the bossbabe podcast - 50. The Entrepreneurial Success Story of Working in a Cupcake Shop to Owning a World-Wide, Self-Financed and Thriving Beauty Company with Cassandra Thurswell

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

In this inspiring episode, co-founder Natalie Ellis is interviewing the Founder of Kitsch, Cassandra Thurswell. Together, they talk about the strategies behind creating a company from a place of inspiration, creativity and positivity and how to be successful in the e-commerce space. Cassandra shares the behind-the-scenes of her incredible entrepreneurial success story, exactly how to fail forward and cultivating an incredible company culture through nurturing authentic connections and building a team with values that are aligned with your vision. If you’d love to learn from the BossBabe team about how to grow your audience on Instagram by 10,000 ideal clients in 30 days, register for a free spot in the next training at: https://bossbabe.com/growthatinsta 

We're all real people. We all want the same thing in life, to feel healthy and happy and having a place where you are heard. Being an entrepreneur, it's all about perspective and understanding that you have a choice to make. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Boss Babe and your host for this week's podcast episode. So this week, I am so excited to interview Cassandra Thirswall. Cassandra has a really, really incredible entrepreneurial story

and one that I know so many of you are going to relate to. I feel like you're going to be hooked to this podcast. So please make sure you share it with other bidding entrepreneurs or other entrepreneurs that you know. After graduating from college, Cassandra moved from Minnesota to LA with dreams of owning a jewelry company. But like many entrepreneurs, she failed and failed again, which is something we're going to dive into a lot in this episode. Cassandra ended up founding Kitsch at the age of 25, where she took a leap of faith and left her other jobs to solely focus on making this a reality. Her dream was to create a company filled with inspiration and positivity in its products as well as within the company culture which is something that is so

powerful and so important and I love that we get to talk about this. She far exceeded that goal and just continues creating inspirational products and messages in the most beautiful way possible from a single girl in a tiny apartment to a woman-owned self-financed worldwide company Cassandra is just getting started and we are so excited to have her here to take us behind the scenes of her success story so as always we want to see you share this episode and tag us so take a screenshot tag us and we'll randomly select some of you and send over some boss babe sticky notes this episode is brought to you by the boss babe insta growth accelerator a 12-week program designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. If you're ready to grow

your audience with your absolute ideal clients who are throwing their credit cards at you, then listen up. I've created a completely free 90-minute training to show you how to do exactly that. I'm taking you through the step-by-step strategy to attracting 10,000 ideal clients as followers over the next 30 days. If you know that growing your audience with ideal clients who can't wait to buy from you would completely change the game, then this training is for you. As I said, it's totally free. I just recommend turning up with a journal and getting rid of all distractions as we waste no time getting into the nitty-gritty specifics. You know that I love specifics. To get started

with the training, just head to bossbabe.com forward slash IG dash growth, or hit the link in the show notes below. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome Cassandra to the podcast. Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. I got a little emotional. I just can't believe how far I've come from my apartment that I'm actually, people want to hear about what I've done. Yeah. Do you still have those pinch me moments where you're like, wow, how did I even do

this? It's interesting because I always knew that this was going to be a reality. But when you work out of manifestation, sometimes it's surprising when it actually works. And it's crazy because I think when I first started the business, I sat down and I wrote a list of dream customers that I'd want to work with. And I think I can say that all of those accounts that I put on that dream list are reality. And it's just really bizarre because one of the accounts that I really wanted to get into was Whole Foods and they sent me an email and asked me if I wanted to be in Whole Foods. And I think that that's just one of those examples of really setting intentions and having that kind of come to reality. So yeah, I guess to answer your question, it's definitely like a pinch me moment every day. I did want it. So I'm really glad that I put that

out there because, you know, I'm getting exactly what I wanted. So I love that. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. That's incredible. And I relate to a lot of your story. So one thing that you talk about is that you've always had pride and dedication in any job you're responsible for. And that's something that I've always been the same, you know, whether I was a shop assistant or whatever I was doing, I cared so much about the job. And I think it's a real testament to where we are now, because no matter what job we get assigned, we're willing to do it. So can you take us back and talk to us a little bit about your story and how you got started and what happened when you decided, okay, I want to be my own boss. I love talking about this. And it's funny, some people might be like, oh,

