We often think of our lives and businesses as two completely separate things, but rarely is that actually the case. In this episode of Making a Business, we’re talking about how working on your “life-hustle” enriches your business.
Emily Thompson 0:00
I have to pay so much more attention to my life, in order to pick out the things that can be curated into Almanac, which makes me more intentional about where I shop, or where I want to go on vacation, or how it is that, you know, I'm making decisions for what I'm planting in my garden, like, God bless my David, but he gets really stressed out about invasive species. Whereas, you know, I usually don't care. But if I really want to, you know, hone my craft of living seasonally and where I live, those are things that I have to think about more so it actually is bringing significantly more intention into my life. Whereas before, most of my intention, just bled into my business because intention in business helped me be better at business, which helped me be better at my business, which is so meta, it hurts. But now we being super intentional about my life is how it is that I'm going to, you know, build my business. So if nothing else, it just makes me pay more attention to the life that I'm building and understand that having those times away from my work will really on a whole other different level make my work better. From Being Boss, this is Making a Business.
Kathleen Shannon 1:23
A podcast about starting a business from scratch and overcoming the obstacles face when pursuing your dreams. I'm Kathleen Shannon,
Emily Thompson 1:31
and I'm Emily Thompson.
Kathleen Shannon 1:40
In this miniseries, we're following Emily's journey as she jumps into life as a maker and retailer with her new creative endeavor Almanac Supply Company.
Kathleen Shannon 1:55
In the last episode of Making a Business, Emily nine dug deep into what is really going into the Almanac Supply Company business model and setup. Because after you wade through the mindset, set up the boundaries and figure out your daily grind, you have to remember that you're here to provide for your customers and make money.
Emily Thompson 2:14
But in this episode, we're taking it one final step further and looking at how building Almanac Supply Company is affecting my life. I'm excited to share with you here some of the deep down motivations that are driving me to pursue this new endeavor, and what it means for how I show up and live.
Kathleen Shannon 2:33
But before we dive in, I want to give you some insight into why this first season of Making a Business is here, talking about the life hustle, even as entrepreneurs with multiple businesses that we're responsible for. We're not here just for the money. We're here for the life that it affords us. And we lay this out best in the introduction of the last chapter of the Being Boss book.
Emily Thompson 2:57
Do the work so you can live your life on your terms. We're not trying to tell you how to live your life. But we can definitely say that being a workaholic isn't cool. No matter how passionate you are about your job. The danger of being a creative entrepreneur is that because we love what we do so much, we tend to prioritize work above everything else. Plus, when your work is an expression of who you are, it's easy to tie yourself worth directly to your bottom line. A lot rides on the work that we do from paying the bills to creative fulfillment. And we're not just trying to make a paycheck doing what we love. We're trying to make a life worth living. As creative entrepreneurs, we know that in our work, we need to be nimble to make decisions based on our values, and to be able to reinvent ourselves on the fly in order to keep up with the demands of an evolving economy and personal vision. And as creatives it's important, we apply that same kind of desire and tenacity to our lives outside of work.
Kathleen Shannon 4:02
And so here Emily and I are wrapping up this first season with life and all that this business means for Emily far beyond the numbers and the daily grind. Okay, so, Emily, we believe wholeheartedly in being who you are. And living authentically. I feel like that is definitely my purpose in my work. And that's how we attracted each other is that we both believe strongly in being who you are. But we also believe really strongly in you know, not only owning your work but owning your life and really using your work to become more of who you are. So I'm curious to hear how Almanac is helping you be more of who you are.
