181: The Year of the Pivot with Melissa Coleman

In this episode I talk about my favorite to do app and then Bjork interviews Melissa Coleman from the Faux Martha about the Year of the Pivot. Hi a friend. You are listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast where we chat about the content, marketing, growth and mindsets that all go into creating a successful and profitable blog. But first a message from our sponsors, WP tasty, aka our sister site for WordPress plugins. If you're a food blogger and you're looking for plugins that kind of take care all of that tech stuff for you, look no further than WP Tasty. We have a recipe plugin, a Pinterest plugin, and a keyword auto linking plugin and they help you create and promote your content without worrying about all of the tech stuff going on behind the scenes. You can learn more@wptasty.com and for today's Tasty tip, that is the tip we like to give you at the beginning of a podcast episode that's sponsored by wptasty. I wanted to chat actually about one of my favorite to do apps, todoist and that's T o d o I s t. Now I'm typically a paper and pencil girl. I love my paper Moleskine planner, but I also like to have an app where I can make notes of future to dos, schedule out other to dos and just kind of have it on me whenever an idea hits. I really love Todoist because it allows you to easily break your work into projects. So I actually have a Food Blogger Pro project, a blog project, a life project, a gift ideas project and within those projects I have separate to dos. So today I will be crossing off my podcast to do in my Food Blogger Pro project and then I'll be rescheduling it for next Tuesday when our new episode comes out. They have a mobile app, a desktop app and a web app and I love having it open for whenever and I idea or to do strikes. So check it out and if you have a different favorite to do app, we'd absolutely love to hear about it in the comments section for the blog post for this episode and you can find that@foodbloggerpro.com 181. And now the episode. You guys, this is one of my top five favorite Food Blogger Pro podcast episodes of all time. I kid you not. Melissa Coleman of the Faux Martha had a big year this year. Not only does she just run a very successful blog, she also published her first book, the Minimalist Kitchen this April. But those aren't the only reasons she Had a good year. She actually called this the year of the Pivot. She knew something needed to change, and she set out on a journey this year to make it happen. Without revealing too much about her experience, I'll let her reveal that in the interview.

She.

She learned quite a bit from this year, and I just can't even begin to tell you how powerful and helpful her message truly is. I just love this episode, and I really think you will, too. So, without any further ado, Bjork, take it away.

Melissa, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. I listened to you guys on the treadmill when I wrote.

Yes. Oh, perfect. Nice. And the advantage here is also that I have. Usually before a podcast interview, I do a lot of research, which I did with this interview as well. But I also have the extreme privilege of having a lot of. We'll call it research for the podcast. Outside of that, you'd call it history in a relationship, because we were able to hang out with you and Kevin, your husband, Kevin, all the time, which is just so awesome. As a matter of fact, you were probably sad that you weren't able to attend, but Kevin and I and another friend just recently went to Monster Jam 2018.

I wanted to go.

It was so awesome. And tell me in a brief recap, what was Kevin's honest opinion on attending Monster Jam with us? Because it took a little bit of convincing.

Yeah, he said diesel. Loud noises. Startling, but super cool. You guys. Huge cars in the middle of a football stadium.

Yeah. And the funny thing is, I thought about this a little bit, but didn't know exactly what it would be like. But it's at U.S. bank Stadium in Minneapolis, which is obviously closed. And so it's like these massive trucks. And, like, with there's one, I forget the name of it. It was like, a diesel truck, and you could literally see, like, this black smoke, but it just kind of hangs in the air. Then.

Yes, yes, Rubber. He said rubber.

Black smoke, exactly.

Told me all the things he was smelling and drinking.

But good news, coming back in February. So maybe we can do February 16th. So, Lindsay and I and you and Kevin, maybe it can be a Valentine's double date. But we are not here to talk about Monster Jam. Although that was great. We're here to talk a little bit about your story and specifically, a really cool transition. And, well, I don't want to brand it as something. I don't want to talk about it as something specific, but as we've had conversations, something that I think I'll say this is really Valuable for the podcast listeners to hear and to understand and something you've talked about on your blog, but excited to talk to you about it in person on the podcast. And before we get into it, I want to go back to what usually on a podcast would be, what you'd wrap up with, which is talking about your book. And you recently published an incredible book, and this was kind of led things off. It was kind of the launching point for some of this interesting transformation that you went through in terms of how you looked at your blog and your business. And so let's rewind to that point and share a little bit about your book and why this was kind of a important time for you as you were processing some big decisions.

