#3: The Joy of Missing Out with Tonya Dalton, Founder & CEO of inkWELL Press
This week, I was joined by my longtime friend, Founder and CEO of inkWELL Press Productivity Co., and author of The Joy of Missing Out, Tonya Dalton
Tonya started her career as a kindergarten teacher, then transitioned into owning a jewelry company, and finally started her second company inkWELL Press Productivity Co., which became a seven-figure business within 18 months of its launch.
As a mother and CEO, Tonya has had to learn how best to live her most purposeful life without becoming a victim of mom guilt. In her interview, she made an important observation about how limiting beliefs always include the words “always” or “never”. For example “a good mom always packs her kids’ lunch” or “a good mom never stays late at work.” It was up to her to change what her image of an ideal mom was, and to construct her own image for what worked best for her family. Owning a successful business does not mean sacrificing time with your family.
She first came up with what she calls her “north star”, a combination of her mission, vision, and core values. With that in mind she crafted her schedule for her business and family. As Tonya said in her interview, CEO does not mean chief everything officer! It’s important to delegate when needed. It’s not about saying no, but it’s about what you say yes to.
Tonya also spoke about the choice we have over our own lives. We chose how we spend the day, but as she points out, it’s important to zoom out and look at the hours in the week, rather than focus on the limited hours of the day. Productivity isn’t about doing more, it’s about what’s important to you.
Because moms are the CEO of business’, and often, the house, Tonya wrote her book for women. Her book will help you identify your priorities and organize your life with resources and printables. It was named one of the top 10 business books of the year by Fortune magazine.
You can buy a copy of Tonya’s book, The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less,here. Follow her on Instagram or Facebook @tonya.i.dalton.
What is the secret to scaling with joy? It’s simple- making more profit with less stress. To find out how to make more profit and work less, visit https://tenprofitdrivers.com. Yes, it’s possible to grow your company without adding on complicated programs, products or divisions. These are the same simplified growth methods that I have used over and over with my own private consulting clients and national brands, in info products, retail e-commerce, and service.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
This is the Scale with Joy show, episode three on the joy of missing out.
(00:08):
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.
(00:33):
Do you have one of those entrepreneurial friends where it doesn't really matter how long it's been since the last time you've spoken? When you do see the person again, you pick right back up where you left off. Well, Tonya Dalton is that friend for me and I know she's about to become that friend for you. She is real. She is authentic. She like me, has been there, done that when it comes to entrepreneurship, she's grown multiple six and seven figure businesses and her current business inkWELL Press has gotten rave reviews. In addition to that, she published a book last year called The Joy of Missing Out. How can you not love that title? And while this recording took place prior to her book actually launching, once it did, it received rave reviews. It was actually named one of the top 10 business books in 2019 by Fortune Magazine. Isn't that amazing? I can't wait for you to meet Tonya. You're going to find her inspiring and also very real about what it takes to actually raise a family and grow an empire. So I can't wait for you to meet my friend and colleague, Tonya Dalton.
(01:48):
Hey everybody! So I am here with Tonya Dalton. We have known each other for a long time and worked together in a previous life and Tonya is an incredible entrepreneur. She has an amazing story, much of what you can read about. But Tonya, tell us a little bit about your family. Tell us about, you know, what life is like at home for you.
Tonya (02:07):
Yeah, so I have two kids and a husband. So when I started my first business, my kids were littles, like literally playing at my feet while I was growing my business. And now my kids are 6"2. Jack is 16 and Kate is now 12, so they have really, since the very beginning, been a big part of not just my story personally, but also my business story because I've always made them a part of my business. I consider my business, even though it's a sole proprietorship, I consider it a family business. So my kids, they have time off in the summer. They come occasionally into the office and they make boxes or maybe they make gold foil cards, or they do all the different things because they really are an active member in my business. And I think that really has helped.
Laura (02:56):
I love that. And so when you were little, you were scaling your first business, which was when we used to work together and then you walked away and pursued a greater passion of scaling your second business. Can you tell us a little bit about that decision?
