Obstacles to Opportunities
When faced with life's obstacles, let's channel that negative energy into positivity and forge opportunities. Throughout the nation, business owners will share their experiences of triumphing over daunting challenges in their careers and lives, illustrating how they've harnessed these experiences for growth opportunities.
Obstacles to Opportunities
Jennifer Johnson of True Fashionista: From Trials to Business Triumphs
Welcome to Obstacles to Opportunites Podcast! Join us as we pull up a chair for a candid conversation with Naples' favorite female entrepreneur, podcaster, and business coach - the one and only Jennifer Johnson.
In this episode, Jennifer shares her remarkable journey, from her initial dream of opening a resale shop to becoming a multifaceted entrepreneur deeply embedded in her community. She opens up about the challenges she faced, including pivotal moments where she could have thrown in the towel, but chose perseverance instead.
Through her ventures like True Fashionistas, Florida’s largest lifestyle resale store, CooiesCookies, Pink Farmhouse, and Confident Entrepreneur, Jennifer has not only achieved success but has also become an inspiration for women entrepreneurs everywhere. Her podcast, blog, motivational speaking, and coaching business all serve as platforms to empower women to pursue their dreams fearlessly.
Tune in as Jennifer offers sage advice, shares her experiences, and provides invaluable insights for anyone in need of inspiration or direction. Her story is a testament to the fact that success in business is achievable while making a positive impact and giving back to the community.
Join us as we delve into the world of entrepreneurship with Jennifer Johnson, a true beacon of confidence, resilience, and empowerment.
Listen to her podcast "The Confident Entrepreneur": https://www.buzzsprout.com/1970765
Visit her re-sale shop Fashionista: https://truefashionistas.com/pages/meet-the-owner
welcome to the obstacles to opportunities podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm jess powell your host, and I'm heather kane, your co-host, and we are pumped so pumped.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is girl crushing right now totally jennifer was on your short list. We first started the podcast. We did. We're like I want.
Speaker 2:Jennifer in here and you made it happen. This girl's a rock star. I was like hey guess what?
Speaker 1:Guess who's coming in. I reached out to her. She has no clue who I am and she's willing to come.
Speaker 2:I literally so Jennifer. I was just telling her this when someone comes to visit in Southwest Florida like their number, one thing they have to do is I have to take them to True Fashionista. Yay, so we are so excited to have Jennifer Ann Johnson here today because she is literally, if you think, naples women entrepreneur excuse my language, badass. You think Jennifer Ann Johnson? Aw, you're so sweet. So welcome.
Speaker 3:You're so sweet. Thank you for having me here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming. I mean, I am just so excited to have you here because I remember your small little store and now you have this huge, amazing store, and now you're expanding. Tell us how it all started.
Speaker 3:Oh, goodness gracious, it's been so long. Honestly, do you want the long story or the short story?
Speaker 2:Well, we have a little bit of time and I believe what you know, everything here is obstacles to opportunities. Right, and let's, let's hear about how it started and how you actually the obstacles that have given you the grit, because not only are you an, the obstacles that have given you the grit because not only are you an entrepreneur, you also have written an incredible book but it takes grit to do what you've done.
Speaker 3:It certainly does. So we started way back in 2011, and I've had this dream for a long time to start a store like this, because I grew up in a family where we were very poor. There were six siblings. My grandma would take me garage ceiling to find clothes for all of us and we would wear them as is or just remake them whatever we had to do. So I always had fond memories of that and it seemed like everything I did took me further and further away from actually doing that. I mean, I was a wedding and event planner and I owned a bridal shop and a wedding and, you know, full service wedding company. Yeah, totally nothing in the resale industry where I wanted to be. So we moved here and I was like all right, this is it. There's nothing here that combines really high end stuff like Chanel and Gucci with Lululemon and Lilliput. There's nothing. Yep, let's do this, let's start it.
Speaker 3:Well, I was in the middle of selling my business up there when we moved here and we hadn't sold it yet. So we didn't have when was that? What year? We moved in 2009. So it actually took about a year and a half for us to sell that. So in between there, I'm coming up with the concept for the store and we're like how are we going to finance this? Because we still own the business, we own the building. We can't, you know, we have to sell that. Before. Well, I had a neighbor who was like, oh, I've got the money.