Yeah. So I wrote a book. It's called the Minimalist Kitchen, and technically, it's in the recipe section at the bookstore. It is a cookbook, but it's also a book. Book, like chapter one, is longer than most. It's thorough. It walks someone through the process of how to create a minimalist kitchen, from paring down your tools to your ingredients, even to your recipes. So it was a really involved process. It's a process that I have done over years in my kitchen. And it's a process, too, that I say where it starts and stops in your life. Let it be like it just kind of keeps going. It's a philosophy and a framework, and I found a lot of success with it. And it's almost like minimalism in general is almost like a tool in my toolbox that I keep grabbing to solve different areas. So I wrote this book. It published in April. It feels this year 2018. I'm not sure when this podcast will go live. It feels like two years ago, based on everything that's happened this year, and probably, I think, really in February, maybe even a couple months before. I thought, after this book publishes and I give it its. Give it my all and promote this book, I think I need to step away from blogging or I need to pivot. I need to do something, and I didn't know what. Then I was. I felt like I was in the middle of a major career life crisis.

Yeah. And it's interesting because for somebody like you, you have this established website. Like, it feels very, very evolved to the point where it matches who you are. You're a designer, you're an artist. So it's not like this thing where, you know, you spun it up and then three months later, you're like, I don't know if I want to do this. It's parting ways with something that feels like very close to who you are, which is a huge decision. You've been working on it and building it over a long period of time. And so I would imagine that was kind of a scary question to be asking. And my question would be related to that. What, what was, what was the reasoning behind it? What were the things that you were feeling and the things that led you to the point where you're like, hey, maybe I want to start going in a different direction or have a big change. How would you describe kind of those feelings and what you're processing and thinking through?

Yeah, that's a really good description of my blog. It's been a very intimate space and I've always said the purpose of it is to feed me, not necessarily other people. And I feel really lucky that it's gotten to feed other people too. And it resonates. But as I even was starting to go back and look at all the things I was talking about, I was very repetitive in that, oh my gosh, life is too frenetic. And then I try to slow down and then two months later, oh my gosh, life is too frenetic, it's speeding. And it was always life is too frenetic. Not something that I was doing. It was something else. And the cookbook really pushed me over the top. Before the cookbook, I wasn't really planning, I should say I wasn't really planning on writing a cookbook. It wasn't on my bucket list of items to do in life. But I did promise myself if one came to me that would just pour out of me, then I would write it. And it happened and it came and it was this book. It is this book, the Minimalist Kitchen. Because it's something I believe in and something that I practice. And when I got the contract for the book and I started working non stop, so I had a really a pretty tight turnaround in cookbook land. I got the contract in January. All my recipes, 100 were due by the end of June, I think in the beginning of July. So I was prior to signing the book, I was trying to create a better work life balance. And the cookbook came and I said, whatever, I'm doing this. And I just sold my soul to the book. And I woke up early and I went to bed late, maybe not late. To other people's standards, it's all relative.

Yeah.

And I worked all the time and I let this book pour out of me and then anytime you So I worked on the book and Then it goes off, it kind of disappears for a while, and then it comes back and you have to talk about. About this thing that you created. This. You know, there's a big gap between actually promoting the book.

Right.

And finishing.

It's so different than publishing content on a blog or social media, where the. You. The thing you are excited about that you made that day, you then get feedback on that night or maybe the next morning.

Yeah. Yeah. It's instantaneous. And this was like almost a year, a year delay of when I really finished the bulk of the work to when it published. And, you know, I think this is common that anytime you do something really huge in life, whether it's publishing a book or graduating college or having a baby, anything big, you. You lead up to that you're anticipating it, and then you get to this high, this climax, and there's only one way, there's only one direction to go after the climax. And it's down and navigating the down. For me, I think that's the fall the egg fell off the wall. Navigating that for me was kind of the precipitous to what we're talking about now, what I named the year of the pivot for me because everything kind of broke. I really, truly felt like the egg that fell off the wall.

Yeah.

And I had to somehow pick up the pieces and put them back together again.

Yeah. This is Humpty Dumpty, to name the egg on the wall.

Yes. Sorry, Humpty Dumpty. Yes.

Not to name names, but it's Humpty Dumpty.

Sorry, Humpty. I just called you out. Side note, if you have kids or if you don't, there is a book called after the Fall. After the Fall. A ll it's about Humpty Dumpty. It's such a beautiful book. You don't have to have kids to like it. And it's a very short read, obviously, so I highly recommend that book if you're feeling like you might be in this, in the same space of life.

Cool. Is it? So the book is. I just pulled it up here. Just kind of curious about that. We'll link to it in the show notes. After the fall, Humpty Dumpty got back up again. A book by the COVID It looks like it would maybe be a kid's book, but this is a book like it is a kid's book, but the story and the morals and what it communicates is important.