it's so fabricated. But the truth is, is a lot of young girls move to Los Angeles, and they do exactly what I do. And they don't have maybe the luxury of a family member, parents that you can bunk up with until you're like in your late 20s. And when I first moved out to California, it's so expensive to live here. And I thought, okay, well, I just finished my four-year degree. I'm totally prepped and ready to get a job. And I think the first job that I had was in the apparel industry. And I just remember being like, I can't sustain on this. And it's not at all what I thought this was going to be. And so I started to work so

many, pretty much any job that I could possibly think of. And I didn't have an ego about what the job would be, even though I got my bachelor's in retail merchandising. If an opportunity came across my plate where I could work at six o'clock at night or five o'clock in the morning, and I knew that I'd be able to like pay my rent with it. I would take it. And so I worked so many odds and end jobs. And just to give you a couple examples, I worked at a cupcake shop where I started at five in the morning and I could finish around three o'clock in the afternoon. So then I had the ability to work in the afternoon at another job. And then I went to school at night. And it was one of those things

where I choreographed this life where I was able to juggle many different jobs. I would hear a young girl in high school say, oh, I need to book an appointment to get my makeup done. And I'd be like, do you need a makeup artist? I'll be a makeup artist. And someone would be like, oh, I need my apartment cleaned. I'll do it for $50. And I even did door-to-door sales up and down Ventura Boulevard, which is humiliating, and working at flea markets. And I guess I was never too proud to do any task. And I just made games out of it. And I had a lot of fun with it. And like you said, I just really took the opportunity to see what can I create from this? How can I be proud of this thing that I'm doing? The funny thing is, little did I know, I was actually designing my own

MBA. I didn't get an MBA. I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But being open and saying yes to all of these opportunities that came across my plate, I learned about customer service. I learned about managing a team. I learned about managing my time. I learned about marketing. I mean, all of these things that a lot of people go to school for many years, this was a really hands-on scrappy approach to really learning how to run a business. So yeah, I think that was such a gift that I was bequeathed from my family was there is no small job. Every job has a great importance. Yeah, I love that idea of really taking notes from anything from staffing to how payroll was getting done. And so you could decide how you wanted to run your own company.

What has that meant for the kind of culture that you do have now? That's a great question. And I think being a business owner could and creating a culture is something that it's really important these days. And it can be really awkward because you have like a set of ideals and what you think are important to people and the motivation that you have and how you want to inspire people. And I've heard you talk about this in your podcast in the past. Sometimes you're also still wanting to run a business and we're in a commodity-based business. So we need to produce a product and we need to have procedures. And there's so much that goes into running a business.

And the culture element of it isn't something that I've really understood how to implement that in an authentic way. Until recently, for a long time, it was like, okay, I'll make sure that everyone has snacks. And I'll make sure that the place is clean. And for a long time, I thought that that was really what worked. And I think more than anything, no matter how much attention that you can give certain employees, they still are who they are. And I think that when you bring someone in, it's important to just make sure that they have the same outlook on life.

It took me a really long time to figure that out because as difficult as this conversation is, because I really truly feel that there are so many people in this world that have great hearts and they want to do amazing things with their lives. What I realize is when you become an employer, you open this door to people's personal lives, whether you like it or not. I think I'm a very involved business owner, and I love to have strong connections with my employees. And for that reason, it makes both of us vulnerable. And so if someone's going through a hard time, I want to be supportive and be there for them. But there's also this dynamic of sometimes I'm going through

a hard time. And as a business owner, I'm sure you know this, that when you're a leader and you're going through a hard time, it's important to have a team that can also support that as well. And I guess that's where the culture element of it in the past year or so, I've really recognized was really important to me that it's not about snacks. And it's not about, you know, just making sure that they have like a beautiful place to work. It's about we're all real people. And we all want the same thing in life. And that is to feel healthy and happy about what we're doing every day and coming in and having a place where you are heard and with your work and not without your work. I'm definitely not perfect, but that's probably where my big shift in the culture aspect has

been recently. And I can definitely tell that it's made a big difference. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to

share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe you're so right and I love that you've actually talked about that because I feel like not a lot of people are but it's really true as you're an employer and you take people on you're building your family and you really have

