#WINNING
#WINNING
The Fragrant Path of Growth with Palma Cafolla
Have you ever been transported back in time by the mere hint of a fragrance, to a place where memories blossom like flowers in an eternal spring? This week, my guest, the enchanting Palma Cafolla, unfolds the petals of her story, from the aromatic gardens of her Irish childhood to the heart of her flourishing business, Zingaro Floral Perfumery. As we waltz through her life's chronicles, Palma's profound knowledge of botanical perfumes, seasoned with anecdotes of her journey from arranging flowers for royalty in London to establishing her niche in the perfumery world, is bound to stir your soul.
Palma's artistry goes beyond mere scent creation; she captures the essence of nature and memories, weaving them into olfactory masterpieces that resonate with personal narratives. We discuss the delicate balance of blending natural elements to evoke emotions, and the stark contrast between synthetic fragrances and the authentic charm of botanical perfumes. The heartfelt story of a custom perfume that anchored a client to a cherished memory stands testament to the power of Palma's craft. Her interactions with celebrities and individuals alike reveal the universal language of scent, and how it transcends the boundaries of our lives.
As the conversation unfolds, Palma's resilience shines through—a beacon for anyone navigating the unpredictable seas of life. From the bustling streets of Dublin to the serene winters of Saskatoon, her journey of self-discovery and growth is a narrative that inspires and offers wisdom to our own paths. We wrap up with reflective advice to the younger self and extend an invitation to experience the wonders of Zingaro Floral Perfumery.
Join us for an episode that promises a bouquet of inspiration, reminding us that true passion is the most fragrant bloom in the garden of life.
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Winning will help you learn the hard lessons the easy way, with guidance from celebrated entrepreneurs and business leaders. It's fun, it's informative, it's winning Hello welcome to Winning.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I'm your host, Mackenzie Kilshaw, and today's guest is Palma Cafolla. Palma, how are you?
Palma Cafolla:I'm great Mackenzie. How are you doing?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I'm so good and I'm so happy that you're here. Palma is a friend of mine. She, I think, has the coolest career that I've ever heard of. I didn't even know it was something you can do, a career, career of, and she makes perfumes and the most beautiful scents and we're going to talk a lot about that today. But she was born and raised in Ireland and she spent years wandering in her mother's and her grandmother's gardens. Um which was just 17, she went to Europe exploring the streets. She happened on the florist shop and she became a floral designer and you actually even made arrangements for the Royal Family, which I think we'll touch on because that's super cool. Palma does love arranging flowers, but really it was the scent of the flowers that really she was, I think, passionate about is a good word. And she is the owner of Zingaro Floral Perfumery in Victoria BC, which is a really cool shop. If you're in Victoria you have to stop in. But, Palma, I'm so happy you're here.
Palma Cafolla:Okay, well, you kind of had it all there in a nutshell, Mackenzie, I guess my love affair started from a really, really young age. My mother was very passionate about her garden and flowers and it was like something from like the garden. It was beautiful. She threw her life's work into her garden and then, on the other hand, my Italian grandmother had a culinary garden garden. So I was surrounded by two very powerful, protective women as a young girl and an Italian family and an Irish family, and myself and my sister, two young girls. It was like the Gestapo on top of us. It was like we weren't allowed to move. If one mother wasn't watchful, the grandmother was watchful.
Palma Cafolla:So I spent my days in the garden. My mother was very strict in a sense, where, you know, we wouldn't be let go out after school like we'd, you know, get home, and she used to always say to myself and my sister you know, you don't need anyone, you've got your sister. And that was the mentality going up for the two of us. You know, to this day, my sister and I still say that to each other you don't need anyone, you've got me. So that's how it was. So I would just wander the garden and I had a very wondrous, mystical mind that used to go off with the fairies and I always got into trouble for it. But I would like take my mother's roses and, you know, mash the petals off and add water and powder, and I'd make all these different precautions and put a few little pieces in as well, just to see if they do anything with it. That's how it started and my grandmother had, like the real strong herbs you know for Italian cooking. I'd be doing stuff there. So my senses were infused from a very young age and they were very alert and you know that was really it until I hit 17.
