I have a lot of clients who will shoot me a text and say, "Hey, can I just pick your brain?" And I mean, of course, I'm
always going to show up for my clients, but my time and my skill set are valuable. And so, the the can I just pick your brain? It's like asking someone, Rita, you could probably relate. Hey, will you just photoshop this picture real quick? It's like for the right price, I'll do whatever you want. Yeah. Right. Photoshopping it real quick. It doesn't happen. This is what it cost. Yeah. No. [Music] [Music] Hi, welcome to the second episode of Illumine podcast. I am Kim Peters and I am your host. I am the owner of Horizon Medspa and Wellness in Shaunie, Kansas as well as Kansas City, Missouri. I have two locations and today we have Kimberly Holder with us. Hi, I'm Kimberly Holder. I own Studio Holder and I provide elevated marketing services for women led businesses. Cool. All right. And Lori Holland. Hello. My name is Lori Holland. I own geriatric primary care which is an internal med geriatric private practice and we provide care to senior living communities in Johnson County, Missouri and also Indiana. And we have Rita Clark. I own Heirloom Photo Company. We do business branding and head shot for businesses. And then we do event photography for anything but a wedding. No weddings. No weddings. Got it. So I have brought these lovely women together because I love and admire something about each one of them. Um and we all run our own businesses and we have been doing it for a while and we all have different scenarios. Um Lori has a a big business with lots of staff. And then I know that Kim is kind of just working for herself and she's got family with young kids. Rita's kind of in between, right? Okay. And I've got staff as well and my kids are a little bit older. So, this podcast is meant to just kind of all talk about what life is like being a woman in business and having families and other things that we got to deal with. So, on that note, one of the subjects I really wanted to talk about was balance. I think this is the bigger question that people ask all of the time and there's no way that you can there's no one recipe that fits with everyone, right? So, everybody has a different situation. You have older kids, younger kids, no kids, um a business that demands a lot from you, a business that doesn't, uh kids that need more from you, or a husband that does. And I think all of us struggle to find balance. I think it's an ongoing battle. And so, I kind of wanted to talk about what you guys um experience in terms of balance, what is your challenge, and kind of where are you at with that? I think one of the best parts about what you do and what was really comforting to me is how comfortable I felt with you going over everything. It's literally a sheet. It tells you exactly what's happening. And there were many things we could do, but you let me decide. You educated me around what I could do. I think what really struck me when we first met was you said that confidence radiates into all areas of your life. So the transformation of, you know, someone just even getting Botox, then they're feeling more confident in their personal life. they're feeling more confident to go out and then to then be able to not have somebody push things on you and you choose what you want. But this would be options and I love that about everybody on your team. If you are ready to feel like the best version of yourself, you need to visit Horizon. We have an amazing group of professionals that specialize in helping women and men feel like the best version of themselves, both the inside and out. So visit horizonmedspaandwwellness.com and you can book an appointment with us. That's horizonmedspaandwwellness.com. Uh it's a huge challenge for me as the bigger your business grows. But I think at any level I look back and when we were smaller and I still was working 70 80 hours a week. I mean a lot. And I still I still am. Um and at this point in my life with my kids older, they're grown. Um I don't have to be at home as often. I am. It's a challenge to take time for myself and Kim knows that very well. We we are we're constantly trying to find time to get together and one of us always cancels at some point. Correct. Yeah. Lots of hey, I've got to reschedule. I feel like there's a mutual understanding. There is a mutual understanding. I think I said that to someone re recently where they said, "Hey, I've got to reschedu this." Um and I said, "You know what? If anybody understands that, it's myself." Now, I know when we talked the other day, you were talking about how balance is something that you're really working on right now. Yeah, leaning into for sure. I in my entire adult life, this is the first time that I've had one single stream of income. I mean, from the time I was on my own, I was working three jobs. Um, it's always been that way. I've had a career and I've been freelancing. And so, um, when my daughter was born, she's 9 months old now. I made the difficult and bittersweet decision to leave behind corporate America. And I call myself a mreneur now. So hanging out with my kiddo at home. Um I have a son who's eight as well. And um yeah, and then I work during nap times. And so for me it really comes down to