I feel like everyone can bake. What makes you and your style, your approach, so unique to the craft? Baking is a science and an art, but definitely a science. It's very specific, and you have to have a certain level of discipline, at least for our business. There's a lot of emotion tied to our customer base coming to us and helping them celebrate their most important life's occasions. You come from the corporate world. What are you teaching others about what you learned in the corporate world? You're going to hear a lot of no's in your life, no matter what you're trying to do. But in business, there are going to be a lot of obstacles that you'll have to overcome. You're hustling, but you're also creating the cake. You're DJing. Doesn't it lose a little bit of like the aura? I was like, I'm supposed to be behind the door. Like, you're not like that at all. Yeah, you're like front facing in it, literally in it. No, I actually love what I do. So I love my life. Right on. Getting up, pouring into people, being an example, and people seeing me doing what I did. I think it's probably the bigger message in itself. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland, and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life edition. For Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is another amazing, powerful woman. But there's a reason why. And I'm a little biased because we're both DJs. So she's already one of my favorites. Keisha S. Davis, how are you? Welcome. I am doing great, Ray. Thank you so much. I apologize for calling you Keisha S. Davis. You are not a ship or a huge ship. I keep calling you like a boat. You are not a boat, ma'am. Sometimes I can move like one. We literally just wrapped up your episode of Women in Power. Quite a small chaos there, but we got through. How was your experience? It was great, actually. It is a testament to how things run in business. Sometimes you just got to go with the flow and keep it pushing. Right on. It was great, actually. Cool, cool, cool. I'm glad to hear it. Boy, am I glad. What are we going to learn about your episode? How I grew up and what was instilled in me early on. Through my childhood years and why I am running the business now, who Denise is and what she is to me and how I'm Denise of Denise. And that I'm running this great bakery in Philadelphia, in North Philadelphia, and how I want to take it to the next level and make it a national brand. We're already trademarked. So, you know, I'm just really trying to do that. And so that's what you're going to learn about in my episode. So bakery, baking, is it quite a business to get into? I feel like everyone can bake. What makes you and your style, your approach so unique to the craft? Baking is a science and an art, but definitely a science that's very specific. And you have to have a certain level of discipline to get into baking. And yeah, some stick-to-it-ness. because the first case that I baked when I was 12 did not come out right. It was a disaster. Sure. But. Everyone falls. Everyone falls on the first jump. But I kept trying. And I've actually started baking more, more recently. So I'm naturally a cook and I have some other talents. And so I do cake decorating and all that. But baking is a science. Let's talk about your entrepreneurial journey. You come from the corporate world. What was happening in the corporate world? Did you enjoy it? What did you learn about yourself? What are you teaching others about what you learned in the corporate world? So I've been in sales. I've sold a lot of things from large IT systems to, I mentioned being a telemarketer in college. I learned that resilience is key, right? You're going to hear a lot of no's in your life, no matter what you're trying to do. But in business, there are going to be a lot of obstacles that you'll have to overcome. And so that is easily translatable into running a small business because resources do not abound like they do working for a 13 billion dollar food company like I worked before holy moly i worked at aramark um before i uh i live next to nesse in switzerland yeah corporations it very scary that huge yes huge right um but the cool thing about working in that company sure was that i had i worked with the c-level executives in project management so i had a 360 degree view of a huge food company um maybe i'll have a 13 billion dollar food company soon myself oh yeah you definitely will 14 billion i would say okay okay let's shoot for higher let's shoot for higher but yeah um knowing that it's possible knowing how that story got started um and then bringing some of those things to my business with less, way less resources. Right on. Yeah. I'm going to say translatable, not super easy, but translator. There's a lot of moving parts. Cooking, baking, running a kitchen, a business, and all the employees and folks that you were managing, there's a lot of moving parts in SOPs. But that attributes to, I would say, maybe because you're a DJ as well. like when you're DJing you're hearing your monitors and it's your versus the house and you're on a bpm and you're here like and you're watching the crowd you're watching and you're reading the room feeling the frequencies and you're like is this gonna land right or when to know when to clear a dance floor because the bar's got to make money yeah talk about how your love for the craft of DJing flows into your art of baking and cooking flows into the flow of flows into the flow of your corporate life it's all about making people feel good right so DJing for me i love when people are nodding and vibing or i