Palma Cafolla:I was, you know, very restless. I never liked school. I wasn't academic in any way. You know, if there was a window I would open the window. If you know, somewhere I was, you know, awake. I always went off into different worlds and they were all magical worlds and I'd get lost in them.
Palma Cafolla:And the minute I was 17, I hopped on a boat for the plane fare and I had, I think, something like 90 pounds and, much to my mother's dismay, I left and I went to London and I walked down this little alley in one of those beautiful back streets in London that's where all you know around the big fair and that and I walked into this like amazing flower store, that's what it was, and yeah, they had a sign on the window, apprentice, and I went in and I basically just you know, I told them that I knew nothing but I was passionate and I would do anything. And myself and a New Zealand girl both were taken on at the same time and I have to say it was probably the best experience of my life because myself and a New Zealand girl we're still friends to this day. We were both she was, I think, 18, I was 17 and we actually got a place to live together and started our floral design career there, and we would. They were very high end floral designers, like he was a Dutch master and we were sent from all the. They were appointed to an embassy with between.
Palma Cafolla:So either in London you could see that quite a bit if a majesty got food projects from your store or whatever, you would get this to say you were appointed, so it means that's who she went to to get the food. You were appointed as the florist, so that's kind of how it. To get her food. We were appointed as the florists, so that's kind of how it goes. And you'll see beautiful places around London that would have this appointment to the queen at the time. Obviously the king now right, yeah, so we would go around after the master florists around all central London hotels and literally go after them. That's what we did, we, and every day go around all central London and fix and order the arrangements.
Palma Cafolla:You know these were arrangements which were like three times my size, you know, on like 10-foot ladders, designing and doing whatever right, and that's kind of where my training started. We had her name was, and she she was like the color of the dragon and she would literally not let us use any mechanical, sorry name. They've been given a name. Literally not let us use any mechanical, sorry common name for flowers which used to say to us they've been given a common name and made sure you use it, and we wouldn't be allowed to. You know, say, baby's breath, right, you don't have to use Cecilia. Or you know, Birds of Paradise, Strelitzia.
Palma Cafolla:So it was all very tough but I have to say I was trained so rigorously in this business that I was taken up with it. It just took over my life. And then the scent came back again Because, as I was working, all these botanicals, all these infusions were coming at me like why doesn't anything smell like this? And I'd spend my days, you know, my day off I'd have very little tea and I'd be in a little bed, sit in London. I'd go around beautiful stores, you know, like Liberty, Harrods, all the designer stores in London.
Palma Cafolla:And you know, dream, get lost in my new world. Now that I get lost, I'd be in Dior, dreaming that I could rest in Dior one day. I'd be in Chanel. I'd be dreaming, you know, and I'm always a way of, you know, pulling it off, because my Italian grandma was very she would be very about how you bought your clothes. You know she said it doesn't matter how much money you've got, but you have to dress well, you know, and you make sure it has to be. You know, if you buy a jacket it has to be of couture, you know, so that it will last you. And you know different things like that. She trained us really, really well and I would go and dream in all these doors and the sense and the magic.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You are a dreamer. You still are, I think. As far as I know, you still are a dreamer and that's a great thing because of what you do, I think it really lends itself well, and that's, I think, part of like I always say what you do is magic, and I think that's why right yeah, well, you know, it's about getting lost in it and scent takes you to places, right?
Palma Cafolla:Yes, and that's what it did. So then I started my journey, as I was floral designer. Then I started my journey, training as a perfumer. I just fell into it. I'm like I want to make the way perfume was originally made, you know, not synthetic, not chemical, real the dirt, the soil, flower, with every composition that went with it. Right, and that's what took me to to grass and fence so and so you started really hands-on.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You just jumped into hands-on training. Like you said, they were very um proper on the proper names of flowers and whatnot, and I'm sure even I know years ago I didn't realize that, like Birds of Paradise wasn't Birds of Paradise, it actually had a name and that we just that's like the common name. Right, yeah, so you do that. Then how do you become a perfumer? Like what are? How do you go from floral to actually becoming a real perfumer?