Tonya (03:09):
Yeah. Well cause it, it wasn't an easy choice for me. When you have a business, your business is like another child, right? Your biggest, brattiest, the one that screams out louder than all of the rest. And you love it and you nurture it and you pour your love and energy and focus into it, and then when you decide that you're going to close that business, it's really not an easy decision. It's a hard choice because you feel like, am I turning my back on this child that I've loved for so long. But, really for me, making that decision to move on to something that I truly was passionate about really was, while it was difficult, it was something I knew I needed to do because the business was doing fine. It was doing well; it was paying our bills. And just to give everyone a background, my husband is actually my CMO, so I'm CEO and he's my CMO.
(04:01):
So it was our sole income, paid our bills. It allowed my children to eat the three meals a day that they do demand. I mean, it paid for everything. And so to make this decision, to close that up and really focus in what I wanted to and what I would love to do, which is what I do now, that was a decision for our whole family. Which is why I think it helped that I always ran the business like a family business, because we sat the kids down, we talked to them about for us, right? Because we had to financially tighten our belts and then we had to work together to get this new business off the ground. So it wasn't an easy choice.
(04:36):
There was a period of, of mourning I had to go through that you know, I was sad that I was closing that business even though it was my choice, I was still sad. It wasn't, it wasn't easy. It wasn't simple. But I knew that what I was going towards, which was part of my North star was the path I was designed to be on. And it was the path that had always been waiting for me and I had just discovered it and now I was ready to be on it. And when you feel that way about what you do, when you feel passionate about the things that you're putting forth into the world, I think that makes all the difference. It makes those hard choices easier.
Laura (05:14):
Yes, and because so many of you may relate to this, I always feel like the decision to either try harder or walk away is one of the most difficult positions we face in life. Whether it's a relationship, whether it's a friendship, whether it is our business, right? Because you want to be able to develop that resilience muscle that gets you through the hard parts, but you also want to be realistic as to whether or not a situation is fixable. If you were to point to any one thing in addition that's your passion, because the photo jewelry business, I'm sure it came from a point of passion too, right?
Tonya (05:46):
It did, yeah.
Laura (05:47):
So what was the ultimate, like what got you over that tipping point of deciding, you know what, I'm going to take my street MBA, as we talked about, and apply it to something?
Tonya (05:58):
Well, I think the tipping point for me really was that when I would go to bed at night and I would think about what I had done in the day, I felt like what am I really doing for the world? And I think we have to back up a little bit and acknowledge that I used to be a teacher that was my former, former life, was being a teacher. And I think all of us who go into teaching, we do it because we want to help people, we want to impact lives, we want to make a difference. And while I was doing that for photographers, because I had a lot of education that I poured into, because I sold jewelry, but I also taught photographers how to sell them. I did a lot of things like that, that I wasn't feeling like it was fulfilling that part of me.
(06:39):
And so, for me, it was the process of sitting down and discovering what I call your North star, which is your mission, your vision, and your core values. I had to sit down and figure out what is it that I am passionate about? What is it that I love? And in doing that, I found that education, teaching, was a big part of that. Empowering women, because I was doing a lot of small business coaching and I was helping these women grow their businesses; I loved seeing those light bulb moments in their eyes. And then I love productivity because that's what allowed me to live that life, I was living with my husband working across the desk from me every single day, where we could move to Asheville, North Carolina, which is where we wanted to live, and everything else. And so I think for me it was really discovering what that North star was. That was my tipping point, was it all fit together, and it was like, oh, this is, this is what I meant to do. And I think that when you take the time to really understand your own priorities and your own unique desires, I think that is really powerful. And it allows you to have that tipping point so that you can walk away from those things that you have poured your time, energy and focus into.
Laura (07:50):
I had such a similar experience in business myself. So, and I always say that it shows up in the fruit, right? Like your decision and the outcome of that decision shows up in the fruit that you produce from each decision. Right? So tell us what happened within the first 18 months of starting that new business.