Speaker 3:Wow, I'm like okay, great, Well, that's a little angel right there, Right, Well well here we go, and so we started the business together and two months into it she knocks on my door on a Sunday night and is like I want out, for no particular reason, just I want out. And so we scrambled, we figured out how we were going to come up with the money to pay her out, because otherwise she was just going to take the business. And we found the money, we paid her out and literally the next day, that Monday morning, she signed a lease in our same center. It was probably about eight stores away, five to eight stores, we'll call it, because I don't really remember. I know exactly you do, oh goodness.
Speaker 3:And she took all of my employees except for one. I had one employee who decided to stay with me and I remember calling up this consultant that I had worked with and she lived in Sarasota at the time. I'm like you have to come down here because, oh my God, she opened up, we're done, we're out of business. Like I can't see that two stores like this are going to exist in the same plaza. It's just not going to work.
Speaker 3:She came and she's like I don't know what your problem is. You're going to be fine, I promise you. She laid out all the reasons and, to be honest with you, an obstacle was her, but it was her in the sense of if what happened? If she wouldn't have exited the business, we would have not grown on the trajectory that we had grown, because I basically put the pedal to the metal after that.
Speaker 2:And I went. I'm not going to let her stop me. For me it's like game time, baby, and it's like all right, let's let you know. May the best person win at this point. That's kind of how I felt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was like a blessing actually.
Speaker 3:Right, it was like screw this, she's not taking me down, I'm going to show her. Yeah. And after that, like within a year, we expanded to double the amount of size. So we went from 1,800 to 3,600 square feet. A few years after that, we opened our home store. So I truly do not. I believe everything in this world happens for us. It does not happen to us. We just have to find out what that for us is, and we may not always know it. At the time, I did not know what it was. It took me many years to figure out what the heck was supposed to happen with all of that.
Speaker 2:So when that was going on, what was it in you that made you persevere?
Speaker 3:That's just how I am. Yeah, I want to. I felt like I owed it to myself that if I had backed away and went no, I'm going to just go crawl over here.
Speaker 2:It is confidence, it is.
Speaker 3:Where does that confidence come from? I think I just. I have been through a lot of challenges in my life and I've become more and more confident in who I am with each passing obstacle.
Speaker 2:So that's what I was getting at right. So many times you have a choice. The obstacle can either make you grow and you can dig deeper and lean on your faith, or lean on whatever it is that you have in you to get you to that next level. But the people that don't are the people that, right, they crumble, they crumble Right. So it's a choice.
Speaker 3:And I talk a lot about this in my book, because I talk about my core values and what they are, and one of my core values and one of my pillars is faith, because you have to. We can't do it all on our own. We have to have a higher power. Um, for me it's God, and I know that he is going to do what is best for me. He it may not be the path that I want to go, but that's his path for me, because he sees that's best for me.
Speaker 2:But you can control attitude, you can Um, and attitude is what it's all about. It is, and you pivoted.
Speaker 3:It's all in how you react to it. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, okay. So now you have this incredible space, and you know what I love and I know, jess, you've been in there too is how positive you have great staff, thank you. So, on the leadership side, how have you created that incredible culture there?
Speaker 3:Again, it all comes down to core values. When we own a business, when we start a business, a lot of people don't know what their core values are. They don't even know what that means. Well, it's what you stand for, right? It's really truly who you are and, as business owners, it's your job. If you want to create that company as an extension of who you truly are and run that company according to your values, then your staff had better know what those core values are.
Speaker 2:How have you implemented that when you onboard someone?
