Lindsay Shookus on Creating Trust and Building Adaptability

Lindsay Shookus spent 20 years as a producer at “Saturday Night Live,” but also speaks with nostalgia when talking about the Wilson Farms convenience store in her hometown.

Shookus, a seven-time Emmy-winning and two-time Peabody-winning television producer, speaker and executive coach, is the keynote speaker for the NACS Show Opening General Session on Tuesday, October 6 at 4 p.m. She spoke with NACS Media about her keynote, her time at SNL and her convenience store memories. 

Can you tell us about your speech at the NACS Show?

I was at SNL for 20 years and I was a talent producer when I was there. Each week I had a new host or musical guest or celebrity making a cameo that I was going to spend a full week with. I had 48 hours to basically make them my best friend, to build trust, to figure out what they need, their strengths, their weaknesses and to be a part of the team to make them really great in five days.

After leaving SNL, what I've realized is that extends beyond the business world. Everyone in business needs to build relationships. They need to create trust. Everybody wants to be trustworthy. 

We all need people to work, buy, invest, stay and come back, right? Those are the key things that every business wants. So I talk about trust and connection and how do we all do it better. What's the nitty gritty to actually get it done and get it done well? 

Did you have a favorite convenience store growing up?

I grew up outside of Buffalo, New York, and we had Wilson Farms. It was the store between my house and my dad's office. They were very close together, so it was like the one place you could go between them. It was part of our community.

Is there anything you hope to take back from speaking at the NACS Show?

I'm a curious person. To me, there's nothing more fun than going and getting to kind of be swallowed up by an industry that I've never really experienced and talk to the people and walk the floor. I've heard the Expo is amazing.

I also love to hear the stories. I stand up on stage and I tell stories and they get to hear mine, but when I get to go around and meet people, it's such a fascinating thing to get to ask questions of people that you've never met and you get to explore their industry. It's really special.

What's the best lesson you learned while working at SNL?

Mistakes are going to happen. Things are going to go wrong. Sometimes it'll be your fault, sometimes it won't. You can't control all the mistakes and the failures and the bad stuff, but what you can control is you.

You can control how you handle yourself after that. The two things I learned are: Don't react, respond. Just take your time. And after something hard happens, the best leaders in the world are the ones who go back and they learn from it.

Working in the high-pressure environment of SNL and thinking about the pressure convenience stores face, what lessons would you share with operators?

I think trust is the antidote to high-pressure situations. If you've built a team and they trust each other and you have trusting relationships, it is the best foundation you can have for high-stress, high-pressure, challenging situations that sometimes can bring out the worst in people.

Everyone acts better. They act with more respect, better leadership, better communication when they trust.

You better be building those trusting relationships before the high pressure starts. You can't build trusting relationships in a high-pressure situation, in that moment.

Sometimes you can after, but the key is taking the time to build that trust with your key players before the pressure really gets to you guys.

This is an excerpt from a story in the September 2026 issue of NACS Magazine.