love when i'm helping people reminisce about a time they can you know the eyes are closed yeah and they're you know they're or they're dancing and they're older people dancing like they danced 50 years ago that feels good um but it's the emotion that is tied to the music same thing with baking and um at least for our business there's a lot of emotion tied to our customer base coming to us and helping them celebrate their most important life's occasions. So very similar. Right on. Very similar. What is your philosophy when you're crafting? Do you feel like you bake or cook better when you're angry, happy, sad? Or when I just got to get it done. So when I'm more of a person that works very well on pressure um sometimes it might blow up um but if i just gotta focus and get this cake done or if i gotta you know if i have a short window of time i got a 20 minute set oh i'm gonna bang that 20 minute set out djing yeah we're talking unless you're a six o'clock in the afternoon djing the room is empty you don't want to be that dj playing the bangers at six in the afternoon don't of that right right no one likes that dj right right right but if i've got you know you know a couple weeks ago i did a wedding that kind of um the band played way too long and i only had a few minutes to play so i had to kill it in 20 minutes you're still djing weddings good for you man i cannot wait to get back to my cdjs i miss it i miss like that that environment being in that in that world and seeing the the room hustle like seeing the bartenders the barbacks the bouncers having you know the hosts escort people to the vip room and you're just in the in the flow and you're just like man i cannot believe i control this energy i'm just a weird nerd control the energy that's right the dj controls the energy uh talk about what it's like to spin on vinyl what it's like to have crates to be a serato dj we're every just because we're djs doesn't mean we're the same i don't see djs and she's on seratos to me this is real dj so well i'm on serato uh right now rain one but i started out with real vinyl techniques with crates I would have like five crates that I would put into my Honda Accord with my DJ equipment being able literally when you're digging through the crates cutting your cuticles on record covers not the same when you're scrolling through with them no actually it was a little hard for me to make that transition because I was used to seeing my records visually, then I had to kind of like think of what the next thing to play because they files And I hadn built my crates out yet in Serato How do you organize your crate Is it by because I like to mix in key Like do you mix in key or you just whatever flows with you? Because you're more top 40, right? No, I'm hip hop. I'm hip hop R&B. So I actually organize my crates by BPM. So I might be like 70 to 90 and then 90 to 100. So I'll do that. And then I call that energy pockets. When I want to start this energy pocket, my mids and my highs and then peaks and then launchers. Yep. And then sometimes it's just a vibe. So I am by by crates. You know what I mean? My favorite one. Yeah. And then you're just got something. I don't even know what the artist name is. I'm just looking at the, the, the energy. I'm like, I put this in this pocket. I already trust myself that three days ago when I was that person pre planning this version of myself, then I'm in safe mode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about some of the, the pre planning that it takes or even production planning. product managing that connecting all of your worlds into one that is you the the producer of your reality yeah it costs a lot of money to run a bakery uh ingredient costs are high and so um really have to plan at a granular level at this point um just to make sure there's not a lot of waste so um coordinating teams with um the back office and making making sure that our baking teams have the right things they need to make at the right time uh so our deferrating teams can get done and the cashiers get it out the door so it's quite a bit of coordination there um to get the customer their cake when they order it yeah it's not like widgets so like yeah the your widget is back order so get your cake for your niece's birthday party next month oh gosh yeah everything has to be done how are you delivering such precious cargo like how does How does one deliver a seven-layer cake? One does not. One does not. I have a nice-sized truck that I deliver. And, yeah, very careful. I trust me with the cakes. Wow, I love it. Do you think this is because you're an only child? This is a sense of control? From one only child to another. Anybody right now to deliver? So if you're watching or listening to this podcast, if you if you could yeah i need someone to help me deliver but um no i do i actually like delivering i like um going to the venues because actually i get to do a little marketing or talk to the manager yeah that's awesome that's not business cards that kind of thing and i i can i can teach somebody how to do that yeah right on i like to do that yeah that's what i like for i like to see how it turns out in the venue. For sure, for sure. I'd just like to see it. I know it's kind of like a stereotypical question, but it's like any folks that you've transformed based on your cake? Like, was it that one wedding that was a crisis and then your cake showed up and saved the day? I don't know. Would you like to make one up? Because I want to tell you, I have walked into some venues and I think the cake probably did save the day. I was just going