The Floral Hustle

 

Hello flower friends. This is Jen and I wanna talk about personal development. As you all know, if you've been listening to the podcast, I'm a big proponent of personal development. I've personally invested a lot, not only from a financial standpoint, but from a time investment, from a resources. I mean, it is pretty crazy how I.

Before, probably seven years ago, I wasn't reading books, I wasn't listening to podcasts. I wasn't doing any of those things because I just felt like I was surviving and I was doing the best I could with everything that was on my plate with, you know, having a kiddo with special needs and helping take care of my mom and just.

Working full time and running a business. I just felt like I, I was capped out. I'm like, I don't have any more room for anything. But when I really started getting into kind of the reframe that I need to spend this time to grow, because with that growth, things become easier. With that growth, my business grows, my revenue grows.

I feel different. I feel better about, you know, myself. I feel better about being a business owner. I felt, personal development is also involved me investing, being a better mother being a better partner. All of that is this huge picture of me wanting to be the best version of myself.

And so I really shifted my mindset from I don't have time to I don't have time not to do these things because I inevitably, if I want to scale anything, I'm gonna need the capacity to do that. I'm gonna need the confidence to do that. I'm gonna need. The resources and the understanding and the knowledge to even know how to do it.

So I went and it first started with listening to podcasts and really diving all in on listening, not only to florist, there's actually not a ton of florist podcasts and many of them that I do listen to or I, I don't listen to anymore 'cause it just wasn't. Engaging. It wasn't like, I mean, one of 'em, I'm not a big fan of the person's voice.

One of 'em, like the topics I are, I'm not crazy about but there's a couple of them that I'm, I like listening to. I like the content, I like the dialogue, but like I went beyond florist podcasts to actual personal development like. People who are in the personal development space, that literally it's their whole entire life optimizing themself, being a better person, being a better business owner, being a better human being, a better mother.

I mean, like I listened to the gamut of them and that was the start. Then I started reading books. I started listening to audio books. The average person doesn't actually read a book after high school, and I married a man who reads several books a month at least. I started, I got an audible subscription and I just started listening to different audio books.

I started around that time just. Wanting to learn more about being a business owner. I started listening to business podcasts, not just florist business, like general business podcasts. I love listening to Jenna Kutcher. I love you know, I loved like the Chris and Lori Harder's podcast. I actually.

Joined their mastermind. So that led into me joining my first mastermind, which is, um, it was a creative business owner's mastermind with Julie Toby, and I met her at Flower Stock. So that was like the real tipping point is I. Being at Flower Stock at on Holly Chapel's farm and seeing all these people in pursuit of being their best self and seeing them in pursuit of like learning and soaking in information from others.

And I honestly felt I had been a florist for at that point, tw over 20 years. So like you feel like you know a lot and honestly I did. But I didn't know everything, but I felt like I was supposed to, which is a really weird thing because nobody knows everything, but I felt like with 20 years of experience, like I should know everything.

And when I opened my mind up to that, I didn't know everything. Everything expanded, everything grew. And. I then joined that Mastermind and then that led me into joining the Chris and Lori Harder Bass Foundation's Mastermind. That led me into doing business coaching with a, a business coach that is like a.

Mom slash minimalist and turned into a business coach. This was when I wanted to start this podcast when I finally believed in what I had to say had value enough because I'd been doing the work and really bettering myself, and that just started this kind of trajectory that I. Now been in five different masterminds.

I've had three different business coaches. Um, I'm currently have a business coach that's really an expert at digital products and memberships because I am going to be launching this year the floral CEO club. And I want to do that in a way that is so giving to you guys and so giving to me at the same time that I'm really making an impact and this person's an expert at it.

So I'm always wanting to surround myself with experts, and that isn't something you always have to pay for. Podcasts are free. Books are pretty close to free. I mean, they're so cheap for the knowledge that you can gather from them, but. It also really became a lifestyle of wanting to be this better version of myself.

Especially like around two and a half years ago. That's when I really started getting into just being healthier. Maybe three and a half years ago, being healthier, starting to move my body, starting to be. This person who doesn't just sit on the couch, this person who wants to be healthy, started eating healthier, started really becoming the person that I thought I should always wanted to be.

