#EP334: You are a Bad-Ass Time to Show Up Like One This Year

8:24PM Dec 29, 2021

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

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The biggest thing that I learned about myself out of this, and this is very vulnerable for me to share is that in a certain sense, I was accepting mediocrity, as Okay, and allowing that to infiltrate certain parts of how I was running the business and when I made that internal shift, it's like, everything changed and I'm sharing this story with you, because I think it can be a powerful shift for you when you are honest with yourself, and you stop blaming other things for your situation.

Welcome to Thrive by Design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this.

Happy New Year and welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy and host of thrive by design. If you haven't heard, I also wrote a book called the Desired Brand Effect. And I am excited to be here on the first Tuesday of the New Year. Happy New Year, friends, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and you got to spend some time with your friends and family or not, if that's not what you wanted to do whatever, I hope you just really had a great holiday season.

Now the beginning of the year and the end of the end of the year and at the beginning of a new year, I always like to kind of dive into some mindfulness and mindset stuff and the reason for that is that I think all of us can agree that it's been you know, last few years have been pretty heavy and we have a an opportunity to kind of reset, reinvigorate ourselves, set some new intentions, and launch into 2022 with some great things, you know, regardless of where we are in our lives in business, and, you know, I feel like it's kind of a mixed bag out there. Some people had an amazing year in 2021. And some people had a really tough year and it doesn't really matter because at the beginning of every new year, we have an opportunity to change and to be whoever it is that we want to be in this episode is all about that.

It's about owning your power and showing up and standing in your power in the new year. So I'm excited about this. Also, I have a free gift I've been given an out through the holidays, it is the first chapter of my book, the Desired Brand Effect, if you haven't picked it up yet, and you're wondering what it's all about, you don't even need to spend a penny, you can read the first chapter for free and then if you like it, you can grab a copy of the book for yourself.

We've been doing fantastic with sales, I'm super excited about this. It's an amazing resource for you and a bunch of people have told me that they put a bunch of sticky notes in it, they get out the highlighters, a couple people told me they bought two copies, one for a reference book, and one that they could read on their own and this is being recommended from people who are in the startup phase in their business all the way to a bunch of seven figure companies, which was so exciting to me, because I know oftentimes people think that the primary, you know, target market for the people that we work with over here, Flourish and Thrive Academy are startups. But that's not really the case, we have a whole segment of people who are badasses at business doing multiple six figures, and some of them multiple, seven figures, which is incredible and I'm here to support everyone and every step of the way, whether you're in the startup phase, you haven't really crossed your $100,000 mark or a year, annual sales or you're really scaling and growing your business to those next levels.

So I'm here for you peeps and with that being said, I'm here to help people get their creativity and mojo back, and I'm hosting a new retreat in March. And we're also hosting a boot camp at the end of the month, which I'm going to share both of those things at the end of the episode.

So this episode was inspired by me getting sucked in to partially getting sucked into some drama in my company. I'm calling it drama because I was just going through a little bit of a tough phase a couple of weeks ago and I called up my friend Barbara who does human design consultations, and I'm going to have her on the podcast this year. She's awesome and we were talking through some stuff that was going on in my astrological chart and with my human design and she's like Tracy, you really need to record an episode, and I know you've done this before but recorded episodes about helping people stand in their power and I wasn't really sure what the episode was going to be until I kind of thought through it and simultaneously, you know, I happened to get sucked into some news story about lockdowns and more mandates and masks and schools being closed, like all these things and then then I talked to my friend who lives in New York City, my good friend, Erin, who actually ended up staying at my place over the holidays and she's like, I can't deal anymore. I'm going nuts because if school gets closed again, like, I'm screwed with the kids, because it's really hard. I think for parents, especially when they're living in a big city, when things get locked down, if their kids can't go to school, I mean, it's just terrible. And so, you know, I feel you no matter where you are, like we're all as a universal culture, going through a lot right now and energy is heavy, but we don't have to let that energy weigh on us so much, because we can set ourselves free and that's what I kind of want to talk about today and talk about some of the ways that you can set yourself free, and be your own person, you know, while still abiding rules and laws if that's your thing, but also just kind of getting back to that place where you have full control and freedom over your decisions and choices, and you're not really operating out of what you think you should be doing. And obviously, I'm not suggesting that anyone be irresponsible, or, you know, do stupid things.

