Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 75: Heart on Your Sleeve with Lauren Thomas
154 Plays5 years ago
Women entrepreneurs are faced with particular challenges. You are often raising families, and can sometimes feel a certain stigma for wanting something beyond that. But if you’ve got God-given talents and interests, why not use them?
Our guest for this episode, Lauren Thomas, was just looking for something fulfilling to do as her kids grew up and she entered a new stage of life. She thought selling bracelets online might be a fun outlet for her creativity. Well, the public responded in a big way, much bigger than she was expecting. How is she managing the business? What is new in marketing through Instagram? We dig into all that and more.
Lauren grew up in Colorado and now lives in Iowa with her husband and four daughters. She recently founded Heart On Your Sleeve, a company that sells personalized bracelets, and has found a passionate and growing audience.
See the latest from Heart on Your Sleeve at https://www.instagram.com/heart.on.your.sleeve/.
what you will learn in this episode:- The power of a simple idea
- The power of a supportive spouse
- The telltale signs that you are a business owner
- As a woman, embracing an interest beyond raising kids
- The pivotal role a mentor can have
- Growing not just a following but a business on Instagram
- Why friends and family may not be your best starting point for a customer base
- Living your faith in your business
- The unexpected ways your work can touch your customers
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Life
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life, a life worth celebrating and savoring.
Meet the Hosts
00:00:30
Speaker
Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of The Uncommon Life Project, where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Thanks for tuning in. We love you. Thanks for listening. What else do we want to say? It's always fun to just talk at the beginning because it's just fun to talk.
Goals for 2021
00:00:48
Speaker
Well, it's the beginning of 2021 now. And yeah, I think everybody's ready for a fresh start and then new goals and new ideas and coming together as a country.
00:00:59
Speaker
Isn't that what we want to hear?
Introducing Lauren Thomas
00:01:01
Speaker
Awesome. Well, we've got an amazing guest for you here today. I can't wait to unpack her story and get into it. So let's do the bio. We have the one, the only. She came from Colorado, moved here with her husband. She's been married 14 years, four daughters, ages 10 to one, homeschools, and is the founder of Heart on Your Sleeve. Welcome to the show, Lauren Thomas. Thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker
It's great to have you. You know, it's funny because a lot of times when we meet with people, they have an idea and that idea turns into something.
The Accidental Business Start
00:01:36
Speaker
Sometimes it turns into something bigger than they even thought and that's kind of your story. So when you first started hard on your sleeve, what did you think was going to be and how did it become to what it was now?
00:01:47
Speaker
Okay, so the story of how it started is kind of by accident. Perfect. Yeah. You like that? So this is where I was. I had a two month old, my fourth baby. I was tired and bored. No way. Tired and bored. Usually those are the two that you come together with.
00:02:08
Speaker
Well, bored in the sense that I was just doing schedule, feedings, naps. It was just the monotony of every day. And so we had gone to dinner the night before with a couple and my girlfriend asked me, are you starting to get a little stir crazy yet? And I said, yes, tomorrow I'm going to go to Michael's.
00:02:28
Speaker
and I don't know what I'm going to do, but I've got to figure out something. We're crafting. I have to go find something to make or to be creative with because I'm starting to go a little crazy. I drove to Michael's the next day and I stood in the bead aisle and I just looked around at all the beads and I just grabbed a few things and went home.
00:02:49
Speaker
So I made that night a set of bracelets with my daughter's names on them. And I posted it on my Facebook with the hashtag heart on my sleeve. And I got a really good response from my friends, my, my personal Facebook inner circle, inner circle.
00:03:08
Speaker
So what I realized though is if this had, because people were like, you know, you should sell these. If you made these for, you know, if you sold these, I'd buy one. And I thought, well, yeah, you say that. But I've kind of learned throughout the years with other past things that your friends and your family are not your customers. Right. You can, the best edifying point of that is American Idol.
00:03:31
Speaker
You're not a great singer. Well, my parents told me I was. Okay. Exactly. So I thought, okay, I'm going to see if this is actually a good idea.