You know, this person who enjoyed going to work out this person who enjoyed eating, eating healthy this person who enjoyed like just. Really pushing myself to this next level of business, this next level of the person that I am. Around that time is when I decided to become a life coach, because I, I just saw so many people, especially that are, in general, if you are a business owner and your business isn't working, you normally have a life problem and.

As someone who has ran the gamut with a million different life problems and has pushed through them and come out stronger than ever. I mean, I've, I've struggled through losing both of my parents. I mean, like somewhat tragically, like I found my mother, I had to take my dad off a life support after a stroke.

I had been abused as a child. I had my sister commit suicide. I mean, like as someone who has run the gamut about every single like horrible thing that could happen, like I have pushed through it and I am such a strong person having a kids with kiddo with special needs. I mean, like today alone was one of the today, one of the harder days.

Being her mom and I still tonight, after I watched her push through this epic thing, I'm still am so proud of her, even though today was a tough mom day and there are a lot of tough mom days, but it's learning how to manage. Really, I mean, we even invest in somebody helping us be a better parent to a kiddo with autism.

I mean, like I'm all about developing myself into the best version of myself, and I'd love for you to just think about that. What are you doing to be the best version of yourself? Is that something that even resonates? Do you have the mindset. That I want to be better. If you have the mindset that I have nothing fucking left, I am on E, my plate is full, my plate is actually running over, like this might not be the time for you to start this journey because you need to make sure that.

You have space, growth takes space. So some of the things that I think that are easier to create space is little things that will help propel you forward. You might not right now, have time to go and work out for an hour. You might not have time right now. To go running for an hour. You might not have time to go to an organic grocery store, pick out all these ingredients and come home and make this a impeccable meal that is so nutritious for you.

What do you have time for? Could you have time for journaling? Maybe daily or even weekly? And really just like mentally processing everything that's going on. I. In processing things afterwards. I like have these aha moments. I'm like, oh my God. Like today when my daughter was going through this thing and I just, I was just I started to be quiet for a little bit and it made her uncomfortable because I'm usually like, let's get to the root of this.

Let's fix this. Let's, and I'm just like, this is something I can't fix for her. This is something that I want her to start to think through. And so I just sat in this uncomfortable kind of timeline that Bella, if we never push ourself out of where we're at now, we are going to be exactly here and we were going to do this very big thing, this very brave thing that she three times agreed to do.

And. I'm just, I'm letting her sit that she made this decision to do this and that by us bailing, like that's the kind of person that we are gonna start that habit. That we are a Baylor and I know that she is brave and that she is strong and seen so much of that, that I know that she could make this through this thing we were going to do.

But if she didn't believe it, but I had to let her sit in that, that silence, and that's what journaling does. It helps you reflect on big moments in a way that you're reprocessing it. It can be so helpful, so reflective that I think that it is. Something that most of us just don't feel like we have any, any space for.

And you could do this in your phone, you can do it in a notebook. Whatever works for you. It is something that could take a minute. It could, it's something that could take five minutes, whatever you have room for, but that growth from that could be huge Affirmation and mindset resets. I often will have sticky notes.

I will, like today, when Bella was going to do this brave thing, I'm like, you are my brave girl. That is unstoppable. I know you can do this because you are so strong. And I, at the end of the night, do positive affirmations often with her. And I go, I am. And she's strong, brave, kind, sweet, cute. Like all the things.

And so if, if we don't start shifting the way that we talk to ourself, like that is the biggest form of, of self-development, that you start actually believing these big things that you're saying about yourself. But that takes repetition. Gratitude when I am super stressed and things just feel heavy, like I just sit down and I go, okay, what am I grateful for today?

I am grateful today that my daughter did this really brave thing. I am grateful that I had people to help me. I. Process all of these flowers that are in my studio right now, I am grateful that I have a handyman that's helping fix up the house, getting it ready to sell. There's, I have so much to be grateful for.

I am grateful that my husband, even as neurotic as he can be sometimes put cameras on our farm and little baby. Teddy, our new baby alpaca. Actually was doing zoomies and set off the motion detector. And so like I have a little nine second video of him doing Zoomies and I like grumbled when my husband got these cameras.

