#19: How to Rebuild After Loss with Ciara Stockeland, Founder of btqBOX
Our world today looks different than it did a year ago. Many entrepreneurs are going through a hard time in their business’ right now, and many have probably experienced loss.
In today’s episode, I was joined by my longtime friend Ciara Stockeland, Founder of btqBox.
Ciara and I both lost our companies in sudden and unexpected ways and because of that we were able to have a honest and raw conversation about how we ultimately grew from our loss.
In our conversation, we chatted about how:
Loss doesn’t have to be a cloud over your life
Loss helps you learn what you are willing and not willing to sacrifice moving forward
Loss doesn’t have to be a stopping point- it can actually be a place to pivot
You will do hard things and you will get through them
You can grow a business with simplicity and calm
You can reclaim control after loss of a business
If you have gone through something similar, or know someone who has, don’t hesitate to reach out. I would love to chat.
Be sure to checkout Ciara here, or follow her on Instagram @cstockeland.
Are you a visionary entrepreneur who wants to create change with your company in the world? If so, I want to let you know about a free masterclass that I just wrapped up. In this short but powerful training, I teach you exactly how to create a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invites them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies you know and love, spread their mission, launch expansion, and accelerate influence. To join in, visit https://joybrandcreative.com/movement.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
Before we get started, I want to let you know about a very special masterclass that I just wrapped up. If you're a visionary entrepreneur and you love changing lives with your company, you're going to love this free training. In this short but powerful video, I teach you exactly how to craft a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invites them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies spread their mission, launch expansion and accelerate influence to join in, visit joybrandcreative.com/movement. Also available in the show notes.
(00:47):
This is the Scale with Joy show, episode 17: rebuilding after loss.
(00:56):
Welcome to the scale with joy. Show a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started.
(01:22):
Today is a little bit of a different podcast. It's a combination of a solo show as well as a conversation between myself and my friend Ciara Stockland. We both lost our companies in very unexpected ways in a short period of time. And just knowing that so many of you, whether or not you've lost your company or just had to pivot or maybe it's gone backwards in a way that you weren't expecting because of COVID 19 we wanted this to be an encouragement to you and then also just to share our experiences so that you knew you were a little less alone because we both went through those unimaginable things that you think will never happen in business, particularly when it's going so well. So I'm so excited to share this conversation with you. Up next myself and my good friend Ciara Stockland.
(02:08):
Hey everybody. So I am here with my good friend Ciara Stockland and she and I have been having these conversations about what it means to experience loss and what it means to be right, build after loss. And we just know that so many people are going through that right now, whether it's just temporary loss or permanent loss and we really wanted to share our lessons learned and our wisdom with you. So we thought it'd be fun for this to be a little bit of a different conversation. It's going to be less of an interview and more of a chat between friends that you just happened to eavesdrop on. I thought it'd be fun, Ciara for us to talk a little bit about how we met.
Ciara (02:49):
Yeah, for sure. I'm excited. I would love to eavesdrop on a conversation like this, so I think it'll be great. I think, if nothing else, it'll be entertaining.
Laura (02:59):
Yes, absolutely. I mean, everything that we've talked about in the last two years, like can we even summarize it in a podcast episode? I'm not sure. I've got a couple of notes in front of me, but, I, you know, it was like, gosh, there's so many lessons learned here. How do you focus on the ones that would be most helpful to someone going through it right now? And that's what I was really trying to think about, but I don't know. Do you remember when we first connected?
Ciara (03:22):
Yeah. You know, I think a mutual friend reached out to me and said, hey, I know you're going through this or you're just kind of coming out on the other side of going through this. I have a friend who's going through the exact same thing, like literally the exact same thing. Would you be willing to chat with her? And of course I said absolutely yes because I had actually reached out to that friend when I needed someone, you know, a few months earlier and said, do you know someone I can talk to that has gone through this? And she connected me. So I think she just connected us and we just had that first conversation and we've kept connecting and talking.
