Ep23 - Tracy Hazzard - Co-Founder & CEO of Podetize and The Binge Factor

This episode is brought to you by KPMG Risk Services. KPMG believes that when you've earned the trust of all your stakeholders, that's when your business has a solid platform to grow. That's the trusted imperative. KPMG Risk Services develop and put in place dynamic risk strategies designed to help your business earn that all important trust. Go to reit, KPMG us to learn more. What is the roadmap to defeat self sabotage, negative thinking and learned helplessness in these unprecedented times? You must get connected, Get Growing, Get Certain and Get Attitude the Get Attitude Podcast. And welcome to the Gap the Get Attitude Podcast. The podcast that helps you get from where you are to where you want to go and helps you get to who you are to who you want to become. We have an incredible guest with us today. I love it when we have female entrepreneurs and innovators and influencers in our second season. And when you talk about innovation, when you talk about being an influencer. Our guest today, Ms. Tracy Hazard. Mrs. Tracy Hazard is the co founder and and CEO of Potties. Many of our gappers are thinking about starting a Podcast. Don't know how to Start the Podcast? I've been talking with Traci and her crew about how to improve the Get Attitude podcast and the things that they are teaching me are unbelievable. If you're thinking about getting a podcast started, I'm telling you Traci is somebody that you want to talk to. She is also the host of three different podcasts. Seven actually, but three that are active. The binge factor, which I think is her biggest and most dynamic one Feed your brand, which is just unreal if you guys want to increase your brand awareness in the community. And her new podcast coming up, the Next Little Thing. She is a woman inventor with over 40 patents and we're going to talk a little bit about it, but I think the stat was only 7% of patents that have been given have been given to women. So my female gappers, you are going to absolutely love love this guest. Males, you're going to love her too because she's awesome. And we're going to learn about innovation. We're going to learn about how to become an influencer through your branding. And she's going to give us tips about that. But first what I want to do is give you about a one minute introduction into the unbelievable accomplishments of the one and only Tracy Hazard, Inc.

Columnist and brand strategist. Tracy Hazard combines authentic content digital marketing with innovative consumer product commerce, generating 2 billion in retail revenue for her clients her patent pending content to commerce brandcasting method starts with authentic podcast and videocast content and automatically builds a digital authority platform with high web, social and influencer equity to create high conversion product sales. Tracy has redefined decades of brand product and marketing experience and put it to work getting her clients off the revenue rollercoaster and onto the automated digital fast track to getting more more media, more clients, more engaged fans, more product sales and more profits. With over 250 products and 37 patents. Tracey has worked with design leading brands like Martha Stewart Living as well as with small startup and e commerce seller brands to out design, outsource and out profit the competition at Costco, Target, Staples, Amazon and others.

So you want to have competitors.

Boom.

And Traci, welcome to the Get Attitude podcast.

Oh Glenn, so glad to be here with you. I love the topic of talking innovation and influence.

It's awesome. And we're also trying to mix in a little attitude with that. But you know what, I know that you cannot be considered an innovator and an influencer, which you are, without a little attitude. Why don't you tell me what is your definition of attitude and who was your number one or two best attitude coaches getting out of the gate?

So my number one coach out of the gate has always been my father. And my father taught me that just to be curious and being curious is an attitude in and of itself. I mean it sounds like it's a state of mind and it actually is. If you're always curious, then there isn't a question of whether or not something's possible. Nothing is impossible. When you have the attitude of curiosity. You're always going to be able to think of, figure out, get yourself partners in the process to be able to figure out how to do something that you really want to do.

That is so cool. I love the attitude of being curious. Do you have a definition? If you try to define attitude, what does attitude mean to you?

So you know, attitude means more than just a state of mind. It takes activity, action to be attitude to me. So I can say I'm going to do this, but if I don't go out and just do that, take that step, take that walk. I tie action and mindset together in attitude.

Okay, very good. I love that. Let's just touch on some of your podcasts and what people might be able to learn from them. The binge factor is that your probably most followed podcast is that your number one most followed podcast and tell us a little bit about what that's all about.

