The Healthy Celiac Podcast

Turning Adversity into Opportunity: The Inspiring Journey of a Celiac Entrepreneur with Calli McPherson - Ep. 126

• Belinda Whelan, Calli McPherson • Season 1 • Episode 126

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Are you ready to be inspired by the power of resilience and determination? Meet Calli McPherson, a woman who turned her life-altering diagnosis of Celiac Disease into an opportunity to support others in a similar situation. During her pregnancy, she navigated her health challenges with courage and tenacity, leading to the inception of a unique online gift store that caters to those with gluten-free needs.

Calli's journey is as inspiring as it is unconventional. Launching her gluten-free gift business in the thick of a global pandemic, she masterfully balanced her entrepreneurial dreams with the responsibilities of mothering two young children. Despite the hurdles, she found that the pandemic served as a surprising catalyst for her business, with more people turning to online shopping for their needs. Calli's determination is a testament to how we can turn challenges into opportunities.

Living with Celiac Disease isn't easy, but Calli has found solace and support in the community of people who share her journey. She has effectively used social media to connect with others, providing a valuable resource to people navigating their own health challenges. Plus, she offers a little sweetener – a 15% discount on first orders from her store. Find the discount code in the episode.

Calli's story underpins the importance of supporting gluten-free businesses and is a beautiful example of how resilience and determination can create positive change in the face of adversity.


Shop Calli's store here - www.williamjamesgifts.com
Find her on social media:
Facebook - williamjamesgifts
Instagram - williamjamesgifts

Want to know how I've nailed living with Celiac Disease? Ultimate Celiac System has all my exclusive tips, secrets and insights.
Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

 Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
HEALTH TRACKER | The Healthy Celiac (belindawhelan.com)

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!



Music Credit bensound.com 

Belinda:

Alright, welcome back to this week's episode of the Healthy Celiac Podcast. This week I'm very excited as I have a guest on the show all the way from America, and Calli McPherson McPherson, who also has Celiac Disease, and she's here to share with us about her story with Celiac Disease and how that's led her to opening her own beautiful store and business to support people with gluten free needs, and also to share her story about how she found out she was pregnant and had Celiac Disease. So welcome to the show, Calli. I'm very excited to hear more from you, as I first started working in retail and gift stores are very near and dear to my heart, so you pulled at my heartstrings when you told me about your shop and I got online and I was like, oh my god, this is just like beautiful, so welcome.

Calli:

Thank you so much, Belinda. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to talk.

Belinda:

Fantastic. So yeah, tell us first off about your Celiac Disease diagnosis and how that came about.

Calli:

Absolutely so. I was about six, between 16 and 18, I can't remember exactly. Now I was pregnant with my youngest child and you know not to share too many details, but I had a lot of GI issues, you know, and I was pregnant. I just assumed that it had something to do with the pregnancy and, you know, tried to alter my diet talk to my doctor, you know, make sure I was drinking lots of water, that kind of stuff for like a week and I was like I'll just make sure I'm eating like super healthy and whatever. And it didn't change anything.

Calli:

And so got back in touch with my OB and he said you know, there's probably something else going on. I think you probably need to eliminate gluten and dairy from your diet. Do it for two weeks, see how you feel. Let's see if it kind of like solves the GI issues and then, you know, try and add it back in, see what happened. So I was less than happy about it. I guess most people are. I love food. I am a total foodie, I've been my entire life.

Calli:

So when you know you're 16, 18 weeks pregnant and summer, and somebody all of a sudden is like you can't have an ice cream cone, that was hard, yeah, it's crazy. But so I did the two weeks, took everything out of my diet and tried to add it back in, was very unsuccessful, continued to have the GI issues. So that's kind of when it started. And because I was pregnant, we never did an endoscopy and they never pulled blood work before I took the gluten out of my diet. So the whole journey has kind of been a kind of like fracking into my celiac diagnosis. So you know, fast forward. They hoped it was just a pregnancy thing.

Calli:

I delivered, I waited like eight weeks, tried to add it back in. Didn't that work well? So you know, at that point knew that it was probably a lifelong thing. Eventually saw a GI doctor who, I am very thankful, did not feel that it was necessary to put me to make me gluten again just to get that diagnosis. Rather he everything that we talked about. He's like it's found classic celiac and he did a blood test and to make sure I have the gene first, early on, because if you have that there's no reason for us to put you on glue to see what's going on. And so I had the gene and so we kind of backtracked into the diagnosis.