Palma Cafolla:Well, in all honesty, Mackenzie, they go hand in hand because they're just a different element of the same thing. Right, the flowers have so many different layers. So one layer the design and beauty, the visual and then the other layer is close your eyes, it's essential, right, and that's so. To me, it was like nature. I was just opening up Pandora's box a little bit more and jumping right in, you know. So it went from. You know learning the chemical basis of it, like the. You know the reactions, the do's, the don'ts, the. You know the base notes, the heart notes, the top notes, different things like that.
Palma Cafolla:There's a lot of challenges for a botanical, like a natural consumer, and what that is is. It's a very murky world, in a sense, where synthetic is very linear. If it wants to take you to rose, it'll take you straight to rose, whereas botanical, it'll take you to the rose. It'll also take you to the soil, the leaf, the composing of the flower, it brings you to every level of that. So, as a know, I'm a know. But as say someone like yourself who has a passion for perfume, you've got to ask yourself what moves you? You know what, what?
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Where do you fit in with your senses and you know we're still in a world where 70% are still caught on synthetic because we don't know what it actually even smells like yeah, it's crazy to me too when I remember when I went to Paris um years years ago, um, and smelt real, because really, living I grew up in Saskatchewan not to say there wasn't real here, but a lot of it smells it just smells synthetic, it doesn't smell real.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Um, you know, you go to Shoppers Drug Mart or The Bay that's really going to get your your um scent and smelling real perfume.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And then I do want to just kind of tell the audience about how you and I got to know each other, because you actually um made for me but it was, I guess, a collaborative effort. But I went to Palma's home and I learned so much about creating a scent and she actually created a scent for me, um, and it was in kind of memory or honor of my mom, um, but the experience was so amazing because, as you had said, it's about how it makes you feel and I remember you giving me swatches and me smelling things and saying, oh my gosh, this reminds me of when I was a little girl and I was with my grandma and my mom and it literally took me to that time and then I knew I want to use this geranium. I remember it was one of the was one of the scents, but I want to use this in my scent because it was my. You know it evoked that emotion from me.
Palma Cafolla:Yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:And that was such a great experience and what I had my clothing store Two Fifty Two Boutique and we sold the perfume there and honestly, yeah, people would smell that and say I've never smelled anything like this. And it's because you're right, it was, it's real, it's not synthetic and it it's such a different experience. And even now, if I have a few friends that still wear the scent I still wear the scent, of course, but I'll smell them and I'm like I know what you're wearing right, because it just has that. I know what you're wearing right because it just has that. I know what it is and it was such a great experience for me and it really did. You know, every time I smell that, I think of my mom and that was the purpose of it and it happened. So I want to thank you for that. But that's your expertise, right. That just shows that you're so good at what you do expertise, right.
Palma Cafolla:That just shows that you're so good at what you do well. It just I have to say that was a beautiful experience for me as well, because I felt I was able to bring me to that one connection through scent, right. Yeah, and it was a very meaningful experience because, if I remember right, your, your cousin, the uh was it, your cousin was with you as well, my niece, your niece, yes, and it was just beautiful because you know she was in the same predicament.
Palma Cafolla:It was like a connection that got people together through scent, and scent does that. You know it brings us to good and bad memories. You know, um, like it's amazing, the, my very first perfume. So it was very and um, it was was originally called The Earth Of My Soul and it literally was the earth of my soul at that time and every ingredient evoked something. And you know, when the whole composition was put together and the formula was done, it was like, oh my god, and for years couldn't revisit that perfume because it actually moved me too much, too much, yeah, and only in the last, I would say, year, two years, I've started wearing it again. It got renamed when we went commercial and that and things like that. But definitely, you know, it brings us to places, it moves us.
Palma Cafolla:You know, I did have some, did have some people in the store like this one perfume in particular and I think it's haunting. It's called Violetta and it's based, it's a bouger means it's a green floral and it's just like a symphony of violets when it bursts open. But years ago violet perfume was extremely popular in the 20s, 30s. You know a lot of women in their 60s, 70s, their mothers were born yard-like violets or something like that. Right, and I've had women come into the store and literally burst into tears when this violet hits them, it goes right through them and it's like it's just the emotion just comes and it's like, oh, my god, it's, it's so moving.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You know it's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful it is and it's that memory, like you say, it just takes you back in an instant. Really, it just you're instantly back there. This is kind of a side note, but when we're talking about you making sense for people, you just made a scent with Pamela Anderson. I only know that because you sent me the photo and I was like, oh boy, we have to talk about this because that's so cool. And if people know or don't know now that she lives on Vancouver Island where her grandparents lived, I believe she's done a whole renovation of their property homes. But do you want to talk about that? And I guess as a business experience, like how did that come to be? And then also, how was the experience just creating that scent with her?