It isn't coincidentally. I mean, I guess I don't really believe in coincidences. I think that life is one big puzzle that's slowly putting its way together. And I got this book for my daughter for Christmas. Maybe it was Santa, maybe it was me. I don't remember, but got this book, and I read it to her the first time, and I just started crying. It was like, it's so beautiful. And so, simply put, the way most things are in life, when you get down to the simple stuff, you can really hear it.

Cool. I'll be sure to pick that up. So you're kind of speaking to this, and there's actually a post that you wrote called the Horse Named Hustle, which we'll link to, and I would encourage people to read through. I think there's some great things from there. But I think it was in this post you talk about specifically on the book tour, and you said you found a little bit of clarity. And you said in talking so much about minimalism, a tool that you use to make the everyday more doable, so doable even produces a little joy. I decided that I wanted to work like a minimalist, too. And then you say pivot, and you talk about this being the year of the pivot. So when you think about that moment when you started to get some of that clarity and the connection that you started to make between minimalism and work and the work that you're doing, what was happening at that moment? What was the clarity around?

Yeah, it actually happened at a podcast. I was in California on the book tour, feeling really uncomfortable because I like backspace and sitting on my computer, working for myself at home. So putting myself out there felt really uncomfortable. And it really kind of helped all of this come to light. And I was. I was asked, and this was a common question I got asked on the book tour, what's your next project?

What's next?

Yep, what's next? Because there has to be something next. And I eventually said, after hearing this question a couple times, my next project is myself. I need to figure out, you know, I use minimalism in my closet, in my kitchen, in so many areas of my life. But my work life feels out of control. It felt like my closet did many years ago. It felt like my kitchen did five years ago. And my goal, I think, when I get back, is to figure out how to work like a minimalist. And that kind of helped frame the year of the pivot. One other thing I did, and this is not characteristic of me, I like homeostasis. I like to get things back to normal asap, everything to be okay. But I gave myself a Year, a full year, to pivot, to listen to maybe things that I've said in the past or listen to myself moving forward, to listen to other people, to play. Play is something that I often recommend. People who are unsure of where they want to go next just play and try new things and see what's sticking and what's not. So I allowed myself to do some of those things over the course of the year and to continue blogging, because I do have to. I do have to make money for life. And I gave myself a year. And that was a really positive, helpful thing for someone like me who likes quick answers, fast to make a good answer or a good. To find a good solution.

Yes. So there's a lot that I feel like we can pull from that. One thing that I'm curious to hear about, actually believe it or not, ties into Monster Jam. One of the recurring thoughts that I. That I have and had specifically at Monster Jam is like, in some sense, we all are still kids. Like, we all have this inner kid in us, and when we're able to access that, then it just feels so good. And there's a couple times where I've thought about that throughout the year. One was this was actually with Kevin as well. This podcast is going to make it seem like Kevin and I just hang out all the time together, which we do hang out a lot, but a couple stories that relate to him and playing, which is good. But we played this game called, oh, gosh. Oh, Spike Ball. It's called Spike Ball, and there's this little tiny little trampoline, and you spike a ball on it and you try and keep it going. And we played that this summer with some friends, and it was so fun. I was like, oh, my gosh, I haven't played in forever. And I think going to Monster Jam, as goofy and funny as that was, is an attempt to do that same thing where it's like, gosh, I'm still a kid that just like any other little boy or little girl that's going to Monster Jam, is at some level, just really entertained by these huge trucks jumping off of big trucks and smashing cars. And you talked about playing, and I think that's something that we lose touch with a little bit. So the question is, how do, as an adult, how do you play? What does that look like, and how do you do that if you aren't familiar with what that looks like or what that feels like?

Yeah, playing as an adult is really hard. It's interesting that you put it that way, because it's often what I come back to when I have a problem even in a relationship. Like take Kevin and I, for example. When we had our daughter, we moved to a new city, state and city. We started new jobs. He did built a house. All the things they say you should never do, they're going to be really, really stressful. You should never do it once. Well, we thought we can do this all at the same time in a six month period. Six months. Yeah. Easy With a newborn. I don't think I said that.

Yeah.

And life got really heavy and we didn't really enjoy being around each other. And I realized when I think we played ping pong. He loves, you know, that you guys like to play ping pong too. But we started playing ping pong together at night and I. And it hit me that I hadn't laughed with him like that in months. Maybe. Maybe even a year. Like a really long time.

Yeah.

And play is something that seems so normal and intuitive and easy to do. But it is. I don't think it is even. I don't think it is. As an adult, even as a child, I've had to teach my daughter how to play.

Yeah.