Belinda:

But, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting how different doctors are with the diagnosis. Some are like no, got to have that test and yeah. But I mean that's incredible that your initial doctor did. You say it was your OBGYN that recommended it. That's that is amazing that that got picked up and you weren't brushed off. Oh, it's just a pregnancy thing, it's just a hormone thing. You know, you could have been really crooked your whole pregnancy and that could have been a very different story. So you are really lucky.

Calli:

I got very lucky very lucky. I really love my OB she. I think, yeah, obviously very smart.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

Very fan top of things. So I'm very grateful that that was her response of like, ok, let's try this instead of you know whatever you know. Yeah. I could I could have gone another 22 weeks of eating gluten and knows what could have happened.

Belinda:

Yeah, oh yeah, I've been a completely different story, so lucky. So that that was it. It was like a really short period of time before you were like no, I'm going to do something about this.

Calli:

Yeah, you know, if I I through the business, I you know, and through life, I've talked to so many people with with celiac and it's so interesting as I'm sure you, you know here as well so many people getting that celiac diagnosis takes so long.

Belinda:

Yeah, it really does.

Calli:

Yeah, go through these ups and downs and you know, trying to figure it out, maybe you're going to you know different physicians and everything. So the fact that for me it all was so condensed- yeah. It's just really surprising, yeah, yeah definitely.

Belinda:

And it sounds like the stars just aligned and you were meant to find out, totally, totally.

Calli:

Totally Stars, totally lined my doctor Kind of you know. It's like she knew. And it's very interesting now as I look back on health issues that I've had in the past and it's like, oh, I wonder if there's been something underlying for a long time, and then I pregnant. Their pregnancy is just kind of what exactly?

Belinda:

Yeah, just kind of turn that, switch on probably, and trigger. Yeah, wow, interesting, very interesting. Does anyone else in your family have celiac disease that you know of?

Calli:

So that's a really interesting question. There is nobody in my immediate or extended family that has a diagnosis of celiac. However, I, both extended sides of my family, aunts and uncles there are a lot of them have a lot of GI issues and a lot of my aunts actually don't eat gluten because it doesn't. They don't feel good with it. But nobody's ever been tested.

Belinda:

Right. So it's probably in the family and they've just done it like a self diagnosis thing, which I'm convinced so many people do. They just go, I feel better without gluten, not going to eat it and don't even think to go get a celiac test. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly All right. So do you? Do you have two children now? Is that correct?

Calli:

I think you, I do.

Belinda:

I have two little boys, there's six, and four, six and four, ok, and they show no signs of anything. No, no, not beautiful.

Calli:

But they're not yet. We've had. You know they've each have had a couple of little GI issues here and there. So we've had them tested, each have been tested. Once they're it's all negative. And actually this year we're going to do a genetic testing to just even see if they carry the gene.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

So, if ever even something that we can consider.

Belinda:

Yeah, yeah, sounds like a good plan.

Calli:

It'll be interesting to see how that goes, yeah.

Belinda:

Yeah, definitely, yes, yeah. So I believe you started your business during the start of the pandemic.

Calli:

Is that right? Yes, yes, there's one crazy amazing. Yeah, it was like totally as I told my husband. I said this is either a really good idea or a really terrible idea, and I don't know which.

Belinda:

So tell us about that, Tell us how it started your journey, what you sell, how you help people.

Calli:

Absolutely, Absolutely. So kind of the backstory to it is my mom owns a gift store which started as a gift basket company. She's done that for over 20 years.

Belinda:

Wow.

Calli:

So I've watched her. You know, I spent time in her store, all that stuff. So I've always wanted to do this. I've always kind of had that entrepreneur entrepreneurial fire and I've always wanted to do something. So when my kids were born, I was, I decided to leave my career in health care and stay home with my kids and after, you know, probably trying to think time was after at least three or four years, I kind of I was about four years in and I was kind of ready to start doing something, even part time.

Calli:

Just, you know, kind of get my feet wet again, start doing something business wise. And I went to a buying trip with my mom for her store and I came back and I couldn't stop talking about it. I had like taken business cards and vendors that we had met, just like, oh, if I ever did this someday, like this is great, I want this. And so I did all that. I couldn't stop talking about it. And we were driving somewhere and my husband eventually looked at me. He's like, OK, just start doing something. And I was like okay, like really that's great. He's like, yeah, what you know, just think about it, you could always do it from the home, like from our home you know, your home with the kids it would be fine. And so I was like all right, great, Got so excited about it, started to like think about it, how you know, how do you do all this stuff?

Calli:

And two weeks later, lockdown happened. So you know, that's life. But, as we all have experienced now, oh you know, COVID through a wrench and so many plans. So we were home and I had two my kids were even younger at the time and they both napped, and so at the time I was like all right, I've got like two and a half hours in the afternoon and I think I'm gonna just keep going, Especially because at that time we were very convinced that there's no way any of this could last more than three or four weeks, Like everything everyone's gonna be back to normal, not three years later.