But like we had the alpaca cam going on when our alpaca had a baby early and I. Was just stressed out. If I wasn't on the farm, I was stressed out that I wasn't there, and it gave me this peace of mind. So I was just grateful for that peace of mind. And then visualization is this tool that is just dreaming, like dreaming about you And I have this, I had this dream.

I've, and actually I, I. I'm going to be living this dream in August. I've had a dream for years that I was going to have a workshop on my farm that had all of these amazing animals and that I had this big, beautiful dairy barn that we were gonna have this, workshop in and that I was gonna have this full style shoot and it was just gonna be this connective experience.

And. People were gonna get in airplanes to come to this and it was just gonna be this really joyful experience where everybody's love for flowers, just could really just be felt and the peacefulness of the farm could be felt, even though people were there. There was just this piece that everybody felt, because I wanted everybody to be able to connect with that, even just for a little bit.

I. And we have the farm. We're putting the workshop together. But I have been visualizing this exact workshop for years. You guys like, I, it, it's was something that whenever I was, we were driving to a farm to go look at it like that whole movie would play in my head of people pulling in and me greeting them and me just being so excited to show them.

Like this, just like little slice of heaven and then giving them all of these tools to be more successful in their business and giving this, this little battery recharge. And so like visualization is so much a part of my success and it could be part of your success. So like visualize, like what does your success look like and what's funny, and I think I've mentioned on this podcast before, but I've always sticking back to it, is one of the mastermind girls in the floral CEO mastermind, she texts this picture of her shop and it's just looks like a tornado and there's like flowers everywhere to process and there's orders everywhere.

And I just, I said, step back. Because this is what success looks like in this sit situation. Like you couldn't have asked for it to be more successful. Like when I picture a flower shop being successful, like that picture she sent was that. So that visualization, like if you're visualizing being a hotel florist, if you're visualizing being a wedding florist and doing an amazing hanging installation, I want you to visualize that you are there, like that you can feel how you feel, would feel looking up at what you just made and, and waiting to the day that that feeling happens, because that exact feeling.

This farm workshop is just one. I mean, I had, I had visualized starting the Minnesota Floral Collective and having the first workshop and me standing up and greeting everybody and telling them that community over competition was alive and well in Minnesota. And I said that exact thing. My first like installation workshop.

I remember like going, who am I to do this? Well, I'm, I've done fucking 1500 weddings at that point. Who am I not to do this? And then I just like visualized that people were gonna get on an airplane and come to see me, and I was gonna help give them this portfolio and I was gonna help make their lives better and like, get them to learn things that I have painfully learned over the years to help make this easier for them.

How I wish it could have been easier for me. All of those things, like those movies, I call them like little movies, little visualizations like that is, is like when you get there, you're just like, my God, this is finally happening. And all of the moments, like we, we got goats last weekend, you guys and I had visualized these goats and my daughter walking.

A goat so stinking cute like we went to Tractor Supply and got her a leash. And I know this probably seems so far out of scope from everybody's holy shit, what happened, Jen? But like my daughter wanted a leash and a collar for her goat so she could lead it around and I got her the best goat I could have possibly get.

His name is lucky. He just follows my daughter around and is so sweet and he is kind of a menace 'cause he likes to just go in and cause trouble and get into feed buckets and all the things. But she's so happy. She asked if she could put a diaper on him and put him in the house. And I was just like, 'cause I did that when I was little you guys.

And I was like, uh, no, we don't have a big enough diaper. 'cause he's not a baby goat. He's like a, probably five, six months old, I'm guessing. But like all of those visualizations can come true, but you need to actually visualize first. Okay. Then there's of course all the ways that you can skill build.

There are of course podcasts like I've mentioned. I personally love the Jenna Kutcher podcast. I, she is a Minnesota girl just like me. I love listening to her. There's a lot of podcasts I love listening to. So like, whatever yours are, you know, just dedicate a little bit of time. I multitask and listen to a podcast.

Uh, I love to take webinars free challenges. I, of course, love YouTube and really diving in. I even love emails. The content in emails, if they are, are good emails. I love that audible. Those are all skill building things. Then from an emotional and physical wellness, I have invest, I love CrossFit, I love just getting physical, but I also love taking care of myself and going get a massage going to.