having a strict schedule with myself. Um having boundaries around when I'm working, when I'm focused on my family. Um and I'm really enjoying leaning into just a slower pace of life. This is the first time that I really feel pulled towards that. And it kind of goes against the grain of how I'm wired. Um I grew up with a mom who was an incredible entrepreneur and and so I've always just had this mentality of go go and do all the things and so I'm still doing all the things, but a lot of them are, you know, cooking for my family and hanging out with my daughter and going to baseball games for my son and Yeah. But still getting to do what you love to do. Exactly. Well, Rita had an interesting balance today when um you're shooting, right? Yes. And then they and she knew she was going to come here to do this podcast and today they sent her an email saying, "Hey, could you be here?" Yeah. Right in the middle. Right. So, we had actually I had already talked earlier in the week about how I was going to navigate the drive time between the shoots and between the shoots to be here for this. And then I wake up. I'm at my first shoot. My assistant looks at me and she's like, "Hey, you're 3 p.m. Actually, we need you there at 11:00 a.m. and I'm in I'm over by the Elms shooting branding for them over there. I'm supposed to do a business branding phone call on the way to here." Right. And they're like, "Oh, our CEO changed and he's going to be here at 11." And so, you know, you're just The balancing act for me is like a true act. Yeah. It's like everybody's like, "Oh, you can have it all." It's such Okay. You can't have it all. And it's true. It is an act. It's like you have these plates here and you're like, "Oh, I'm doing great. Have a lot of quality time with my son. Things are going good." And I'm like, "Oh I got to send those invoices. Oh, I got to get back on the editing." And so it's, "Oh, I'm taking care of myself. I'm working out. This is so much fun." And then I'm like, "Oh I didn't edit these photos." And so, you're exactly right. Um, it is a balancing act. And so when people say balance, balance, balance, it's it's where do you want to put it that day? And you just have to decide where you want to be mediocre and where you want to be great. and yeah, and be okay with that. Somebody I I remember it was probably a podcast or something I was watching or listening to and somebody said that, you know, how do you and and people say this to me, they're like, I don't know how you do it all. Um, you do it all so great. And I'm like, well, I mean, it appears that way, but inevitably, if I'm succeeding in one area of my life, I am failing in another. And that could not be more true. Um, I love being a career person, but I also love my kids. and I want to spend time with them in the season that they're around. I want to be intentional with them, but I also want them to grow up seeing me work hard and what that takes and that it is possible to have a family and a career. But I would say I will never perfect it. It will always be, for lack of a better term, trying to balance. So, I think I think that just goes out to encourage people that there's just not there really is no such thing as balance. You just kind of have to figure it out. And what you said, it's just a daily thing. It is how am I going to balance it today? Yeah. All right. So, what do you love about what you do, Kim? Yeah, I'll go first. Um, I absolutely love working with women uh women's businesses. Um, I when I first started doing marketing freelance, again, when I was working, uh, in corporate America, I would just kind of say yes to everything. And a lot of times that meant I was saying yes to like, I don't know, like a heating and cooling company and like some random person doing XYZ, whatever. And it turns out that I don't actually enjoy working for like or working with those kinds of clients. And so honing in on my niche and um you know discovering who I really want to work with, I think has been really rewarding. And as women, we are kind of just always doing it all. And so if I can take one thing off of, for example, your plate, Kim, um to allow you to invest in something else, that brings me joy. That's what I love. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I don't I love everything about owning my own business. Like I love the concept of it and I love that I own my own business, but that I don't love everything that's in it particularly. Um, what what about you, Lori? Well, I it hasn't changed in the six, seven years I've owned this business is I went into it as a nurse practitioner wanting to elevate other nurse practitioners and continue to um without going into a long history of of how and nurse practitioners are reimbursed, how they are in clinically in in clinics, hospitals. That was really what I wanted to do was to elevate them to a different level, provide them the autonomy, have them make more money than what they could make um in the corporate setting. And that hasn't changed. Um it's just not as easy as there's a lot of other factors that come in there. And Kim's right. I mean, I could not go back to working corporate. Um I love what I do. Um that has not changed. There's just it's just been a rocky road for sure. So, I know that you're you have scaled a lot in your business where we started um actually Lori and I went to school together and so we both started as little baby MPs. Yeah. We've grown together and and developed into our own businesses and um she has scaled immensely but with scaling like you do want to be individual with each one of your employees and you want to treat them how they they individually need to be treat I mean everybody needs to be treated well. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that like how you work with them might be different than you work with somebody else, but as you grow and get bigger, then you have to look more into being fair. Correct. So, as I've grown, I have, you know, a number of estheticians and a number of injectors and a number of NPs and they're all individual and they're all different and they have a different work ethic and they have a different schedule and they have a different personality. But then as you get bigger, you still have to treat them fairly. But then you're like, but the same formula doesn't apply to each staff to make them to help them thrive. And so I think that's something I struggle with. Like I love creating an opportunity for staff to do exactly what they want to do. Creating that platform and that toolkit for them, but I met with this challenge of do I do it this way or do I do I treat them individually or do I treat them fairly across the board? Do you have you have staff, right? Yeah. And I think it the difficult thing with having anybody help you is releasing that they're not going to do it like you, which is beautiful and terrifying, right? Like they can teach you things while you're teaching them, which is amazing, but you have to let go of like a type A behavior. But then the like one of the best things about staff is that they bring things to the table that you don't, right? Like I love working. I don't like running a company. So there's a big difference between working your company and running your company, right? So, I love to work. I love to shoot. I love to edit. I like to people. I hate shareholder distributions. I hate payroll. I hate contracts. I hate I just hate I don't want to do all that. And so, some people like Kim, she's like, "I love all of it. I don't love all of it. I love working." And so, I don't think that people when they're first starting understand that those are two very different Yes. Um skill sets, running a company and working it. You know what I mean? Right. Well, you know, when I went to NP school, I somehow totally missed the class on how to do social media and I missed the class on how to do sales, um, of how to market to people. I just I don't know why I just totally miss those classes, but I still graduated. I don't know. Me, too. Running a business. Um, I mean, my business thrived because I believe because of my skill set as an nurse practitioner and how I treat patients and how much I care about that. But of course with running a business, you've got to learn all the other stuff along the way. That being said, what do you what do you guys not like about what you like? What's the what's the thorn in your side about running a business? Kim knows mine. I mean, Kim knows because everybody else doesn't. Everybody I hate firing people. I hate it. I hate it. Who likes that? Some people No, some people are just good at it. They understand how to do it and they have no problem. I struggle with it. I struggle with the conflict of it. Um, yeah, you were going through venting to me about, you know, but you gave me great advice. So, I want you to say that. So, I asked her, um, "Okay, I want you to think about cuz she was having trouble with this employee, and what I could hear was everything she was struggling with, but I couldn't hear anything that she was that was successful with this employee that this boy wasn't doing anything." Granted, when you're mad, you might just see red, but I was like, "Well, okay, but she's fighting so hard to make amends with this staff member to to make this work." And I'm like, but why are you trying to make something work that's not working for you? And in turn, so I said, okay, I want you to think like if she didn't work for the company anymore, would you be sad? Would you be missing something? And she said, "No." And I was like, "Well, then there's your answer." And hard conversations are hard. They're hard. Um I I would say that's something I've learned is that hard conversations get easier if you just have them. And if you can just start doing that, I would ne I don't think they'll ever be easy. Um, but I've definitely gotten to a place where they don't intimidate me anymore. Um, every time I have a hard conversation, everything gets better. Sometimes it's only better for me, but oftent times it's actually better for the staff and myself because we both now have clear understanding of the expectation and I'm understanding what theirs is of me and we can create a better working relationship and it's it's always So then once you kind of get that like, yeah, oh, this is good. um then you're okay with that. I still don't like them. Yeah. But I'm No, it was great advice you gave me and I agree and it does get easier. I still don't like to do it, but you look at