Laura (03:59):
Yes. It was actually Shannon Wilburn who was on the Scale of Joy podcast. She was one of her early episodes and you were about six months ahead of me on the exact same thing, which we had both grown seven figure businesses, both lost them under very similar conditions in a very short period of time. We were living the dream, right? Like we had the seven figure business. It was profitable. There was money in the bank and then all of a sudden boom. It was like, whoa, what just happened? And we're both in the process of rebuilding from that in very different ways. And I think over the last few years, all those conversations that we had, I mean cause you were just a little bit of front of me, I always went to you and said, oh my goodness, this is happening. What do you think? Or how did you handle it? And I think just kind of trading back and forth and thinking about our lessons would be again, so helpful to other people. I came to this realization that a business can never give us the sense of self-worth. That I think it sometimes it’s tempting to want it too in the beginning when we're in the beginning stages of entrepreneurship because you and I both had a lot of recognition for the businesses that we had built.
Ciara (05:14):
And I think my biggest lesson is how much of a monster, a small business can become in the way that it devours your life. And never wanting that.
Laura (05:31):
Every single time I see the word hustle or anything like that, I just want to just scream from the rooftops like don't do it. Don't do it. Because for many people, and I think for us included, if we're really honest with ourselves, we were suffering through a business growth plan to get to a point where we thought that it would no longer create suffering. Right? And I think if you think about it like suffering to think that you'll no longer eventually suffer actually makes no sense.
Ciara (06:03):
Which is why entrepreneurs don't pay themselves. That's the lie they tell me, well I'll just suffer this little; you know, I'll deprive myself of this right now because eventually, I'll see my payday. And that's just one, one area that it manifests itself where probably a lot of the people listening are like, oh yeah. But yeah, we did that as a whole, like across so many parts of our businesses.
Laura (06:25):
Right, that self-sacrificing that I think happens when you really haven't experienced loss and you really haven't had to recreate from scratch. Knowing that I have that sense of self-worth and knowing that I have such a strong place in the world with my family and my spouse and you and I have talked about that a lot. In fact, one of the first cards that you wrote me was, I still have it somewhere here in my office, was the idea of not letting all of this impact your marriage, how important that was. And I remember my husband read it and he was really moved by it. But I think like knowing who we are outside our businesses has just, it's so important because there is no guarantee here.
(07:17):
Anything can change at any time. And what happened with us is that it was an external circumstance a couple of years before COVID, but a lot of people here who are listening, I mean who the heck ever thought that we would be dealing with a pandemic and the after effects. And I knew as soon as it hit, my gut was just hurting because I knew I had friends with seven and eight and nine figure businesses where everything changed so fast and I knew that you can't have that much payroll and that much overhead and not have it affect you. And I think for some people they may be going through this. Like I should have known, I should have had more cash in the bank.
(08:03):
I should have, I should have been more aware of what I was building. I should have been more conservative. Right. And I think you and I went through that for sure. We should have known that this growth strategy was very risky, highly litigious, required a lot of personal guarantees, things that we both, okay dealt with that in retrospect is the nature of the business strategy we were pursuing. And at the same time, it is difficult to not be so hard on yourself after you've been through something like that.
Ciara (08:37):
Yeah, and I think as entrepreneurs we tend to be optimistic people. So when you're in the midst of that, even if you're aware of some of those things, you're always thinking, but it will change. It'll get better. I can maneuver through this. I will be the one that rises above the problems other people may have had in this situation. And so it's really interesting now to rebuild on the other side, knowing what I am and am not willing to sacrifice this time around, being much more realistic while still optimistic, but coming from a place of realism versus just pie in the sky. Like I'm an entrepreneur, that will make it, I will push, you know? Yeah. When you become the statistic of those that don't make it to the finish line, it changes your perspective a little bit.