That's not what this is about. And hopefully it becomes clear as I talk about this episode, and walk through it. Now at the beginning of the year, as I mentioned before, I always like to talk about mindset. And we always have a bootcamp, which I'm going to share more about at the end of the episode. We don't even have the waitlist open yet, but it's called the Jewelry Brand Makeover bootcamp. It's going to be happening in the last month or the last week, excuse me of January, January. I think it starts January 24. And it's a three day bootcamp with a bonus masterclass. We have a new masterclass for you this year, I'm super excited about it and we're going to walk you through some of the things that you need to do to kind of reset, recharge, and give your jewelry brand and makeover.

So you're really up leveling everything that you're doing as a jewelry business owner. And one of the things that I like to talk throughout the week that we're doing that boot camp, is to talk about what success mindset looks like and success is really an internal game and that's something that I really want to drive home. If you get anything out of this episode, it's that success is an internal game and it's time for you if you want to be successful, whatever that means to you. Because success is also individual, you know what success looks like, for me might not be the same thing that it looks like for you. But it's time to show up like a badass and actually do all the things that you want to do this year. Some of the most talented people listening to the show today may never reach their goals. I know that sounds weird, but that's the truth. Because as a creative person, if you're operating under a belief system that shapes your reality that's not conducive, it's not conducive to growth, then you might be self sabotaging and not even realizing it. Because a lot of times these beliefs and programming that we have, from childhood, from the news from whatever it is, it's running in the background, and we don't even acknowledge it, you know, there, they will remain nameless. But there's a couple of news stations that honestly, I can't even believe that people watch anymore, because it's not even the news. It's just a bunch of opinions. And it's not in most of it's not factual based, in fact, and so the design, you know, if you listen to people like Noam Chomsky, and other people who talked about programming and using, like public announcements and stuff like this, this is by design, so that people can so that people can be controlled, and there will be people who who see that and there'll be people who don't see that. And there's plenty of books about this, I'm not going to go into who Noam Chomsky is. But if you want to learn about him, you can read about his philosophy and what he the work that he was doing to create programming, there's a reason why they call it programming, right?

To get people to kind of follow the leader, and being an entrepreneur and being a creative and carving your own path, which I think entrepreneurship is a journey, not a destination, right? It requires you to step up to be brave, to be your own person to be your own boss, and to be able to always be breaking out of the binds or the bounds that keep you small. And at different stages in business, you're going to hit different kinds of glass ceilings or be put in different kinds of boxes. And it's your job if you want to do great things in this world to smash out of that. And for instance, great things for someone like me might be speaking on a stage in front of 10,000 people cuz that's like a goal of mine. I also want to have a TED talk with 20 million views, which I didn't realize that when I stated that goal that that top TED talk so 20 million views as some work to do, I first have to get a TED talk, you know, the whole thing. But at the end of the day, this is a constant journey of self discovery and success mindset is an exploration into yourself. And its exploration into busting the the, the internal bounds that we have on ourselves so that we can grow and this all starts with the beliefs that we were raised with. And the belief systems or the operating systems that we have running underground.

So your beliefs about yourself, might actually be the difference between you reaching your goals or not reaching your goals this year. I know that sounds weird, because a lot of times, we're like, all, well, you want to blame it on a situation or things happen. And that's all true. But if you're getting, like, for instance, I'm going to give you an example. Last year was a really rough year for me personally, and my company. And there's a lot of stuff going on inside the business, I had to fire a couple people on my team, and let them go because of I don't totally want to get into it, I doubt they're listening to this podcast. But for whatever reason, we felt like they were not being honest, and also not operating out of integrity. And the problem with that is that, that infiltrates into the company and we build a company culture over at Flourish and Thrive and Creative Launchpad, which is my holding company of accountability, of integrity of operating from a place of, you know, excellence, and we weren't operating in that way for a while. I mean, maybe on externally, people didn't totally see it, but there was a lot of things happening, that were like causing problems with, for instance, like emails not getting responded to in a timely manner by the new support person that was trained or, you know, the the tech setup properly in a way. So like the way what I'm talking about, it's actually ends up infiltrating into everything that you do and so there was a moment for I'm saying a moment cuz it was actually several months where I felt like a victim and I was stressed out all the time, freaking out having panic attacks and it was really hard to break out of it. But until I realized, Oh, this is just a story and a pattern.