Calli:

Yeah, like there's no way you know, everyone's been home for two weeks. We're good, we're moving on. Little did we know, but so I kind of I started there and August of 2020 officially launched the business and was doing the gift baskets and I did them from our home for about a year and I, you know, sold them online. We shipped them all over the world.

Belinda:

And that was predominantly gluten free products, wasn't it? It was yeah.

Calli:

It was all gluten free. So when we kind of started talking about it and doing this, I really wanted it all to be gluten free, for two reasons. One authentically, I really didn't feel comfortable selling something I couldn't eat. It just didn't feel right.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

Like how can I vouch for something? How can I tell somebody that it's good? I'm not able to eat it.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

Yeah. And then the other piece of it is it doesn't exist that like a true, like fully gluten free option when it comes to sending a gift basket or a gift box or something like that. I couldn't find anything. And you know I had a couple of good. I have a couple of good friends who have celadiac. So whether you're getting things for yourself or you're hosting somebody or you're sending something to somebody, there wasn't anything out there. You know I tell people the story of my. I was home visiting my parents right around my birthday. My parents wanted to, like, you know, do a birthday cake or whatever for my birthday. I said, okay, great. And you know they went to the store, bought a cake, bring it out after dinner, set it down, put the candles, the whole thing. My husband and I look at each other and are like, oh my God, who's gonna tell them Like, and everyone knew that this. You know I had the food issues at the time.

Belinda:

And.

Calli:

I couldn't eat the cake they like, completely forgot, oh, oh, like my mother, you know. We told her and she felt terrible and I felt terrible.

Belinda:

Oh can imagine.

Calli:

She felt terrible. She was like oh my gosh, I forgot Like. So it. To me, that moment was kind of also one of those where I was like wow, like how many times do you get something or you open something? And you're like oh, thank you so much, I appreciate it. And you're like that's not me to any of us, but I'm not gonna see anything. Yeah, I want something to do with it.

Calli:

I don't think you can feel that. So, anyway, that was a big motivator for doing it all gluten free. Yeah, Because I want people, whether they're celiac, if they ate, don't eat gluten for whatever other reason. I want them to have a place where they feel comfortable and safe getting something that isn't gonna make them sick.

Belinda:

Yeah, fantastic. And really, when we think about it, like you know so many businesses that I know of because I'm in a lot of women's business groups so many businesses have closed down in the previous three years, and the online space is probably the most amazing thing for business because people just really embraced online shopping and getting things delivered to their door because they couldn't go to the shop. So really, if anything, it probably worked in your favor, didn't it?

Calli:

Really honestly, I think it did. It was really interesting that first, you know six months that we were in business, covid was I mean lock restrictions for places where people were quarantining. There was so much going on at that time that, yeah, online was really the way that people were, you know, interacting having a shopping, having to be buying things, sending things to people, so I actually think you know at launching an online business at that time, going into the holidays and stuff, I think was really helpful for people, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And how did?

Belinda:

you get it out there. Like you said, you started having you know international deliveries. How did that work for you? How did you kind of find customers and get your name out there? Cause that's incredible.

Calli:

It was really incredible. We really embraced social media, launched our everything you know online, made it easy, clean, simple for people. But, yeah, we really utilized social media quite a bit, yeah, and then about five months into the business five months, four, six months, five or six months into the business we got a huge break. We were featured in an article from the Food Network and they picked one of our gift baskets as a great gift for an upcoming coming Father's Day.

Belinda:

Wow.

Calli:

That was huge, it's huge yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was on Food Network. It was on. You know, if you have like Apple news on your phone, I'm scrolling through one night and I see the article and I'm like oh my gosh it's there, so that got us a lot of publicity. That was a huge turning point.

Belinda:

Yeah, that's great. And then you decided to open a storefront. When, how kind of, how did that progress? Like, what point did you go right? We need to do more.

Calli:

Yeah. So when, after the Food Network article came out and I felt like we we got this reaction from people of like, wow, this is something that's missing, this is something that we don't have and we wish we did, I really felt as though that was kind of a sign of you're on to something that is near and dear to my heart but is really important to other people and is a missing piece out there. Yeah, and so after the article, I approached my husband and said you know, this is something I really want to do, and at the time our kids were four and two and COVID was out there.

Calli:

So he was like you're kind of crazy, but you know, let's, you know, see it through, let's see what happens, so that in October of 2021, we opened our storefront.

Belinda:

Oh, okay, 2021. Wow yeah.