Laura (09:29):
And it's so funny because one of the other things I was thinking a lot about is the degree to which we let it mean something. Right. And one perspective could be that we still will grow a multiple seven figure business or into eight figures. That just wasn't the path. And I think we get to choose what we let something mean. I think we can choose that it means that we are a failure or that we should have known when in a lot of ways, I think for a period of time I let it cloud my own belief in myself and I think I let it impact and really overshadow all of the successes that we both had over a very long period of time because of an occurrence that took place in a very short period of time. And we look at our careers, right? Like we were both very successful for a long time. It was a small percentage of time that the business went in the wrong direction and then bringing it back.
(10:38):
You know, you and I both dealt with that with litigation after two years it was eventually dismissed by a judge and it was determined that nothing I had been accused of was actually true. And I remember thinking like, actually that isn't that as satisfying as I thought it was going to be. I actually thought that it was going to be this great vindication and that it was going to mean that everything was going to be better. And what I realized is that I was really, bummed about how much I let that circumstance impact my belief in myself as an entrepreneur. And how insignificant all of that was in the grand scheme of the knowledge and the wisdom and everything that I had created before and now am able to carry forward as an entrepreneur. And I think for anybody listening what you allow, what's happening right now to impact your belief in yourself is actually totally optional. So like maybe now I'll just have another seven figure business and I'll just sustain it longer because of what I've learned. It doesn't necessarily mean that that was the stopping point. And I think for a little while I let that enter into my mind and my belief system that I had to then unwind in order to be able to move forward.
Ciara (12:05):
Yeah. And I think like you mentioned so many people are going through this right now in some variation, whether it be a small loss of a portion of their business, a loss of the entire business, a loss of a really good team that they never would have let go. Like there's just all different, you know, variances right now. And what's interesting is after everything kind of cumulated for me and I was at the end and kind of coming out the other side, I would go, I've been running, I have some running goals and when I'm uncomfortable running, I'll tell myself, Ciara, you have done really hard things because whenever we're in the middle of something that's painful, we're like, I just can't, so this seems like I'm running a 5K and I'm like, I cannot, I want to stop and I'll say, you've done really hard things. And so I think just the encouragement that I'm giving to people that I hear that are doing some hard things right now and they feel like I can't survive it. I can't get up and I can't look my husband in the face. I can't look at my employees, whatever. You will do hard things and you will get through it and you'll get on the other side and you'll be like, wow, I did some really hard things.
Laura (13:17):
It was more of an interruption than an ending.
Ciara (13:20):
Yes. And be some awesome calluses and some great resiliency and some season and depths to our characters that we never would have had without going through trials and troubles.
Laura (13:34):
Like choosing to believe what you want about failure is just totally optional. And once I realized I could look at it interruption on my way to where I'm headed next, and like you said, we have these calluses and I know you and I have decided to take our careers in different directions based on what we thought are strengths were and skill set. And the satisfaction of helping other seven figure entrepreneurs avoid some of the things that I had to learn the hard way is one of the greatest joys I get to do. Yeah. And now I know where the landmines are because I've seen them. And I can tell when one of my clients is about to walk into one and just advising them and sharing what I had to learn. Just the hardest possible way. It is something that I never thought I'd be able to do because of how limiting I was thinking about myself in the midst of loss. Again, choosing what I want to believe about that circumstance has given me the possibility of serving other people in that way. And that's been super powerful. And I know you've your direction, you've stayed in your industry, in your category.
Ciara (14:53):
Oh boy, I fought it though.
Laura (14:53):
You did, I was like you have to stay.
Ciara (15:01):
And some of that comes from that traumatic stress that can still rear its ugly head. You know, when we have the post-traumatic stress, you know, situations where something will trigger a memory or a self-doubt or a flaw that we have that we maybe still have not worked through in our mind. You know? And so yeah, it's interesting how God weaves those things together. And I feel like I have kicked against the pricks a lot. So I'm still in the retail industry, which is interesting, serving in a different way for sure than I did before. And I think like how you said you can kind of see those landmines and you love helping those seven figure businesses. I love helping the startups that I see potential in, you know, like I can see that spark of potential in you. Can I help you do something that I should have done 10 years prior when I started or whatever. What's interesting, how we're using our skills and gifts and what we enjoy doing a little bit.