Now it's time to lead instead of being reactive, that allowed me to shift the energy and change and it was very hectic for anyone who works for me and is listening to this. There was a period of time when we were working on a very bootstrapped team, as we were trying to hire a bunch of new people, we're practically fully staffed now, which is awesome. But it's stressful, and, and those things are going to happen in business. And while sometimes, you know, it's just part of the process, these little setbacks are the things that are challenges in business in life, are actually our biggest teachers. The biggest thing that I learned about myself out of this, and this is very vulnerable for me to share is that, in a certain sense, I was accepting mediocrity, as OK, and allowing that to infiltrate certain parts of how I was running the business. And when I made that internal shift, it's like, everything changed. And I'm sharing this story with you, because I think it can be a powerful shift for you. When you are honest with yourself and you stop blaming other things for your situation, even though the challenges are going to still happen. I'm not saying that they won't like I expect to have many challenges this year. And at the same time, you know, I'm going to use those challenges as a lesson. So it's really important that as you're kind of leaning into success mindset and developing an internal operating system, creating one that actually supports your goals. And when you do this, it allows us to see these challenges as opportunities and creates an understanding that there are many ways to reach the same outcome, there are many ways to reach the same outcome.

And to best highlight this. I'm going to share just a little example. And what you think about this, what makes a difference between someone who had a terrible upbringing, with I'm going to say lackluster conditions or poverty, maybe they were raised in poverty. What makes someone like that become a multimillionaire when they had no funding, they didn't have any support from their family, they maybe were raised by drug addict parents, or a single parent, or whatever it might be. What's the difference between that person who ends up being uber successful and reaching all their goals and living a full robust life and someone who grew up with privilege and opportunity and never sees their own success because they grew up a little bit more entitled and expecting everything to be handed to them. And so they end up you know, I have a friend who has a brother, they grew up with great, like opportunity. She is highly successful, a fully functioning human being so grateful, like one of the most generous people I've ever met. And she has a brother who grew up quite or who you that same situation he sits in at home all day, He's severely overweight, he smokes weed all day and does nothing and he's like 45 years old.

What's the difference between those two people, exact same parenting, exact same upbringing, everything. So it's really about your decision to stand up and be a badass, right? It's about taking the opportunity or your situation, whatever it is, and showing up for yourself. Because I think the key distinction here is that when you operate from success mindset, you have the power within you to overcome adversity, change your situation at any given time, and do amazing things with your life and your business. And I want to tell you, it's never too late. Even if you notice that you flip back and forth, and you do it and you feel the whole wave of emotions, all the things, it's never too late.

So today, the goal of this podcast is to just give you some simple tools that you can use to transcend your current reality. So that you can step into your higher self and be the badass that you are meant to be. And if you're already feeling like a badass, then I want to help you up level to your next next level. So let's raise you like a couple more levels of badass. Does that sound good? Give me a heck yes, as you're driving or working on your bench, or wherever you're listening to this. And let's move on. So the first step of this is to identify the beliefs or stories that you tell yourselves or others tell you that you believe about yourself, that are no longer serving you. So in my book, I created a couple of stories that I'm going to just bring up here, maybe it's that it's hard to make money as an artist, maybe it's that if you share your ideas, someone might steal your ideas. Maybe it's that if you're an artist, you must be starving. Maybe it's that creatives aren't good at business, maybe you think that you maybe have an imposter syndrome, like you're not good enough talented enough or have enough connections to make your business successful, whatever it is.

Now, obviously, those are just a few, a lot of us there are many, many beliefs or stories that don't serve that you might have. And so they when you when you're holding on to these things, and they're operating in the background, they can be really powerful motivators, and really powerful. Like basically, creativity, crushers, I guess is the best thing, or success, crushers, maybe it's even been a better way to put it. So what I want you to do, not while you're driving or working at your bench, but I want you to come back to this podcast, maybe hit that little Save button later. And I want you to make a list of all the non serving beliefs that you have that and I want you to create a positive affirmation to flip those beliefs into something else. So flip the script on this Mindset by creating an opposite belief. So it's hard to make money as an artist might be making money as an artist is my right. Or I deserve it. I deserve to make money as an artist, community and collaborating. Or maybe it's that I if I share my idea, someone will steal it. Community and collaborating with other artists helps everyone rise up. If you're an artist, you must be starving. I'm a thriving artists. And I'm here to show the world my value and get paid for it. Creatives aren't good at business might turn into creatives are the best people in business, because that's really the truth, let me tell you, or I'm not good enough, talented enough or even have enough connections. If you're in that imposter syndrome situation, then maybe you say something like I'm amazing at and then insert the blank, find some things that you're awesome at. And I'm striving for progress, not perfection, flip the script on your mindset and create the opposite belief system. And then if you find some that really resonate with you, what I like to do is to make a list and then you can repeat themselves, those yourselves 25 times in the morning and 25 times in the evening, or record yourself saying it and listen to it. It's a really powerful exercise.