Palma Cafolla:Well, how it came to be was Pamela adores flowers, she, like, loves flowers. And I was at the store one day and this beautiful woman came in and lo and behold, it was Pamela Anderson and she just said I'm in love with your store and we just got chatting and whatever, and she, you know, would get all her you, you know her flowers for events and different things like that. And then we started to talk about perfume and different things like that. And then, she has a show on called Pamela's Garden of Eden and they asked would we be part of it? So they filmed in the store, in the perfumery, a couple of episodes and then we actually set up a full flower store on her property in Ladysmith for the last show, or one of the shows anyway, and like a full on flower store on her grandmother's property. It was beautiful and we had great fun that day. We made like flower crowns and different things like that.
Palma Cafolla:But how it got connected to the scent was she loves roses and it's about getting the right rose scent. So it was well over a year working on backwards and forwards and getting it right, but we can't say too much. It hasn't been released here in Canada yet, and it's like we're allowed little snippets but until it's released we can't say too. I don't think so. I don't think we can say too much. But yes, it was a beautiful rose scent, very garden like, very real and just like her, you know. And the beauty about her is she. The femininity that surrounds her is so beautiful. She empowers you as a woman, you know, in this day and age she's resilient. She's gone through so much like she's been through the ringer.
Palma Cafolla:Everything that could happen to you, that you don't want to happen to you, I feel like happened to her and yeah, you know it comes back better every time and she's, she's just a beautiful being, and so I was very honored to be able to sit in, you know, in, you know, I say stillness to try and read what she was feeling, what she needed from the scent, what it was. So it was very good experience to do that. But things like that don't haunt me because it's really not about me. I'm removed totally from the equation. It's about not about me. I'm removed totally from the equation. It's about like it's nature does it all. You know, I I'm just a tool, you know, I just move and see, you know, and you know it was like you, coming with your, your mother's sense, you gave me the picture I just have to take from nature and see, you know, how we piece that picture together. You know it was the same for Pamela, but she, yeah, it was a lovely experience, very, very beautiful to do.
Palma Cafolla:But it was exciting because, you know, I'm a city girl and I, you know, I like a bit of hustle, I like the you girl and I, you know, I like a bit of hustle, I like the, you know, and Victoria is quite sedate, you know, it's a very, you know, laid back West Coast time, so it's kind of like. You know I'm the first one up at the storekeeper ready. Come on, where is it at? It was actually. It reminded me of Dublin again. Like our store in Dublin, we had, you know, a lot of people. You know we did. We had a lot of, I won't say famous people, but a lot of celebrities when the store was. We were surrounded by that and you know you take it for granted. And then you've spent years and nothing like that. And then this I'm like yes, I felt in Dublin again.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:That's awesome, though, and I mean it's a testament to you and what you do, because, clearly, if she, she's coming to your, your store and repeatedly and working with you, that's you, palma, like, that is, it's your essence and it's your expertise, um, that's doing that. So, so don't say you're just the helper there. Well, I mean it's you, and to me, I'll always have that spot for you in my heart, because it was such an amazing experience and that's why I go to Victoria my husband's from there. I always try to stop in to see you, and you know if I need to send flowers, I I always try to stop in to see you and you know if I need to send flowers, I'm always coming to you. Um, but you're, it's your essence, and I think really, um, that's part of why you have been so successful and why your business is really successful.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You're the secret or magic weapon. I'll take the weapon, I don't know Ingredient. Maybe you're the ingredient, I don't know. It's great, let's chat a little bit, because really, you are very special and talented in what you do. So how did you go from? Okay, I know because you took your training in France, right? Okay, so you're in France, and obviously you live in Canada now, so that's a big change. But how did you go from being okay, I'm going to make this beautiful sense to actually making it a business?