what's for the greater good and for what your goals are and does that person fit into that and Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's similar with having clients in a consultation based business. Um you know, does this client align with me? Is this the kind of person I really want to be working with? this is, you know, my time is valuable and again I'm juggling things between between uh, you know, during nap time. So, do I really want to spend my hour and a half that my child's napping working with this one client, you know? Um, for me, the struggle is setting boundaries with people and setting boundaries with clients. Again, I used to say yes to everything. Um, I have a lot of clients who will shoot me a text and say, "Hey, can I just pick your brain?" And I mean, of course, I'm always going to show up for my clients, but my time and my skill set are valuable. And so the the can I just pick your brain? It's like asking someone, Rita, you could probably relate. Hey, will you just photoshop this picture real quick? It's like for the right price, I'll do whatever you want. Yeah. Right. Photoshopping real quick. It doesn't happen. This is what it cost. Yeah. No. I'm like, we're at our time. You want me to stay? It's this amount. I'm very clear. And I think when people can really step into understanding their value and that takes time. It took me a solid decade to be like this is my value and this is how much I'm worth because it doesn't work to just like wake up and roll right out of college and be like pay me money. Yes. We can't pay you money because you don't know what you're doing yet. Right. Right. So you're going to get paid the money when you know your but you don't know your yet. And so that's also happening. Right. Like you'll have staff who think that they should make like I did an interview and the lady was like I'd be happy to take a pay cut if we're going to start around 70. I'm like you want me to pay you $70,000? You live with your mom. You're still in school. Like I'm not going to pay you 70 grand to teach you how to run your own company because I know you're going to leave in two years. Right. Right. And so that's a whole another concept. But if somebody's like, "Pick your brain." I'm like, "Deal, an hourly rate. Here it is. You want to talk tomorrow at 9:00 or next?" And I give them two times. Anytime people text me that, she knows. Everybody knows. It's like it's it's valuing yourself so that other people value you. Yep. Okay. Well, if you were to go back and do anything differently, what would it be? Let me start. I'll start. I So, I do have a business partner um who is 50%. I There are some things that I would I had a gut reaction to that I wish I could change. The the only thing with that is I did learn a lot from that. So I am hindsight where I am today very different but some of the things were following my gut that I wish I would have said no to to my business partner and I didn't. I I can say that for a lot I I don't have a business partner. Um and I'm I'm more and more glad I never did. Yeah. You know, I I would say there is a lot of struggle, especially at the beginning because you wish you had another brain. You wish you had another pair of hands. You wish you had another um source of income, you know, financial investment. Gosh, if I could cut all of that in half, how, you know, I would have been more successful. But at the same time, then I've got to split it all with that person. And I find myself um after doing this for as long as I have that there's very few people in the world that I think I would line up perfectly that it wouldn't cause me more stress than you know uh than relief or help. And so I'm glad that I did that. I think for me, I can't say that I would have left corporate America sooner because I think I learned so many valuable skill sets and I really had no intention of ever, you know, being a being an entrepreneur. But, um, but I'm glad that I did it. You know, I'm glad that I stepped away from my career and I'm now focusing on and working for myself. Um, I, you know, it's so freeing. I have so much freedom over my time in my schedule and time with my family. Yeah. You get to pick which 16 hours you'd like to work today now. Exactly. Yeah. So, I kind of remember what I was going to say the that even in even if you had a partnership or even just that you were working with somebody in particular on, you know, um hiring somebody or working alongside somebody on something. I realize more now I've learned so much more about things that can go wrong is that I'm much better about establishing expectation and creating those boundaries for myself than I was before. And I'm better at saying no to things that I'm not comfortable with. I say when I first started hiring people, it was definitely more of I was just happy that they were going to join me and help me that I kind of got walked over a little bit. Um, and I don't I wouldn't even say it was their fault either. I think we were all just trying to figure that out. I wouldn't really blame anybody for that. But I just realized like when I look back, I'm like, I can't believe I put up with that. I can't believe I was okay with that. But now it's it's my direction so much clearer. So like would I do