So Historically, no, it's not my most followed podcast. My most followed podcast is a really geeky podcast on 3D printing called WTC. And it was our very first podcast. That's why it's my most popular one. So we did it for seven years.

Oh my gosh.

And we had HP as a sponsor and we did over 650 episodes. So when you get beyond a certain number of episodes, it's really popular. But the binge factor comes close because within 100 episodes, I got to talk to hundreds of different podcasters out there. I got to talk to all kinds of successful people who are building businesses around it with podcasting in the mix. So it gave me an edge into understanding what I already understood intimately on product side. But on people side, what makes somebody want to buy something again and again or listen to someone again and again and again? So that's where the binge factor falls in.

And so why do people want to keep listening to me?

Well, so each person has their own unique binge factor. And so when you come on my show, I psychoanalyze your show and tell you that. So I haven't analyzed enough of your show yet, Glenn, to tell you exactly why, but I have a suspicion, I have a suspicion that it has to do with your attitude. No surprise there.

Well, wonderful. I like that. The attitude, hopefully, of giving and helping people become more than they've ever dreamed of. I think that is probably you have to be sitting there going, I can't believe I've kind of done all this stuff. Two billion for your clients. Talk to me about young Tracy, who was just a girl going to high school that never maybe saw herself on the other side of the bridge as potatoes. Traci, now what's the difference between the 13 year old Tracy or whatever it might be and you now? And what did you do? What's going on in your life to help you bridge the gap? What are the answers that are our gappers is that we call them can. What are the lessons that they can learn from who you were to who you've become?

Well, you know, it was kind of forefront in my mind because I just, you know, dropped my middle schooler off to her first day of seventh grade.

Wow.

And so, you know, you kind of have that, that 13, 12, 13 year old mindset right now. And the really funny part is, is that it didn't end up she went to a different school. But I'm back in the same town that I lived in when I was 13 and I never imagined that would happen. Because I couldn't wait to get out of here. And I live in this great town in Irvine, California, Southern California. It's beautiful here. The weather's great all the time. It's a great town. It's super safe. It's one of the safest cities in the country. And I couldn't wait to get out. And I worked my butt off to get out of there and move all the way across the country for college, which is where I met my partner, my husband, and we've been together for over 30 years. And so it was a drive to do more and get out. That started really young, that I was always on my way to college. I was always on my way to doing something. And I don't see myself as. I didn't anticipate exactly what I would be doing, but I am doing exactly what I wanted to do, which is really get to shine, get to show off what I can do best, get to share what's in my head, which I felt even at the age of 13. I was like, I have something to give to the world. I don't know what it is yet, but I have something to give. I found a way to do that. But more importantly, what I love about what I'm doing now is I found a way to give others that gift, too, to help them get that voice out and be successful with it. So while I went to art school, I did a ton of product design in the middle and all this stuff. I'm still actually exactly where I am, being innovative, helping people and taking great people and products and getting them to market. It's the same thing.

That's awesome. And so what's your definition of innovation?

You know, I wrote a column for Inc Magazine for over four years, and it was on innovation. And the reality is, is that innovation is so broadly used and kind of overused today, of course, I like to define it more narrowly. There's a difference between invention and innovation. Invention is taking an adjustment, a twist, making something better, making it work better, making it more efficient. And invention is meant to be built off of, so that we build off of previous inventions to do more and improve society, improve our processes, improve our products, improve our lives, right? So that's what invention is. But innovation is a different world altogether. Innovation is taking everything and looking at it and going, you know, it doesn't have to be like this. Why not? And so that's how I term innovation. Innovation is the why not? Why does it have to be like this? Why can't it be something different? Why not try this? And that's the world that not a lot of people live in, actually. They live in the invention world, which is great, but they don't live in that. Like, how do we upset everything?

Right, right. And so when you think of maybe your top innovations, talk to us a little bit, maybe, but one, maybe two. Hey, Glenn, you know what? Here's what I looked at. This is the process I get to why not with. And this was the result. Do you have one or two stories on where you felt you really did a nice job innovating something?