And I think it's something that we have to teach ourselves, that we have to remind ourselves to do. That we have to intentionally do.

Yeah. And that was what I was gonna say. There's actually just this message that Lindsey sent me yesterday. I'm not on Instagram, so she has to send me the links. She has to send me the links to Instagram posts that she wants to share. But it was, it was about scheduling in time for fun and how important that is. And it was like, oh, yeah, for sure. It's something that you need to do. The quick little. It's from Instagram. Her name is Sarah and it's called yes and yes Blog. But it says if you don't schedule fun, it probably won't happen. I'm sure you've witnessed this in your own life. Right. I won't go on to read all of it, but it was a post that she had from middle of December. And I think that's so true. So in starting to be intentional with play as it relates to you processing through, you know, kind of getting back to the core of what brings you joy and trying to realign a little bit. What were some of the things that you discovered?

I discovered that I started off really well. I started blogging probably like a lot of people hoping that one day I could work for myself. And I got to that place and the beauty of blogging at that point, and this was years ago, the beauty of blogging was that you could work for yourself. You could create your own work, and you kind of got paid to do that, and it was incredible. And for me, as a creator, that's kind of where my. My soul is fed. And I'm a designer by trade, and so I like. I like to make stuff. I'm happiest when I make stuff. So it was. It was amazing. And I built. I built something for myself to kind of play and to also make money. And then as. As it grew, as anything grows from bigger, from small to big, your problems get bigger. Life gets messier. My work life got messier. And it's kind of like adulting. Like, the more you take on as an adult, the bigger your house gets, the more appliances you buy, the bigger your yard gets, the more responsibilities you have. And I realized over the course of blogging for 10 years and really just this last probably three years, it really picked up that it grew outside of me, and it grew to the point where I couldn't even. I didn't have time to make stuff. I was handling emails. I was trying to understand contracts.

The worst.

The worst. All the worst things.

It is like if you were to give an example, if you were to say. If you were to say, I love designing and creating, and then you were to say, what is something that is exactly opposite of that? I would say reviewing contracts.

Yes. Yes. And that was my whole. It felt like that was the bulk of. Of my work. And I was not. Oh, what do you say? I was not carving out space. I was not protecting space to create. And one of the tools in minimalism is protecting space in my kitchen. I say, I'm protecting the everyday. I'm not gonna put a bunch of random things in here that I'm not gonna use. I'm gonna protect the everyday.

What does that mean when you say protect the everyday? So.

It'S Christmas right now, as we're talking, and there's a bunch of cookie cutters or tools that maybe you would only use once a year, and somehow they stay in your cabinet or your drawers all year long. And so I always tell myself, protect the everyday. Take those cookie cutters and put them with the Christmas decorations and make sure that you are leaving enough space for the everyday. Not the special occasion. Special occasion is great, but protect the everyday.

So it's. You'd be proud of me. I just. Lindsay gave me a hard time. This is a couple of weeks ago, and she said, I feel like almost everything in your life is in some way like generally organized. I'm not, you know, it's, it's. Everything is a little bit chaotic in some sense. But she said, when I look at the, like the two drawers you have, your bathroom drawers, it was like, it was, it was like one of those junk drawers in your strange relative's house that you go and you're like, stuff has been in here for 15 years.

Yes.

And I just ordered these little dividers. But how I divided it was what I realized is like, oh, okay, I have my everyday stuff, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, if I'm living my best life. And then so I put that stuff on the top and then I had the weekly things that I would need once a week. And then I put everything else off to the side in a space that don't use that much, don't have access to as easily. But it's like the monthly things. So that's the idea of protecting the everyday is saying, what are the things that you need and use every day? Those that you don't need, get rid of those things or not get rid of them or put them in a place where, like the crawl space in the attic or something like that, where they're out of sight. I don't mind. But you still have access to them when the time comes around.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's kind of like user interface or what do you call it? Ux iu.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So user experience. User experience and user interface. UX ui.

Yes. So we're, we're as you know, designers and web designers. That's what we're doing with a website. We are protecting the everyday. We're putting things at the bottom, like your contact and your about or your site index at the very bottom of your site, but bringing the things that matter up to the top. And that's what I used to design websites. And my background again is in design and that's what I tried to use that same kind of thinking to build really good user interface design into our non digital technical life.

Yeah. And so what did that look like as you were thinking? Because we're talking now about tangible things, the design of a website, minimalist kitchen. But it sounds like some of these, you have this connection of taking some of these things and applying them to your life, which is more abstract because like minimalism, you can say, like, okay, you know, I have these Christmas lights and it's August, they shouldn't be in my closet. That I go into every day. I should put them in the basement or the garage. But what is the equivalent of that that you started to realize in your life? How are you starting to protect the everyday as it related to your work?