Speaker 3:So everybody that's onboarded with their paperwork, they all get a copy of what our core values are and I have them all listed in my book for you to take a look at those. But it's all in there. We have them posted in the store as well and it's kind of like a roadmap for people to go okay, well, this happened. And in the world of the bracelets, where they would do WWJ, what would? What would Jesus do? It would, it's what. What's the true fashionista's way? Yeah, like, how should we handle this? Right, what? And soon enough it just becomes ingrained in them and it just becomes something that it's like breathing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love it. I'm like I walk in there and you just feel the love. You do Awesome. I have an amazing team. You really really do. I love that. Okay, so tell us where you're at right now.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. Well, we are working on expanding the business, and, yes, to another location. And our goal is, you know, we're going to put these all over the place. That is our goal, you know, bring it on, wow, bring it on, we're ready. So expansion mode. And then I also have my other business, which I started a few years ago as well, and that is coaching and online small business kind of courses. So it's a small business academy for small businesses where they can go online and take my courses of. Like you know what I'm stuck here. What do I do? How do I market my business, harnessing my community, or how do I build community, or how do I do a lot of different components of their business? So I do that, I do some small business coaching, I do professional speaking, and then I have my book and my podcast.
Speaker 2:So I do all of that, of that, jess, I don't think Jennifer's busy. I mean, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So what are you passionate about right now? Small businesses, small businesses. So local, small or anywhere, small, anywhere, anywhere small.
Speaker 3:Anywhere because, just given all of the stuff that I have been through and I see other businesses going through, there are so many of us out there who are lost and we feel like we're the only ones going through it and we're on our own little island. It's lonely.
Speaker 2:It is, leadership is lonely. I mean, that's what you know. I have an incredible mentor and he said something to me that really helped me. There's deal friends and there's real friends, and what happens in leadership at a high level, when you're an entrepreneur, you get those lines blurred, you do, and it can really hurt. It can Right, it really can. We've all been there, yeah, yeah, yeah. So expansion, growth, but coaching Right. So you have a gift. God's given you the incredible gift to see the holes in other people's businesses and how to fill them Exactly.
Speaker 3:And you know what other people's businesses and how to fill them Exactly, and you know what. We don't always see them in our businesses. It takes somebody from the outside to go hey, what about this, this and this? Because when you're in it, it's not easy to point the problem out and say that that's what it is. This is what I need to do. We don't often have clarity around that because we need a third party who's not completely vested in what we're doing.
Speaker 1:It's so helpful. Heather coaches our whole team every month. Two or three months ago, I was like Heather, here's what I'm doing. I was like what?
Speaker 2:are my blind spots.
Speaker 1:Tell me, like, where are my blind spots?
Speaker 2:And it's so good just to like lay it out and I'm like well, first off your blind spots are. You have too many spots.
Speaker 1:She's like you're going to burn yourself out. That's your blind spot. I'm like, okay, cool, you know, the more you know, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm always like you can't be the jack of everything, girl. You've got to hone it in, you've got to reel it in.
Speaker 3:That you want to do it all.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, or you kind of like have to, and you're in my mind. I'm like I can't just be good at this, like I have to really stretch myself to try to be good at this. But you know something, we we have a new partner that came in and he was saying something kind of clicked with me and he's just like what's your superpower? Yes, like, what's your superpower? I'm like, yeah, what's your superpower?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I'm like what's your?
Speaker 2:superpower. Oh gosh, I'm on the spot you are.
Speaker 3:You're the one usually hosting the podcast right, but no one's ever asked me that. Oh my gosh, I don't know the fact that I think I can do it all it's really honestly, but that could also be a curse. It could be, I would say, probably perseverance, and I'm a getter done kind of girl.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're an executor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am, I am, Actually I am. There's a book out there and I'm not going to remember the name of it, and it talks about two different kinds of people and one is the facilitator and one is the executor. And I am definitely like, let's get it done. If you have something you want done and I say I'm going to do it, it's going to be done.
Speaker 1:How hard is it for you, cause I'm the same person. I'm like if you know Enneagram, I'm a four.
Speaker 3:I'm an achiever.
Speaker 1:I'm a doer, I like lists, I like checking them off. So do I, you know, and I don't like talking about stuff for too long.