Palma Cafolla:Well, that's the one thing that when I sit and think about Zingaro really um brings me to a really beautiful place. It brings me to a place of like in myself and, how you know, blessed.
Palma Cafolla:I am, because how I ended up in Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, um was, um, we had a crash in Ireland and, uh, like we, you know, our businesses went through there. So it kind of that's how I ended up in Canada and, believe me, I never got the chance or the reverence or the sacred space to actually sit still because I had I had my two boys, I had my stepchildren, I had all of these things going on in my life and when I got to Saskatoon it actually was almost like I was stripped of everything and I was raw and I was in a country that you know, was an alien climate, that was cold. Yeah, I'd never seen anything like it for my life. No, fair enough. I know we would have spent our summers in Italy and you know Ireland. So, like this minus 50, I thought I was like Chris Bonington, you know, I thought I was like every day walking to the shops I was going to get a medal, you know, yeah, so I, it gave me that space into the shops. I was going to get a medal, you know, so I, it gave me that space. What it did was it gave me, I think, eight years to actually sit still and create. And if I didn't, in Dublin or any other part of the world, hustle as I told you, I like to hustle, right, it wouldn't happen. So I firmly believe I was where I was meant to be. I was given the grace, I was given the sacred cause to actually be still. And the other thing was I was given that, brother, because it removed every essence from my being.
Palma Cafolla:So it was almost like I had a clean palate, because I never, you know, as a perfumer, in the winter in Saskatoon there's no smells, no, zero smells. There's zero, right. And I mean, you know, like a friend of mine, you know you say, can you not smell this? I smell nothing, because it was like everything was removed. So I used to sit in my perfumery in the depth of winter and spend hours like I, two, three o'clock in the morning. I would work and work and work and work, because it was like all these scents were all new to me again, because they came alive in the the kind of the barrenness of Saskatoon in the winter. So I was given that gift from there being able to do that. And you know, every time I think back, that was eight years and they were a quick eight years for me. You know, it was like, and in those eight years I think, there was nine people who was created and they're still there today.
Palma Cafolla:So it was kind of scary for me when I did move here and different things happened and changes in my life, whatever. I didn't know whether I was going to be able to create a percent again. And since that I was able to. There's been two new ones. There's one being launched next month, but there was one very special one that, as I was here in Saskatoon, I was able to. Yeah, as I was leaving Saskatoon, I was finishing it up and I created a son, Christian, before I came here to Canada myself and Christian went to Paris and we spent some time there just before I left, because I had to leave the boys in Dublin for six months and come here to set things up. So that was very painful in life to do that so hard. So I took Christian with me to Paris and we went to the Louvre, all the beauty of Paris. And this day we were due to go to Notre Dame and he didn't want to go. And I go look, I've done your stuff. You've got to fight, you're going.
Palma Cafolla:So we went and the two of us were like, oh my God, it was just this magical experience between a mother and a son. It was a connection of arts. It was the for me. What I took out of it was the scent. It was the cedar woods, the old wax, the incense, the candles, the books all of that magic. Right, he took the gargoyles, the crypt, the this, and between the two of us, we walked out of there hours and hours, this magicalness, and then I left Canada. So we always had this Paris connection between us and COVID hit, and it was his 21st birthday and he was stuck in Dublin, but I had started working on this perfume for his birthday in 2017 and I finished it for his 21st birthday and I was able to make it to him and it was called Basilica and it was to make it to him and it was called Basilica and it was the wording.
Palma Cafolla:I don't have it here, but the wording of the title was the most beautiful, I suppose, poem to my son and that. But when you open the title, all it brings me back to is Notre Dame. Right, that moment, him, our heart, you know, and that was beautiful that's so special, because you'll always have that you smell that and it takes you there every time yeah, I love that.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:What can scent do for your confidence? Because I feel like we're having all of these memory things. But as business women and business owners, I know for me, when I put that scent on, I just feel so good, but I can't be the only one, so I feel like there has to be yeah, so let's talk about that.