(08:08):
So we decided to close up the first business, really focus in on the second business and really focus in on growing it. And I did not move over my email list because I felt like that was not fair to take my customers from my old business and just expect them to follow me along. So I started with an email list of zero and I started really marketing and understanding who my customer was and then speaking directly to those women about the things that they were struggling with and the, the pain points they were having. And so the day before launch, I looked at my husband and I said, okay, this is either going to be amazing, or we are going to be living under a bridge in our car. And so, launch day came and we had 500 orders. About a month after our launch, we were named one of the top 10 Facebook campaigns of 2014, because we had done such strong marketing to really drive people to our products.
(09:06):
And then within 18 months, we were a seven-figure business. I had three employees, me, my husband, and one other person part time. And we grew to a seven-figure business. Eight months after my launch, I was approached by a billion-dollar company to see if I would partner with them because they said that what we were doing in our industry, which is a decades old industry, I'm in productivity and planning. They said, you know, we've been in this industry for 40, 50 years and you're doing something so unique and different, we want to partner with you. So then I ended up partnering, partnering with this billion-dollar brand, getting into national channels.
(09:45):
And so I think it all really does stem from, first of all, knowing that it was my passion, knowing I was excited about it, I was so, like, you can tell I'm already, I'm so excited about what I do. But then I also had that street MBA that you talked about. I had the breadcrumbs and all that experience that helped get me there. All those trials and tribulations, all the struggles, all the things that I had to muscle through from time to time, all of that I carried along with me. You know, you can look at closing a business as a fail that, okay, it's not continuing on, you've closed it up or you can look at it as this is my springboard and that's what it was for us.
Laura (10:27):
It's letting go of that either or, and thinking about it in terms of binary thinking, and I won't give a spoiler alert, but you do have a book coming out, which I'm very excited about. And they did get a little bit of a preview of it and that's very much what you mentioned. You talked about that binary thinking of it failed or it didn't fail. It was right or it was wrong. It was the path for me, or it wasn't the path for me. And ultimately that and/with allows you to make those types of transitions that can really catapult your career and most importantly, that sense of purpose. Cause think about how many people you help with that decision. And that is amazing. We were joking before we came before we came on that, we were probably one of your biggest customers. Cause at the time I had a seven-figure brick and mortar business. I had a children's portrait studio chain in the Philadelphia area. I don't know if we were your biggest customer or one of.
Tonya (11:19):
You were definitely one of the biggest, yes.
Laura (11:20):
Yeah, and so I went back to you a few months later and I said, what do I need to pay you to keep making jewelry for us? And you said no. And I was so happy for you, but you were just like, no. And I emailed you last night and I said, I was looking through my notes and thinking about that "no". Was that no hard at that time?
Tonya (11:41):
Yes. Absolutely yes. I mean, because you approached me and we closed our business, we hadn't quite launched the other business. So there's all this uncertainty, right? And you come to me, and say "could you just do it for us"? And, and I have to say, first of all, I loved not only were you a great client, but you were just fabulous on so many fronts because I just, I loved you. I love what you do. I loved all of that. And so that was a really difficult no for me, but it was made easier because I knew where I was going, and I knew that where I was going was the right path. And you touched on this, you know, with that whole idea of like a catapult or a springboard. In order for that to really have the full effect and to go as far as it can, you can't keep holding onto the ground.
(12:29):
You have to let go, right? You have to let go. So we can spring forward and you had that energy to go towards that life you really do want. So yeah, there are some really difficult no's that you have to say. I'm not going to pretend like choices are easy cause they're really hard, but choices are at the heart of who we are and how our day feels to us. I really believe in, we kind of touched on the fact that I have a book coming out, but choice is a big theme in there. I talk a lot about choice because we choose how we spend our day. We choose the life that we lead, we choose everything. And so I think that we lose sight of that. We lose sight of the fact that we have these choices. We feel stuck. We feel like there's certain things we're supposed to do or that we have to do and that we're just slogging through life. Kind of checking the boxes of like, yep, did that, did that. And instead of stopping and saying, wait, do I really need to do that, or do I want to do that? Or does my family want to do that? Right? We're so busy that we don't take the time to quiet ourselves down and really ask ourselves the deeper questions. Partially because, the deeper questions are hard.
