Sugar Gives Her First Major Speech & Celebrates With These Apple Strawberry Mini Bundt Cakes

This week I was invited to be the special guest speaker for Puppy Kindergarten.

Puppy Kindergarten is an annual conference for pup creatives and beginning pup business owners.  The goal of the conference is to give pups a platform to network, gain access to information and establish their short-term and long-term goals. 

Over the course of 2 days, pups participate in “bark-storming” sessions, panel discussions and entertainment activities.  It’s an awesome retreat that every pup with a dream or goal should attend at least once.  Although, I didn’t get my Pupcake Sugar idea from Puppy Kindergarten, going to this conference was a great place for me to start connecting the dots of my idea.

That’s why I was so excited when they invited me to speak.

It was more than an opportunity to get exposure for Pupcake Sugar.  It was a chance to help other pups realize their dreams.  However, that excitement dwindled a little after I realized that I had to bark in front of hundreds of pups at once.

I’ve spoken in front of audiences before.  While I was at Scent, I had to give tons of presentations in front of management.  Since I was in marketing, presentations came with the territory.  So, I often didn’t see it as a big deal. 

However, this speech at Puppy Kindergarten was much deeper than a few data points on a few slides.  It was trying to inspire a room full of pups to believe that their voices matter, their dreams are valid and their goals are achievable.  It was finding a way to bark with them and not at them.  It was also helping them see that pups like me are the norm; not the exception.

After a few days of “bark-storming” some ideas, I finally got the inspiration I needed.  Marian Wright Edelman stated…

When you see yourself through the eyes of your human, it’s hard to imagine all of the wonderful things a pup can be.  There’s more to pups than our humans’ expectations.

So, for my speech, I decided to go Hollywood.  Over the past few years, I’ve witnessed the resurgence of movies with animals taking the lead.  Everything from The Secret Life of Pets series, Sing and Zootopia to A Dog’s Purpose and the anticipated live version of The Lion King all have animals at the forefront of storytelling.

These stories are our dreams, our hopes, our intricacies, our joys and, yes, even our insecurities.  They create a space for us pups to push the limits we’ve set for ourselves.  And, even though our humans love us and we love them, these stories give us our own sense of self.

So, as I stood in front of the crowded room of pups, I encouraged the Puppy Kindergarten audience to use these stories as a platform to create more stories.  Look at going after your dreams as a way to not only have more experiences, but as a way to live your wildest dreams.  These stories will inspire the next generation of pups to live their dreams too.

So, these Apple Strawberry Mini Bundt Cake Pupcakes are dedicated to living life beyond another human’s expectations.

And of course, we believe that every pupcake has a love story.  So, while your favorite pup is PUPPY LOVIN’ on these pupcakes, we’d love to hear from you.

How has a story inspired you to go after your dreams?

Please share your pupcake story in the box below.