something differently? I'm sure I could pick out a few things, but honestly, where I'm at and how how much sharpened I am now, I wouldn't change for anything. And you went through all of it. Exactly. which is kind of the point of this podcast is I kind of want to like share this with other people like don't do this, do this. Yeah. What about you? Anything different? [Music] Move this closer again. There you go. I think if I could do anything different, I would get a my space sooner. I didn't have a studio until a few years ago. And being able to have a space where I can control the lighting and have people come there to do the to do the imagery, it's a lot easier for people. People don't like to be photographed, so when their staff is all looking at them, it's really nice to be able to have people come there and have it be more of an experience instead of just only on location. So, I would get a studio sooner. I know there's a lot of people that ask to use your studio, right? Yeah, it's a no. I'm too busy. I It's a no. I am. I'm not gonna There's not enough available time to to do that. I need to take notes from you. I know. I know. And I think I honestly think that Rita and I really gelled when we met. Um because we're both kind of unapologetically ourselves like but we're warm. Yes. And that's why it's hard for you to fire people because you're warm. Like you care about this human being's Yeah. life. And that's I think with staff too that's hard. Somebody will ask me my son is he just turned 50. And they'll be like how's Attakus? And then they know about my family and then they ask about my son and then you know you're taking care of them and I only have three employees so it's much smaller. Yeah. Right. So if something's going on at home, I know about it. If something and then that's also a balancing act like I talked about in the beginning. It's not you can't be friends, but you can't have a lack of empathy about their life because they're a human being. They're not an AI program. So it's it's hard. Honestly, that's one of the things I love most about working with other women is that like we're all doing it all. And half the time, like Kim knows this, I'll be on a call with my clients and my daughter will wake up in the middle of it and guess what? like I'm getting her out of her crib and I'm probably nursing her on our call. And the other night Kim and I did a call. Um it was like 8 7 or 8:00 p.m. and she's like sitting outside on at the soccer fields while her, you know, kiddo is at practice. I love that she's being PG for me, but I have to tell you exactly what my situation was. She's she's like, "Wait, maybe I shouldn't say this on No, I had gotten a spray tan." Oh, okay. And I had on a very light tank top that is not appropriate to wear in public. Um, and then I realized I had to take my son to soccer. So, I thought, well, okay, I'll just run him to soccer and I'll do um this Zoom call with Kim while I'm sitting in my truck waiting for him to finish soccer. Well, apparently the soccer field parking lot doesn't have any reception. So, then I have to go out to the field in my completely inappropriate and I mean this is my BTM, but my nipples aren't even, you know, and they're like I'm not 22 and I'm like shuffling. I've got this big old tattooed sleeve and I'm like shuffling out there in my like flip-flops trying not to mess up my spray tan going out to the soccer field trying to cover up my chest and like and then I'm sitting there and I get on the Zoom call and I've got my knees up to my chest. I'm like I'm sitting on the soccer field trying not to show off. Anyway, it was just meanwhile like I probably hadn't brushed my teeth that day and it's like 8:00 p.m. and then and then a cat goes by and like yeah. So, it's it's fun working with women that are truly talented. Um, have a lot to offer. Really are professional, but just kind of get it. Yeah. We're just like we're in it. We're in the thick of it in the, you know, trying to juggle again just trying to juggle all the things, doing everything. Well, the next question I had, which we all kind of had the same answer, I think you've already even answered this one yourself, was you glad you did? and all of us synonymously when we were talking about this podcast was that we were glad we'd quit our job. Oh, 100%. Um I remember um le I was trying to balance all of it, right? So, I was working full-time as an NP in a hospital and rounding on patients in nursing homes. And then like during my lunch break, I would drive over to um this little room that I rented from a chiropractor to go see give some patients some filler disport or something like that. And then I'd run back to the hospital. And um I was realizing that clearly the the investment of time, the money that I was making was much higher with my investment of time of doing that. But there wasn't a lot of that business. But I still wanted to kind of like lean on that crutch of a full-time job even though it wasn't super profitable. But anyway, like I just I remember thinking about that. And then um a friend of mine who had run his own business for probably a decade was just like, "Oh my god, just do it. Make the leap." And it's not that easy. He's like, "It actually is. It actually is because