Speaker 2:No, I'm like, let's just go. Why are we talking? I'm like, why are we wasting time? I could have half of it done by now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had this kind of thought I don't know years ago that I got so caught up in the to-do list that I, like I was just not even like. It became like a way I was identifying with that too much and it became like anything right, like the superpower. Right it can be. It can be a blessing when you're healthy. It can be a curse when you're not right. So when you're not and you're trying to like build your identity in the oh well, here's the to-do list, here's what I checked off today. So I'm a good person, I was successful today and I just felt God saying like you're more than a to-do list and that was like you know, right, like for achievers like that, that's. That's tough because it is a superpower. You know people call on you cause they're like Jennifer's going to get it done.
Speaker 2:Jennifer has got it done.
Speaker 1:She's. She's written a book, she's got a podcast. You're not just talking about things, you're doing them. How do you coach people that are like that? I mean, where's the balance? What do you implement in your life to keep yourself in like a healthy place?
Speaker 3:That's funny because I was literally just coaching someone on this this morning. Oh, okay, they're like you know, I really love this, but I really love this and I want to keep doing both. And I said where does your heart take you? Because your brain can tell you all that, you know all the stuff that it should be doing, but what does your heart tell you? What should you be doing? What do you want to concentrate on? What's your priority? And then take it from that place. Take it from a heart centered place, because that's going to take you closer to your goal or closer to where you want to be. And that's how I do it, because if something is just not, there's something missing. Yeah, and I'm like there's. Just why am I not connecting with this? Yeah, it's probably because I shouldn't have been doing it to begin with, but I thought I should be doing it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I always say, if it doesn't feed your soul, if it doesn't light a fire in you, then you probably should leverage it Right or not do it. You know what I mean. Like it's one of those where it's like okay, that's not my lane, I need to find the person, or I need to not do it.
Speaker 3:That's like the Marie Kondo thing, where she's like if it doesn't you know filling if it doesn't give you purpose or make you feel joy.
Speaker 1:get rid of it Like a sock like a sock, like does the sock bring you joy? Like no, get rid of it, it's ugly. Like that was such a, that was such a phase Like I don't know, was it COVID? Like when she got pre-COVID.
Speaker 3:Probably on the heels of it, but it's very much like that and you're very right. If there's something like I hate math, I hate math and I'm so bad at it I'm bad at it because I hate it and I feel like that part of my brain is missing, but find somebody to do it then so, if you don't like doing it, you're not good at it. The way that you can leverage anything is get someone else to do it that's better at it or enjoys it more than you.
Speaker 2:So there's an ongoing joke in our office. I cannot spell and I have zero grammar, so the ongoing joke is if someone wants me to write something, I literally I avoid it like like the plague, because I know I'm terrible at it. Right, and I feel like in life that's what so many people do. If they know they're terrible, they just avoid it and they don't do it. Instead, now I have people in my world that I'm like, hey, can you do this? And that's the thing is like we have to realize what our gifts are. Focus in it, stay in that lane, and anything we don't we got to push it off.
Speaker 2:So right now you're in the growth of expansion. You're coaching people, small businesses across the country, which is absolutely incredible, because I feel like God's given you an incredible gift and you're using it. So I always say there's a difference between a visionary, because I actually hate when someone says I'm a visionary and then they don't ever execute. So I believe there's a visionary and there's a visionary that actually executes and that's what you do. But right now, what is like? I heard you saying something when we were talking earlier about you are under this obstacle. You're expanding and you're not able to do what you want right now. Tell me how, how you. What do you do in those situations when you can't do what you want to do?
Speaker 3:So I hate this word because it all came out of COVID but you pivot right, you change your mindset around your original idea, because maybe your original idea wasn't gonna be all that to begin with, because, remember, it happens for us, not to us. Yeah, so you know, with the expansion we just found a different way to do stores. Okay, so maybe we're not going to go open up massive stores like we have, but maybe we're going to open up different size stores around our big store, right? Okay, so you just find ways that you can still execute some part of your vision and be open to the idea that that's probably how it was supposed to be anyway. Yeah, but if you don't embrace it and you fight it and you just you're always putting up the fists and going, no, that's not how I want it and that's no way to live, that's no way to run a business. You're going to always be stressed out and it affects culture, everything. Yeah, it affects everything, from the top down and the bottom up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love it. We're in a situation right now where we're launching a new market center for our real estate office and we launched. We were so excited about this amazing name that we were going to go. After we got approval, we were like go, we got all of our branding done and then we realized that someone trademarked in our industry and they're suing another company for 10 million dollars. And you're like oh, so you like. And then you're like okay, that means we got a pivot right door closed, door closed. I gotta put my big girl undies on and I gotta figure it out.