Instagram Strategy for Growth
00:03:40
Speaker
So I'm going to post the same picture on an Ankeny mom community page. So good. Love it. Yeah. And see what I get there. So that post exploded. I had
00:03:53
Speaker
you know what I would call exploded real traction like 50 different moms saying I want to I want to set right now like how can I order this how can I buy this so that night I went and I made an Instagram page came up with a name I decided to do you know the play on the words it's not hard on
00:04:13
Speaker
my sleeve, it's hard on your sleeve because the bracelets would be for you. Right. Not me. Right. So I twisted it a little. So I made the Instagram page that night and immediately started taking orders and went back to Michaels and got a bunch more beads. Stop right there. You're back to Michaels. You stop right there. You stop right there.
00:04:32
Speaker
Okay, so when you did this, cause Matt is your husband, right? And we talk a lot about on this show about how I would say supportive spouses are and how it's so important to make sure they're on board before you go down this uncommon path. What did he think when you're like, hey, I'm going to try a Graham.
00:04:50
Speaker
And I'm going to try to make it and we're going to do this. Like, was he all on board or where it was his thoughts? Yes, he has. He's for years, he's believed that I have, you know, some kind of a special creative gift that I just haven't quite figured out where to place it.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I've stayed at home for 10 years, the last 10 years. So that initial feed money that I took to go buy all the inventory was coming from our household income that he provides. And he was just from the beginning like, do it, make it grow. He would even help me in the very
Balancing Business and Family
00:05:29
Speaker
beginning when I was really slammed, make bracelets at night. Shout out to Matt. Baby in one hand and a bracelet in the other.
00:05:38
Speaker
Right. Good. Okay. So we got that. So Matt's supportive. You start the, you start the Instagram heart on your sleeve and it starts blowing up. Like what is blowing up mean?
00:05:49
Speaker
It means for me, a mom of four who's homeschooling during the day and trying to still cook and clean, and I have an infant. She's two months old. It means that I'm staying up until 10.30 after I put all the kids down, making 10 or 20 bracelets a night so that I can fit it in. And then it turned into
00:06:13
Speaker
I have to start getting up at five thirty because I can't do it this way anymore I needed to reschedule my day and my priorities so that I could fit it in before the day even started because it was bleeding in and taking over with too many other aspects you know was the crap moment.
00:06:33
Speaker
because it sounds like there could have been one there were several in the beginning where i just needed help from my ten-year-old i needed help from matt all hands on deck yeah we were just at the kitchen table i'm you know i've got this notepad full of orders and i'm on my phone you know taking requests and customer orders right yeah yeah so um
00:06:55
Speaker
There were several and Matt kept saying, you need to hire someone.
Hiring Help and Growth During COVID-19
00:06:59
Speaker
You need to hire someone. And I was like, I can't do, you know, that's, I'm not a business owner. This is just like a fluke. So, um, eventually I did. So I started this in November of 19 and I finally reached out and got somebody helping me.
00:07:17
Speaker
When was it? I feel like it might have been March. It took me that long. Well, then COVID came. When I reached out to a girl to help me, the Rona came and everything stopped for a while because nobody knew what to do. Then orders started coming in and I got her really up and running in the summer. She took over a lot of the load for me.
00:07:42
Speaker
Nice. Yes. Okay. Systematized it. Yes. Okay. Wow. All right. Go ahead. I feel like I got way more questions, but we all know I want to go.
Identity Beyond Motherhood
00:07:50
Speaker
Maybe this isn't the right tangent, but I want to go back. I think what you touched on first happens to a lot of women, you know, especially in the Christian community of staying home. You have all these children, especially when you're homeschooling. Several children. Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
And your identity is still in Christ, but I think there is a, not like dangerous thing, but like you said, it's just like, I need something else. I've gotta have something else that I'm focused on outwardly other than these kids. Yes, and I felt like that for years and I couldn't find what it was. I went through phases where I sold, you know,
00:08:30
Speaker
I did the hair shampoo and I've done makeup and I've, you know, I tried to do house decorating for a few years. So I feel like I've always been kind of like, I don't want to sound dramatic, but like yearning for something other than my kids. And you feel bad to admit that they don't fulfill and check all the boxes for you, but they just don't.