Tom and I are really proud. We have some, what we would call platinum records in the product development and design world. We have a chair that's been sold at Costco for gosh. It's coming on over 11 years now. That doesn't happen. An office chair doesn't last in Costco more than a year or two. And this chair has lasted season after season after season. We've successfully done this on things that I don't consider to be truly innovative. I'm really proud to have worked on the Aaron chair, which is the Herman Miller chair. I'm proud to have worked on the team. I didn't innovate that, but I learned about great process, about innovation, about product development. And I learned from some of the best, Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, the inventors of that chair. And that chair was truly innovative at the time. But the other thing that I did is, and through everything that we do, Tom and I practice something we call covertly feminine design. And here's where that female part comes in.

Love it.

The reality is, is that there are, as you put it before, 7% patent holders are women. But it's even worse if you look at product design and development engineering, things that we buy every single day. There are very few women involved in the process. Yet women buy or influence 80% or more of what's purchased and moves around in the marketplaces. So why aren't there more participation there? So what we do is we think about that over time. We think about everything about that, and we put it into our process and we say, how could we make this better for women? And when we do that, it tends to make it really better for men. They didn't know it could be so good. And so it works out for everyone in the process. And so that's how we practice. But we really do that by really early iteration and getting rid of the fails. So really fast fail kind of model. But we do it right at the beginning, and we're always checking does the market want what we have to sell. And if there's a product market fit there, then we move forward. If there isn't a product market fit, we drop it. We just don't do it.

I love it. And so you have 40 active patents out there. Am I ever going to see you on Shark Tank and what is your most exciting thing that you've patented?

So yes, Tom and I are co holders on some and I'm some on the and I'm solo on some of the others. And yeah, so over 40 between the two of us, almost all of them are issued. Some of the potatizing ones, the ones we're using in our software system as a part of Potatoes have not issued yet but so they're the only ones pending. But we have 86% commercialization rate, meaning that whether we design them and use those patents for our clients or use them for those ourselves, they the products actually made it to market and made money. So that's why I don't need to go on Shark Tank. I know the process. I don't need to struggle and give away part of my company. I know everything about how to make that work without giving away equity in the process. And I know how to bootstrap that. I know how to fund it. So our company Potatoes was completely funded on what we would call pre sales for most things. Most people would consider it like a pre sold a program. We didn't, we pre sold episode packages. So our clients actually bought all the episode production ahead of time and helped pay for our company to form. So we do things in an innovative and different way to fund them. So we don't need a Shark Tank to do that. We can do it ourselves. And, and right now we' we're looking at how we can accelerate that. Now's the time where you want to bring in maybe some investors when you want to just like accelerate out of something that you're going to do. So we save up our ability to draw that equity, to share that equity and draw in capital for the right moment in time when we can really succeed with it.

What are the biggest mistakes you see people make in business or in their entrepreneurial endeavors? What are the biggest mistakes and problems that people are bringing to that first phone call for you and your husband?

So the first mistake, I'm going to say most people who are in the product world, in that invention area of the world, the biggest mistake they make is refusing to talk about it, treating it like it's this big secret right the reality is if you don't go out there and talk about it, you're not going to know if anyone wants to buy it. You're not going to know if it has any value. So it may be the next best thing since sliced bread, but no one knows about it. You're not going to be able to tell if that's true or not. And if it's not true, you don't really have market proof, you can't get funding for it, you're not going to be able to take it forward, you're going to struggle with this. I'm inventing this best thing. But you've never gone out there and proven that it's the best thing. If you prove it, no problems at all. So that's what I see from the inventor world, from the entrepreneur world. They think that you can build it as you go. And the reality is that you can do some of that. But if you haven't done some proof on of concept before that you're honestly going to. You, you're going to waste the biggest asset you have, which is your word of mouth referrals. So if you build it while someone has bought this and is in the program and you fail at it, which you likely will, there will be failure portions of it, if not the whole thing, and you fail at it, you don't get a second chance with those people. And so I like to have a proof of concept before and I like to be extremely honest with the people who agree to be a part of that proof of concept, that that's what we're doing. And so it's like having a test market.