Speaker 3:But look at what it saved you, right yeah, because somebody could have sued, you. Yeah Right, you're like well.
Speaker 2:But instead of saying to myself like, oh, we're just not going to do it, it's like no, we have an incredible, so we will be launching very soon with a new name. Stay tuned. But it's actually even better. See, it is like so much better than what we were going to launch with and like our entire leadership team is beyond excited, but it's because we're excited. If I had showed them how devastated I was, then they would be still caught in the past, Right? So you have not only pivoted your mindset, but you also gained momentum and excitement, which has, in turn, gotten your staff to agree and be in the same path as you.
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of people forget that. Because a lot of people forget that, as the leader of a company, all eyes are on you. Yeah, right, they are, whether we want them to be or not. We're under a microscope. People are looking at us, going how are they going to react? Yeah, how are they reacting to that? And then they see it, and then they're going to emulate your energy and if you're not positive, you're not upbeat about it, it's going to drag them right down. Yeah, Agreed.
Speaker 2:So what made you write a book?
Speaker 3:Oh goodness, I had so much to share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just had so much to share. I've always wanted to write one, and I'm a terrible writer, so I procrastinate on it. There's tools to help with that. Yes, I mean someone else write it.
Speaker 3:I don't know. Tell them to enter.
Speaker 2:I was like can I just talk to someone and then they just write it? You actually can, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what was the number one Like? What was the driving force to that? Truthfully, I had a story to tell that I think could impact a lot of people, because I will remember one pivotal moment in my life. I had received a phone call. I was sitting in the store and this woman had called the store and said hey, is Jennifer there? I really want to talk to her, and I this was when we were a smaller store and I said sure, you can come in and talk to me. So the woman came in and she goes. I have to tell you I sat out my car for over an hour before I could get up the courage to come in and talk to you and like, oh gosh, oh boy, what's happening? Yeah, I have no idea like, did your dress not fit.
Speaker 3:Did we not take some of your clothes? So she goes. I I was digging around online and I went to your profile. I saw you and then I saw these articles come up online from you and I just went and looked at all of them and she goes. It dawned on me that so she was a victim of sexual assault, domestic violence, and she said if someone like you, who owns a business and is the president of an organization that works with sexual assault survivors, can be successful because they got help and all these things, I need to. I need help, I need help. So she came to me to tell her story and to get help. Wow, and that was the moment, many years ago, that I realized I have to tell my story.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't in that moment, it was, you know, years later, that I that, that it. I had kind of been writing it all along in my head, yeah, so Everything just came out, everything, in fact, the name of the book was not supposed to be the name of the book. Really, I was actually writing it and it was supposed to be called Beautiful Scars, because that was the real name of the book, because I believe that, you know, our scars should not be covered up, yeah, like they're there as a badge of courage and honor and all of those things. And here she was coming to share her story with me, because by reading my story, that had given her courage to get the help that she had needed after all of these years.
Speaker 2:So the book was written to impact others. It was.
Speaker 1:And had a responsibility. Almost You're like, if I have this platform, I have this story. Exactly, I need to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I need to write it down, right, share it and I share my story in there, and then it all relates back to business, of course, um, and some people are going. How can you possibly relate that? And I said it's all in who you are, it's all in your core and that's really the story that's been written for your life, right, exactly, yeah. I have another one too, but I'm not done writing it yet. That's my second one, really.
Speaker 2:So how do you find the time for all of this? Actually ironically, that's kind of the pretense of the book.
Speaker 3:I get asked that all the time they're like we're working with the same 24 hours right.
Speaker 1:Do you know something? I don't know.