Yep, to my work. So I love many tools and next to minimalism, I like a tool called work backwards that I think I learned in seventh grade math.

Yep.

And it's a common thing that, you know, we're doing all the time. We're just not talking about it or defining it, but. And it's what, it's what every designer does. It's what every engineer does. They don't think about this beautiful thing they want to build. They start with the problem. So they work backwards and define all the different problems that are going on. And then they design their solution around those problems. And then a really good designer, if they're in the beautifying, will also make it beautiful. That's form and function. You want those two things to go together. And so I started with the problems and there were many in my work life and one of them I work for myself. And so that was at the time I worked by myself kind of with Kevin too. We laugh about that now. Kevin quit the Faux Martha in January.

Put in his two week letters as a heads up after dinner. I will officially be retiring.

Basically it was kind of like an ongoing lingering conversation of this of kind isn't working and many other different words. And it finally hit him in January, which just to do the timeline. So January he said that I was already considering wanting to walk away from this thing that had grown too big. And my book launched in April. And so I don't remember when I'm looking back at this post. It was a long year. It was a long year of kind of figuring out. But all those were pieces into that puzzle. So I had to look at a lot of the problems and working for myself, I had to look really, really hard at myself because I was the only one. I couldn't blame it on anyone else. I couldn't look around at Kevin saying, oh, he wasn't doing this or that. It was all on me. And I learned a lot of things about myself this year and I think they're really good things. And if you're like me, hopefully you can find some meaning from this. But I am a type B person and so I love to live in creative ideas. I love to live kind of up high. And bringing things down low is a little bit tougher for me, which you might not think because I Have a blog and I press publish at least once a week. But that's a characteristic of me.

Yeah.

What were you going to say?

Yeah, and for those that are, I think most people understand like the type A Type B, but I think it's worth diving into that a little bit because I think type B creative and designer, artistic. That's what we think of Type B. I think the important thing to point out is that so often when you are somebody who is. I would assume the more that you get into the world of like blogging or online business or whatever category you want to put it in, you would start to think that in order to get traction or to grow or you would kind of assume everybody that is in some way self employed has to be this type A of like everything is super scheduled out. And I know my calendar, content calendar for the year. And almost like that is the driving force is this type aness and this drive to like move the engine forward or to, you know, hustle and kind of that category of entrepreneur. And I think it's important to separate those two things out and say that's a common thing. And I think a lot of people think they need to be that. And for you realizing that's not who I am. And it doesn't feel good to try and bend towards that.

Yes. And I was trying to bend towards that for years because I would talk with a lot of friends and peers and at the time I didn't realize like, they're type A and I'm type B. I just realized they were successful and I was trying to kind of catch up in some areas. And I was. So I spent years trying to get those muscles that they had. And in the process of getting those type A muscles, I was not exercising my best muscle. My biggest asset, which was my creativity, my making. And so my best asset was atrophying, it was shrinking, it was losing strength. And even though I was acquiring some of these type A skills, I mean like some I'm very minimal. I was, I was entirely inefficient at those things. And then, you know, this problem, as I was trying to identify the problems internally here in my work life, they got even bigger because I wasn't being as creative and I wasn't good at the type A things that I needed to be good at. So when I thought of all those things, I thought it's just time to hang up. Like, I can't do all of these things. And there's this idea floating around now and maybe always, especially for women that you can have it all. You can have it all now. And you can, as long as you don't like to sleep and you can carry a bunch at one time. There are consequences to having it all. And that's one of the things I learned this year. If I want to have it all, I'm not going to be good at the thing I'm really good at. And that's. It's not great.

And having it all means having a good relationship, working out, building your business, spending time with your kids or family, meditating every day, continually reading like all of the things that people talk about as being these complete person things. And it's like you can do that, but then you're going to sleep four hours a night or there are consequences to trying to do it all. And so then intentionally having to say, no, I'm not going to be this and allowing the thing that you want to be to be the full thing. And before we get too far away from it, it's something that I've been thinking a lot about as it relates to the work that I do is are the things that I'm spending time doing the things that I want to be the best in the world at and the things that I love to do, and if not, there's probably a little bit of built in inefficiency because. Because if I'm spending time doing something that I'm not wanting to be the best in the world at, then there's some sort of resistance. Like if you think of an engine and then you introduce some sort of resistance to it, the car is not going to go as fast. That's as good of a car analogy as I can use because I don't know any of the components of an engine despite attending monster. Yeah, but, but that's kind of what I hear you saying is realizing there's this area that I'm passionate about that I'm good at, that I know that I want to be improving at. And I'm also doing these things that I feel like are essential, but I don't want to be the best in the world at them. And believe it or not, there are people in the world who love like reviewing and revising contracts. Like that's just something they're detail oriented people, they love doing that. And it seems so foreign to somebody like you or to me that that wouldn't seem awesome. And so in making this realization and coming to this point where you're like, hey, this actually I'm starting to get some clarity around this Maybe I want to continue doing this as long as it looks a certain way. Then what? Like, you have this realization. How do you manifest that into, you know, how do you. So. So you pivot and you look a different direction. Then what does it look like once you've made that pivot, to start walking forward? What are the first steps that you take in order to start walking on that new path?