Laura (13:40):
They are hard, and it's so much easier to go on autopilot cause then you don't have to feel what's happening in your business, which is really normal because we experience different emotions and we also have to choose to be different people at each inflection point. So all of a sudden, it's 18 months later, you built a seven-figure business with two and a half people, two of whom are in your family. Was there any point which you decided that, okay, now I'm a CEO, like I'm going to have to start choosing to be different, show up different. What was that like for you?
Tonya (14:14):
Yeah. What's interesting to me is that I like to describe myself, I liked, past tense, to describe myself as this accidental entrepreneur. I thought I was going to be a stay at home mom. I thought I was going to be a teacher. Let me be a stay at home mom. And then, oh, all of a sudden, I'm this entrepreneur. And so I described myself as this accidental entrepreneur and I think that that really undervalued who I was because it was like, oh, I just fell into this. And that's negating all of the work and all of this that I put into that. And so it really took me, actually at one point telling my story to this woman I had just met, she was asking me about what I did, and I was telling about "oh, I started this business and I did this business, and then I did this business."
(15:00):
And she was like, “oh my gosh, you are such an entrepreneur.” And I was like, “oh my gosh, I guess I am”. This isn't an accident. This is who I was meant to be. And I think sometimes we do get caught up in just the autopilots that we don't stop and look back and say, oh, okay, this has been the path I've been on all along, I just didn't realize it. Right? And so I did have to change way I felt about it, that I was CEO and I needed to take ownership of that. I needed to own that role and I think once I really began to do that and I realized that CEO didn't stand for "chief everything officer", that I needed to start delegating and I needed to start really thinking about who I could outsource to and relinquishing some of that control that we have sometimes over our businesses because they don't eat as well as we do. I think that really did help me and that mindset shift changed everything for me.
Laura (16:01):
What is the secret to scaling with joy? It's simple: making more profit with less stress. And to find out how to make more profit and work less, visit www.tenprofitdrivers.com or head to the link in the show notes where I share my top 10 favorite ways to create more financial margin and time freedom using the resources you already have. Yes, it's possible to grow your company without adding on complicated programs, products or divisions. These are the same simplified growth methods that I've used over and over with my own private consulting clients and national brands and info products, retail, eCommerce and service. That's www.tenprofitdrivers.com, also available in the show notes. Now back to the show!
(16:48):
What other limiting beliefs do you think, and I know you mentioned this in your book, that was like underneath that you had to surface to get that next level of scaling in your business?
Tonya (16:57):
Yeah, well I think we all have these stories that we tell ourselves. They're limiting beliefs, but we tell them like their stories because they're stories, they feel so innocent like, and I believe that these stories generally have "always" or "never" in them. "A good mom always does this", " a good friend never does this, right?" "A good boss always leads the office after her employees", whatever it is. So for me, my big stories was a good mom is home after school every day, bakes cookies for her kids is there 100% of the time because that's what my mom did. And so I thought this was what I needed to do. And the funny thing is that didn't really fit who I was. I love work. I love what I do. I love my kids. But at the same time, and I love being a mom. But I really love working. And so I had to change what a good mom looked like for me.
(17:55):
So, for me now, a good mom loves her children the best that she can, doesn't mean that I have to be lead volunteer and room mom for every event. Doesn't mean that I have to man every single carnival at the school and everything else. It means I do what I can. I'm a supporting volunteer. I'm there with my kids. I leave the office every day at three o'clock to come at home and take off my CEO hat and put on my CEO of the home hat and really focus in on my kids. So, changing the way I felt about those stories that I was telling myself made a huge difference. So I think a lot of times we have these ideas of what an entrepreneur is or what a business owner is or what a what a mom does.