The second part of this is to identify how or where you are operating out of fear. I kind of referenced this earlier, but there's a lot of fear going around now with you know, new variants and all the things and people really scared. You know, like I was sharing the story of my friend, she's freaked out like if the school is close again, what is she going to do because she's the one who has to still work full time and take care of the kids because she works from home. So it's challenging. And as I mentioned, these last few years have been heavy and I think people in one way or another are pretty much over hearing about this I don't know about you, but I cannot stand hearing about another mandate or variant or whatever it's like everyone should just do what they feel comfortable with doing and we can let it be we are grown people and we've realized that at this point in in the game, some of these being so strict and all this control might may or may not actually be affecting the outcomes that people are seeing, you know, and you know, you can take it or leave it and it's okay if you disagree with me. That's totally fine, you can feel free to send me a message on Instagram, if you want to tell me I'm wrong, I don't care, I have my belief system that I'm operating out of. And I know my number one core value is freedom and personal choice. And I think that's important, and to be smart about your decisions. And the reason why I believe in this is because if you don't free yourself, and start operating from a place of growth and success mindset, it becomes really hard to own your power if you give it away, right.

So you can still follow all the rules, and own your power, I just think if you're giving it away, and following the leader, just because that's what you're told to do, it can be really disempowering and pull the power away from you. I mean, you're the only person, let me just say this, again, you can give their power away. And that's the truth. And I know we've all been there. I know, in 2020, I was giving my power away a lot because I was terrified. And then I realized maybe there's not that much to be afraid of I've been traveling the world and doing all the things I've been. And I feel really free, which is awesome. So I just I just the point here is to really get you to thinking about like, how can you step in and own your power and create your own and make those personal choices that are right for you. And that is going to be different for everyone out there. And so let's talk about some of the fears that might be out there that kind of trickle into everything that you do. And I want you to really acknowledge which ones are true for you.

So I'm going to talk about some common ones. One is a feeling fear of failure. Another is a fear of rejection, which trickles into this next one, a fear of asking for the sale, a fear of being an outcast, if you state your opinion, or own your truth, right? A fear of being called names or being called out. A fear of dying, a fear of abandonment, a fear of hurting someone else's feelings, or a fear of insert whatever feeling you have here, and this is all about, you know, overcoming these fears and just stepping in to who you're supposed to be. Because what if it was only fear? And that none of this was really true, right? How would you change your current reality, if you were able to just say to yourself, and address the fears, the the legitimate fears that you're having whatever they might be, because fears obviously run deeper. So these are pretty generalized fears that people are experiencing in real time that are universal. But at the same time, what if you were to address these fears one by one, and identify which wasn't working for you.

So your action step here is to stop giving away your power to other people. Start setting boundaries and own your power, because you are a badass. And so I want you to write down a list of all the ways that you can, that you have been letting fear eat into your life, and or your business and take control over you. Write down a list of all the ways that you're letting fear eat into your life and take control over you. And this is also runs into your business as well. And then I want you to write down one thing that scares you and terrifies you that you're going to try. Within the next week. I'll give you an easy one, go ask for a sale from someone.

Now, step number three of this process is to write out your badass list. Now one of the worst things that people do is they focus on their weaknesses. I've talked about this on so many podcasts, instead of the things that they're really good at. You know, and this is really, really important. And one of the things, sometimes it drives, it's used to drive Jason crazy because like, I'm not good at a lot. But I'm really good at certain things. And I know my strengths. And I also know what I'm not good at. And that's why I am really good at delegating to other people. That's why I had a team for most of my working career. I knew that in order to grow and be the entrepreneur that I wanted to be I was always going to have someone working for me whether it was like just a personal assistant or a part time production manager.

Now I have a team of about 10 people and I do this because I know that my biggest gift is my creativity and my ability to create strategy and ideas and help people with their businesses. My strengths are not like figuring out the system, the broken systems or the tech in my company. It's just not and so the first things that I had always hired out were these things that were really complex for me to handle because they were over my head in a way. So with that being said, You are really amazing at a lot of things. And I want you to acknowledge those things right now. And maybe it's it's written in the form of a gratitude list. Maybe it's written in the form actually may change that written in the form of a badass list.