Emily Thompson 4:51
Oh, that'll be an easy one to answer. Let's see if I can do that. Right. So whenever I think about who I want to be, and how almanacs going to help me get there. It has a whole lot to do with helping people heal their relationship with the earth. And that has had so little to do with the work that I've done for the past several years, I think another very large part of healing your relationship with with the earth is healing your relationship with your creativity. And I think that translates into being able to make money with your creativity with it, which then rolls into what I have been doing for the past decade, this idea of helping people make money online selling their creativity, so it all works together. But for me, the ultimate purpose of that is for one, heal my own relationship with the earth, but then help others really tap into that flow that nature provides for us to create. And it's something that you know, I'm really just now a really, over the past year really been diving into. So it's something that I don't have too many points of view to really, like spill out in platitudes at all of you, kind folks. But it is something that I'm absolutely moving towards this idea of how is it that we can live in accordance with the earth and the seasons of the earth, to help us be more creative and fulfilled people. I want to be the person who helps people heal that relationship.
Kathleen Shannon 6:35
That sounds dreamy, and also really big. So I'm curious, you have this big vision, right? Like this deeper purpose that is life giving, like it energizes you and it motivates you. How do you hang on to that vision and that purpose as you're going through the daily grind? And you know, everything we talked about in the last episode of profit margins, and business models and payment processors and customer service, and like the things that just kind of make you want to throw in the towel on a daily basis, like how do you maintain that purpose and that vision through the daily grind?
Emily Thompson 7:14
For me, it's stepping away from work wholeheartedly. Like I feel my purpose. Oh, wait two times, at two moments do I most fill my purpose. One is whenever I'm standing amongst my products, whenever I go to Holly's house, and I'm standing in our office, and I see the products that we've curated, like sitting on this really awesome shelf that her husband built for us. I am so inspired to continue this work, because I see it represented in the products that were already curating this early on, like, I'm already feeling it. And I'm like, Yes, it feels really right. But I most feel it whenever it's a Sunday, and I get to play in my garden, and I get to go to the plant store and pick out plants and I get to go for a hike. And I get to, you know, plan my next trip to somewhere awesome in the world. For me, I feel that whenever I step away from work, which I'm very adamant about doing as much as physically possible, I'm really adamant about doing that so that I can reconnect with my purpose, by not building my business by getting back to my life and seeing how much more my life is fulfilled. By putting my hands in the dirt or paying attention to some flowers, or whatever it may be, I recognize the healing that I'm doing. And it makes me really inspired to deal with customer service or payment processors or email marketing or whatever it may be. Those are just the mundane tasks that I have to do to bring my purpose into the world.
Kathleen Shannon 8:55
One of the things that we talk about a lot is the life hustle. This is actually a concept you introduced me to and this idea that you know, sometimes doing fun things takes hard work as well. Like sometimes you have to task out and project manage your own vacation, especially if you have kids is not always fun. But it's definitely rewarding. And I'm curious to hear more about your life hustle. So you talked a little bit about Sunday's and getting your hands in the dirt. And how else is this new business affecting your life hustle as it changed the way that you want to travel? Or, you know what any of that looks like?
Emily Thompson 9:31
Yeah, it's definitely helping me. It's creating a different blend between life and work because at Being Boss or even Indie Shopography, business was business, where I was the my business wasn't helping people grow businesses. So there was just like a very like business direction with my business with the work that I was doing. Now, I have to pay so much more attention to my life, in order to pick out the things that can be curated into Almanac, which makes me more intentional about where I shop, or where I want to go on vacation, or how it is that, you know, I'm making decisions for what I'm planting in my garden, like, God bless my David, but he gets really stressed out about invasive species. Whereas, you know, I usually don't care. But if I really want to, you know, hone my craft of living seasonally, and where I live, those are things that I have to think about more. So it actually is bringing significantly more intention into my life. Whereas before, most of my intention, just bought into my business, because intention in business helped me be better at business, which helped me be better at my business, which is so meta, it hurts. But now we being super intentional about my life is how it is that I'm going to, you know, build my business. So if nothing else, it just makes me pay more attention to the life that I'm building and understand that having those times away from my work, will really on a whole other different level, make my work better.
Kathleen Shannon 11:12
Woo I love this, whenever I first started blogging, I challenged myself with eating as local as possible. And I felt, I mean, this is probably a decade ago. And so this was all new to me this idea of like really being intentional about where I was shopping, and living seasonally and eating the food that is available in the season. And there was something about eating locally, that made a huge shift in the entire way that I lived my life, I feel like it literally changed my brain chemistry. And I'm sure that one day I will read the science that backs this up. But for now, it feels like magic. And with that with this charge to eat locally, I decided that I want to start shopping locally and supporting my local community. And that became something that really changed the way that I lived in my city. And now, you know, to this day, some of my best friends are people who are shop keeps and I was shopping in their store. And it really did. It just felt it's so tight knit and so important. And so it felt like more than just business, I guess is what I'm trying to say whenever I shop local. So I'm curious to hear from you, you know, you have a local, you have your online side of your business, which like you can't help because that's where you come from, right. But you've also really made an intention to really bring this business into your local community. And so I want to hear more about that. And like what that means for you and, and how that is affecting kind of the life side of things.
Emily Thompson 12:44
Yeah, I mean, for we've lived here in Chattanooga for two and a half years now. And I've kind of just been harmed it away in my office most of the time. I mean, I definitely have a really great ring of friends, for sure. I've met people I know, people have been to events, all the things. But I haven't been super proactive about going out and meeting people or whatever it may be like I'm just living in my little hole. I know enough people all over the world that I haven't felt a hardcore need to go meet more people. However, this business is forcing me to show up in my local community quite a bit more than, you know, has been my intention for the past two and a half years. Part of that includes supporting local, which is something that we've always done. We've always tried to do as much as possible anyway. But like, again, just adding a little bit more attention to what it is that we that we were doing. It also makes me actually pay significantly more attention, I would say, Well, I pay more attention to the local economy now. But I say that, only in that I've been paying attention to the local economy the entire time, because I always knew this was coming. So being really cognizant, um, just as I'm driving around town, like what businesses are doing well which ones are coming and going really quickly which areas of town you know, have businesses stay around as opposed to those that open and close relatively quickly. So both like being super productive and adding to the local economy because I want them to like give back some day, but also just being super, super cognizant of what's going on in local economy so that I can plug myself in when and where needed. I have been focused a little more on growing a local network again, I have a vast and fantastic global network through the Being Boss podcast. But I need to translate some of those efforts into local as well if I if I want to really support local with this because whenever I do think about healing a place through you know connection to the earth like I want to do that all over the world, which is why we're online. But Chattanooga is a very special place and has some very special healing to do and a lot of ways. So I know that I have to really dive into that community to really be able to foster it in the way that I want. And that pretty, that does mean showing up and contributing to that community so much more at supporting makers, when there are maker fairs and showing up to support, you know, fellow entrepreneurs, and when they throw events, it's about going for hikes and supporting, you know, local, you know, national parks and things that are around. It's about showing up, basically, this business is making me show up considerably considerably more locally, then, I've really tried in the past.
Kathleen Shannon 15:39
Do you think that this business will shift your identity or personality, like how you see yourself so for me, I don't know if it's where my planets are in my chart, actually, I know, that's what it is. But I very much, you know, attach a lot of who I am to the work that I do, like, in my personal life, like my professional world really does affect how I see myself. So I'm curious to hear from you if if that's a challenge for you, or if it's something that you embrace and how you could see Almanac, shifting your identity.
Emily Thompson 16:13
I see it less as less as shifting, and more of expanding, if that makes sense. Like I'm not going like what business is in my soul guys in some very deep, amazing ways. Also, thank you birth chart. Um, and I accept that and I acknowledge it. So like, I'm going to still be talking about business. I can't imagine a day when I'm not talking to someone about business. In that like teaching capacity, which I feel is or the sharing capacity, I guess, which is what we do at Being Boss. And what I've been doing at Indie Shopography, so shifting, no. Expanding, yes. Because I'm ready to take my my business experience and know how and will and strategy and all of those things that I know I have in spades and put it into another area of my life that I find very important. Maybe not more so important. I do think that the work that we do at Being Boss is the most important work that I've done in my life so far. Helping people be who they are and make money doing what they love is some soul fulfilling work, for sure. However, I'm ready to layer on top of that, this idea of tapping into the seasons in order to foster that creativity, that allows people to make more money doing what they love. So again, not shifting, definitely expanding. And I think to that the work that I do at Almanac is only going to make the work that I do it Being Boss, all the better, because we'll have so much more insights and perspective to take to that project and the people who follow us there. So just expanding.