to intentionally decide how you're going to build that culture so let's just go back and talk about you had this idea to create kitsch and you got started and you hustled. When did you start to see any kind of tipping point where you were like, okay, I think this business could work? Did you just have one product at the time? Did you have multiple products? Yeah. So how the business started was a private label business,

which means you are designing manufacturing for other companies. And it's a great business model when all you want to do is serve other people, which I think that might be my strongest suit. I love serving people. And it's a great opportunity to have low risk in the manufacturing space because you aren't holding inventory. So just to give you an example, a company like Anthropologie wants a specific hair accessory or jewelry item, and then they'll send you inspiration pictures, and then I'll design it. And then they'll place an order with me, and I'll manufacture it under Anthropologie's brand, and I will ship it to them. But there's no recognition of kitsch in that process whatsoever to the end consumer. And it's a fabulous model when you don't have a lot of capital and you don't have to invest

in branding, you don't have to invest in marketing, and you're able to build your capital that way. So that part of the business was very strong and very healthy. But ultimately, I knew that there's no value in that. To create a value in a company, you need to have a brand name, you need to have a community. And so I knew that, okay, I have very strong manufacturing abilities. I have these connections with these buyers, which by the way, were most of them were cold calls. So I knew that the tipping point would be if I could create a brand that was authentic and real, which a lot of private label companies try and do, but it becomes very phony because they just kind of take samples from factories and then they just

put a brand on it and stick it on a shelf and everyone kind of sees through that. I knew that if I could create a brand with a heartbeat behind it, something that I really loved, that I was really proud of creating, and that was high quality and at a great price point, I knew that I could hit a home run with it. And I sat down and I said, okay, well, what product do I use every single day? Because I'm pretty simple in my style. I'm from Wisconsin. I grew up in a very small town. And I think about like, what have I been using my whole life that I really love? And it was a hair tie. And I was like, okay, this is a great product because people buy it and people lose it. And then they buy it again and then they lose it. And I'm like, okay, if I could figure out

a great way to do this hair tie, I could really be onto something here. So I started making hair ties out of my apartment and cutting and tying them. They were the flat elastic that was about nine years ago. And then Anthropologie ended up becoming one of my first customers and then Nordstrom. And I was doing this all by myself and shippers were coming up into the living room and doing this. My boyfriend and I, my boyfriend at the time, my husband now, I was doing this all by myself and shippers were coming up into the living room and doing this. My boyfriend and I, my boyfriend at the time, my husband now, I was doing this on my own and he was a TV writer. I knew my tipping point was when he quit his job to come and work for me. I knew that that was when I was like, okay what I'm doing to leave his career and come and support me and day in, day out, then I must be doing something right. So to answer your question,

I guess, yeah, I guess that was the moment when it was like, okay, this is not just a private label company anymore. This is the point where we are going to stop and start to build. I love that so much. And how were you making sales in the beginning? How were you, how were people really finding out about what you were doing? It wasn't until about a year and a half ago until we got like a real marketing, like a real PR company. So a lot of our recognition was going to trade shows and I couldn't afford to do trade shows. So what I would do was contact showrooms and I would say, Hey, can you just give me a little corner? And I will come and work the trade show and I will sell everything in your booth.

I won't just sell my own brand. I'll work for free. So we started doing accessory shows in New York and in Las Vegas. I would put the product out and I always took every job very seriously. So I sold every other line in the showroom just as well as my own. And that's how we first got in. And it was the mom and pop stores that really built the brand. And slowly, I had my list of accounts that I really wanted to be in. Most of them were cold calls. And it's really interesting. I was just thinking about this the other day. I don't know. I'm not very social. So I was never one to network. This is something that I've been doing recently, being on this podcast and joining some female entrepreneur groups. I never really realized the value in that because all of my accounts that I'm working with currently, they really came from me cold calling and sending emails

and trying to prove myself that way versus somebody sending a recommendation. I always got creative with that, sending packages and emails and having conversations that had nothing to do with my product. And yeah, that's really how we got into most of the accounts that we're doing is finding creative ways to just get in contact with those buyers. I love that so much. And it's really about not seeing something as a block, but trying to understand how you can make it work for you. And okay, I can't afford something at a trade show. So how can I get there anyway? And so I really encourage anyone listening to think through that. I think one thing that's really coming through in this interview is just not giving up and being creative and taking things seriously and hustling when you need to hustle,