00:08:55
Speaker
Right. Right. They shouldn't. Yeah. I would say this. So shout out to Matt for one encouraging you to find that. And I don't think a lot of husbands do that because I think they're worried about what's going to happen. But this is what's going to happen. And remember, I'm sure everyone's heard this, like when you have kids and they grow up and then all of a sudden you're like, who is my wife or who is my husband? Like I'm living with a roommate. Yeah. And they don't take attention. And I think sometimes it's because husband or wife's lose themselves and who they're really are. Right.
00:09:22
Speaker
And so I think they actually, opposite happens when a wife or a husband actually finds what they're passionate about.
Seeking Help Beyond Family
00:09:30
Speaker
And it's way more attractive to the opposite person. Like, holy cow, like Yahtzee, I'm seeing you flex a gifting that I haven't seen for a while. You're finding yourself and you are attractive in that way to the spouse because it just is a different light. And we're always constantly changing.
00:09:50
Speaker
man kudos to matt for encouraging you to do that and also taking money out of the budget to try it like what's the what's the problem what advice would you give to i want to close the loop on this to a woman who's in that like i just this is stuck in that i need something else you know to get help sooner because it can have bigger consequences if you don't ask for help or you don't address this
00:10:15
Speaker
I don't know. I've thought about that and it's hard to say because I believe so much in God's perfect timing and things that I just feel like this was the time that God had for me. I was done having kids. The business is sort of born out of my four girls.
00:10:34
Speaker
and it's what's coming next. I'm closing the chapter on having babies and this is going forward so I see the timing was so good and there's nothing that could have
Growth Strategies with Social Media
00:10:45
Speaker
forced it. I couldn't have forced it any sooner. I just mean like maybe asking for help or saying I'm having these thoughts or I feel
00:10:51
Speaker
Maybe just talking about that stuff. I wanted these kids. I do appreciate that I stay home with them. I feel like it's a blessing that maybe that I don't have to work, but I don't want to sound ungrateful, but I'm missing something for myself that I really want to feel excited and just hopeful about the future for that's just something for me.
00:11:18
Speaker
And so just maybe admitting that, having that conversation, and then from there thinking about what could that be? What are my gifts? I've always been creative. I've always liked to make things with my hands, whether it's decorating or drawing or painting or whatever. So I know that I've got the ability to just make pretty things, but I never thought it would come in the form of making a bracelet. I never thought I'd be a jewelry maker, but whatever, I'll go with it.
00:11:46
Speaker
clicking the boxes. I love the progression too that you went through of first starting something, seeing it caught fire and testing it in the market. I think that's brilliant and a lot of people don't know even how to do that to see if they have a legitimate idea. And so kudos to you for that. Then you go in and now you're in the throes of it and you're trying to make all these beads and your 10 year old is now beading up to then like now we need to make this more sustainable and hire somebody.
00:12:16
Speaker
Um, so also to not only is it sustainable and probably your cashflow for your business profitability wise, probably took a step backwards when you did that, but knowing like it's not a bad thing at all. That was my hangup. That's why I couldn't get past that hiring her. I wanted all the profit for me to stay with me. Right. So that's exactly where I wanted to go with this. How did you get over that?
00:12:40
Speaker
I think I was just forced into it. I have a mentor who I go to every couple months. She's a really successful business woman. She's one of my best friends, but she is so, her brain works so much different than mine and she has no fear. She had, you know, just do this, do this, do that. So she'll give me advice and she basically told me,
00:13:03
Speaker
Run your process into the ground until it breaks and then you'll be forced into your next step. So I've just taken her advice and I just got overwhelmed. I just got to the point where I was getting too many, too many orders in to keep up with. I like to get my customers orders out within one week of them ordering. And I was getting to the point where it was taking me too long.
00:13:29
Speaker
for what I was comfortable with as far as giving good customer service. So that's when I knew it was the time. And then what
Validating Business Outside Inner Circle
00:13:38
Speaker
happened is once I hired that girl to help me and I felt that burden lift, I was like, okay, this is worth it.
00:13:46
Speaker
Right. You know, just having that help and knowing that I wasn't keeping all the profit, I was giving some away. You don't know how bad you need it until you have it. And then you're like, why didn't I do this sooner? Yes. Right. And I think that that's what I wanted to kind of unpack a little bit is a lot of business owners get to that point. A lot of the business owners are scared to do it, but once they get it, all the business owners I've talked to are like, which would have done that sooner, you know?