Yeah, so I realized that my asset is also my biggest deficit. And in order for me to preserve my asset, I need to hire out my deficit. I didn't think I could afford to hire out, but when I looked at how I wanted to run my business, I want to keep it small. I want to make just enough money. I want to do what I love because it feeds more than just my bills. It feeds a part of my gut. Then I want to stay. And so if I want to stay, I need to figure out how to hire someone and make just enough money and do what I love.

And I think that the piece that you talked about, Lindsay and I talk about different types of income. And on a podcast like this, it can tend towards. Because people love hearing about metrics and growth as it relates to traffic and social media and money. But there's also really important types of income that aren't financial or aren't growth metrics. And you hit on one of those, which is like, what is the emotional income that you get from this? And that pays dividends? Like, that's a really valuable thing to have in life in general. And it sounds like for you, it was a dual consideration. There's a post on Food Blogger Pro Forum recently where somebody said, hey, at what point do you hire in your business? And at what point does it financially make sense? And I think one of the interesting considerations is most people, myself included, would look at it and say from a numbers perspective. But it looks like you were also saying from a. Looking at the entire pie chart of life, you know, there's a business decision with this, but there's also the emotional income. There's the. The ability to do the thing that I love more, and that factors into it as well. So you. You kind of are like, hey, I'm. The first step that I want to go is hiring somebody. But the dilemma is, like, the process of going through the hiring process is kind of a type A. Like, you have to go through all of these things that would be type A things of, like, this agreement and this, you know, checklist to get people on board. So what was that like for you? And then Also, how do you find somebody who has skills that you personally wouldn't consider to be like, how do you know if they're good at contract review or, you know, things like that? What was it like for you to go through that process of finding somebody to work with?

Yeah, that process was really scary and it's. I need to keep myself on track. I learned a whole lot about myself and who I want to be even through that process. It was when I decided I wanted to hire. It wasn't like I had arrived at a bunch of knowledge about myself. It was still in process. But I phoned a friend first and her name is Lindsay Ostrom. So I recommend finding a friend different assets than you, with a different set of skills, a different skill set than you. And so I talked through her, I talked through it with her. And I also knew that I wanted to work with someone very different than me. So in order to do that, I described who I am because I wanted people to know exactly who they were going to be working for, which I think is so enterprises.

Yep.

And two, even that process of describing who I am helped me to say, this is who I am. I'm not going to be someone different. I've tried to be someone different. It didn't work. This is just all I can be. And that is good enough too. And so I describe myself well and then I think I described who I was looking for. I was just so elementary about it. I think I said I want a type a person who is energetic by email. I don't even remember all the things I said.

Yeah, I pulled it up here. The post is really great. It's called Job opening. Left brain. And you say organizational freak. Inbox 0 Type A strategic minded, detail oriented web extraordinaire. Written and spoken communication. Well written, self motivated. So all of these things where you kind of say first you talk about who you are, especially in the posts that you posted before, called the horse named Hustle. And then saying, okay, here's what I'm looking for to bring somebody onto my team, which I think before we get too far away from it, the idea and when we started, anytime that we come up against something that is intimidating, which often happens as you're building something and being creative and putting something into the world, the great thing is that somebody else has probably already done it. And I think that's important to point out and probably somebody that you know or somebody you know knows. And for people listening to this podcast, if you're coming up against that, whether it's Working with somebody in some capacity, or, you know, maybe it's publishing your first post, like, find somebody who has done it before that can speak into it. And so often people are willing to help. And, and what a difference that makes. Even just for somebody to say, like, oh, you can do this, like, it's not as bad as it seems. And so went through this process there was. And we don't have to go into like the nitty gritty details of what that looked like. And people can check out these, these posts if you have. But in, in general, I think people would be curious kind of what was the outline of, of the steps that you took to find somebody and within that, what were the things that were either harder or easier than you thought they would be?