Kathleen Shannon 18:00
I love it. Okay, my last question has to do with celebrating is something that historically we've not been great at because we're you know, as creatives and as entrepreneurs always setting our sights at the next thing that we can make and do and accomplish. So what is the next milestone that you want to hit? And how are you going to celebrate?
Emily Thompson 18:21
Oh, I love this Okay, at the moment, so we're recording this mid to late February, just laying it out there. My next goal is launching spring. So because we are focused on the seasons, we obviously have a very seasonal product lineup. And we've been working through, you know, getting getting our winter stuff out there. And we're also working on creating spring products to get out into the world. I want to use that occasion to do more Chattanooga stuff, as well as like build our online strategy. So for me launching spring, and the way I plan on celebrating is actually already presenting itself to me it's just I have to show up and celebrate and enjoy it. And that is maybe a vacation. Hopefully we can New Orleans, that is the plan. I'm going to eat all the gumbo. That's how I'm going to celebrate.
Kathleen Shannon 19:22
And to be clear that's separate from from our typical New Orleans Being Boss vacation like you're going
Emily Thompson 19:32
As a civilian, I'm going to wander those streets and eat the food and just be there and right at the beginning of spring. So hopefully right after our spring pop up shop if things go as planned. I will be able to walk away and do some celebrating and some hardcore just chilling after you know, after months of just craziness of some really craziness that I did to myself, but I'm so happy I decided to make this leap and jump in to it. So I think the opportunities already present itself. I just have to keep showing up and doing the work until it's time to sip a Sazerac by a pool somewhere. That is the goal.
Kathleen Shannon 20:13
Well, congrats on everything. I'm so proud of you. And I can't wait to see where this goes next.
Emily Thompson 20:18
Thanks, me neither.
Kathleen Shannon 20:25
And there you have it. A comprehensive look at how my podcast co host and one of the most boss ladies I know decided to take a leap and make a business. Again, from her mindset shifts that helped her tackle fraudy feelings all the way through her local and online launches, and into how it affects her life. It was a pleasure to finally be able to chat with her about what all went into the creation of Almanac Supply Company.
Emily Thompson 20:52
And it was a complete pleasure to share it. It is our hope that this look into me starting this business will give you the courage to take your own leap. Because making a business no matter your passion is possible. As long as you show up and do the work. It's a principle that we've proven time and time again.
Kathleen Shannon 21:12
And thank you for showing up and listening to stay updated on when we launch future seasons of Making a Business. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. and sign up for our newsletter at www.beingboss.club.
Emily Thompson 21:32
Mindset, boundaries, habits and routines. These are what turn a creative into a boss. These foundations and more makeup our new book Being Boss, Take control of your work and live life on your own terms. A guide slash workbook slash sleep with it under your pillow book filled with what we've learned over the years as working, thriving creative entrepreneurs. Plus what we've picked up from the hundreds of conversations with industry leaders and experts on the Being Boss podcast.
Kathleen Shannon 22:05
And it's all so that you can cultivate confidence in your work, make good money doing what you're best at, and live a life you love. To learn more about our book and order one for yourself. Go to beingboss.club/book.
Emily Thompson 22:18
And to check out Almanac Supply Company, head on over to AlmanacSupplyCo.com get 15% off of your first order with discount code being boss at checkout.
Kathleen Shannon 22:30
Do the work.
Emily Thompson 22:31
Be boss.