because it's not always about just, you know, manifesting and sitting back and letting it come to you. It's about getting really clear on what you're manifesting and taking like really inspired action to make that happen. And I feel like once you do that, other things fall into place for you. Absolutely. So you said your husband quit his job to come and work with you. What's that like to work together? Because I know me and my husband could not work together. I feel like our personalities just don't get along in a work environment. But how was that for you? First of all, I have to say there is no one else in the entire world that could accomplish what we've accomplished if we weren't together. He and I have done some incredible things. I think the reason why it works with us is we want to work equally as hard. And then we also have similar strategies. We'll wake up in

the middle of the night and one of us will have an idea. And so we'll wake the other person and talk about it. That's really exciting for us. We both love creating. But what's been really interesting is, as you know, being a business owner, you can take it as like a life-changing opportunity for self-awareness. And we both have had just such great opportunities to reflect back and be like, wow, this is so much deeper than work. This conversation that I had with this buyer brought up issues that I have around this time when I was in high school, and I really need to work on that. And so we have these, can't say this certainly, but I can say that my husband and I, Jeremy and I, we really get a lot deeper in our conversations because we're willing to look at these challenges that we come across every day and kind of dissect it a

little bit more. Like, why is that bothering us? Why is this situation so much harder than it should be? Are we in effort right now? And I don't think that I could be in a place where I've had such self-awareness without him, because we challenge each other. Having that self-awareness as a business owner is crucial. When you're failing in certain areas to look at it and say, what am I doing wrong here? And nobody's going to be more honest with you than your husband. That's so true. I love that. And I love the spin you than your husband. So that's so true. I love that. And I love the spin you put on it too about it's just really an example to do more of

the inner work. And you're totally right. Whatever kind of comes up is really an invitation to work through it. So obviously you have an incredibly successful business and you're really, really busy. But what do you do on a daily basis that helps you perform at your best? Do you have any routines, morning routines or evening routines, things that you stick to, habits? I want to know everything.

I do. I have a soon-to-be five-year-old daughter. And I try and wake up about an hour or so before her. And I do a 30-minute meditation. And I'm pretty religious with that. That is something so important to me because I do know that if I have a hard time with my meditation, that I've got something that I've got going on. And I need to sit with that and work through it before I start my day.

And it also fills my cup of that self-time that I need before I start to take care of my daughter. I do a little bit of work before she wakes up just to clean up my inbox. So I'm not walking into 150 emails. I love green juice. I drink a green juice every day at breakfast. And I try not to have coffee until 10 o'clock versus early, early morning. So when I do spend that time with my daughter, I don't have like the jitters when I'm with her. I like to be like super calm. One thing that we just started doing is every morning we snuggle. I spend time with her right when she wakes up with just really relaxed, calm, peaceful energy. Because I think sometimes in the past,

she would wake up and be like, okay, time to get in the shower, time to do all this stuff. I don't really value that anymore, being in a rush. So laying with her and talking about our dreams or how we slept and maybe even reading a book. We become really late people and I'm okay with that and then in the evenings I try and do some physical exercise I used to be into really intense workouts and I'm done with that right now I'm really into just taking care of my body like stretching things out doing the foam roller and I usually do that every night before I go to bed and lots of water. Lots of water. I love it. And you have so many different products available on your site, but my favorite collection is the cleanse rituals. I love any kind of ritual. I love something that makes me feel really good and enhances morning routine or an evening routine. So can you talk

a little bit about some of your favorite products that you guys do have? I know my favorite one is the Rose Quartz face roller and the boss hair clip that if you were at the Boss Baby event, you would have had in your goodie bag. But we've been wearing it around the office and it's just amazing. That is such a difficult question because really every product that I design, I use it. I think the pieces that I use most frequently are also from the Rituals collection. And it's so great to hear that you love that collection too, because the whole point in creating it was, I would remember like sitting and, oh, I've got to wash my face or, oh, I need to, you know, take off my makeup. And I had a not such great outlook on those self-care activities because I thought that they were kind of a nuisance and cumbersome. So I thought, well, what if I made accessories that made it a little bit more fun? And that's where the name Rituals came from was to take the opportunity to make it a ritual, an elevated ritual. So one product that I really love is our spa headband. I created that one