Calli:

So it was just a little bit over a year after we launched the visit, and you know that summer spent some time at some local farmers markets, helping to like let people know that we're here and what. This is where we're going to be and this is where we're opening in the fall. And so, yeah, we opened October of 2021 and we just we were embraced by our community. What?

Belinda:

are you?

Calli:

all the time and they have supported us, they have embraced us, they have helped to promote us. So, you know the front of the word of a mouth is, you can't buy that kind of media. No, you definitely can't, you can't and it's the best you know. If people believe in something that they're seeing and they like what they're seeing, they're going to tell other people yeah.

Calli:

So you know it's, it's been really exciting, it's been really great and potentially crazy that we did it at that time. You know, the Omicron variant hit about three months later and we were hot holidays, you know, but we masked and we were fine and yeah it's been, it's been really great. It's been a, it's been a blessing, I think, for sure.

Belinda:

That's beautiful. Yeah, I love it. It's fantastic, and I can imagine you wouldn't just have people that need to buy gluten free, supporting you be for walks a lot.

Calli:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it's just it's been really interesting. We, you know, expanded the amount of gluten free foods that we have, so now we offer more in the store and it's, I find it so fascinating. We my husband and I went back and forth before I opened about, you know, maybe we should just have a section of food that isn't gluten-free. So other people, you know that's not the way that they choose to eat or have to eat, they have something as well, and it didn't sit right with me.

Belinda:

Mm-hmm.

Calli:

And so we I went in, I did it all gluten-free. It still is all gluten-free and it definitely will take that way. Um, it's, I had the, so we have the gluten-free. We also have gifts, so it's. It's really this beautiful Combination where people can really come in and find something for everyone. Yeah, um, but I will say that the gluten-free food is something that people really have embraced.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

Well, I had somebody come into the store probably two or three weeks ago. Oh, she was like, wow, this is all gluten-free. I said yes, everything. And she just looked at me and she's like I've never had a place where I feel like I belong before I would burst into tears.

Belinda:

I was like that was me I almost started crying. Yeah.

Calli:

I was like, well, I'm really happy you're here, yeah. So it's just been really um, it's been really heartwarming to see how much people Feel that it's important.

Belinda:

Yeah, it's so true, it was not. We've got a couple of Restaurants here in South Australia that are certified by Celiac Australia completely gluten-free. So all their, all their beers are gluten-free, all the food, every, absolutely Everything is gluten-free. And to be able to go there and audit anything and not have to think, not have to stress, not have to ask all the questions, is amazing. So I can only imagine what it would be like to go into your store and just feel like Can have anything, like I can actually eat anything in here. That is Like it's like changing for us, isn't it?

Calli:

That's a change. It's such a treat and, like you said, like to be able to go to a place that's all gluten-free, like a restaurant. You don't have to ask all the questions, you don't have to be fearful of what's in front of you that you know. You know, I don't know. Do you think you think it's safe? Yeah, so I? Yeah, I agree. It's just. It's nice to have a place where you feel like you don't have to Read every label that's in front of you.

Belinda:

Yeah, yeah, and to be honest, not only just for us with Celiac disease, but think of, like our friends, our loved ones. You know how many times you have a birthday or a celebration and people say, oh, what would you like me to get you? And it's so awkward Because I don't like telling people what what to buy there. But you know, buying buying a box of chocolate, so buying some nice treats is lovely, but so many people don't like doing that for me because they're not confident reading labels and making sure something is safe for me. So if you could go here, here's a link to this amazing store and I would be more than happy with anything You'd like to gift me from there. That would be incredible. The people who just shop online Get anything and know that it's safe. That is just. That's amazing. I love that.

Calli:

Thank you. Yeah, it's really great. We do have a lot of people that are very excited. They're like oh, I have somebody who's coming in town this week and his gluten free and I Just figured I'd stop it and, you know, grab some things.

Belinda:

Yeah.

Calli:

Yeah perfect. But that'll, that will go so far. That will mean so much to them that you thought of them. Yes, did something for them. Yeah that's really nice to be able to be a place for people.

Belinda:

Yeah, that inclusion, yeah, yeah, absolutely it is. It is so important. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today, for our listeners as well, was finding passion and purpose after a celiac diagnosis, because you know, I talked to so many people and so many people say, you know, they feel that their life is over and you know Things are really bad after finding out that they've got celiac disease. And then you've got other people like you and I who take our diagnosis and we just make it a positive thing and we help other people and and we, I feel like you know I'm doing a lot for our community, as you are.

Belinda:

So how? How do you think that you know we can encourage others to find passion and purpose in their celiac diagnosis?