Laura (16:15):
And I even think super power.
Ciara (16:16):
Yeah. You're the first one who talked to me about the superpower. I remember where I was standing and it was kind of on one of her calls where it was like my day to like cry and complain and I don't remember what I was whining about. But anyway, you're like, okay Ciara, I want you to think about this. What's your superpower? Like figure out what that is and then like live in that. And I think about that a lot since you brought that up to me and interesting way to think about what you really want to do and what you should be doing. You know before everything kind of came crashing down around me, a lot of what I did, I didn't like do me like I had, I had forced myself down a path, making those excuses kind of like it'll pay off and it'll make sense and one day I can do this. Doing all the things that I didn't enjoy wasn't really particularly good at lots of compromises and I just won't do that anymore. And so I think knowing your superpower helps with that. Like if I'm not good at XYZ, why on earth would I torture myself doing that every day.
Laura (17:26):
It's a lot of like what types of risks do you take after loss? Right. And that was something I've been thinking a lot about and thinking would be a good question for us to talk about. And it was really funny cause I'm part of a peer to peer mastermind and I was always that big picture creative person, a dive into a pool and ask how deep it is. And now I'm a little bit more cautious, I'm a little bit more conservative. And so one of the women said, oh well, you know, we'll brainstorm and then Laura will bring us back to earth. And I was like, oh I wasn't always that way though. But I think the risk after loss, it needs to feel good even if it doesn't go the way I wanted because I know that loss is still possible, right? Whenever you scale a business, whenever you get back into franchising. And so the question I always ask myself is like, will I have fun and will the growth be worth it even if I fail because I just don't want to be on a path again that I look back, and I actually didn't even enjoy the ride and it didn't work out.
(18:41):
Looking at it from that perspective of what feels fun and even like starting this podcast felt fun to me in comparison to other things that you can do to grow your business and get your name out there. Overall, what are the emotions and feelings that we want to have when we grow a business? And I think in the beginning sometimes you're not even thinking about that. But after we've experienced loss, it is the basis for which I'm willing to risk again. I think the other thing I sort of realized is that whether you have no business or seven figure business or profitable business or an unprofitable business, you're still you, which is kind of awesome and kind of a huge disappointment at the same time.
Ciara (19:23):
I had a hard conversation earlier today and I called and talked to my husband afterwards and I said, I will always look at conversations like this, this way. I am who I am, I'm Ciara, this is how I made I feel bad about certain things. However, I now know that that feeling doesn't have to define the response, the action, the rest of my day. So it's interesting because when you go through last, you learn a lot about yourself if you let yourself. So this is, if you don't embrace bitterness and anger, if you embrace the lesson, and really just looking at this as a fresh start and an opportunity, which you can't do overnight, that takes some time. But if you're willing it will come. If you embrace the hardship like that, you'll understand that, you know, kind of the super power thing, right? Like I am who I am.
(20:15):
I'm a crier. I'm emotional. I like, I'm a people pleaser. That's not, that's how I made. However, I don't need to let the people pleaser in me define my day. I can say yes, I would like this person to be happy, but it's their choice if they're not, not mine, you know? So I feel like I went from 20 years old to 60 years old.
Laura (20:40):
I know, I know. And probably a lot of people did, who've gone through running a business in the last few months. I mean if you were totally unaffected, not even for a second. I mean, I'm not even sure, like whether or not you're real, because everybody, I think, at least for me, even though my business actually grew during this time, and I think yours did too. Yeah. And I think because we, we know what this is like and we know what to do when things get really hard and it's not the first time we've been through it. So it can lead other people through it. And that's why both of our businesses grew.