Like, what's your badass list? Maybe this is the exercise for the new year, right? A badass list every single day, five things that you are a badass at? And I want you to think through this lens. What are your biggest strengths? Where are you naturally talented in business? What is the thing that makes you an incredible friend or partner? Why do people want to buy from you? And then the list goes on. Right? Keep writing that list, I want to know I want you to share it with me, I want to know your badass list. So find me on Instagram, reach out, share with me your badass list and tell me what you think's amazing. You can find me over @TracyMatthewsNY or you can find me over @flourish_thrive. Either of those places you can find me I'm on Instagram, often. And I want to I want to hold the space for you to write your badass list.

And then the fourth step of this, I mentioned this in an episode over the last few weeks is to visualize what you want. This is important part of the process, the visualization can happen in the meditation, the visualization can happen in a journal entry. The visualization can be something that continues to filter through the New Year. And I just want to remind you that this visualization exercise can take anywhere from five to 10 minutes a day. If you're writing, maybe you take 15 minutes, but I want you to set some beautiful music on without lyrics. And I want you to imagine what is my perfect day look like? What is my body look like? As I'm waking up to bed? What's happening in those first few moments of the day? How am I starting my morning? How am I showing up for myself? What's my morning ritual? Like? How am I showing up for my kids or my family? How am I interacting with my partner? How are we connecting? What am I doing every day in my business? Like what? What kind of work am I doing? How much money am I making? How much money am I taking home? Like, am I reaching my goals? Who are my strategic partners? What companies do I work with? Who are those people that I just feel so aligned with that we're just doing great things in the world, I want you to think through that lens because this is a really powerful way for you to just get out of your own way and remember who you are.

Because at the end of the day, you are a freakin badass. Everyone here listening to this podcast is a badass. And I want to remind you of that. So it's time to take back your power and to own it if you've given it away. If you haven't, it's time for you to uplevel into your next level of powerful existence and be the person that you always wanted to be. So I want to remind you I said I mentioned at the beginning of the show that I was going to share a couple of things. The first is the Jewelry Makeover bootcamp. I don't believe we started the waitlist yet but you can check the show notes. And we will have a link eventually in the show notes for that it

starts on January 24. And we're bringing it back. It's the most popular boot camp we've ever done over here at flourish and thrive Academy. It's back by popular demand with a facelift or a booty Booty liftI should say bootcamp lift. And it's going to be better than ever. And we you also get a bonus new masterclass that you're going to love. It's all about helping you elevate your brand, to use six figures and beyond. So if you're trying to grow your company, and get those consistent, predictable sales, you're definitely going to want to check it out more information in the coming weeks. And then also, I would love for you to if you're already doing over six figures and you want to be coached by me and spend four days with me in Scottsdale, Arizona here in March. I would love to support you I'm hosting my first creatives world a world luxury experience. That experience is from March 7 through 11th.

We're going to be spending three and a half days going through a series of mindfulness work of meditation and movement, a series of art and creative exercises and a series of business masterminding the idea behind this. This is really my calling I believe. The idea behind this is to help entrepreneurs who are growing and doing big things in the world, whether you're a product business owner or a jewelry business owner, or even just a service provider, and you're ready to kind of take on the world but you've been doing all the things you've been the doer of all things in your business and you're starting to burnout and you've kind of lost that creative juice or Mojo Mojo. I am here to help you get it back and move forward with reinvigoration and spirit and just enjoyment in your life. So if that sounds good to you, then I'd love to invite you to join. You can the best way right now to get more information about that is to reach out to me on Instagram and shoot me the word creativity camp, I'll know exactly what you're talking about over @TracyMatthewsNY, and I'll send you the application, its application only, it's limited to 10 people, I already have two of the spots filled in the early, early enrollment, I haven't really promoted this at all.

So it's, I think it's gonna fill up fairly quickly. So if you're interested in learning more about that, make sure that you reach out to me, it's going to be fun. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this show today. If you haven't done so yet, make sure that you download the first chapter of the Desired Brand Effect, you can head on over to https://desiredbrandeffect.com/chapter1/ chapter and the number one, or just head over to the https://desiredbrandeffect.com/chapter1/you can download the first chapter for free right there. And if you like it, go ahead and buy my book. It's awesome.

Thanks for listening today. I so appreciate you. And I so appreciate that you have been supporting me for all these years. So if you haven't done so yet, share your thoughts and give us a little rating and review over on Apple podcasts. five star rating and reviews help push this show out to other people just like you and I'm trying to get this in front of as many jewelry and product makers and other ecommerce entrepreneurs as possible. So your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks so much, and I'll chat with you soon.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive.