The Floral CEO

 

Hello, flower friends. This past weekend I had two weddings, and actually one was on Saturday, one was on Sunday, and one of them was the day that I was also planning having my daughter's birthday party, which also meant that I had preparation for the party, picking up a birthday cake, all these things.

But I felt surprisingly calm, and I didn't feel stressed out, you guys. And I think it was, like, close to 10 to $11,000 between... One of them was just a little bit smaller. But one of them had to have two things designed on site because they had the things. But 📍 I, was surprisingly calm, and I, I, when I was driving back I just thought about that.

Because a lot of times we ha- wear this badge of honor that when it comes to busy season we think we're supposed to be cracked in half, running around like we're heroin addicts looking for our next flower fix, and that's normal, that not taking care of ourself is normal, that being a shitty human being because we're not responding, we're not doing all these things is just normal.

And I was really thinking, like, "What are some strategies that have got me here, that I'm not feeling like I'm strung out, that I'm not feeling like I am knee-deep in alligators and with no sign of shore?" So I wanna talk a little bit about strategies to basically keep it together during wedding season or during busy season.

And this also could be, like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day or literally just a busy time. I have gone through seasons that, I've... You know, you're emotionally busy. Like, when you're caring for a loved one or when, a loved one passes or- there's a shift in your relationship.

I've gone through all of these different seasons of losing both of my parents, losing siblings losing relationships, getting divorced, getting married, having children, having a special needs kiddo, having a baby at 40. We all think about these seasons, but, , how do you survive and thrive in it?

That is really my focus of today's episode, because I don't want you to feel like shit. And I did years of thinking I was supposed to feel like shit, that it was cool to feel like shit, that it, it was cool to be doing, like, 125 weddings while I was working full-time, and then really not making any money.

And I mean, like, all of these things there's this persona that they're cool, but they're really not. So one thing I think busy season really can do is expose every single weak spot you have in your business. So busy season does not really create chaos. It just really reveals it. So if you have poor systems in place, weak boundaries, bad communication, are not good at prepping, are great at overbooking , are a people pleaser, really don't have clear priorities, like, all of that becomes so evident.

If this has been you, you will ... I, I can almost hear it already going, "I don't ever want to feel or do this again." Have you said that to yourself ever? You are so tired, so exhausted that at the end of this we- weekend, or at 1:00 in the morning when you're getting all this shit done or whatever, have you ever told yourself "I don't wanna feel like this.

I'm never gonna do this again. I'm au- I'm gonna have this insane boundary and just all these things." if it's gotten that far, if you really mean it, that's amazing. But if you keep forging forward, you need to start having a new identity, because your current identity identifies with chaos. And my new identity identifies with calm, identifies with structure, identifies with feeling good, identifies, honestly, with sleeping.

I don't sleep very good to begin with, so whatever sleep I can get I want to rest. Rest. Rest is a great word. Is that in your narrative? Because if you have weak boundaries, you will overbook. You will go and people please. Because I have been through the spiral. I'm sure you have, too, if you've been doing this for any length of time.

Are you like, "Oh, I did X and X and blah, blah, blah," that they knows wedding, and so they're a referral, and I don't wanna disappoint somebody, but I already have four fucking weddings that weekend, but let's roll, bitches, and let's get it done. I literally have said that exact same thing to myself, and luckily, it's just not as possible for me any- either because I've moved now farther away.

But if that is you make sure you're putting a boundary in place that I'm not going to feel like this anymore. I'm going to make sure that I am prepared. I'm gonna have things done in the off-season so I'm not running around unprepared. All right, the next thing, protect your mornings. I know that it is so natural to get up in the morning and be like, "Let's roll."

We're checking our, text messages. We're on the Gram. We're seeing how many likes that we got on our post. We're going in and seeing if anybody's called. We're... We haven't done anything to take care of ourself. We're literally in reactivity mode from the beginning, taking care of everybody else.

So, start your day with intention instead of chaos. Calm, water, movement, being quiet. If you journal snuggling your children. Have a 10-minute grounding routine to ground yourself in the morning so you aren't going from zero to 100. Put your phone on some... My phone has my alarm on it, so that's one shitty thing.

But put it down afterwards, and then just go, "Okay, I gotta get these things done." Retrain your brain that your phone does not need to be attached to you first thing in the morning because n- the whole world doesn't wake up when you wake up. If they wake up 30 minutes later, an hour later, i- is anybody gonna die?

No. You have all the power to let things pause. Then I also think we need to spend time deciding on what is actually urgent. During busy season, like anything, when your cortisol levels are raised and when you're already running 📍 on empty, it is very easy to go into highly reactive.

But not everything is urgent. A boutonniere ribbon color tweak is not urgently needing a response. A planner needing a final load-in confirmation is urgent. A Instagram post is probably not urgent. Your team knowing a game plan and what's happening is probably urgent. This is such a helpful CEO skill, but yet so hard to actually perfect, because the world feels on fire.

Your cortisol levels are heightened. When I have a lot of stress my heart is just going faster. It's just not good for your body. It's not good for the people and loved ones around you, because you also are probably snippier, sassier, not as kind, not as grounded. And interacting with you inevitably probably feels like crap.

So do you wanna feel like that? Do you wanna just be like, "The world is on fire"? Somebody else's emergency is not mine. So you can put things in perspective that you will get to this tomorrow. You will get to this on Monday. It... The world is not on fire for somebody to update their boutonniere color.

It's just not. So then, I really think it's important to set goals and boundaries before you even need them. You do not want to wait until you are drowning to suddenly try to have boundaries. So some ideas around perfecting this, and one, one way that I do boundaries really easy is my Calendly.

My Calendly tells people when I'm fucking available, and guess what, you guys, that does not cl- include evenings or weekends. My Calendly has days and times during the week available. That's it. I have, in the last year, had one person, one person ask about having an appointment outside of that. One person.

That was it. You have more power than you think you do. You are the CEO in your business. You make those rules. You can also put, "I'm gonna go and respond to things- and actually have like office hours. I'm going to be okay if I'm responding in less than 24 hours. I'm gonna set my consultation times. I'm gonna do no same-day changes after a certain, like thi- this is it.

This is your cutoff date, and this is it. No late night texting, no weekend admin unless it's absolutely necessary. Boundaries feel mean when you haven't burnt out yet. But when you're getting close, and even before, they are, they feel so life-giving. And one of those boundaries is even you just can't do everything yourself.

You're human, and you can't do everything yourself. All right. Next, stop saying yes to everything during business season. If somebody asks you to do a styled shoot in busy season, send them a middle finger emoji. Like they should know better. But people do that. Like people ask stupid shit because they don't understand potentially.

Or you have the mom that's "Let's have a play date," and you're like, "I am so drowning." y- you just can't. Last minute add-ons you don't have the capacity for, you cannot accommodate. Squeezing in one more event, that's another one. Doing favors for people, taking on DIY rescue jobs because somebody was being too damn cheap, not your problem.

Saying yes because you feel guilty, also not your problem. Like you, you don't feel guilty. It's not your fault that they didn't prepare, that they didn't think ahead. You deserve to have peace, and you deserve to, to not be like panicking because somebody else was an idiot. Take time to really reflect on, this is not my problem.

And yeah, do I even have the capacity or want to have the capacity to help this person? Was this completely their fault? 'Cause sometimes if mom said they were doing it, and then all of a sudden it like didn't happen, like I'm gonna give somebody a little bit of grace. But if somebody was just being an utter idiot, like no.

No thank you. Like I told you the prices and this is where we ended up, no. No thank you. Like it, y- you could have had this perfect, and you messed it up because you thought you knew better than me. No thank you. You can of course do that in a ni- nice way. Just say, "You know what? I've already booked out my team, and they don't have any more availability, and so I just don't think that that's something that we can pull off at this point.

I could have, uh, booked additional freelancers if we would have booked it when we talked about it." That's it. All right, next thing. Make your team part of your piece and process. Make sure that your freelancers, staff, your family if they're helping, et cetera like they're all well know what is going on and they're prepared.

You're giving people really clear roles. One person is owning a task. That is my biggest thing on setup day. One person owns a task from start to finish, because when you have two people doing candles, then one of the tables isn't right. There's nobody taking ownership of it, you guys. They're just not.

Nobody's gonna take ownership. I didn't do that table. I thought that they were doing that table. One person, one task till it's done. Label everything. Having clear timelines, expectations ahead of time, not assuming people just know 'cause it's common sense, because you know how many times I've thought, "That's common sense.

Somebody should know that because it's common sense." My common sense is way different than other people sometimes, and it's stifling. I'm like, "Are you serious? That is not... What are you talking about?" But that is the world we live in. Everybody's different. Everybody has different capacity. Everybody has a different understanding, different history, different whatever.

Everybody's got a different take on it. So unclear t- team communication literally creates unnecessary stress, and you don't need it. All right, next. Your body matters in wedding season, and I wanna give a really good example of this because I really embody this. Last season, I had... This has been for the past couple years.

I had nine people in my garage. Nine. And I said, "Hey, everybody," made sure everybody had their tasks, and I said, "I'm going to CrossFit, and I'll be back in about an hour and a half." here's nine people working in my garage, but I prioritize taking care of myself and getting my workout in. And what's so, what's even funnier about it is I said, God, I internally, i, I mean, I've done this a multitude of times. It, it, two people in, in the studio, 10 people in the studio. If that's when I scheduled my workout, then that's when I'm going. So 📍 I, felt bad in the beginning, and then I had one of my freelancers, they, they randomly said to me at a different time, so not even a relevant time, "I think it's really cool that you prioritize going to make sure that you're working out."

And I thought it was, like, douchey. And I was like, "Yeah, it is important to me, so that's why I go." You deserve to take care of yourself, and if you don't take care of yourself, the business is not going to last. The business is not going to function well. So make sure you're eating real food. I have lived on protein bars, you guys.

I am a vegetarian I know I need protein. I'm usually protein deficient. And so I was like, I would just live on protein bars, live on protein bars, for real. That is not real food. I would just be drinking Diet Mountain Dew, no water, no nothing. I already didn't sleep well, so I would sleep even less.

I wasn't working out or anything. Like, all these things are so important to you being the next-level self. So can you start identifying with, "I'm a person who takes care of themself. I'm a person who prioritizes my health. I'm a person who prioritizes being less stressed. I'm a person who prioritizes not being strung out."

You cannot preserve peace with yourself or be a functioning human if your body just feels like shit and is completely wrecked. And I have been there. I've even gone to CrossFit, and then the next day I'm doing a full setup, and I'm like, "Oh my God, this sucks," 'cause I can barely walk. But then the next day I'm gonna, I'm gonna recover.

You deserve recovery. You deserve rest. All right. Next, give yourself fewer decisions. And I kind of love... I don't know if you guys listen to Leila Hormozi. She's such a badass. And I love listening to her podcast. She is she's a little brash, but I like it. And she says that she makes all of her decisions on Sundays.

Because every time you need to stop and make a decision, you're taking time out of actually doing. And so she plans all of her big decisions on Sundays. If she makes a decision for something, she's sticking with her decision. And I just thought that is such an interesting concept. But here are some ways that you can reduce decision fatigue.

You can plan your outfits ahead. That is real, you guys. Plan your outfits. What you're going to wear. If you have a company logo T-shirt, it makes it so much easier. You just need to make sure you got it fucking clean, 'cause that's what you wear on setup days. You could prep your food ahead of time.

Create standardized recipes. Create an SOP book, you guys. Standard operating procedure book. Use checklists. Standardize how shit is done. It's not different today, it's the same every day. Decide what tools go where. Know y- your d- this is how we deliver shit. This is how we box it. The fewer unnecessary decisions you make, the calmer you stay, the more relaxed you are, and honestly, the less mentally tired you are.

I don't know about you, but I, like, when I have to make a million decisions, I literally, my brain is tired. I just... It's like decision fatigue is a real thing. All right, next. Don't let others literally hijack your energy. Busy season puts you around stressed out brid- brides, stressed out mother of the brides, planners who are strung out, tired freelancers, family who misses you, and literally with everything you have on your plate likely is asking too much, people texting like everything is an emergency, people texting you in fucking general knowing that you have a lot going on.

You do not need to or are obligated to absorb everyone else's chaos. Just because someone else is panicking does not mean that you need to join their club. I am in nobody else's panic club, absolutely nobody else's. I the only one I, actually my husband's. If he calls me and says the donkey's doing something or the alpaca's doing something or somebody's getting hurt or somebody's loose, that's the only time that I am letting anybody hijack my energy, because I usually have to go out and save or break up a f- argument or somebody's just not being very nice.

But that's just part of being an animal parent I think. But you don't have to let people impact you. I talked about in last week's episode a client who was an absolute jackass, and g- I obviously was not feeding in- I wasn't actually feeding into her frenzy energy, and I really think that's what kind of impacted our consultation from the beginning.

So I, because I wasn't matching her energy I feel like it just- It was honestly a weird vibe even from the beginning, because I could tell she had frenzy energy, and it was just like, I'm not into it. I'm not into fucking making you feel like you're... Like, everything is so stressful, and that you're a victim to wedding stress.

And she wanted t- to- to feel like a victim of wedding stress, and I'm just like, "Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Well, hopefully you're getting near the end of it. Hopefully things will get better." And I think she wanted me to tell her that, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. This is so terrible."

And I'm just like, "You are not a victim. You chose to plan a wedding. You've been choosing to plan it for two years. You're getting married in October, and you're just reaching out to florists? You're a fucking idiot." that is the crux of it. Y- I don't have to feed into her weird, crazy energy. If somebody's gonna be crazy, they can be crazy.

If a mom of the bride wants to be crazy... I even ha- I- I have sometimes emotionally tired freelancers that something triggers them, and they're crying or... Over the years, I have seen the gamut of things, you guys, and it has also helped make me a better coach, because I have been there and been able to "You know what?

Let's- let's get back on track." Sometimes you can't emotionally regulate the world, and it's not your job to anyways. But number 10, have a reset plan. And I love my Sunday night prep, because it's basically a Sunday night reset. I am resetting my week. I'm resetting my goals. I'm resetting my schedule. I am looking at everything to know what is ahead, and then debriefing on everything that happened.

But that also little reset could be a, it's a 10-minute cleanup at the end of the night, like a post-wedding debrief, a quiet drive home. You guys, the amount of reset that I have now that I have an hour drive pretty much to do anything is so calming. It is so calming to have an hour, and... 'Cause anytime I drive with my husband or the kids, there's noise, and I just, I want, I l- I love some quiet.

I love quiet. In the studio, I love quiet. I just love... I have enough noise in my life to not add more. If I'm going to add noise, I'm going to be learning. I'm going to be listening to a podcast. I'm gonna be listening to an audiobook. I'm going to be listening to something- That noise of value to me. And otherwise, I like quiet.

I like resetting in silence. You also could just take a full day off after a big push. You deserve to rest. I also like brain dump before you go to bed. Get it out of your head, get it out of your mind so you can just de-stress, de- fill all the crap that's in your head, get it out on paper, and be done so that you can move forward and actually have restful sleep, 'cause your brain isn't still worrying.

As someone who is neurodivergent and literally I'm afraid all the time I'm going to forget a really good idea, you guys. I'm afraid I'm gonna forget a really good idea, a really good detail, a good podcast episode idea helping someone thinking about somebody's problem. Like, all of those things are really real to me, so I text myself them so that I'm...

my brain isn't constantly worried I'm gonna not remember this thing. And then on Sunday, I reset, and I feel like I'm gonna grab all those things that I didn't want to forget, and I'm going to put them in action. All right, next, give yourself permission to do less. One thing that this move to the farm has really made me reflect on is that I was doing a lot.

And now I drive literally eight-ish probably hours a week, and that literally is a lot of time. That takes up a lot of time. Eight hours is a lot of time. It's... Some hou- some weeks it's 10 hours or 12 hours, depending on if I'm running the kids to things, doctor's appointments if I'm going to pottery class, if I'm going to tomorrow I'm going to my hair appointment, whatever it is.

That's literally 25% of somebody's full-time job, just driving for me. So I don't have as much time. The farm and taking care of the animals takes a chunk of time. So when busy season happens, eh, with weddings, like, I am not Superwoman. I am a high achiever.