(21:24):
But for the first, like 12 hours, I was like, here we go again. I'm going to lose it all again. And then I got my head screwed on straight and I realized like the past trauma is not the current trauma. And for us, we had some situations happen at the hands of other people that created our outcome that we're out of our control, which was really upsetting to say the least. And some people might be angry at the government, they might be angry that it wasn't handled properly. They might just be angry at COVID and like, yeah, you're allowed to be right and at the same time there's some wisdom in anger because it gives us this opportunity to go deeper on the hard things that have happened that we were probably just not paying full attention to.
(22:15):
And we can, when used correctly, we can get into a higher level of wisdom by tapping into that anger and I know for me I was like really angry at myself for ignoring signs and red flags and things that I assume the best about people who didn't have the best intentions. You and I have gone through that before and at the same time what was it about me that allowed that into my life? And that was something that I had to really look at.
Ciara (22:43):
It's a delicate balance between self-reflection and self-loathing, between anger and of course anyone who's lost anything, divorce, child, job business, you know that there's all these, you know all these layers to it and in one hour you can go through a bunch of emotions but it's all coming back. You have to bring it back around. I think to owning part of where you're at, like you can, if you choose to blame 110% on the people, the circumstances, the government, the disease, whatever, we tend to blame the 110% that's where that anger turns into the bitterness and that road that doesn't leave. But when you're willing to say, you know what, 90% of this was out of my control, but 10% of it I contributed to. So I can't change that. I'm not going to be hard on myself, but I'm going to acknowledge it because when I acknowledge it, then I can choose that I won't do that again. And then you are back in control and you're in the driver's seat of your own thoughts. So, I think that's really important as people go through all of these emotions to remember, part of it is us, right? Like we have to take responsibility for part of everything to some level.
Laura (23:57):
And I think what you're talking about is just this idea of making peace with the entrepreneurial experience.
Ciara (24:02):
It's a roller coaster. Definitely. That's what we sign up for. We love it because of the freedom it brings. But you know, you can't have all the good without understanding that there's hard stuff to sign up for it.
Laura (24:14):
And we're still in it. Yeah. That's crazy. What are we doing? No, I'm just kidding. Disruption always happens and there's a lot of things being disrupted right now and I think one of my biggest takeaways that I'm going to have to remake something, I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to let go of the things that was not a fit for me and I'm going to rebuild it using my strengths and my superpowers. The opportunity to rethink things. Whether or not you've gone through total loss or partial loss or having to shut down or quarantine. It is an opportunity if we let it. It was my greatest opportunity, to shed deadwood that was no longer serving me. Not necessarily externally, there was definitely relationships that turned over when I went through the trauma. And thank God for that. Right? Because now I know what those relationships really were based off of, they were based off of my ability to do something for those people and internally there was deadwood within me that God needed to remove.
Ciara (25:32):
And that's the part that I think we have to remember, that acknowledgement of that is what keeps bitterness out. The acknowledgement that I will be better because of this, because I can shed those things that are not benefiting me in my personal growth, are not benefiting my family the way that I think about things or bad habits I have or what I'm willing to sacrifice. Yeah. That self-reflecting part is such a big part of moving forward I think.
Laura (26:03):
Yeah. Because the thing is that business is just never guaranteed and it's this idea of what are we anchoring ourselves in and what false gods are we attaching ourselves to in this crazy entrepreneurial journey and when we can walk towards the next iteration with grace and joy and fun, it keeps us from having to really give from an empty cup. Cause I think for both of us, we were so drained.
Ciara (26:33):
I look back at pictures of myself. I looked so sick, I didn't feel like I looked like that, but I look back at pictures, especially the last months. Wow. The toll that stress takes on you is enormous.
Laura (26:50):
I remember walking into preschool drop-off and having a friend pull me aside and say, you look like you, you need to go to the doctor. You look like you need to get checked in somewhere. And it was still a good friend and I remember being like, wow, like can you really see it? You know like so you know, that was, it was just a tough, it was a tough season. And, and now taking action from this place of respect and highest contribution and growing the business and doing this work where we stand in the highest and best use of who we are is the beautiful outcome from these types of challenges.