Yes.

And when you then go forward with that, you have raving fans who tell everybody. So we started potties with 12 people who begged us to help them produce their podcast. They said, tom, Tracy, what are you guys doing with wtff? You have team? Will you do it for me? And we said, yes, absolutely. We, however, you understand we don't have a business around this. We won't guarantee to do this past one year. And here's the framework of it, right? They all agreed to it, but before the year was up, they were shoving people at us. And then second year we had 100 people, not $1 was spent on advertising. The third year we had 300 people.

Right.

And that's how. And now we have over 600. So that's how it goes. Right. It just flows like that.

So you produce and market 600 podcasts?

Yes.

Do you market them? Yeah.

You do market them In a way, yes. I mean, because we produce a blog post and all the social assets for us, in the end, you do it yourself because it's your stuff. That's the issue that we have in the marketplace. And the place we feel is, we look at the fact that you need to own your own authority. It is your business. It is what you have to bring to the world. It's not what I have to bring to the world. So Pottai shouldn't be stealing that from you. We should be reinforcing it for you. And so everything we do goes back into your websites and into your own social channels. So you do have to do your own push out there. So essentially, the main marketing is on you, but the vehicle, all the mechanics of it, is done by us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so, so, so cool. And did you even imagine that Pot of Ties would get as big as it's gotten?

You know, I didn't. When we first started it, I thought, oh, this will be a nice little side business. We'll just run it while we're doing our regular product development things. And by the third year, I was like, I had to quit all the clients. I had no choice. And we just, you know, we would just, you know, stop taking new clients. And then, you know, finished out the projects in that third year. And that's when it went out on its own. And that's when I really saw what it could be. Because it had passed that proof stage.

Sure.

It had really passed that metric that we use internally.

Mm. So you're not taking any more clients on Potitize, or are you growing it?

No, no, no. We take plenty of clients on Potitize. I just take no product development clients.

Oh, I got you what you're saying. Yeah. Because this is even better. Right.

I mean, I can't. I can't design products and produce podcasts at the same time. Not possible.

Right. What are the two biggest mistakes people make on their podcast?

Oh, my gosh. The two biggest mistakes are that they allow their host to steal their authority. So in other words, they're using a hosting company that is actually switching out the URLs for their episodes so that when you click on that, you go to, you know, the player. You go to wherever you're hosting instead of to your website, and they hide it and they bury it within there. So you will likely make that mistake. You have to be a pro and have to know about it to even find it. So that's the number one mistake I say, is that you're ceding your authority and you don't even know it. That's so sad. The second mistake that I think people make is they don't. They don't title and put descriptions and do utilize all the space. The Apple Podcast, Spotify, all of these are search directories. At the end of the day, they don't do anything else. They provide podcasts for people to listen to. Yes. They're a conduit for it, but somebody has to search through there. And that search is all done by bots. Right. It's not done by humans.

Right.

The only part that's probably done by humans is maybe over on Spotify, the best of list is a bot list. But you can't compete there. As a. As a little guy, you just can. Or a little girl, you can't compete there. You've got to do your best to fill out your profile, your podcast show profile, put out the best title as possible, the best description as possible, the best episode titles, and use your full caricature count so that when someone's looking for what you have to bring to the world, they're gonna actually find you.

Right. And that's. And so like that you're talking about show notes and the full.

I'm not just talking about show notes. I'm talking about your. About you. About your show.

Oh, right, right.

Which is your description. And I'm talking about the titles of your episodes, the show notes. The little description portion is important for someone who then clicks on it and looks at it. Do I want to read this? Is it enticing? Does it interest me? Instead of saying in today's show, like, you know, you want to really get into the meat of what they're going to get from that. Have a great. We call it a great leading paragraph, like you would have in an article. Right. You want to have those things. But that's. Once somebody already find. They won't find you if your title to the show, title to the episode is not good enough. And this is the same thing for blogs, articles, videos. Like it works the same way across the Internet. If we don't have good titles on things, no one finds them because the bot controls what gets served up.

Right, Right. And so the first biggest problem you said about podcasters are seeding their hosts talk. What does that mean?