00:14:08
Speaker
With the right employee, right? Yeah. And my husband was telling me that for months, he knows too, but it's just the point that you have to get to when you realize it. And I think you could also go one of two ways. I could have just been like, I'm done and like totally backed off, stop running ads, get too scared, or push through, do something uncomfortable. Go to the next level. Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker
I want to go, I want to touch on that. Two things I think they dovetail. You kind of said before we got on, I don't have a website.
Social Selling Without a Website
00:14:41
Speaker
And so I think, you know, we start talking about starting new businesses. I talk about leapfrogging a lot with people where, you know, like if someone in Eastern Africa doesn't have a cell phone or, you know, they're not going to go to a landline before they go to a cell phone. They're just going to go straight to the cell phone. Does that make sense?
00:14:58
Speaker
Now we're seeing businesses start up where it's like, I don't even want a website. Don't need it. I don't need it. I can sell within an Instagram or Facebook direct. And so, and then you kind of just said it too. I'm, you know, it sounds like you're running ads. So can you kind of talk to our listeners about some of those decisions from a, you know, infrastructure standpoint, web versus social, and then how you just kind of started adding fuel to the fire.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah.
Instagram Ads Experience
00:15:24
Speaker
So my Instagram page, you know, initially I got my first, whatever, a hundred, 200, maybe followers who were the word of mouth from that group I posted on. And I didn't, I intentionally did not, you know, how you can invite your friends and family already. I invited nobody. Brilliant. I wanted it to be strangers. I wanted to know nobody. Why? Why?
00:15:47
Speaker
Because like I said before well, okay to to be honest There's a fear of looking stupid in front of the people, you know, because you're putting yourself out there Okay, you're trying something new and you feel like if this fails, I'm gonna look dumb, right? They're gonna see me fizzle out and this kind of just fall on its face So I didn't so I didn't want anybody to know I was doing it that I knew okay
00:16:10
Speaker
And I also just, like I said, wanted to see the viability without the support of friends and family. So at some point, though, my followers kind of stagnated because, you know, I was just posting to the same few people all the time. And yes, they might tell a girlfriend to go follow this page, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't going to keep bringing consistent orders in. So I figured out and even though I don't feel tech savvy, I have learned
00:16:38
Speaker
how to run my Instagram page pretty well. I would say I've learned how to do the stories. I've learned how to do the highlight bubbles. You've got to figure out how that works so that you can keep your page engaged, but I figured out the ad thing so you can take a post. You can do a promotion on it where you pay a certain amount over a certain number of days and it'll target your target group for you. And so I started running these ads, just spending like $30, just not a lot.
00:17:07
Speaker
$30, $50. Setting kind of a ceiling to how much it could spend. Yes. And then I would always get a flurry of orders every time I ran an ad. So I just kept running ads after ads after ads. They go six days or whatever. And then when it ends, start another one. So I've got like 1,500 followers now. Okay. In a year. Still don't know. Still very few of them are people I know. Right.
00:17:33
Speaker
And I kind of feel right now like I do need to take another jump some way. I need to either increase my ad money or something because I'm starting to feel like, okay, these people that have been following me for a year, they've seen it. They all have bracelets. Yes, they all have bracelets. They've seen it. They're not having enough kids.
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah. So that's my next step of how do I keep growing past this point. Let's talk about this. I want to riff with this with Brian because we just basically had this whole conversation.
Organic Growth and Connections
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, we just shot another podcast and as he was leaving, I wrote this on like, what you're talking about is actually on the whiteboard from our previous conversation. Oh, weird. So yeah, go ahead.
00:18:15
Speaker
So our main point is friends and family is not the place you should start. And so many businesses start there. And what we would say is work outside and then get your family and friends so excited because there's so much momentum that now you know you have a viable product. Why didn't you tell me you were doing this? That's what I did.
00:18:35
Speaker
At my one year anniversary, I posted back on my personal page. I've been doing this for the last year. I've done this many sales, this many, you know, and people were like, I didn't know you were doing this. And I'm like, exactly nailed it. So I would also say like not.
00:18:53
Speaker
I just think all like really good wisdom comes from the Bible. So there's that. Yeah. I'll be very candid. And so we've been going through Mark and in that he just says, Jesus says a prophet is not without honor except in his home town among his relatives in his house. Basically meaning like a prophet.