Palma Cafolla:Oh, my God. You know what it's. It sends me on like a trip. It's like scent is like love affair with yourself again, right, and unfortunately, if you, we've been taken down, we've been taken down the path, we've been taken by the hand and let down the path of scent. If you wear the scent, you'll get the guy, or you know your power, your boss, lady, all of this crap, right, yeah, it's not what scent is about. Scent is so sexual, so sexual, so powerful for the person. If they've got the right scent on, it elevates to the next level. But if you've got something on that is not connected to you, forget about it. You might as well be wearing a shield.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, forget about it.
Palma Cafolla:We might as well be wearing a shield. Oh, yeah, yeah. So if you get the scent, that is right for you and you'll know, because our senses are very, very powerful, they tell us. You know, just close your eyes and breathe it in, and senses will go. That's the one. But it's us that challenge it and before we know, we walk out of the store with the wrong scent, right, yeah?
Palma Cafolla:So what scent does for us, especially as women, is be naked, put your scent up and then dress and then walk out and then feel how you actually, because what happens is that scent is the next closest to your skin, it's now your signature, it's your olfactory imprint, and when you've got an olfactory imprint, it's also acts as comfort to you. It's like I don't know, every of it says but if you're wearing a scent that you're comfortable with and familiar with in a moment, okay, just do that. Oh, it just regroups you. Yeah, yeah, it does. No. And then when you start to have that affair with scent again, when you leave and I like to go out and leave, whatever, you won't walk out the door without it yeah, well, I know for me the, the scent that you made for me, that is my special scent.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:I don't wear it every day. I wear it on the days that are important or special or um a day maybe where I'm not feeling so great and I need to have that kind of percnea. Honestly, I spray that scent on, I think of my mom and it's like I'm in a whole different world.
Palma Cafolla:Yeah.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:It's just amazing and I think too when you say you know you spray the scent on and then you get dressed. And I love what your grandma had told you, where, when you dress proper, you spray the scent on and then you get dressed. And I love what your grandma had told you, where, when you dress proper, you dress well and imagine that scent and that you know outfit. It doesn't have to be expensive, we know that, but just that well-fitting suit, jacket or whatever it is. What an impact you can make on the world.
Palma Cafolla:Well, that's it. You know it's like they're the finishing touches of, you know, being polished, and it's something you're forgetting in this life and world is that, you know, those little efforts that we, like I don't own, I would not be seen out on the street with leggings on. I was drilled into me was that you go to the gym and you wear that's why it's called gym clothing, and I just can't. My sister is the same like we just can't. It's. If I walked out like that, I'd be like, oh my god, I feel wrong. And you know we're in a society now where everything is, you know, if you don't accept something, you're wrong. Well, I don't accept it, I'm sorry. You know, I am a woman and I like to dress like a woman and that's how I feel, grounded and good, you know. And everyone makes their own thing and whatever they do, that's up to them. For me, I have to be true to myself, you know, and if I go against, you know I go into stores sometimes and I have a hard time shopping in Canada.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:It's hard right, it's casual, right? We're so much more casual here than Europe, for sure, yeah.
Palma Cafolla:And I'll go into a store and I'm like I can't do it, I can't wear that, and you know it's just, but that's just me. So between that and you've got your perfume and you've got all those little elements, before you know it, you've made a ritual for yourself and you haven't, you didn't even feel it. And it's about those little rituals that keep us on track on a daily basis, because they're the things that we grow on and we make memories for people. When I leave this world, I hope I leave, you know I, you know I, I only have boys. So I, you know, I don't know like, my boys are very true to me. They'll be like ma'am, we know you're like. You know the way you are, you know, but like my nieces and that you know, and my sisters would be the same, like you know.
Palma Cafolla:Well, that's the right way to express it. It's I'm old, I like tradition, you know, I like things to be kept that way and it makes me happy. And you know, in a world where things are just, you know they're, they're disposable, you know those things that have been instilled in us are the things that really, you know hold. And then you've got your, your staples, your, your perfume, your good jacket. You're good to go. You might not have any money in your pocket, but nobody knows that. That's right, that's right.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:You, you are such an inspiration to me. You, you are so resilient. I feel like you've lived many lives in this one life. Your store in Victoria is absolutely beautiful. I tell everyone to go there when they go to Victoria and go say hi for me, for you, and you're so resilient. You've gone through so many life changes and where you've lived and I mean from Ireland to France or to London, to Saskatoon. Now, Victoria, you are just a real inspiration to me, and I know you are to a lot of other people too. Um, so I'm do you have something or a most important lesson you've learned along the way, or something that you think, for a woman in business, that's something they should know?