Their authority to the host. So, and I'm just going to add a couple of hosts because it's easier to say here. So Libsyn is one of the biggest hosts in the podcasting space because they've been around the longest.

Right.

But you know, they. What they do is, is that when you load in your episodes there, there's a place to put in a URL for your blog post, for your website to send people back. So when someone's watching the episode or listening to the episode and it's showing up on their phone can hit learn more. But in this case, what happens? They go straight to Libsyn's website and they go where your file is located, not where your blog is located, where your website is located, where your products are located. So they don't go back to you if you don't change that. And you have to, like, you know, expand an area, like drop in the link. You have to know to do it every time.

Right.

In order to make that occur. So they're hiding it so that it will happen 90% of the time.

Sure.

And only those in the know differently. And that's so that. That their website grows. Right. They're doing it as free marketing for themselves, but you're paying them, remember, to host your show.

Right, Right. Isn't that crazy?

So that's why Potitize, we don't do that. We purposefully built it so we can't do that for you.

So do you. Are your podcasters all on Libsyn or microphone or.

No, Poditize is a host. So they're actually on our own hosting platform.

Oh, so are we seeding you then?

No, absolutely not. We've actually prevented it. It's impossible to happen.

I like it. And then what are the two best things people do on podcasts?

The two best things that I think people do on podcasts is they're really audience focused. So when they are very focused on what the audience wants to hear, and they're doing a really good job of asking the right questions and curating for that, they have a more successful show every single time. When you follow a formula that's just not you like, you know, you follow some of these podcasting courses out there that just say, do it this way. It doesn't work. It's not authentic, it's not genuine. It doesn't take into consideration that connection you uniquely can make to that audience. And that is one of the biggest mistakes I see again and again. The second biggest mistake I see happens during just simply from people not taking additional coaching on, not taking more advice, not going out there. So you start your show and you're like, that's it. And you don't make any improvements in your show over time. Your show will Die faster because the audience is only willing to be there for a while if your sound doesn't get better, if you're, you know, if the way you structure your show, if you're not getting to be a better interview, if you don't get better guests, like, if all of that's not improving over time, they're not going to. To stick around. You know, if I can get someone to stick around and listen to geeky things about 3D printing for 650 episodes, I'm doing something right.

Sure.

And so that's, you know, and that only happens with continual learning and continual growth. So going out there and seeking. It's one of the reasons we built into our podcasting platform coaching as a part of your hosting. So you can Pay, you know, $49 to host on our platform and get coaching that is included in that. You can't pay $49 to have me host. Have me coach you. It's just not possible. I mean, it's thousands of dollars to have me coach you. So, you know, so. But you're going to get that every single week with our group coaching because it's a key to success and I don't want you to fail.

The. We were on a call, you and me, with the great Mike Weiss.

Great coach, right?

Great coach. Just posted on LinkedIn and I. My, you know, his very first post that he's done for me, it's just blowing up. I can't even wait to see what he does. But you had said something extremely brilliant about website, website development aggregators. You're like, oh, dude, man, do not do these. I'm a big WordPress guy, so it's okay. And I'm not trying to run down anybody, but can you just walk through? If you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to build a website, probably the least effective websites up to WordPress in your opinion.

Yeah. So it's not an opinion, it's a stat based on the fact that we are in 600 different websites every single week. And because of that, we see the performance. So when I first started, I didn't expect there to be such a magnified difference between a WordPress website and a WIX website. For instance, I thought all websites are created equal. They're going to get equal visibility by Google. It's what you do on an SEO or search engine optimization site. It's on you to do a good job of that. Right. And it won't matter. But that's not true. We can do equal things the exact same thing on a WordPress site. And we can do that on a HubSpot site or a wix site and have terrible, terrible results.

Right.

And so the worst ones we have seen are HubSpot, Simplero, Kajabi, Wix and Squarespace is kind of moderate. Squarespace has actually been improving in the ability for it to perform, but it still doesn't perform at the rate of WordPress.

Right.