Speaker 3:And I said no, um, because I went back to school as well. And they're like how do you do this? And I, I said I prioritize the things in my life that are important to me. My kids are now grown and off to college and that has given me more time to work on all of the things that I have on my bucket list, all the things that are important to me that I've wanted to do for all of these years, and there's a time and a season of your life where you're more free to do that. But even when I had kids, I still prioritized my time. I spent every waking moment I could with them and did everything that I needed to do outside that time. I have a thing that I call the golden hour. It's my mornings, between five and 7am. That is when I am the most productive. That is when it's all cylinders are firing in my brain and I'm like I got this.
Speaker 1:I get so much, all the great ideas come to you. Yes, are you a coffee drinker? I?
Speaker 3:don't Everybody that knows me. If they saw me drink coffee, they'd be like stay away. You're even more hyper.
Speaker 1:You're high energy, I am High energy, waking up at five to seven golden hours. What's the routine like during golden hour?
Speaker 3:Well, so I usually get up about 4.40. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I do too.
Speaker 3:About 4.40, right.
Speaker 2:There's no about About.
Speaker 3:It's 4.40.
Speaker 2:Okay, do you need an alarm?
Speaker 3:I don't, but I still set one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too I wake up, but I don't need one.
Speaker 3:And then I work out five days a week. After I work out, I come back, sit in front of my computer and do you know, whether it's schoolwork, whether it's writing, whatever it is that I need to get done because I'm going to empty my inbox, whether it's my text messages or my email, that all has to be like gone. I have to have touched it all, taken care of it, by the end of the day. So I'm a list person, yes, but that's. I do whatever I need to do within those times. I don't really have any specific thing, it's just whatever I have at the top of my list, what I know that needs to get done.
Speaker 1:You need to be fresh to do it. That's creative, creative stuff. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, basically your morning is the exact same morning as mine. Awesome, see, great mind. There's, there's, there's a, there's a pattern. I feel like to entrepreneurship and it's funny because one of the people that I'm really good friends with, she, she's not a morning person and she, she just refuses to wake up early and but hers is nighttime, so she has the 12, the 10 to midnight. Oh, good grief, but I feel like every yeah, that's like dead zone for me. I'm like out by 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah me too. People invite me to dinner at 8. I'm like I'm sorry, I'm not going to be able to come.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm in my pajamas, I'm drooling on the couch by 9. Right, that's what you have to work with here, exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You're either one or the other. You are Right. And do you know that there's a blood test now that determines that? Oh my gosh, did you know that you're, like, genetically made to be a morning person or a night person? It is not an actual learned behavior. Did you know?
Speaker 1:that, no, but my best friend's a night person too, so it's, it's so funny, like I called her this morning at 830 and she's like your energy right now is like a lot for me. Okay, call me back in a little bit, cause I'd been up, I'd worked out, I'm, you know, like I'd, I'd hit, I've accomplished like it felt, like it was midday to me, right, yeah, by 30.
Speaker 3:Right, we've been up for four hours, right. Yeah, we get more accomplished than the average person because we are up so early, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my thing is, my husband's not one. And so in the morning, you know I've worked out, I've had breakfast, I've gotten the girls up, you know I've done all the things, and he comes out of the room like good morning and he's like the look on his face and I love I do it every morning and the look on his face is like can you please just be quiet?
Speaker 2:go away, go away but I feel like you have to marry your opposite in life. You do right, um, so yeah, it's funny, but there is, there is a pattern there. You have. I feel like there's a two-hour window that every entrepreneur has to have, where they they literally crush it. They crush it, yeah, and mine is the five to seven o'clock hour mindset thing.
Speaker 1:Typically people do things like working out, praying, meditation. I mean, we've done, let's see what I was. I think we're on episode 12. I would say almost every successful business owner that has come in here mentions their success. It hinges on like a routine in the morning or possibly a night.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's morning and the reason why I feel like in the morning you set the intention for the day. So if you start the morning in chaos, your entire day is chaos. If you set the morning with being organized and having everything done, getting your creative, then you spend an entire day in that lane.
Speaker 3:Right, right. Do you know? There's a book about that. He was a general in the army. I'm not going to remember his name, but I read the book and it's about making your bed. If you make your bed, if you look it up, you'll see it it's about making your bed.