to say, there's got to be. I'm like, you guys, ooh, this is going to be a nice day. Then I come in and I smile. Everything's going to be all right. Today's going to be a beautiful day. Here's your cake. Like, that's the kind of energy that I try to function on wedding days because they're always so hectic. I don't usually see the bride, but if I see the bride, that's not good. If I see the bride. If I see the bride, you know what? If I see the bride. There's a good province there. It's like there's a Confucius province there. If you see the bride of the wedding day, you're not having a good day or something. All right. So turn to me a little bit. I know you're hiding from me. You might be. It's okay. I just want to make sure that the things that you didn't say on your interview session, you say on the podcast. There's a couple of things that you left out that you wanted to bring up and talk about. We were talking about leadership. We were talking about community engagement. And one of the big things that's part of my life, very appropriate that we're in this red room, is that I'm a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, which is a public service sorority. Right on. And so a lot of what I do is civic engagement and community engagement through my sorority. And then I served on some nonprofit boards for raising scholarship money Right on Yeah yeah Sorority tribe club cult Same thing. No cult. Not the cult. Not the cult part. I want to say no. No, no. X on that. But tribe. I really wanted to land on tribe. Tribe, for sure. Tribe. Our village, a huge, hundreds of thousands of sisters. Right on. That's so cool. for me that's looking for my tribe of sisters if you will um it's difficult like we spoke about this earlier that being 40 today is is interesting because you're either raising a family or still raising yourself like i'm a little older than four all good but but how would you educate someone like me that's like yo what's up dj what up love your bakes bakery like let's talk you could still do whatever yeah yeah 40 14 it doesn't matter as long as you're taking care of yourself yep yep self-care is like a real thing for sure um how are you taking care of yourself talk to yourself nice uh yeah still working on that good self-talk still working on that you can do it even when it gets hard there's a reason why you're doing what you're doing um so focus on that reason and that should help you get through it. And when you're not moving, you're dying, right? That's very true. That probably explains why I'm always so jittery. What is your DJ name? Oh, my DJ name is DJ Mystique. Nice. So that's M-I-S-S. Right on. There's a lot of Mystiques out there, but you're DJing the cool. That's a different one. No, no, right on. Change of colors. No, no, no, you're not. Do you sometimes get creative and kind of just like DJ out of your bakery wagon and be like, all right, I'm going to deliver from nine to five, but from five to two in the morning, I'm going to be DJing out of this truck. No. No. You've got a whole sorority that's going to be your fan club chasing after this wagon. Like I really envisioning. They order cakes and they ask me to DJ. Well, there you go. Well, next time you do a big like powwow delivery DJ thing, you got to get cameras out and do a big thing. Interesting. We'll be here to support from... For sure. What I will say, I have DJ parties ever since I've been DJing. And I've been DJing for over 25 years. Right on. I have DJ parties where I've decorated the cake. I look across the room, I'm like, oh, that's our box. Let's see who decorated it. Hey, that's me. I decorated that cake. That's me. So that's cool. Well, what do you tell the folks that are like... That to us is just like you're hustling. But you're also creating the cake. you're DJing doesn't it lose a little bit of like the aura I was like no I'm I don't know a business owner I'm not supposed to be in front of the the customer I'm supposed to be behind the door like you're not like that at all yeah you're like front-facing in it literally in it no I actually love what I do I'm out here I have a t-shirt that says I'm doing all the things all the things yeah So I love my life. Right on. Getting up, pouring into people, being an example, and people seeing me doing what I do. I think it's probably the bigger message in itself. Where should we take this conversation? Anything else you'd like to add? Anything else that we feel like we may have missed in the interview session that you want to make sure you say in the podcast? Before we wrap up? I feel like you covered everything. I think you got a lot of luck. personality. Yeah. How can people find you and follow your journey? Find me on Instagram. So you can find the bakery at cakesbydenises.com. I have a cookbook coming out soon. So I did not want to forget that. Right on. Let's plug your book, please. So it's Denise's Delicacies with Chef Keisha. So and then look for me on Eat This TV. I'm going to be starting my second season of a baking demonstration show on they eat this TV. So that's 12 episodes. Are we already fighting for ratings between the two apps here? Are we already doing this? I love it. You can find her on Inside Success TV or what other app? Eat this TV. Right on. I love this closer. This is the best way to end a Friday. Yeah, Kay, I'm going to just call you Kay. Thank you so much for your lovely time and energy. It was quite a memorable Friday. With that, thus concludes another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast for red life and inside success. I am Ray Gutierrez.