you'll figure it out." And I made the leap and I don't I can't even imagine Yeah. working for anyone anymore. Um I don't know if I wish I would have done it sooner to be honest with you. I think a lot of people say that I wish I would have done it sooner. I don't even know if it would have worked out the same. I think the timing was perfect for me. Yeah. But I am glad I quit my job and I would never go back to doing working for somebody else. Yeah. And like you said, get my own studio. I mean, I I've worked for myself full-time since 2006. So I had I've never had a full-time job. Like I've never worked a full-time job anywhere else. I've just I've been an entrepreneur since then. So So you've worked an all the time job since then? Not a full-time. All the time. All the time. All the time job. That I said, right? My grandpa um he's a farmer in Iowa. And I was like, "What's your favorite thing about being a farmer and working for yourself?" And that's what he said. He was like, "I like to pick the 16 hours I'd like to work today." And people think I'm joking, but it's like midnight and you're like, "Oh, I could change that system." And then it's like 6 a.m. and you're like, I need to do this, so I'm going to wear a weighted vest and walk and call her and walk my dog. And you're like, but some people find that inappropriate. They're like, that balance isn't good. You need to have a healthy balance. And I'm like, you don't love what you do then. Yeah. Right. If you don't want to do dictating that, I mean, you're not dictating that for yourself. Yeah. Like if you love to do it, like nobody was like, Michael Jordan is a workaholic. Like he did it and he loved it and everybody was proud of him. So, if he loves playing basketball and I love taking portraiture, don't on my hobby. Don't on my profession. Like, who cares that I love to do that and be at my son's? Like, you dropped them off. The real quality time dropping your kid off is the conversation you have on the way anyway. Correct. Correct. Not watching them. Yeah. Like, it's when you have that good conversation about whatever it is your kid finally talks to you about in that 22-minute drive. So, don't get me fired up on that. You know, people will be like, "You're a workaholic." And I'm like, you don't like what you do. I think probably all of us have probably been called that. I mean, I get told that all the time. Well, it was a subject I wanted to talk about anyway, and that's a nice segue into that. Um, I think workaholic, the term workaholic, it took me a long time to realize that that's what I was, but I don't think I understood the definition of it. So, workaholic has a bad connotation. is somebody that doesn't balance well, that misuses their time, that ignores their family, that they're selfish, um that they just want money, right? Wouldn't you say that that was kind of like the connotation? And I I don't think any of that's really true. Um a workaholic is I don't even know if I could describe this. I haven't really thought about the definition of this, but to me, a workaholic is somebody who genuinely thrives and gets kind of that high from being productive is how I would I would say that. Um, people tell me all the time, well, you need to relax. I'm like, but you don't understand that my relax is being productive on something. So if I am sitting in front of my computer um or at night or when I'm home at the end of the day, I enjoy working on my business. I love my business. I like working on it. So, if I'm making progress and I'm just kind of firing off in my head and my ideas and I'm putting them out or I'm executing something and creating something. Um, if I I've gotten a massage before and all I did was go through this rolodex in my head and then build this entire plan of that I'm going to execute the minute I get out of there. And that's that's relaxing to me. If you put me on a beach and tell me to relax and I can't do anything, that that'll make me stressed out as hell. And it has before. I mean, we were in Jamaica and then like the first day I was like starting to twitch at the end of the day and then the second day I'm like, "What are we supposed are we supposed to do the same thing tomorrow?" Like we just sit around and do not like I had one book to read and I read the whole thing. It was about cortisol because I was still you know I felt productive on that cortisol book at the beach. But um balancing cortisol levels and stuff like that but um I am proud to be a workaholic. Me too. Yeah, I really am. Okay. Yeah. Any insight on that? Yeah, I'll share about that. So, in the past, that's how I've always been. But, as I've been trying to lean into this slower season of life, I find it really hard to be present. Like, I'll work during nap time and then when my daughter's awake and I'm playing with her, I'm like sitting on the living room floor running through the the list in my head of all the things I need to do. And so, I'm trying I'm trying so hard to like when she's awake, I'm just with her. I'm just hanging out with her. My husband works from home. So, like when it's lunchtime, we all sit down together as a family and eat lunch. I'm just with him, you know, just with them. And then nap time comes and it's like the second I put