(18:37):
Mom ones are the ones, I feel like the hand you your baby, and they're like, "and here's your bag of guilt to go with it". Don't forget this. And you're like, but it's so true. Like I feel like, you know, with our children, all that we're doing is really for them. We're role modeling what a strong woman looks like. We're showing our daughters what what's possible for you. We're showing our sons how women should be treated. We're showing, we're showing the world that women are just as capable of doing the things that men have done for centuries. And so that's actually one of the questions people have asked me about my book. They're like, I see it's directed towards women, but doesn't it apply for men as well? And I like to say, absolutely. But if you think about it, every productivity book out there has been written for men by men. And we've taken it and we've twisted it. And we've turned it and we've made it work for our lives because we are, most of us women are the CEO of the office and the CEO of the home. Right? And so we have a very different role that we play. And so this book is written for women. All the pronouns are she; the quotes are girls that, you know, it's, it's really designed, and it's directed towards women. Men can take it; they can twist it and turn it to work for their lives. But this book is for women
Laura (19:56):
And you are also a huge fan of giving yourself grace within that 24-hour period and not just saying that things have to happen at the same time every day in the same way. Can you talk a little bit about that too?
Tonya (20:10):
Yeah. Well we have this idea that we want balance and that's definitely one of the stories we've been told. People tell us, oh, work life balance. You're striving for balance. And to me, you do not want balance. We absolutely positively do not want balance in our lives. If you think about it, I like to say we have three areas of our life. We have work, home and personal life. Now if those are balanced, they're all perfectly even and equal, which means you're not really moving anywhere. To really move in any direction, to move forward, we have to lean forward, we have to counterbalance right and shift our weight forward and then we have to shift back and then we want to go a different direction, we shift another way and we shift back. It's okay to be shifting in these different directions. We just can't change over for a long time.
(20:59):
You know when you ride a bike and you turn a corner, you shift your weight, you stay shifted over, you're going to fall, right? You have to counterbalance back and it's the same thing in your life. You're going to have these periods where you are more focused on work. Then you lean back and then you focus more in home and then you lean back, and you focus more on work again maybe. Or you lean back, and you focus on personal. So it's this idea of let go of balance. If you're working for balance, you're not going to move in any direction. You're just going to be standing still. If you focus instead on harmony and you see that you can do this leaning forward and this leaning backwards, that really makes a huge difference.
(21:36):
When you start to look at your time instead of these 24-hour compartments to achieve this mystical balance where you're like, I got to, I got to spend time at work. I got to spend time on my personal area, I got to spend time in my home area, right? And instead you zoom out and you look at the 168 hours of our week, so much easier to find that harmony there that you know, maybe your idea of what a good mom is someone who's home for dinner. You know, with your kids, which I think is great, but if you're working in a business, especially when you're traveling, that's not possible. So any nights that you don't make it home, you think, oh, I'm the worst mom. I'm such a bad mom. Right? If you have harmony instead, and maybe you have a week where you know four nights you were able to make it home for dinner in three words. That's a win. That's harmony right there. Yeah, maybe you didn't make it home every single night, but you made it home the majority of the nights and really is it about the dinnertime hour or is it really just about spending time with your kids and your husband and your or your partner?
(22:40):
You know, what is it really about? Because, maybe you didn't make it home for dinner, but maybe you spent time at the park on Saturday or maybe you guys all went to a movie on Sunday afternoon. I really want women to stop feeling like there's these things that we have to do and instead look at our lives as the things that we get to do, the things, the opportunities that we have and the possibilities that are available. I feel like right now we're so tight in these little compartments of what we have to do and checking things off and focusing in on that to do list of three miles long, right? Running around busy all day long. And then when you go to bed at night, you feel unsatisfied and unsuccessful. You think to yourself, why didn't I get more done? Even though you were busy all day long. Right?
