I’m soaking it up like a sponge and I’m contributing to them as well and I am inspiring them and I’m giving them hope. Who is this blue eyed , we’re called Gaijin over here, it’s a word which means foreigner, alien who has adopted the industry and it’s saying great things and doing great things for it. I really see how I’m helping them and that is a great thing to me that is when I have a fulfilled day when I can contribute to humanity in two ways helping industry helping the Farmer’s live their livelihoods and providing consumers with tea that is just remarkable, tea you can’t find it in your local Japan Centre, it doesn’t exist because only 1% of Japanese tea is exported but I am over here finding these small artisan producers that are producing these outrageously amazing teas you wouldn’t believe it and I’m able to reach consumers who really appreciate it and they can taste the difference and appreciate the differences and that is when I have had a fulfilling day comma and I have a lot of those.
AO: And what a difference you’re making. We were talking everybody, just before the interview, about making that different and adding value to people’s lives doing something that is helping people would just meeting other people’s lives better that is what it’s about ultimately
HH: Absolutely, absolutely and ask yourself: “am I doing this for money? or am I doing this to contribute?”, and if you are true to yourself and you answer it in a certain way, you will know if you will be successful because you are doing it for the right reason, you are doing it for contribution, you are doing it to enrich humanity in some way and that is the right answer. That is when you will become successful because those elements a powerful element in the world and in the universe and when you operate from a place of love through your heart you can achieve anything love is a very powerful, powerful energy, so embrace it with authenticity and you will succeed guaranteed
AO: Fantastic, I don’t need to add anything to that. We are going to shift now, to motivation and productivity which everybody can struggle with sometimes so what to daily habits have you developed for Success?
HH: Well, what gets me totally out of bed is the thought of what tea I’m going to have. Lots of people probably can’t relate to that but that’s how I ignite myself, it’s how I can I ignite my flame. That is my living purpose to spread love and joy with tea and so that is the first thing I go to, even before I brush my teeth. Green tea actually works as a toothpaste, by the way. It cleanses your mouth. So I start my day with that I connect to my purpose and that is what motivates me.
When I have really bad days and I do, I have had those roller coaster days, especially at the cafe it can be challenging, I have said, oh my god I have lost myself, I have buried myself in the BS of the day I need to connect and so I will just go out to see any tea farmer that I can and I just drink tea with them and I connect immediately to my passion and that is very important. In fact, I read ages ago before I even had the idea of Chiki Tea, I read Harold Schultz book pour your heart into it and he was talking about the same thing how are you had to connect with coffee and how he had to reconnect himself because he got lost in the b******* of business and the passion have dwindled. So it’s so important to make sure that you connect to your passion and it’s time well spent it’s not playing hooky from work you have to go out and reconnect with your purpose to start driving forward again with that authenticity. So that is how I motivate myself I reconnect to my purpose.
AO: Such great advice, and would you say that is remembering why you’re doing what you’re doing what is it that drove you to do what you’re doing and what is it about it that you enjoy. It’s not just what you are doing but why you are doing it
HH: Oh yes, my why is very strong, and that is an excellent point that you bring up if you don’t know what your why is no matter if you’re leading from your heart or if your fire is on, actually if your fire is on you probably have a good strong why because they are too interchangeable. Your why needs to be rock solid and my why is twofold, it’s too pretty much save the Japanese tea industry from going extinct and it’s to spread the joy of the whole tea experience that I have had, and the absolute joy it has given me, the health and vitality! I am 52 and nobody knows it, I have clear skin, I have energy out of the kazoo, I can’t do yoga but it’s not my bag, but it’s given me a youthful vitality and I want to share this with humanity. I want everybody to know my secret. And it has been a secret because the Japanese haven’t known how to translate this, they haven’t known how to connect to the west and it’s hard for them and that’s why only 1% of tea is exported they just don’t know how to do it. So here I come along and it’s my why, I really want to help this industry from going extinct and I will do everything with every ounce of energy I have to help them and in helping them I help myself.
AO: Such a powerful why and a powerful point you make their and ladies if you could see Holly right now I can see her and this is no lie, I will be drinking green tea morning day and night she has glowing radiant skin. So, do you have to business hacks or productivity tools that you use anything that saves you time in your business
HH: Well I’m a bit old school being 52 but I like the old fashioned diary and most recently my other business partner started this habit of printing out an A4 monthly calendar will we can write things on it and leave it on our main work surface so everybody can see it. There is no offline that can happen, we live out in the country and sometimes Wi-Fi is a challenge , so there is not a chance that anything like that will stop us from seeing what we need to do so having just a pen and paper and visually seeing it is an absolutely easy and visual tool for me. The other tool that I have, it’s more of a mental tool that is to do the next indicated step, it is not to get everything done in a certain period of time it is to do the next indicated step and the next indicated step is what your gut tells you to do. If I have 25 things and I’m buried I pause and I think, Holly what is absolutely the next indicated thing I need to do? well it could be a chicken breast and potatoes but I need to cook and eat to get me to the next indicated steps so I take time and I eat or I might have to bake a cheesecake or I have to make a phone call it doing that next indicated step and not feeling overwhelmed that you have to get everything done.