her down, she's still fussing in her crib and I'm already I've got got my laptop out, I'm already going. And so I think, yeah, I'm I'm working on that actively, like trying to just be present exactly where I'm at. And it's a struggle. The challenge of a workaholic is not to get work done. The challenge is to stop working. Yeah. To engage in things that are important and meaningful. Um, so I spend more work on that than I do working. If you tell me you can go to work now, I'll be like, "Yep." You know what's interesting? And I wanted to say this because you guys have kids that are younger than mine now. And both of my daughters, one is 25 and one is 28. And they both are very strong women that work. My oldest works um does stuff in marketing and uh she's phenomenal. and she actually took me on a trip to Cancun recently and we both worked. We both had days she had to do meetings. It was just really interesting and then we actually truly enjoyed each other and my other daughter's in grad school for genetics and we are all both of my daughters and I are wired the same but um it's been fun to watch them understand. They saw me balance that because I was the mom that worked the night shift at the hospital to be at everything that they did. I was I never missed anything. Um I was still involved in their school and they saw that as an example. Um and to see how they are now and to see how independent both of them are is extremely rewarding to me. So yeah. So have you met any challenges being a woman being a woman that owns a business? What challenges have you The only thing I'm going to say is this. My my business partner is a male. Mhm. And everybody thinks he's the business owner. Nobody thinks that I'm the business owner or part of it, right? Just because I don't talk about it. It's not something but it is an automatic assumption that he is the owner. It's really interesting, right? But then you get to a point and I know we don't know each other very well, but you get to a point in your career where you don't care if other people know. I don't. And I can feel that. That's why I said that. And so people will get upset about photo credit or people will get upset cuz I'll shoot like a high name profile person and they won't credit me and I'm like I don't care. Like I know my son Atas knows like it's that's what matters. But it is interesting because in the first 10 or 15 20 years even you know it's like well that's frustrating right but then you just everything that you needed and wanted was on that vacation with her. Oh yeah. You know it's like and I don't as the older I get I don't care. It's just interesting to me. It's just so still as a woman at this age and now it's still very interesting to me. Anytime I have a second shooter who I'm paying to be there and it's male, they walk over to him first. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, "Got it." And then he's like, "Oh, no. I don't I don't know. Got to talk to her." And I just wait. I just like to kind of watch it play out, you know? And I'm like, it is just what it is still. Yeah. So, I I don't I think I I really don't encounter it very often, but I also think it's more so that I don't care. Yeah. And so I'm just not perceptive of it cuz I don't care if you I don't I don't need you to tell me I'm good at something or that I succeed at something and I'm just kind of like whatever, you know. Um I I think the one I've had a few instances where there's just some chauvinism or whatever. And I think my favorite of all time was when I was um I'm I'm contracted by this company to help answer clinical questions about some of their devices. And we're doing a demo day. And this is a aesthetic um space. And this guy who was um a medical provider, had his own business, was very braggy um about like how much money he made and how successful he was, which in my mind it wasn't phenomenal. But anyway, I um anyway, he um was asking about this device that I had that he wanted to purchase and I already had this device and he could not wrap his head around the fact that I had I had ownership of this thing. And so he said, "Oh, what did daddy buy it for you?" And I like that's you can have an opinion that I you don't think that just based on the way I look or the fact that I'm a female that I'm able to like run a business or own something that's expensive. I don't know. Um but like to say something like that out loud. Wild. I'm not even sure how I reacted, but I know I had nothing to do with the rest of the day though. Me too. I was like seriously no. My daddy didn't buy it for me. I bought it. But I I don't even feel like you deserve my time at this point. Right. Right. Right. Like because it says way more about him than you. Right. It's wild. Yeah. 100% says way more. Okay. So, what are your plans for the future? Um, so I I talked to a lot of different people about where they're at in their business. So, some people have the mentality that they're going to grow, expand, reach further. Um, or there's people that maybe are like, "Hey, I I'm ready to pull back or maybe stay right where you're at. I'm content where I'm at. I'm content where the growth is or where I've gone and this rhythm works for me." Or do you have plans for something bigger? Um, well, I