Palma Cafolla:Yes, yes, hold. I spent many, many years holding on to things with clenched fists, right, and what I've learned is it's okay to let things flutter. And a very wise lady said to me you know, if you hold a bird in your hand a little bird you hold him so tight he'll never be able to fly. But if you hold your hand out like that, chances are he'll stay in your hand but he might also fly. But whatever happens, it's okay. You know, and for me, I have learned that it's whatever comes is here for a reason and it's a lesson, and some of the lessons are very, very painful, but it means there's growth. Through pain there's always growth, and I've only seen this because I've seen pain and then I've seen what happens after. Oh, look at that, there's actually something amazing that's come out after that. So it's you know, whenever I'm in pain now, what I say to myself is it's okay, you're just grown, it's all right it's true, right, growing pains, literally, as children, you're growing pains to grow.
Palma Cafolla:Yeah, yeah I love that, so it's. You know I hated standing still for many, many years. You know I always had to run, and it's funny because you know what the word Zingaro means? I do not, but you better tell us. It's Italian for gypsy.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Okay.
Palma Cafolla:And what that was. When I was younger, I was known as the runner, and not physically as the runner, but physically as the exeter, because my mother and father could never find me. I was always gone, Like there was always something better going on down the road or over there or whatever. So I was always like the gypsy. She's like a gypsy, but she's gone again. She's gone again, yeah, so that's why the store is called Zingaro. Right, and for me it could be.
Palma Cafolla:You know, I don't know, am I going to end up in Victoria? Who knows? You know? But that's the beauty of this life, you know? Yeah, it's the beauty of this life, because there's so many things to see and do and I'm tied to nothing. Because when you tie yourself to something, then you're you're squashing the beauty out of it, whereas if you keep your hands and your palms open, the beauty is allowed to grow also and before you know it, you're grown, you're evolving with that beauty and you never know where you're going to be like. I blow my kids' minds as well, but when she's at it again, I'm going. It's okay, you know, I love freedom.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Well, and that's a part of you, and I know that, and I love how you're the little gypsy that we love. Okay, so how about if you had to tell your 17-year-old self when you landed off that ship in London, or maybe something you wish you had known? Is there something you would say?
Palma Cafolla:I don't think I'd change a thing. I don't think I'd change a thing because you know what everything that happened has been the making of me and the beautiful people around me. And, honestly, there's certain parts of life that I'm like, oh, I wish that happened, but you know what part of it? Yeah, yeah. So honestly, I don't think I'd do anything. I love that. And I tell my 17-year-olds I'll keep going, keep going. You've got this.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Honestly, it's true you do have this for sure. Where can people find you? I know you've got a great Instagram, but where's the best place? I know people are going to want to know more and check you out, so where should they go?
Palma Cafolla:Well, we've got good news we're opening a second store in Victoria now as well. That is awesome. There's going to be two locations. Oh, that's awesome, yeah. So one is on Government, which is just right by the Empress so the beautiful Empress Hotel and the other one is on Johnson Street. So myself and my husband are busy getting these going and yeah, well, congratulations, find us either there.
Mackenzie Kilshaw:Congratulations, I will be sure to stop in when I'm in Victoria next so that I can see you and see the new space. Thank you so much for being on. I'm going to go put some of my perfume on so that I can feel closer to you right now. To everybody listening. Thank you so much. We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to Winning. Be sure to subscribe to get all of our new episodes. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to Winning. To catch all of the latest from us, you can follow Winning Podcast on Instagram @ winning_ podcast, Facebook @Winning Podcast, and on Twitter @ winning pod. Winning was created and is produced by me, Mackenzie Kilshaw music, created by Summer Firby, editing by Seth Armstrong. Special thanks to Shauna Foster for voicing our opening and, of course, a huge thank you to this episode's guest. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.