because every night when I go to wash my face, I would look around the sink basin and I would be like, where's my hair tie? And I would think to myself, I make hair ties. Why do I not have a hair tie at my sink? So then I took a cheap spa headband and I cut a hole in the back and I made a ponytail holder spa headband combo. I live by that thing because when I go to wash my face at night, you know, it's just one less step that I needed to do. And it's so cute. I really love it. It's absolutely genius. So for those of you listening, you put the headband on and your hair comes out the bottom. So you're not getting any of those lines. I'm the same. So I have really fine blonde hair. And so even if I put a hair tie in

and tie it up I get a big crinkle in my hair and it just looks terrible even if my hair ties in for 10 minutes so it's genius and I've been using you can tell me if I'm doing this right or wrong so I normally use that hair tie and I love using an ice roller in the morning it really wakes me up makes my skin feel great and then I'll do my routine. I'll put a serum on and then I'll use the crystal face roller, the Jade crystal face roller. But then on an evening, and I don't do this every day, I would say probably two days a week, I'm using the derma roller. So the, you know, the micro needle I'm using that it's a game changer. It really is. Especially if you have like a favorite serum and you know, we all spend so much money on our skincare and this is just like such a non-invasive step to really optimize on all of your expensive skin

creams that we spend money on. What does it actually do? Cause I know that it kind of creates these, and I might be completely saying this wrong, but kind of create these little cuts in your face where the serum sinks in more and it can really help resurface so I get a lot of like scarring left over from hormonal acne and it's been really good for that but how does it actually work so say you use a good vitamin c serum or something do you recommend one and then how does the derma roller work yeah so what it does is it creates little micro wounds and of course when you have a wound like your body does such an amazing job in the healing process. And what happens is more collagen, more blood flow, all of that comes back to that areas that you're using

the microneedles. And so as you get older, your skin stops doing that. And so this helps to have that cell turnover and kind of bring life back to your face. It's a great, great tool, especially if you're not super savvy with skincare. It's a very gentle, a gentle needle length. So it's really easy to use. And there's loads of tips and tricks on the packaging of how to use it properly. But yeah, it's a game changer. Every time I use it, it's like, everyone's like, oh, did you get a facial or what did you do differently? Your skin looks so good. And I'm like, just did a microneedle.

It's great. The derma roller. Yeah, it's a serious game changer. I love it. Okay. So for everyone listening, could you just give them a real quick roundup of what Kitsch is and where they can find everything? Absolutely.

So Kitsch is all things beauty. I like to think that we follow you from your satin pillowcase all the way into the shower with our shower cap to your nighttime skincare routine and everywhere in between. And we love to make your vanity look beautiful. And you can find us at a variety of retailers. We have over 100 SKUs at

Ulta. You can find us at Sephora, Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Paper Source, and a variety of other retailers. You can also check us out on Instagram at MyKch and on our website at www.mykitsch.com. And for those of you who don't know how to spell kitsch, K-I-T-S-C-H. I love it so much. And so before we go, I just want to do a deep dive on what it was really like for you to scale into so many retailers because you have so many products, inventory management must be a thing. You must have had to learn so much systems procedures so how did you even get into these stores with alta it was a product that we actually didn't sell that many of but we had gotten a lot of recognition on instagram for and they gave us a small chance in maybe like 10 SKUs on an end cap. And when we kind of proved our ability to sell, then they gave us a little bit of a larger opportunity. And now we built up over time to

