We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samantha Deleary. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samantha below.

Samantha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

The idea didn’t arrive like a business plan. It came like a lifeline.

Right as the pandemic was exploding and the fear of my “normal” life screeched to a halt, I moved back to my hometown to help care for my grandparents. I was burnt out, disoriented, and struggling with ADHD, disordered eating, and the kind of survival-mode fog that slowly detaches you from your body and sense of self. I had also just ended a six-year relationship and crashed headfirst into a hard reckoning: I wasn’t the good guy in the story I thought I was. That realization cracked my spirit open and forced me to ask who I really was, and who I wanted to become.

I moved back not just to heal myself, but to support my Papa after his heart attack. He and my Nana needed steadiness, care, and nourishment. And so did I. In showing up for them, I started showing up for myself.

That’s when everything began to shift. I started growing vegetables in thirty five-gallon buckets along their backyard fence line. Soon I was drowning in fresh, organic produce and learning how to preserve it, mostly through canning. I fell down the homesteading rabbit hole and reawakened something I hadn’t felt in a long time: agency. I wasn’t just surviving. I was learning new skills, making intentional choices, and participating in the rhythm of my own life. It reminded me how much power I actually had in the process of being alive.

Sourdough entered quietly, but it rooted deeply. What began as an attempt to heal my gut quickly became something far more intimate. The process grounded me emotionally, physically, sensually, and spiritually. Like many people with ADHD, I’ve always been a dopamine seeker. For years, that showed up as compulsive overeating, constant cravings for sugar, salt, crunch, texture, anything that hit the reward centers fast. I labeled myself a “foodie,” which I still proudly am, but beneath that was a deeper hunger: for pleasure, for regulation, for stimulation.

That need for pleasure also extended to people. I often sought out new partners as a way to chase excitement and feel connection. But sourdough softened that hunger, the constant craving for touch. The texture of dough, soft, warm, stretching between my fingers, became a kind of non-touch touch. It offered me satisfaction and presence that didn’t rely on another person. That was new for me. And it was healing.

For most of my life, I chased joy through connection with others, always seeking closeness, validation, and comfort. But sourdough gave me a way to experience joy in my own hands, my own rhythm, my own body. It gave me a relationship with myself I didn’t know I needed.

At first, I baked for myself. Then for friends. Then neighbors started asking if they could buy a loaf. Somewhere in there, I realized this wasn’t just bread. This was connection, nourishment, maybe even medicine, not just for me but for others too.

Now I deliver bread throughout East Nashville, where I live. Some of my regulars have strict dietary needs due to allergies and chronic health conditions. I also bake for bodybuilders who rely on my loaves to fuel their competition-ready bodies. I see every loaf as an offering, and every customer as part of this bigger community I’m building. In fact, I have a feeling these people, this network, will be the same ones who help carry me into my next dream: building a homestead of my own.

Today, I run Sunflour Sourdough full time. And it’s the most complex, demanding thing I’ve ever done. With ADHD and executive dysfunction, I manage every part of it, from the first moment I open my eyes to the last moment I finally rest. It’s not just a business. It’s a spiritual practice, a daily reckoning with structure, self-trust, and staying present.

And yet, it’s the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done. Every good bake, every wonky bake, every unexpected new friend, whether in person or online, all of it feels like part of a greater purpose. Like every challenge and opportunity is placed in my path to be transformed and passed forward.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: the hard parts of life are just as beautiful, just as holy, as the easy ones. Maybe even more so, because they teach me who I am. And if I can help someone else feel special in their own uniqueness, with all their hangups and hurdles, if I can encourage someone to walk their own path of self-discovery and self-mastery, even if it’s through a humble loaf of bread, then I know I’m not just baking bread. I’m right where I’m meant to be.

Samantha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Sam, and I’m the founder, baker, and heart behind Sunflour Sourdough, a microbakery based in East Nashville. What began during the pandemic as a personal journey of healing through fermentation has since grown into a small but mighty community-centered business. I bake long-fermented, organic sourdough bread with a focus on flavor, nourishment, and intention.