Speaker 2:People that make their bed every single day are more successful than those who don't make my bed no, I'm like I actually hate 60 percent of the time so I never make my bed, only gets made the days of the cleaning ladies come oh my gosh, I don't make the bed because I hate undoing the bed. I will purposely on thursday night, thursday nights the cleanings come thursday, thursday nights I literally wash my face, I brush my teeth, I exfoliate, I wait as long as I can, so my husband undoes the bed before I get in there. Oh my gosh, that is funny.
Speaker 3:I mean you know you gotta you. Just it's just around the pretense that you you feel accomplished. Yeah, done something right for the day.
Speaker 1:You did something that a lot of people don't do right yeah, but it is interesting, I mean it, maybe I need to make my bed. I mean, then I would have to like really wait, if we're really trying to take it to the next level here. Heather, I think you need to make your bed.
Speaker 3:I think you know what make it around, the husband just make it in the bed.
Speaker 1:That's the problem. I do that. If I need to, I'll make it around him oh, just like, oh well he'd get up. It's time to get up. Just roll out easily, just gently off the side.
Speaker 2:See, the dogs are in the bed, the husband's in the bed. Everybody's still in the bed.
Speaker 1:That's probably why you don't do that then. So you have a pass.
Speaker 3:Yeah, try making it with him in it.
Speaker 2:It'll work. Yeah, let us know how that goes. Those of you who are listening, that's your MO. Out of this, make the bed with your husband in it, yeah, and then you will have all the success that you have. Post a picture, tag us in it. Tag us, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:It'll be a new phenomenon. It will be. It will go viral. It will be.
Speaker 2:And then I'll be like you're successful if you make your bed with your husband in it. But I mean, I think Is your husband's.
Speaker 3:Are they morning people? Oh yeah, Mine is now. He never used to be. Okay, your husband, he's even more than me, really.
Speaker 1:He is like up. He's up at four, I get up at six.
Speaker 2:He's up at four To work out Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Okay, he's up to work out. Okay, so he gets up earlier than me works out, and then by the time I'm up, he is buzzing around to the point where I'm like you need to just sit down for a second like or he'll be like jamming out like he loves, just like punk rock or like hardcore music in the morning. Oh gosh and I'm like I know I'm like honey, like, please, like, can we just listen to just something like some crazy worship?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, go buy him some earbuds or AirPods, whatever.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, could I he's been really in the 80s right now, oh, like real into it and I'm like I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm just not digging it.
Speaker 1:One thing that you might not know is Jess's dad was a famous musician and she can sing like amazing. I don't know about that. I'm not going to make her sing, but she did. She did make me sing for one episode I did. It was when she first found out about it. She's like then sing a song I did.
Speaker 2:I totally put her on the spot, so she did. So going back. If you could give one advice to anyone that's listening right now that either owns a business, ready to start a business, in the slumps of their business, what would you say for them to do?
Speaker 3:Honestly, it all goes back to one thing. Remember it is all happening for you, not to you. If you come from anything that's happening in your life with that mindset, it stops you and makes you try to find the lesson in what is going on in the moment. You may not find it, but it's going to stop you. And it's going to stop that negative like why, why me, why me? Or you know it's going to stop you also on your really high highs of getting a big head Right. It goes both ways. It's like why is this happening for me? What's the lesson? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so good. All right, we're going to do episode two with you. Are you going to come back?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to be on yours, right, we can't wait to be on your podcast, absolutely Well. Thank you so much for joining. We really appreciate it. How can everyone go and find your book?
Speaker 3:So they can find it on Amazon. It's actually an Amazon bestseller, so you'll be able to find it on there easily. That's amazing. In the name of your book it is Grace and Grit Becoming a Confident Entrepreneur. It's got a bright pink cover. Can't miss it. And as far as how they can get ahold of me, my two businesses true, fashionistascom is the name of my one business that started it all, and then Jenniferannjohnsoncom is where I host my podcast. It's where you can find my small business Academy, my coaching and my professional speaking Awesome.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thank you so much. This has been great.
Speaker 1:So please everyone, check out her stuff and stay tuned for a round two We'll bring you back Awesome.