shouldn't say bigger, something different because I have a tendency to get bored easily. So, anyway, um, where do you I know your your business has really grown. It has. And there's been some growing pains. There's been a lot of growing pains. So, are you in a like, hey, I still want to hit that growth or is there like a pullback or where I am today, there's a pullback. I want to really focus on stabilizing what I have right now. Really, really making it solid and focusing on the providers we have and really this last year has been huge in a in a huge learning experience for us and that's where it's brought me today. But I'm like Kim. My brain goes in other directions and she knows that, you know, I I'm very good at the space that I'm in, but I'm also thinking about other spaces, women's health and and things that are I'm that are very interesting to me for the stage I am in my life. But if based on this last year, and we haven't touched on it, I really feel like I want to pull back and stabilize. Does that mean we wouldn't continue to grow? I I still want to grow very intentionally. I don't want to just jump I won't jump into anything anymore. I will learn from that. Listen to my gut and jump because there's things we've jumped into that we've had to pull back on. For sure. And for you, Kim, you're kind of in this season of really kind of being more intentional with kids. Yes. which I totally I think there's so much value to that because there's only a certain time that you have kids and really in the grand scheme of things like Scott and I my husband and I were talking about this that like oh my gosh we have another it seems like forever that we have kids you know like oh it's going to have kids for at least another eight years um before we're complete empty nesters or four kids and then I realized when I really think about the timeline and how long we live there's like another 30 years after that like that's a really long time to not have kids. So, I'm like, "Okay, I need to focus on what that season is for me." And I think when they're little go fast, too. My son is eight. He turns eight next month. And I'm just like, he was just this little tiny nugget. And he looks at his little sister and he he's so sweet. He cries because she's getting bigger. He's like, he'll have a whole meltdown. I don't want her to grow. And I'm like, but that's how I see you. You know, like when I tell you, I tell him all the time, "Buddy, you got to stop growing. and this is ridiculous. And he gets annoyed. Mom, stop. I have to grow. And um but it it goes by so fast. And I again I kind of I'm wired to just go go do all the things. If I could get a babysitter like one or two days a week, even I could I could grow my business so much and I could do all the things and I could, you know, expand and take on more clients and yada yada. The list goes on. But um the reality is like I I chose to be home with my daughter and I really want that right now. And so the time for me to you know lean into my business is not now. Um right now it's you know working with incredible a select group of incredible clients um who I really love working with and just maintaining that and um you know someday when all the kids are in school maybe I'll you know light this thing on fire. I I almost always feel like I'm am I making the right choice like how I spend my time? Am I Am I pouring enough into my business? Am I pouring enough into my kids? Am I giving myself enough relax? Um Scott had listened to a podcast about um I all I remember what resonated with me is he said you're you should like I there was a recommendation no new projects this year and I was like I wish you would have said that like six months ago like cuz I opened a second location started a podcast and then started my consulting business all in the same year like that's not um and now I'm realizing that was a much, but I'm I'm pulling back. No new projects, so I'm not adding anything else new. Even though I have ideas this year or like for a full year, like the rest of this year, full 12 months from now. I would think it was a full 12 months. No new projects. So, yeah, I'll let you know how that turns out. If anybody knows me, it's not going to turn out well. But, I think when you're in it, too, it's like, am I making the right decision? I don't know. Like, we'll see. You know, it's it's kind of like parenting. I'm like, I don't know. Well, they I mean, I hope they turn out good, you know, and it's the same with business. You're you're in it. You're making decisions and then you look back a year from now and you're like, "Oh, that, you know, I did do the right thing. I you know, I did make the right choice there." Well, we got time for What's your plans? What are you going to do? I'm just going to keep on mourning Attakus' childhood while being excited for him to become an adult. Pay people good money, make good money, have fun, help people grow their businesses. I love it. Cool. Well, thank you for listening. Again, this is Kim Peters with Illumine Consulting. This is a podcast where we're talking about women, we're talking about business, we're talking about aesthetics and wellness and leadership. Thanks for joining us.
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