Those are personal development. I'm making myself a better version because I'm making myself more available for becoming that better person. And I mean, now all I wanna do is just walk on the farm, be in nature. Like that is so calming my stress. Just even though I might have just shoveled shit, like if I walk out of the goat barn and I look and it's just.

Calm. Walking in nature is just so calming, and that could be in your backyard. That could be at a park. That could be just somewhere that feels good to you. That's going to boost your mood. That's going to boost your wellbeing. All right. Then another aspect of personal development is like connection and community.

I on the way home from our escapades tonight talked to my friend who is a photographer that is I built a friendship with her over the, the last year, and we just we're connecting about this thing that we're doing here in Minneapolis that we're trying to be a part of, starting, and like, I just felt like her and I.

Just have this common ground right now that, for one, just feels really good that as a business owner, you often feel alone, and I don't feel alone because I have all of these friends that are in the wedding industry. I have all these flower friends. I mean, I've founded the Minnesota Floral Collective.

So that Minnesota florist didn't feel alone. I founded the floral Hustle Facebook group so that globally people who need a space that is welcoming, that is they can ask questions and I mean, I go in there daily to check and see if there's questions asked that I can help answer. I love going to like online meetups that you're actually seeing a person.

I love when people send me a DM and have a question and just need a little nudge in the right direction. I genuinely am a coach because I love helping people and I want to make. The world a better place, not only for florist, but that's why I became a life coach. I want people's life and business to feel really, really good.

The community, and I know that this is not a free thing because the floral CEO Mastermind is a big time investment and but the community that comes outta that group is next level, like the support the girls give each other. Even like some of the aha moments that people have or some of the success you know, a person just got done with a crazy bride and like they're just like, tell, I'm so glad I'm done with this crazy bride and I just booked this huge job and I just book this and like I'm working on this and Mother's Day is doing this, and it is just like this supportive.

Being a part of a community is such a game changer because you start to feel the momentum and the confidence of everyone around you and not just yourself. You also can have an accountability partner another person who's a florist, another person in the wedding industry like that just is like your business homey that you can talk about.

Books and strategies and I love talking to people about strategy. I love talking to people about actually like running a profitable business and what that means and what they do to do that. And if they aren't doing it, how can they do it? Having somebody doesn't have to be a paid thing. You could just have a business bestie that is there to support you.

You're there to support them, so you don't feel alone. Going to networking events. Most networking events are free. There are some of course that are paid, but. Go to local wedding or local, whatever business and just try to be a part of a community that feels good to you, that are people. Even my CrossFit gym, I love going there because I know I'm surrounded by people who are wanting to be the best version of that.

Energy is fucking contagious, like it makes me wanna push harder. It makes me wanna be a part of that. Then. Really all of this personal development and really executing any of it comes down to how, how are you going to do that? And one of the biggest things that I think that I've learned is habit stacking.

If you need to do affirmations while you're brushing your teeth, if you need to like really? Okay. This like, I don't know how I'm going to do this anymore. Talk to your biz bestie and say do you have any ideas? This is something I really wanna accomplish. Most people spend so much time consuming, consuming content, consuming everything that they're not ever creating.

Maybe you have a rule that. You are going to go record a video introducing yourself in your business. You don't need to go buy something fancy to do that. I think people think that they need all the fancy things to do anything. I just did visit videos on my phone forever and I still do all my Instagram videos on phone because like, it's just easier, but you don't need to invest in fancy things.

To make things happen. So I'd love to hear from you guys what resonated out of this, this whole discussion of the ups and downs of everything that I talked about. You can pick one of these things, two of these things, like you're listening to this podcast, so you're li you're picking one, which I'm super proud that you're here, but I'd love for you to bring it to the next level.

Commit for a week that you are going to do one more thing. Maybe you're gonna go to a networking event next week. Maybe you're gonna schedule a networking event for this month. Maybe you're gonna be like, I wanna try to find a biz bestie. Maybe you're gonna be like, I wanna figure out how I'm going to start eating better.

What can I do to make that happen? Whatever it is, I would love to support you. There is so. Much opportunity out there and I am always rooting for you flower friend. Thank you so much for listening, flower Friend, and you have an amazing flower filled day.