00:19:09
Speaker
Has no real like standing in the town that he's like From and lived in because they're like no, I know that guy like I played football with that cat like he ain't nothing Yeah, I'm totally ad-libbing there But you get that there is something about knowing somebody that it helps to have an outside influence Tell you like whoa, he's in a whole different world right now. And so kudos to you and it's interesting that came back up
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because I talk about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency a lot with family and friends and they're just like, yeah, we're good. And it's actually the people that that aren't close to me that are like maybe more drawn to it. And you can only lead a horse to water, you know, so much. And so it is there's a principle to it. And I think, you know, we encourage entrepreneurs to like, don't go to your friends and family first, you know, validate. And I think that's a great thing that you've done.
00:20:02
Speaker
Well when you start those MLMs they tell you make your list of a hundred friends and family that you can call first. Anything with MLMs don't do that. I am not a fan. Well and I think too on that topic I think this is interesting because you know I think you've been really candid with us and I really appreciate that.
00:20:19
Speaker
You know, a lot of us have tried MLMs. You do want something outside of your kids. You do want to make an extra $500,000 a month. And, you know, I think now with COVID and work from home and all the different things with social media, you know, you're living that of like, I can do something and manage it within the context of my family and have an outward reach.
00:20:41
Speaker
And so I think there is this opportunity right now for us to be more entrepreneurial. And you're not sitting here saying like, I want to be a multimillionaire from this, but it is helping your family and it's certainly helping you. And then you're a better mom to your kids and a better wife to your husband. And can you share a little bit about like your faith through all this and just getting this outward expression of your identity in Christ and having this
Emotional Customer Stories
00:21:06
Speaker
outlet?
00:21:06
Speaker
Well, I think what's been the coolest, and I'm sure you guys can agree that almost every business can probably say that you started thinking it's going to be a business and then you end up getting so much more from it because you're customers, you're helping them. Right. And so it sounds stupid, but I'm making these bracelets, but the stories that I hear, the people that'll message me, it's like
00:21:30
Speaker
My mom's got cancer. She's going through chemo or, um, I had a lady one night message me, can you make me four bracelets by tomorrow morning that all say sisters. My aunt is, is dying and her, her three sisters want to get her, her bracelet before she passes. Then I meet her the next morning and she says it's too late. She passed away this morning.
00:21:54
Speaker
or, you know, miscarriages, we want to memorialize the baby that we lost at seven months. Which happens so much more than people. I think it may be just as you get older. So I guess I just see these stories and I get to help these people and it means something to them. And then I see God's work through that. So that's been really surprising and unexpected.
00:22:23
Speaker
So that makes it feel like, you know, there's more to it. There's there's a deeper meaning.
Unexpected Business Partnerships
00:22:30
Speaker
And just the beginning of the story, like I told you, I kind of just feel like it was on accident that it even happened. I wasn't looking for it. I wasn't looking to start a business. I wasn't looking to make jewelry. And there's another funny story when I was driving home from Michaels that first day, I looked out the window and I saw this little shop on the side of the road that I had never seen before.
00:22:52
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I need to go in there someday. That looks cute. So then I'm home that week and I'm making those initial first orders. And I see the same logo that was on that side of that shop in my inbox. This girl had ordered a bracelet set. And I said, do you have a little shop in Ankeny across from Keystone Church? And she said, yeah, I do. And I said,
00:23:15
Speaker
Okay, this is weird. I know this might sound odd, but I'm getting all these orders and I don't really want to be meeting up with all these people to get them their bracelets. Is there any way I can just drop all my orders off at your shop and tell people to pick their orders up there? Because it's publicity.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah, how many other people like me drive by and don't know what it is? So it's getting her new customers and it's helping me. So win, win, win, win. Get it. So then I go in there to do that. I drop off all the orders and we look at each other and we've known each other. I knew her. Stop it. From like 20 years ago when we were 19, we worked at American Eagle together. Of course you did.
00:23:57
Speaker
Of course you did. Okay, let's go. I want to go to like the business side of things. And normally we don't do this, but I think it's interesting. So are you incorporated? How did you do that? Where are you at? So last week I just sat down and I got my QuickBooks put together.