Before launching Sunflour, I spent over a decade working as a server. That experience shaped how I show up in my business with hospitality, care, and an intuitive understanding of people’s needs. I also have a degree in sociology, which fuels my belief that food isn’t just about what’s on the plate. It’s about community, access, ritual, and identity. Sunflour was built at the intersection of those values: feeding people well while helping them feel seen and supported.

At Sunflour, I hand-mix, shape, and bake every single loaf myself. I offer rotating flavors and weekly preorders, and I personally deliver to homes around the neighborhood. I also pop up at local farmers markets, teach sourdough classes, and partner with cafes and community spaces to bring slow-fermented bread to more people.

While the product is bread, what I really offer is connection. I work with folks who have dietary sensitivities, autoimmune needs, and athletic goals, as well as people who simply want to eat something they can feel good about. I’ve had customers tell me that my bread is the only one they’ve been able to digest without issue, and others who say it’s the highlight of their week. That kind of feedback means the world to me.

What sets me apart is that I’m not just baking to sell. I’m baking to serve. My work is rooted in care, craft, and consciousness. I’m transparent about my process, selective about my ingredients, and dedicated to building a business that feels both personal and sustainable. I also speak openly about living with ADHD, overcoming disodered eating and obesity, and navigating the emotional and logistical challenges of running a business solo in a sourdough saturated market in 2025. I believe that sharing those realities helps others feel less alone in their own creative or entrepreneurial paths.

Sunflour is more than a bakery. It is a vessel for wellness, creativity, radical self-trust and self-discovery. I’m proud to say it has grown loaf by loaf, hand to hand, heart to heart.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

.Resilience, for me, has looked like 30 hour days on my feet, baking 60 to 80 loaves of bread plus pastries and special orders from a single apartment oven almost every Saturday night for six months straight. It has looked like pulling all nighters more times than I can count, not because I love the chaos, but because I’m still learning how to manage my time with ADHD and executive dysfunction. And yet, I refuse to give up on this vision.

Imagine waking up every weekend with no staff, no commercial kitchen, and no backup plan, just sheer grit, a timer in one hand, and a mission in the other. A mission to prove, over and over, that you can do the wildly ambitious thing you dreamt up, even if it feels slightly masochistic in the moment.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to unlearn is the scarcity mindset. That deeply wired belief that there’s never enough, that I’m always behind, that I have to overperform to be worthy of safety, success, or rest. It’s poverty mindset, and it shaped my nervous system before I even had language for it. When you come from nothing and have nothing, the fear of losing everything you’ve worked tirelessly for can be crushing.

I’ve always been resourceful, scrappy, and hyper-curious, which makes me a sponge for business knowledge. I consume information like it’s survival — podcasts, interviews, books, reels, courses, newsletters. I’ve probably learned more from self-study than from my sociology degree. But even with all that knowledge, I still struggled to believe I could be the one to thrive. I kept chasing the “one more thing” that would fix me, validate me, or unlock the next level.

I am full of hope. I walk through life with gratitude as my compass. But I have to work very, very hard to maintain a lifestyle that protects my regulated nervous system. Unlearning scarcity mindset is a deeply personal, spiritual endeavor. It is a constant work in progress.

It took a lot of pain and burnout to realize the answer wasn’t in consuming more. It was in trusting myself. In pausing long enough to implement, to experiment, and to build confidence through lived experience rather than theory. I had to stop trying to out-research my fear and start showing up messy, imperfect, and committed anyway.

Unlearning scarcity mindset is still a daily practice. But now I catch the spiral sooner. I remind myself that rest is not laziness, that my worth is not measured by productivity, and that abundance is something I can grow…slowly, gently, and organically…just like sourdough

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bakesy.shop/b/sunflour-sourdough
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunfloursourdough.llc?igsh=MXBxNXg5cXJmNnFxbA==

Image Credits

Jeffery Kostial
Madie Ice
Marion Shaina