Calli:

I think that's a really good question, Belinda, I Can't sit here and tell you that I wasn't angry and that I wasn't upset. Mm-hmm, I wasn't a crabby person to be around. Yeah, I was told I couldn't have any gluten or dairy. I Would, yeah, I wasn't. I was not necessarily very happy for that grieving process?

Belinda:

No, yes.

Calli:

That's, that's the exact word of what it is. Yeah, I think sometimes people think it's silly when you say you had to grieve it. But you really do. You kind of have to understand. Okay, the way that I lived my life before is different. It's changed. But I think, like you said, I did. I took those three or four weeks and I really grieved the foods that I love, being able to just order whatever, not think about it. But once I started to feel better physically and even be clear mentally, I knew how important it was. And once I was able to physically and mentally feel that shift in my own body, I knew that I just needed to pour myself into finding things that I really introverted. Pre-celiac doesn't mean I can't enjoy them now.

Calli:

I just have to do my research, so I did. I spent a lot of time between Google, talking to friends who have celiac excuse me and, honestly, instagram was hugely helpful for me, finding people a couple that were local, other people on Instagram that had celiac or gluten-free and being able to learn about how do you go out and eat safely, how do you find someplace that is gonna have something for you? So, as I said before, I'm a huge hoody, so to me, one of the big things was how do I figure out how to continue enjoying food and going out to eat or doing takeout that kind of thing and being able to do it safely.

Calli:

So I think for me I feel better. I know what's better physically for me. So let me pour myself into some research, excuse me, and then figure out the things that make me happy and whatever it is that makes you happy. Even if your diet has changed, you can do all the things that you did before. You just have to put more thought into them. And I think that sometimes celiac food allergies can be a really lonely journey and sometimes it's hard to find community. But I do think one of the benefits of living in the social media age is that there's an ability to find people through social media and, at least for me, it really helped me not feel like it was just me. I really felt like, okay, I can watch other people do this, I can learn how they make chocolate chip cookies gluten-free.

Calli:

How do I figure some of these things out? And then it was really once I figured some of those things out for myself, I wanted to share them with other people. Once I figured out, oh, this is a really great type of granola that, shockingly, all granola is not gluten-free, what always still baffles me. But you find something like that and you're like wow, this is amazing, I love it.

Calli:

I wanna share it with other people and to me that is what kind of helped to spiral the business starting. And I love the business. I love the store. I love interacting with other people, but I love talking to people who are going through the journey. I love being able to be a resource for people. I love letting them know that they're not alone. That they're there. Other people are on this journey with them, so I don't know if that necessarily answered it.

Belinda:

Yeah, it does, it definitely does, absolutely yeah.

Calli:

I have a long-winded answer. That's beautiful, but yeah, I think the biggest thing was doing my research and feeling better and then knowing that I can do anything that I wanted to do before. I just have to approach it differently.

Belinda:

Yep, beautiful makes so much sense, lovely. Well, I totally stalked your website and am in love with everything on there. Like I said, working in a gift store when I was younger yeah, it's. One of my slight obsessions is homewares and decorating. That would have been my path. I would have gone down if I hadn't gone down health coaching, so you definitely pull to my heartstrings. When you reached out to me, my husband was teasing me when I told him that I was having you on.

Calli:

He was like oh, I know why yeah?

Belinda:

But yeah, your store's beautiful, so I'd love it if you could share with our listeners where they can find you, both on social media and your website, and I believe you have an offer that you would like to give to people as well if they'd like to place an order with you.

Calli:

Absolutely absolutely so. You can find us on social media. It is William James Gifts, so James with an S, gifts with an S. That is our Instagram handle, that is our Facebook handle. You can find us both there and our website is essentially the same it is wwwwilliamjamesgiftscom. And yes, belinda, like you said, I would love to offer your listeners 15% off their first order with us and they can just type in code healthy and that their checkout and that will apply the 15%.

Calli:

And we ship throughout the world, so wherever your listeners are listening to us we can ship wherever, whether it's to them or to somebody else, we're happy to do that.

Belinda:

Perfect. Oh my God, that's amazing. So easy, yeah, so easy, absolutely, and I'll pop a link to all of that below in the show notes as well, and I'll also share that on my social media. But otherwise, thank you so, so much for joining us today. It's been lovely talking with you and hearing more about your journey and your beautiful store and, yeah, everyone go check it out because, yeah, it's just easy to shop for gluten free and a beautiful business and obviously a beautiful person to support as well. So, thank you so much, Calli.

Calli:

Thank you, Belinda. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Belinda:

You're welcome.

Calli:

Take care bye.

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Belinda Whelan

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