And so we just, I mean, my, I have clients who are on it, but we really, out of the 600, we have barely 100 who are on alternate sites because eventually they switch. You're doing all this work and getting 10% of the results.

Yeah, it's just insane.

So why do it? Right? And you know, why not switch it over?

And what's so funny is like there are some big time players that are all over Kajabi right now and Kajabi.

Is a great site for doing your courses and other things and connecting through to your Kajabi site is great. But you shouldn't be putting your blog in Kajabi. You shouldn't be putting your podcasts in Kajabi. You should be putting them next to each other and sending people to Kajabi for the course.

I see, I see. So that's what it is. It's the course for Kajabi.

I mean, Kajabi's fantastic membership community and everything like that, but if you're putting your podcast and your blogs behind a membership wall, it gets no visibility anyway.

Yeah, I see, I see. What, what other advice would you have for a startup business? Somebody that is saying, hey, I'm getting ready to start up a business. I don't care really what it is. What's your 1, 2, 3 step to success for them?

So my number one thing is, of course, get that product market proof. And it could be your service product, it could be your info product, your book, whatever it is, right. You want to get the proof that you can reach the audience easily and that the audience actually wants what you have to bring to them. So, like, if you've got that going, you should move to the next stage. That's number one. Try to do that with spending as little money as possible.

How many people do you need for that?

So, you know, that's a really good question, Glenn.

Thank you.

In our product worlds, we were like, if you don't have statistically at least 300 people to be able to tell, you know, statistical that this is, they would buy this, then you're not going to have an indicator. But I believe that if you can do that with a hundred people, for the most part, you're going to be able to find that. But I like to do it in other ways. So my product design clients, like, let's say they, let's say you were developing a new microphone, right?

Okay.

And I am working on a new microphone, but I'm developing a new microphone. I'm going to sell a microphone that is already on the market today through Amazon. On in my case, I just sell them to, I just give them to my clients. Right. So I'm getting feedback. How does this pot, how does this work? Is this the microphone you want? Like all of those things? I'm getting information. I'm also learning how to access that market that is in the market for microphones while I'm developing my own. So now I already understand the market dynamics, how to advertise for it, how to do everything. So we call this a B testing and marketing, but we call it a B testing is we're going to sell product A and then we're going to switch it out for product B as soon as our product is available.

Interesting.

And now we have a built in understanding and we've already taken that, that leap of learning that is needed to start hitting the ground running and selling our products successfully. So that's why our products sell faster and more throughput from the get go because we already learned everything all over here with a product we didn't totally care about and we didn't totally invest in. Right. We didn't invest of money in it. Let's get Those are the 1, 2. The third thing that I think is really important to do if you're going to go, you know, through this process, so market proof testing something and then really concentrating on building really good systems for whatever that is. So I mean, we have a system where we can produce podcasts in seven, ten days. Everything's tracked. The whole system runs itself. Our team trains itself like everything runs really smoothly in that. And we did all of that before we inject capital into scaling it.

Right, right. Very, very, very good. Let's get back to the mindset and attitude that it takes to be you. You got plenty of energy, which is fantastic. What's your mindset when it comes to business? What's your attitude?

I just love it. Right. I love everything about interacting with people. I love everything about getting to talk about fascinating topics. I'm always curious, I'm always writing, I'm always doing that. So my attitude is, is if I'm not energized and excited about it. It's not worth doing good. And that in and of itself, I think, gives that same energy, comes out to my clients, it comes out to my audiences. Everything comes through because I can stay in that world. This isn't just a job for me. This is fun, too.

How do you say no? And have you been having to say no more and more? And what's your philosophy or attitude about that?

I'm a mom of three girls. I know how to say no. It's something you learn really early that you better learn how to say no. So I do know how to say no. I, you know, I try not to. I may have to say no for my own sanity, in my own space, in my own time, but I try to find ways to say no. I can't help you. But here I have something else for you that is still useful. So I stopped taking clients on product, on product design, as I mentioned. And that was a few years ago.

Yeah.