I am a, I would say somebody who does a lot, and I often have people ask me "I don't know how you do it all." I can't do it all. But I do a lot. But I don't do enough, so I break. And I want the same for you. I don't want you to break. I want you to have a plan that it's okay that my house isn't perfect.

I can say no, and it's okay. I don't need to overcomplicate flowers. I literally was talking to somebody, and they were, like, chasing all these fucking flowers in Facebook groups, and they were joining Facebook groups to find locally grown shit, and they were out scavenger... This is another person out scavenger-ing for these flower branches.

And I just don't have time for that. Good for you if that is a priority, but a priority to me is get some sleep, snuggle my kids, snuggle my mini cow respond to my emails, do a social media post, spend time in the bath. Whatever. Make things simpler. Give yourself permission that it's okay to do less.

All right, then my final. Peace is a business strategy. This is something that I live my life as the moral compass. I deserve peace. Being peaceful helps me be a better leader, communicate better, problem solve faster, create better client experiences, protect my health, protect my joy. And what's so funny is I...

A girl that was in the Floral CEO Mastermind I think she was in there for a year, and one of my biggest things is I was like, "You need to do less. You need to do less," because she was working six days a week, and I absolutely love this girl. Six days a week, though, that's a lot. And she was doing tons of daily orders.

She was on all the wire services. And I was just like, "You can't... For one, it can't be very profitable because I know the margins in on dailies and how much volume you have to do to make any money." And I saw her a little while ago, and she said to me, she's like, "I, you know, really think about what we talked about with me creating space and with me doing less.

And it is so crazy the ideas that I come up with now and what's really happened with my business and my brain and all the things with having that space." So she created space and brought peace to herself, but it really opened up so many opportunities and doors that it's hard to even probably wrap- my head around because I know how game-changing it can be that I'm excited that somebody, took the leap and it came out beautifully.

Because I know that this is so important, and we don't normally, because it's not a hard and fast number, you can't say that what the ROI on peace is, but the ROI is high, you guys. And peace is not lazy. Peace is not a luxury. Peace is part of being a good CEO. And I want you to have more peace in 2026, and honestly, in your future as a CEO in your business, you deserve peace.

If you're like, "I have no idea where to even start," the Floral CEO Mastermind is the place for you to be, you guys. The women in there, the transformations that happen in there... I was just giving you another example, and I'm so excited 'cause I just invited her to be on the podcast. But I have an amazing woman that's been in my mastermind for a while now that has had so much growth that she just quit her job of 35 years.

And this is I'm talking about weeks ago, you guys. And she has 18 weddings booked this year. 18. Her goal was 20. She's going to knock it out of the park. You have so much potential. You just need probably, for one, a little bit of advice from somebody that's been there and somebody that's seen so many florists that's been where you're at.

And sometimes that is hard because you think you can ChatGPT your way into having your own personal business coach. There is nobody that's going to believe in you like I will. There is nobody that's going to see through your bullshit like I will. And you need that person that's going to believe in you.

You need that person that knows the strategies that are going to help you get past your shit and get into making money in a peaceful and less stressful manner that feels good for everybody, for your spouse, for you, for your children, so you can be the human that you want to be. I want you to be that human, that next level version of yourself, that, that new identity that you've been talking about.

I always talked about doing all these big fucking things, and finally I was just like, "I'm done. I'm done talking about being healthy. I'm going to be healthy. I'm done talking about making a bunch of money, and I'm just going to make a bunch of money because I know what it takes to do that. I'm gonna build the relationships.

I'm gonna sow the seeds so that I am going to get blooms for years to come." I know all the strategies to do that. I wanna teach you, and I want you to be locking arms with these amazing women that are in the Floral CEO Mastermind because there's friendship. We were singing happy birthday, you guys.

My children even got on and sang happy birthday to one of my other favorite humans in the Mastermind. It is so amazing. It's hard to even... It's hard to wrap my head around w- what the Mastermind has become and how proud I am of it. And I would love to invite you in. Go check out floralceo.com/mastermind.

Thank you so much for listening, flower friend, and you have an amazing, and hopefully peaceful, flower-filled day.