(27:38):
And I think now I'm much more likely to sit with an idea, then take action on it immediately and hustle towards it and make sure it's really clear. I'm much more likely to be patient with myself, from an entrepreneurship standpoint. I'm much, much, much more likely to be interested in the journey of who I get to become as I'm growing a business versus thinking that somehow it's better there than here because I know it's not because I've been there and back and I know it's not any better. It's just we get to become deeper versions of ourselves on the way there, and I was explaining that to a client recently. It's a seven figure entrepreneur and I was like, why do you want to grow? You have a multimillion dollar business. Why? That's a really good question that a lot of people don't ask themselves.
(28:29):
And she said, well, I'd like this much money and that much money, and I said, that can't be why you do it. You have to do it because of who you get to become at that next iteration of growth. And she was like, oh yeah, that too, because I know it may or may not happen. Right? I could come up with the best strategy in the world and the best funnel and the most fabulous brand and it still may not work because of COVID and crazy things like that. And so we have to be okay with the idea that we may or may not get to that next level of growth. And at the same time we have to love the process and if we stop loving the process, then it stops becoming worth it. Right. And that is something I do a lot of coaching around. I find myself getting involved on the business growth side of things and then sharing a lot of my toughest lessons learned from that perspective. So I don't know, what would you say like are some of the ways in which you do business differently now?
Ciara (29:41):
You know, I think it's just that that common simplicity, which it might seem very trivial to most people, but for me that's a huge shift. Like literally just last week I thought, you know, I want to start walking. It's nice here now I live in North Dakota, so it's cold all winter. So I do not walk at six in the morning when it's 20 below. But it's nice out now. And so I want to go back to, walking in the morning and I was like, oh my goodness, why am I doing coaching calls at 8: 30 in the morning? And then I'm like, Ciara, you're the one who scheduled them, you know? And in the past I've been like, but I have to because that's when they're available. And now I'm like, no, I don't want to do coaching calls until 10 in the morning and it will work.
(30:25):
Like if they want to talk to me, they will find a time that works between 10 and three because those are the hours I want to put it, you know? And so I think it's just that giving myself permission to work 20 hours a week and probably make more than I ever made, working 80,000 hours a week, you know? But just doing it on my terms and being common simple with how I do things. Like it doesn't need to be over complicated. I don't want a corner suite somewhere. I do not want to manage a team again. And that's awesome for other people. I just, it wasn't my gig and I did it because I felt like I had to, like you said, to get to the next level and no, I can hire contractors and I can turn my phone off at three o'clock if I want and I can work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and make the same amount of money or more.
Laura (31:16):
Isn't that so funny. I know with the whole six figure, seven figure eight figure entrepreneur, I say it because I want to give people context and at the same time as a six-figure entrepreneur, I know I make more than probably most seven figure entrepreneurs, right? Because it really comes down to the business model and the financial margin and I stopped caring about vanity metrics when all of this happened. You know, you and I were both in national magazines, we had tons of recognition. It's so much in common, so crazy. And now I have most of what I bring in as a profit margin and it's actually kind of fun.
(31:59):
You know, like I've never had a business like that before. It's always been like, let's try to go for 20% you know, with brick and mortar, that tends to be what your, you know, that's a good month. Um, and so now it's, it's kind of fun, you know, to run it very differently and not care. It's seven figure business and knowing that most seven figure online entrepreneurs struggle with feast and famine and it's exactly where I never want to be again. What are some of your parting words for anybody who needs to move from this place of this happened to me to vision?
Ciara (32:37):
I would say be really, really honest with yourself about the opportunity. I'm getting ready to do my first e-book. So I was looking through, you know, just all my blogs and some of my journaling during my time of trial. One of the things was I wrote, you know, the last day when I shut the doors to my last store and I drove home. I commuted every day for a little over an hour. So I shut the doors. I was all alone and I drove home and when I got home, I don't know if I wrote the entry that night or the next morning, but I said, I have never felt so free. It was like this amazing love when I finally let God open up that grimy little hands of mine and pry it out.