100 SKUs. But getting into it was really tricky because you're making cold calls and you get turned down day in and day night. And it's interesting because I really feel like being an entrepreneur, it's all about perspective and understanding that you have a choice to make. Okay, they just turned me down. What do I do now? And it's about the next step. Sometimes some counts just weren't meant to be and you need to move on. And then you find out that they went out of business and it's like, okay, the universe

had my back on that one. I wasn't supposed to be in there. But there are other times when maybe you were working through a sales rep and maybe they weren't representing you properly and you have to make a shift and you need to go direct and get really creative. Maybe you need to send them a birthday card to just let them know that you're always thinking about them. And I think that a lot of people in this specific industry think that there's only one way to do it. Okay, I need to create a product. I need to have a really expensive PR team. I need to go to trade shows. And I need to be in all the mom and pop stores. And they think that that's the only way to go about doing

it. And yes, that is definitely a roadmap of how people have been successful. But I think if you get really specific about what accounts you want to be in and why you want to be there and just keep your ear to the ground and listen and take baby steps, those doors will just open for you in ways that you may not expect. You may get a small pharmacy and a Whole Foods buyer might walk into the pharmacy and be like, wow, this is really cute, and then go and contact you. So I think you also need to be in the right place to be prepared for an account. If Whole Foods would have come to us and said, hey, we want to bring you into all whole foods three years ago, we might not be in the best place to do it. So I think that it takes a lot of learning to figure out how to manage inventory. A lot of people in a product-based business

don't understand how to ship major retailers because they have lots of rules and regulations and you need to ship it this way and it needs to be stickered this way. And you need to buy UPCs and carton markings. And there's a lot of specifics and it's a game. And I think that understanding that it's a game and you have to play by the rules when it comes to larger retailers. And a lot of the reason why we were able to expand into other major retailers was because we have proven success with one. And once you can get one really well and show your numbers and how you actually grew that part of their business and listen to the buyer and give them exactly what they want and deliver on time great products, you're able to then go

confidently to the next buyer and do the same thing for them. I think that that's why we were able to get all of those other retailers. I love that a lot of people kind of their mind probably goes to well, that's great, but I can't do that. And it really goes to show they can. But it's about really dissecting that and moving step by step in that direction. So my guess is when you get one retailer on board, you have to go do everything you can to make sure people are buying. Am I right?

Like, it's not just you get into stores and you take a step back and everything unfolds for you. Oh my gosh, that is such a great point. And I'm so glad you brought that up. One of the reasons why I think we've had success in this space is whenever we get into an account, really how I based my whole business off of was I didn't just say, I want to be in Ulta. I said, I want to be in Ulta. Why do I want to be in Ulta? Well, I want to be an Ulta because they have a really big void in the marketplace here.

And I know that we would do really well. Okay, well, why else? I know that if we do well in Ulta, my buyer will be really happy. And if my buyer is really happy, then she's going to get a promotion and she's going to look really good. And I know that if we're an Ulta, people that come in there to buy their top selling makeup brands, then walk away and be a happy customer. And so it wasn't just I wanted to be an Ulta. I thought about the whole from the buyer all the way through the end consumer and the

benefits of how every single person in this whole supply chain is going to benefit from our brand being at Ulta. And I think vibrationally, putting that into perspective and really loving on and appreciating this opportunity was very noticeable. And we do the same thing with all of our other brand partners and thinking about like, okay, well, what can we do special for this retailer? Let's do an exclusive thing for them and really tailoring and catering to them. And one thing too, I really love that you said something. When people say, I don't think I can do this. I just want to say, I moved here with nothing. I had no connections, no money, nothing. And I think that that self-talk of not being able to do something, it's really all about perspective and understanding that you always have a choice. I think I heard this quote, and I truly believe it's so true, that true poverty is thinking

you don't have a choice and wealth is knowing that you do. And I really believe that we all have a choice and you have a choice to change any of your situations. If you want to be in a specific account, there might be a really awkward way of getting there. If you know and you feel it's right, feel that vibrationally from beginning to end. Why do you want to be in this account? Why is that important to you? Why do you want to have a successful business? And really write those things down so you have a perspective. Do you want to be a multimillionaire? Why do you want to be a multimillionaire? Why do you want these things that you want? And then also, why do you feel you deserve these things that you want and you you should have these things because if you can have a lot of clarity on all of that, it's going to come a lot better. And then you also might realize,

wow, I don't really want that thing that I think that I want because you might just want freedom. Okay. Well, you just saved yourself a lot of time and energy because all you really wanted was freedom. And I think that that's probably one of the most exciting things about, you know, being a boss and being an entrepreneur, just being alive is like recognizing what it is that you want in life and asking yourself why. And I think we all can do that. We all have the choice to do that. So, yeah.