Formalizing Business Structure
00:24:12
Speaker
I need to do my LLC and get legit, get real. Right.
00:24:18
Speaker
Well, and I think you can still be legit. You are legit. You can be self-employed. There is a place for that on the tax return. But yeah, you kind of reach a level of it probably makes sense to incorporate. Yeah. And pay taxes and all that biz. Right. And it is a CPA helping you with that because these are like you can get in pitfalls pretty quick. Probably your mentor and guiding a little bit. I think your mentor, whoever that is, you can totally give her a shout out if you want. I would say talk to her about that.
00:24:44
Speaker
Hey, here's what income is coming in. Here's where it going out. What would you suggest from this perspective and why? And I think that you'll see that the tax code is built for business owners. So that's something, I mean, like you can write off things and it gets pretty nice, which is helpful.
00:25:02
Speaker
Right. Yeah, the IRS code is built for business owners and entrepreneurs because we take a risk, we employ people.
Tax Advice for Entrepreneurs
00:25:09
Speaker
We are creating things and so the code is designed that way because that helps everybody. Yeah. I just love the story. This is why we started this podcast, candidly. We're financial advisors that feel like you are your best asset. What in the world does that mean?
00:25:27
Speaker
It means that Lauren had an idea. She didn't know how to get it off the ground. And so be able to step in with Lauren or people like Lauren and help them navigate these things in such a way where not only I would say is this fulfilling, but it's also profitable and it can be profitable.
00:25:44
Speaker
And so that's been such a joy. So that's what we do here at Uncommon Wealth Partners. Brian and I started it, and we really wanted to start it for those people who were like, hey, I got an idea. I don't know how to do it. Those are our people. We love those people.
00:26:00
Speaker
And so we can help those people walk beside them and show them how their ideas for tomorrow actually help them for retirement versus the advisor who are just like, no, give me your money and I'll give it back to you when you're 65. Barf. So that's why we started. And then this podcast is highlighting people like Lauren who are loving what they're doing. And it might've been an idea they've had since they were a child. It might be something that like you did and just fell right into it.
00:26:27
Speaker
Either way, you can see how you are impacting people in an awesome, positive way. And we need more people like you. So, I don't know how many friends you have, but like, get them all. Let's go. Let's go in common. I love it. Well, I think, you know, shame was plugged for our website because we do create, we talk about the seven sources of residual income and network marketing and MLM is one of them. We've kind of gone back and forth whether we should include that or not as its own like separate category. Pretty much fill up has gone back and forth. Brian's like, no, it's valid.
00:26:55
Speaker
But I think that's what we. There's some girls making a lot of money doing those MLMs. More millionaires have been made out of MLM than any other industry in the world. So anyways, I won't go down that path. But I think there's a lot of people out there like you, my wife and I have done it. And it does have a stigma to it, so to speak. And so I think, can you talk to our listeners about the kind of joy and fulfillment of this?
00:27:21
Speaker
and owning this and getting to make some of these decisions of, you know, how do I want it to look? How do I want it to ship? You know, how do I want to price it versus where you're at with kind of like an MLM and like, you know, you're more in a box and I have this one way to do it. And then can you kind of highlight that?
00:27:38
Speaker
Um, well, I've never been asked that question before, but the first thing that came to my mind was I can use my instinct. Yeah. So I can decide on the spur of the moment, I'm going to run an ad right now. I'm going to use this bracelet to promote this right now, or I'm going to design, I get a, I get a spark of inspiration. I'm going to sit down right now. I'm going to design a new set. Right. And I just have the freedom to do that. Right. To be decisive. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know any other way. Some would say the decisiveness right now is the best leadership quality. We just had a podcast and that's what we said, so that was the major takeaway. But I think it was timely, yeah. Keep going, it's great. What about socially? Because it's emotional to be in multi-level marketing. It's just like that. Oh, yeah, when I did that in the past.