(33:21):
But I finally let him do that. I was like, why did I wait so long? Yeah. And so I think that would be my challenge is instead of fighting what you know is inevitably going to come, I fought so long to hold onto something that I couldn't keep anyway. It was so frustrating. It was so hard. Right. And so I think just looking at the opportunity that you may, you know, being honest with yourself, you may have wanted this anyway. I was feeling so trapped anyway. And so when I finally let it all go, I was like, this is what I've been wanting to be alone and left alone to heal and to mend and to look for something that fits me a lot better.
Laura (34:09):
So I went through the same thing. That's so funny that you say that. I remember that wave of freedom, that came, and I remember thinking, why am I so happy about this? This is like absolutely biggest nightmare. And, and I remember thinking, wow, there is something here where I was really a prisoner to my own dream. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are prisoners of their dreams cause they've sacrificed everything to make it successful and it's not healthy and it's not the way that we're designed to be.
(34:42):
And when we can rebuild on our own terms in a more elegant way and in a more aligned way, then I think we again, get to make peace with that entrepreneurial experience without being so attached to the outcome and without being so worried about getting that thing that we think it's going to give us, that it will never give us because the definition of who we are and our self-worth can never come from it. It can never come from being a seven figure and eight figure nine figure entrepreneur. I can never come from being featured in all of those magazines. It comes from the belief that we have about ourselves in that idea that as entrepreneurs we get to stand in our highest, best use of our time every day. Yup. And when we lose agency over that or we perceive that we lose agency over that, I think it's really, it becomes something that we are just anchoring ourselves in the wrong spot.
(35:43):
And for me, I would say anybody who's gone through that kind of loss and part of for me was that my industry had changed. My category had changed so dramatically. You know, many people who are in the same industry, I felt that same sense of loss, that seems sense of identity loss. But it's just an opportunity for us to crack ourselves open. And if somebody were to say that to me when I was going through it, I might've wanted to kill them. You know, when I'm really thinking about it and I'm saying it out loud. So you might need, if you're listening to take a walk around the block and then like come back and listen to this again. But it is what gives us the legacy that we wanted to start with an entrepreneurship all over again. And I remember there was a time where I was encouraging you so much to put yourself back out there cause you had so much to offer and then I'm retreating and then you're telling me to do the same thing.
(36:41):
And I would honestly say that I don't, I don't feel that anymore. I don't feel the fear anymore of being judged for what I went through or for that being a disadvantage versus an advantage. I don't fear it defining me because I, I have already, even in a short period of time since it happened for me, it was about two years ago. For you it was a little bit longer. I've seen how much it has helped me and the people around me to move into love and then move into left and it makes us real. Yeah. For anybody listening who has gone through any kind of struggle who is worried about their bills and worried about payroll and worried about rent and worried about failing and all of those things that you lose sleep over. I am proof positive and I know you are too that you are going to be okay.
Ciara (37:42):
Yeah, you feel like you're nuts. So we don't want to minimize that feeling of absolute like gut. So scared, can't sleep, can't eat. You will be fine.
Laura (37:56):
You will be fine. And if you have something to contribute to the world which you probably do, or else you wouldn't have become an entrepreneur in the first place. There is still something inside of you to find and yes, yes. We haven't even talked about what you do. So you are a consultant, to boutique owners and that's what you specialize in and you're very good at it and you have lots of success stories, which is I know part of your healing. It's just been amazing. You've helped a lot of people know their numbers and get clarity on their businesses and they absolutely love you. And so we'll put the link to show notes for your site to make sure that if people have a boutique or they have friends with the boutique, or had to shut down their boutique and now need to move it online. Sarah's right. That's a lot of what you've been teaching in the last few months, which has been so amazing. Yeah, and it's part of the journey, so thanks for being there.
Ciara (38:51):
Thanks for asking me. I'm glad we can share and talk together.
Laura (38:58):
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.