I love that. There is so much gold in everything that you just said. And you're so completely right. It's about a lot of people say I want to be a multi-millionaire but what they really mean is I want freedom and it's not the same thing if you want to build a company that is worth multi-millions it's probably not just going to be you behind your laptop it's going to be you building out a team and you becoming a CEO not just a solopreneur which is not freedom there's lots of different ways to do this

I love that you brought that up how do you get clear on what it is do you have any kind of processes do you vision board do you do anything creative yes I do a vision board every year and it brings me chills when I I look at it every day but I mean even today like I saw a little corner of it then I was like I even covered my mouth and gasped. And I was like, oh my gosh, that was so specific. And I forgot that I put it on there. It's totally coming into my reality right now.

But yeah, I do these things called mock-ups in my meditations where I think about something that I want. And I go through this exact process where I sit there and I think, well, why do I want it? And then I get really clear on it. One of the other things that I do is I, this is, oh, wow, I've never talked about this before. This is exciting. I actually have a journal at my desk and I write letters to myself from the future. So today I had a great interview and I actually did this a few days ago. I did great on the Boss Babe podcast.

I said some amazing inspirational things. So many great things have come out of it. And I'm really glad I did it and went out of my comfort zone. I'm proud of everything that I said. And I inspired other women to do something that they never thought they could. I've been doing this for the past few years now. And for whatever reason, it just feels really good to do that. And I think sometimes people get stuck in stress. And the truth is, is like stress is really just an outcome of fear. They're just scared of something. And that's why they're stressed. They're afraid of what could possibly happen. And so to kind of counteract that stress that comes up,

that natural stress, I started writing these letters of how I wanted conversations to go. I'll even do specific quotes and say, my buyer just sent me an email that said we're the number one selling brand. And sometimes I'll even send myself emails and I'll be like, hey, Cassandra, your brand is doing so well. We want to place a reorder and expand you into another 900 stores. I do little tricks like that and it just feels good. It feels like I'm working,

but I'm working in a very different way. I'm not working out of fear. I'm working out of inspiration and excitement and I'm just playing. And that's kind of what this is all about. It's about playing and having fun. Well, for me, at least, that's my why. I really want this to be a life-changing experience.

I love everything you just said. And I love the writing notes to your future self. It's something I've done before, but I've never done the email thing. And I'm obsessed with it. Right after this interview, I'm about to go and write some emails to myself and so I'll let you know if they come true or when they come true because there's so much gold in everything that you shared and I just feel so inspired and fired up and I just love when someone is so willing to be completely open and honest about their journey and say I I didn't have it all figured out. I didn't know where it was going to go, but I knew that I was willing to work hard

enough. So thank you so much for coming on and for sharing that. Your story is just so incredible. Thank you. I've loved chatting to you and I know everyone listening is just going to be so inspired. So for everyone listening, please screenshot this and tag us and let us know what your favorite takeaway was or quotable because you have some really good quotables where can everyone find you and tag you I don't do personal Instagram but you can sometimes I make cameos in our business Instagram which is at my kitch I love it thank you so so much for being on here it's been so much fun of course this was so much fun and I just want to say that email trick works really

well for friends. Like I'll send a friend an email and be like, wow, like you did such a great job today at work. And it's a really fun way or drawing someone a picture of them in this situation where, you know, you want them to be too. So it's always good to like spread that love. Oh, we need to be friends. I need friends that are sending me pictures like this. I love it. Of course, anytime. Tell me what you're wanting in life and I will draw you one.

Thank you. Of course. If you loved this episode, please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. I want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were. And also, I really want to know who you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and also i really want to know who you want to see appear on the show we'll be reading all of the reviews so

we will be implementing your feedback and speaking of reviews we've got a little stumbling up our sleeves so we've just created a brand new document it's called the boss babe 25 so the boss babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. Seriously, it's like a little Boss Babe holy grail. It's incredible and you're going to love it. It covers everything from must-have products, our favorite books, rituals that we do daily, and some amazing hacks to help you grow. So if you want a copy, it's really simple. Just leave us a review, screenshot your review, and email it to podcast at bossbabe.com we'll send you over a copy asap and yeah thank you so much for listening i will see you next week