I approach the application process as I would a design project. When I frame things in the way that my brain naturally ticks, I'm able to do them fairly well. And so I knew there were some objectives that I wanted to find in this application process from people, but I didn't want to make it super overt. So I worked backwards and I buried some questions, some processes that would give me my answer without asking directly. And I'm trying to think I should pull those up. I don't even remember exactly, exactly what I did. I had people demonstrate a lot too. I didn't want to tell them to tell me how good they were. I wanted them to demonstrate their skill set. And it's funny, even in that process of some people were telling me that they were one way, but demonstrating that they were another way, which is so true, I feel like of my process of who I am, I was telling people, oh, I think I'm this way, but I was demonstrating something different. And it took that repetition of that for me to realize who I was. So I saw that play out in the application process. Mine was long too, to kind of narrow people down. And when it got a little bit closer, not even closer, and every step of the way, I maybe broke the rules and the codes of whatever business stuff you're supposed to do. And I was just really open and honest, maybe to a detriment. I haven't felt the detriment yet, but I was honest. Even when I did sat down and did in person interviews. And I said, no, I'm not the person that would traditionally do these interviews. I'm a type B creative. This is gonna feel a little bit clunky.

Yep.

But it's me. Like, I mean, there's no one else.

I'm not trying to Be somebody else, which even that, that concept right there is gonna be so valuable for so many people that are listening to this because I think there are a lot of people, myself included, multiple times. But I'm continually trying to remind myself this, you can be a version of success, whatever that looks like, by being 100% fully yourself as opposed to seeing what you see somebody else doing and trying to be that. And that's what I, I love that about you. Talking about this process is saying, I'm not going to try and think about how do you be a good interviewer in a job application process. I'm going to think about being as intentional as I can to have this be a good thing while also being 100% myself and being 100% comfortable with that and what a valuable thing that is. I love that.

Yeah. So to jump ahead, I hired someone and she has said I ask her every so often just to have these check ins. How's everything going? How are you feeling about working with me? How are you feeling about your responsibilities? And the one thing that she said a couple times is that I knew exactly what you expected of me because you were so open and honest about it, that it's gone really smoothly because it's been as you said. And I think that's just a good testament that even if people, even if the masses do it another way, that doing it your way, that being really honest and open, it's just as, I mean, we tell our kids to do it. It works as an adult in this setting as well. And one other thing, I just keep relating up everything to raising my daughter. I feel like we're living parallel lives and I'm like, you're a child, I'm an adult. We are the same thing.

Yeah, for sure.

And we talk about a lot, about differences in herself from her friends and we've talked a lot. And it's something that I repeat, I'm going to be one of those moms, or like my mom always dad. But I tell her and she can now recite it, our differences aren't bad, they're just different. And then now we've kind of tacked on and this is kind of demonstrating an evolution of my processes. Differences aren't bad, they're just different. And differences are actually good, they're an asset. And when we combined our differences together, then it's a really positive thing. And I've felt that in the business world, I am a type B in a type A industry. And almost every industry is type A and type A People are the best people because they keep things moving and you need momentum in a business. But it did take a long time for me to really feel like and advocate, and I think that's a really important word to not only feel like I am enough, but also to advocate that this is my skill set and it's really valuable and so is yours. And it's different. And different isn't bad, different is good, and different is an asset.

And so in having this realization and in starting to claim the work that you were meant to do and that you want to do, and shifting that a little bit and saying, hey, somebody else is going to be really good at this certain set of job requirements and skills, I'm going to be really good at this. Knowing that you've started to do that a little bit, what has that transition been like? What do you feel like that it's like, now that you, you know, this is recording in December, maybe coming to the end of the year of the Pivot, or did it start at the beginning of the year? What is it like to be not starting the journey, but either on it or maybe even kind of down towards the end of this specific path that you're walking?

Yeah, I'm probably going to get teary just to warn you at this part.

That's okay.