00:28:26
Speaker
you know they're like you've got to make videos you've got to engage you need to be posting three times a week at least and then you got to sprinkle in a little bit of personal stuff in there too so then every everyone you see that does that you know they're doing like a formula and it kind of feels a little
00:28:43
Speaker
Right. No, I get it. I get it. Disingenuous. So my posts are when I want to. Thank you. They're about what I want to post and nobody else is driving that and giving me the formula of how to do it. Maybe it would be helpful to have a little bit of that, a little bit of direction, because I'm just kind of winging it. Right. But I've had people tell me,
00:29:04
Speaker
Your page is good, but you need to show yourself more. You need to show your face more. You need to involve your family more, make it more about your life overall than just your business. And I can see the value in that, but then I feel like, Oh, it's just not genuine. I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm not trying to go down that I don't want to show my outfits.
00:29:26
Speaker
You know, so I don't know how much advice to take from that. I think those are all, and these are all things that, you know, you see some of these images and stuff and everything looks so canned and I love the memes where it shows like this is the Instagram photo, but this is really what was happening. Right. And so I think there's a lot of wisdom in taking that slower.
00:29:47
Speaker
Lauren you're doing awesome things and you know I love that you have a mentor to help you through that and I think so we call it mentors are the cheat code of life because then they just don't let you go down pitfalls that they have. So what would a piece of advice that you'd have to your younger self?
Personal Challenges and Faith
00:30:02
Speaker
I don't know, just don't worry so much about the future. Oh my gosh, I'm a worry wart. I've been a worry wart my whole life, I would say. Just always worrying about what's coming, what's next. I want security all the time. My family, we've been through a lot. My husband and I, we went through at the crash of the risk, or the bubble, the house bubble, yeah. We foreclosed on our house. We had to walk away. We had to start over from the ground up.
00:30:32
Speaker
And then, uh, my husband was diagnosed with cancer in his ear five years ago. And we found out last November that it's back in his lungs. So there's never, there's a never ending list for me to worry about in the future and in the present. So I feel like the longer I live, the more I see.
00:30:55
Speaker
God is always taking care of every step of the way and I've spent so much time worrying in life So he's he's good. He's in a trial right now and doing a like an experimental drug trial treatment and it's going really good and we're we have a
00:31:15
Speaker
all the reasons to be hopeful. It's a very slow growing cancer. But yeah, I would just say my younger self just wanted everything in life to come easy for there to be no hardship, no pitfalls.
Trusting Timing and Blessings
00:31:30
Speaker
And even looking back, seeing all of the hard things that we've had to go through, God is still good. He's still providing. Actually this year has been, it's
00:31:41
Speaker
blown our minds how God has blessed us this year, which is, you know, some people are crazy to say about it. Like, yeah, I think, I think it's been amazing. Such a pressure, especially in the Christian community to have it like all put together and to be comfortable and like,
00:31:58
Speaker
God doesn't want us to be comfortable. God wants us to be uncomfortable, you know? And I think when you step out in faith like this, God gives you things that you couldn't even have planned for yourself. And I think like you're touching on that awareness now of like, oh my gosh, we're at a place I couldn't even have fathomed, even amidst
Finding Heart on Your Sleeve Online
00:32:18
Speaker
a trial.
00:32:18
Speaker
Amidst it yeah, so that's how do our listeners find out more about you heart on your sleeve all of that Okay, so my main and most active platform is Instagram the name is heart dot on Dot your dot sleeve. I know it's kind of a mouthful but perfect that's the only name that wasn't already taken right the dots in and
00:32:43
Speaker
And then the same name is also on my Facebook. Um, I don't have a website. I don't have an Etsy shop. That's another question. Don't feel bad about it. Don't feel bad about it. Etsy's blowing up though. I know. I kind of think that might be one of the next things I need to do in case Instagram shuts down or something, because literally this business wouldn't exist without Instagram. Yeah. That's a big risk. Honestly is good for you to know that that could be a risk and then trying to other ways to get around it. And, uh,
00:33:11
Speaker
Candidly, we don't need to go down the gravel, but I'm curious. Do you know what gum road is? No. Okay. Let's not go into it. But it's, I don't know much about it either. It's growing rapidly. And I think it's something kind of like Etsy, but different. So anyways, I don't know either. So not important. Okay.
00:33:29
Speaker
Lauren, thank you for taking time. It's been such a joy. I'm glad you're impacting others. You've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I've been your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Tune in next time. Until then, go be in common. Thanks everybody. Goodbye.
00:33:45
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.