In my corporate days – oh my gosh – I used to work 24/7 I was managing Canary Wharf’s retail and I literally walked those halls. I was in charge of the whole shopping area at Canary Wharf and I had to walk those halls and by the end of the day my feet will literally bleeding because of the marble and pounding the pavement and I work myself up into a frenzy. I was always panicked. The whole organisation was run through a fear based mentality.It was Way, Way Back with all the life and struggles everybody was afraid places weren’t leasing. Everything was fear based and I worked myself up into a frenzy. When I started Chiki tea one of the things I told myself is that I never ever, ever want to create a company when me or my employees I put into a position where they are acting out of fear it has to be a harmonious environment where it’s playful and through the act of being playful we accomplish more in less time because we happy and with joyful in doing it, and I think that is incredibly important in terms of a mind-set that will help you to adopt a harmonious environment in which to succeed.
AO: Thank you so much, Holly. That was a really wonderful insight and a great mental tool there.. We’re going to fast forward now, lots of things going on for you: two books in the pipeline, do you have working titles yet?
HH: Tea Hunter is one of them, and the other one is a children’s book which I’m most excited about. It is a tale of a London boy, and this is kind of based on a friend’s situation. She does tea meditations in London and her little boy hates tea because his mum never has time to play with him. In the book he hooks up with a nightingale bird who is a friend of the emperor’s and they travel on an origami crane back to Japan and the little boy is actually the inventor of a time machine and he and this bird and the origami crane go back in time and they talk to Sen no Rikyū who is the father of the Japanese tea ceremony and they go back in time and talk to Sohen Nagatani who invented Sencha, so they meet all these various people and the little boy begins to totally appreciate Japanese green tea and reveres his mother for the role that she is playing in the whole tea culture – Japanese, Chinese, Indian, whatever so it’s one of those tales, so I love it.
AO: I love the sound of it, I am going to be looking out for that one, sounds amazing!
HH: …and I have a fabulous artist he is fabulous so it’s going to be a good book
AO: When is it likely to be published? Where are you?
HH: We have just started both of them so Green Is The New Black is my first book, it is quite in depth we have been talking to Tuddle Publishing and they said it is in fact too detailed for the US market so we are going to be turning it into two books really the first book will be a less condensed version of the first book but it’s called Tea Hunter. Chiki Tea, we are tea hunters.
AO: So Tea Hunter, and then we’ve got green is the New Black which is already out there so if you have not already read it, do.
HH: Yes, it’s available on our website and it’s strangely enough I sell out in Japan, the mind boggles because it’s not in Japanese maybe the pictures are thrilling them
AO: So, what is your ultimate Vision before your final words of wisdom, what’s your ultimate vision for Chiki Tea?
HH: Chiki Tea will be at the forefront of the Japanese green tea movement to inspire young people and old alike all over the world to drink this amazing, healthy elixir that adds longevity to life (anti-aging), great tasting beverage. In terms of the physical manifestation of it, we want to have shops and Chiki tea cafe concepts throughout Japan because we want to and what we are doing now through are subsidiary is we are planting are roots here because this is not a short term game we are playing this is a long-term game this is a company that will not be for sale and I cash out and head to a beach I am going to do this, live this, breathe this until the day that I push up daisies in the garden it is to create a brand in Japan to plant the route then export the concepts to England the U.Ss and the West and to do so through love and the purpose of spreading the love and joy of Japanese tea to enrich humanity that is my ultimate Vision
AO: That is a wonderful vision final words of wisdom Holly you have given us so many words of wisdom and such great advice already but what is the one thing that you wish somebody had told you when you were starting out that you think every single entrepreneur or somebody starting out in small business should know
HH: What a great question. I actually think the one thing that everybody should know – that I wish I knew – is that the moment you take a concept from a PowerPoint presentation into a reality by getting off your butt and moving into action that is when the real magic takes place. Before that everything is an assumption. Listen to those words, absolutely everything on that PowerPoint is an assumption and you have to validate your learning in some way the only way. To validate your learning is to get off your butt and put it into action and just start doing it – whatever doing it might be – but put down that PowerPoint presentation. It’s words on a screen! What you need to be doing is action. Action produces results and action is where the magic comes so I think that is the most important thing if you’re starting out: The power point presentations are great but don’t wallow in them, don’t keep reinventing so I have a typo here, a typo there. I need to do another presentation! Just start moving and doing. Doing is so important if you don’t have any money you can still do stuff you can meet people you can talk to people you can start planning the moment that you activate your plan by action that is … well …. and here I go spiritual again … the universal energies are going to help you out a will there is some sort out there I don’t know what it is but you can harness that energy and you can use it to your advantage by doing. Doing inspired action that is a keyword inspired action vacated step that is the golden gem if I knew that it took me way too long but you know what I appreciate and I bless every moment of procrastination and looking at the PowerPoint that I had because it got me to where I am right now but I wish I had got here and cuts out 2 years out of that process
AO: Do the next indicated, take inspired action, and action produces results. Take those messages away people and take action. Fantastic advice you have been fantastic so generous with your time and just giving us really act revised and we really thank you for that thank you Holly before we say goodbye please tell us where can we find you and how can we connect with you to spread the word of Chiki tea
HH: You can reach us at Chiki thank you this is been absolutely pressure I’m so honoured you can reach us at chikitea.com which is spelt c h i k i t e a .com and we are on Facebook at Chiki Tea time that is quite a fun place to find us, you will see the Japanese folk uploading all kinds of photos and they really love it. We are on Instagram as well Chiki Tea and I don’t mind if you want to contact me directly I will give you my email which is Holly@chikitea.Com if you have any burning desire to connect with me I would be more than grateful to speak to you I’d love it if I can help you in any way I’d be more than delighted.
AO: Thank you so much, Holly! With those final words we have come to the end of another fantastic and very inspirational story. Thank you for joining us.
HH: My pleasure