The year of the Pivot has passed. And it's interesting that what you put out there that, you know, you can put out intentions, and a lot of times they will answer themselves. And that's kind of what's happened this year. I gave myself a year. I settled into the discomfort, into the gray spaces, and I played and I listened. I'm repeating myself, but it worked. And I feel like I've kind of come around and I don't know necessarily what my word is for next year, but I do feel like the pivot, the year of the Pivot, is coming to an end. And this is the part where I'm gonna get teary is that I am really proud of what I've done this year. And I'm getting teary because I haven't felt really proud about what I've done in a long time. And a big part of that has been the discovery process of me realizing that it's okay for me to be a type B person and to find my place and then to advocate for my place. And I feel so proud about that. I feel proud of what I built, and I'm proud of the blogs. I'm even proud to be called the Foam Arts. I always thought it was just the goofiest name that I chose 10 years ago. And even that I've settled into that name. And that name has meaning and it has value, and it has value to me. And. And I think this year, maybe I'm talking off the cuff, is that the faux Martha has been a personal project for the past 10 years. Even writing my cookbook, the Minimalist Kitchen, that, too, has been a personal project because dinnertime kind of broke for me. When I had my daughter, I couldn't figure out how to produce food, how to put food on the dinner table. And so I came up with a hundred recipes and fixed my kitchen in order to get dinner on the table, to preserve this ancient tradition of gathering around the dinner table. So, you know, these personal projects, I think are now turning a little bit for me. I feel sturdy. The funny I use the word windy. Probably a year ago, talking about, there was this bag in our backyard, in my neighbor's backyard, like a plastic target bag. And it was blowing around one day, and I was like, it's an owl. No, it's a fox. It's a white fox. It's this, it's that. And in that process, I realized that's me. Like, I am this bag hanging on a leftover branch from summer.

Wait a minute, it's moving.

They're ready to go. Yes. And I was just blowing about because I wasn't secure in who I was and who I was as a type B person, because at that point, I was still trying to do all the things my type A friends were doing so well. And I was blowing and blowing and blowing, and somebody could have said something different to me the next week. And then I was. I was blown that way. And I feel really sturdy now. Like, I wouldn't find meaning in that blowing bag in the backyard like I did a year, year and a half ago. And so I want to add that value, maybe like a culmination of a lot of the things that I have learned and give that value back to people. And I don't know what that's going to look like necessarily. Next year, there is something cool we're launching called the Minimalist Kitchen course. It's actually a free resource in paring down your kitchen. And it's the book. The book is the textbook, but it takes it a step further. I love beautiful things as a designer, but I want more than anything beyond beauty, beyond Pinterest and Instagram, and a really beautiful feed is. I want life to feel doable for people, because adulting, like we've talked about again and again is hard and it's heavy and it somehow gets heavier every year. And I firmly believe that it doesn't have to be that way and that there are things that we do because everyone around us does, and there are things we don't have to do. And how do we get back to playing? How do we carve out playing in our work life, in our personal life, in our physical life, our mental life? How do we do that? I think there's a way to do that, and I think that's where I'm headed.

That's awesome. And my response is Monster Jam. That's the start to all things playing. But, but I think what's exciting for me to hear you talk about that and kind of your intent of saying, like, okay, this was the year of the Pivot. I learned these incredible things. I feel like this podcast represents a really cool opportunity to do that. And I know, I know. No, no. There are people that are listening to this that are going to be so inspired by your story who have felt like they need to be somebody else and they see other people doing certain things and they feel like I need to be that. And it feels so out of place for me to be that and then to realize I don't need to be that. I can be fully myself. I can be intentional about doing the things that I'm good at and doing them well, and that there's 100% space for that as well and how important that is. And so, so honored that you share your story as the Year of the Pivot comes to an end. Excited to see what 2019 represents as you start to think about these really big, important things and even just a few of the things that you talked about that are coming down the line are really excited. For those that want to follow along. Melissa, where can they. Where, where's the best place to follow along with your story and what you're up to, both on a day to day level and also some of these projects that you talked about coming down the line here for 2019.

You can find me at the faux.faux x martha.com and then my handles everywhere are the foam. Martha, I'm on Instagram quite a lot, which is something I need to figure out next year too.

Yeah, it's a, it's. That's a hard thing, being a designer. I feel like Instagram is such a great home for designers and artists. Like, it just feels like such a cozy and comfortable platform as opposed to, I don't know, whatever. Twitter or Facebook or something like that. So that makes sense. Thanks for coming on. We'll be sure in the show notes to link all of the different things that you talked about, books and as well as your site if people want to figure that out and check that out. So Melissa, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really, really appreciate it.

It thank you for having me. It's so valuable to be able to share my story and share it with you.

Awesome. Thanks.

Bye.

And that is that, my friend. We hope you enjoyed this episode with Melissa and we hope that you take away some helpful and powerful tips from this episode and instead of doing our normal reviewer of the week portion of the episode right now, I just kind of want to give you a second to linger on the lessons from this episode. It's so easy to compare yourself to others in this industry. There are so many wildly successful and just incredible entrepreneurs in this niche and it's easy to just want to do what they do to get in their position. But you are not that much and that's 100% okay. And heck, that's great. As Melissa said, it's important to be only you. Don't try to be someone else. Understand that your differences are an asset and that you should be proud of those differences. It's okay to be who you are because who you are is pretty darn incredible. Thanks for tuning in, friend, and from all of us here at FVP hq, make it a great week.

Sam.