(23:29):
And that's the worst feeling in the world, to feel like you haven't done enough. But that's the thing, when you start to really look at harmony and you get rid of this idea of balance, that's when you really start to feel successful. When you stop focusing in on everything and instead choose to work on the things that really matter most to you. I like to tell people that productivity isn't about doing more. It's doing what's most important. It's taking 5 steps forward in the same direction instead of 50 steps in 50 different directions. That's where we feel good.
Laura (24:01):
Yeah. I always think about how I want my kids to remember their childhood. Like I don't know that they're going to remember you running in at five o'clock on the dot because it checked a box. I think they will remember a fun adventure or something unique that came up or mom always sent me to the movies on Sundays. Like those are the things that we remember from our childhood, and that's sectioning out time for your family.
(24:25):
One story that you had in your book that I loved was the idea of that you went on a plane with a notebook and a pen and that was it, because you needed to do some deep work and a lot of times leadership does not come with a checklist. Right? Management comes with a checklist. You can check things off the box, you know, for management, "talked to this employee, had my one-on-one, gave a performance review, delegated that task." But leadership is those unique things that don't come with a checklist that only you can do in your business, which is for most of us, the deep work. Tell me a little bit about how you organize your day into prioritizing that type of work. And I'll just say I thought that was gutsy. It would be very difficult for me to get on a plane without my laptop.
Tonya (25:11):
Well, I think that's the thing is cause a lot of times we'll default to things like scrolling our phone or getting on our laptop when there are times where really when we're wanting growth in our business or growth, even in our personal life where we need that white space, we need to give ourselves that time to just dream of what that vision of the future looks like. How am I going to work through this? I think that we really undervalue the idea of boredom. We think that we need to feel every single minute to not be bored. And we forget that in our own childhoods, perhaps, we rode in the car with no screens in the car and we looked outside the window and we dreamed, and we used our imagination, right? We went outside and we played. We didn't have video games all the time.
(25:56):
So because we had this unlimited vision and imagination, we were able to really think big. And I think that's the thing that's missing for a lot of leaders is, we're so busy thinking that we have to check our email, we need to check in with our team, we've got to micromanage this, we got to do all these things. We're not giving ourselves that space to really think about where do I really want to go? Where do I want to go with this business? How do I want to solve this problem? Because even though I'm sitting on the plane with an open notebook and basically probably an open mouth staring off, but it really allows your brain to go at this problem from all different angles and solve what I really needed to solve at that moment. And I think that that's one of the things that we need to allow that space for. We think that giving ourselves breaks is this reward for doing great work when really these spaces of time are requirements for great work to really happen. We need that space, not just for ourselves to feel good, but also to really drive ourselves and our businesses where we want them to go.
Laura (27:06):
Love that. And for so many people who are listening, they probably are like, okay, so Tonya went from kindergarten teacher to jewelry designer to 500 orders in her first week, so would you attribute that thinking time to your figuring it?
Tonya (27:28):
No, I do. I absolutely do because I think too, I gave myself that space before I started this first business and even if you've started your business already, giving yourself the space to really think about "what is it that I'm doing, where is it that I want to go and how do I want to get there?" Which are the components of your North star that I talk about, giving yourself that space really allows you to have a filter in a way because there's going to be lots of opportunities that come up. There's going to be lots of things that happened that you could say yes to. When you have a North star, when you know what you're doing, why you're doing it, how to do it, and you know where you want to go, you're able to really filter, is this a yes for me, or is this a no. It's not as easy. A lot of people preach that whole idea of, you know, you got to say no. You have to say no. And it's not about saying no. It's about finding your yes'. It's about what are the yes' that are right for you, and then letting go of the rest. And when you're able to do that, because you've given yourself that space to really think through your North star and then think through the opportunities, you're really able to make bigger strides in the direction you want to go.
Laura (28:39):
This is just, it's been such a wonderful conversation and Tonya and I are very much likeminded women, in the sense that we are both purpose driven and you can just make sure that you stay tuned for future speakers., in this series, I'm bringing on everybody that has that sense of who they are and also authenticity. They're telling real stories about real struggle. And my goal is for you to feel a little bit less alone as you grow scale your company.
(29:07):
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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.