Before I finish that up, in that final year of, of taking clients and transitioning them, I built them a podcast that exists. It has 150 shows. And every so often I'll add a show that I think is relevant. I'm just about to add one about supply chain issues in China because it's a huge problem right now, just so that they have an understanding of how you can, how you can navigate it right now. So there's all kinds of things on our product development process. I introduce them to all the people that I would refer them to if I could have a phone call with with them. So I introduced them to everyone I'd ever worked with who was doing package design, sales, you know, engineering. Like, I introduced them to everyone I had successfully worked with. And I did all of that in 150 episodes. And I left it up. And we call it Product Launch Hazards with two Zs, because that's our last name.

Yes.

So it's one of our podcasts. But it's also a service to this community that I love. And I'm sorry, I have to lead them and I can't help them myself. I have to say no there. But I can leave them with something they can self serve.

Yeah, that's just like such a huge value play. And when you look at what you've done and why you are, where you are and how you've bridged the gap, it's giving massive, overwhelming value to your customers. Right. Without even asking them for business first. So unbelievable. 150 interviews for your past clients. And this is just What I did. That's crazy. All right, well, let's just touch on it. Since you mentioned it. What is the supply chain deal? What are the two or three things? Things that if our podcast listeners are gappers, they want to sound like they know something about international business. They're out drinking a beer over the weekend, going, here's what I've heard about supply chain issues. Give us the 1, 2, 3 on that real quick. What's going on in the world of supply chain? Because there's a lot of people that are listeners that are affected by supply chain. I'd love to know what you think.

I don't think there's an industry that's not affected by supply chain. Microphones were effected. So if microphones and the chips in the microphones are being affected, then all of us podcasters are being affected.

Right, Right.

Like cameras are being affected. So there isn't an industry that I've come across that isn't being affected in some way, shape or form from a material sourcing issue to a labor problem. So we're hitting the Bermuda Triangle over in China right now. By this time of year, by September 1st, as we head into the fall, every product should be getting close to being on the water for the holiday sales.

Right?

That is not happening for three reasons. Number one, the supply wasn't there. They didn't have all the materials and pieces that they need, so things are sitting in process in the factory. The second thing is China's having an outbreak again. So they're having a variant outbreak as well as we are here in the US and because of that, they have a labor shortage, so they can't produce as much product as they used to be able to produce. And then third, we have a huge backup at the ports. And part of the problem is, is that there's not enough labor for them to load them onto the, onto the containers and then load those containers onto the ships. And then there is a ship shortage. And you know, there's a cascading problem at our ports and taking things off of the port. So we're having a overall cascade of problems that is going to cause a complete shortage of product in Q4 of 2021 here. And when we look at that, we should be shopping right now, buying what's available, putting orders in for things so we can get our place. Tom and I needed a bigger car because we have to do carpool for our middle school daughter because she's away at an art school. So it's like a 15 minute drive and so we got a carpool to organize, and we got to fit enough kids in it, we had to order a car, and it's not coming in for four more month. Wow. So if you're lucky, shortage.

Right.

So get your orders in. Get those things placed right now. So as consumers, we need to just do what we can buy what? Some place. It's going to help the economy if you're buying what's there and helping to move through inventory. But I guarantee you it's not going to be there when you go shopping post Thanksgiving this year.

Hey, no, that's Jason. What do you think? You into buying stuff through Amazon almost exclusively? Yes, Jason. He always has boxes outside of his thing, so you may not have anything left, Coach. You might want to make that happen. So what we're going to do is just do our little thing on how we close all of our podcasts. You've been wonderful, Traci. Such great information, so insightful. Such an entrepreneurial, innovative podcast today with you. We love to do this thing called knowledge through the Decades. Maybe you heard it on one of my podcasts or not. But I asked you what your attitude lesson is as you've gone through your life.

Life.

I'm not sure how old you are, but we'll keep going until you go. Yeah, I didn't hit that yet. And so what we always like to ask is, what's the attitude lesson of childbirth? Now you've birthed three girls, I would guess, what is the attitude lesson of childbirth?

So, you know, I'm grateful to be in the world. I am really grateful to my parents to be in the world. So I think there's about a lot of gratefulness. And I, because my daughter are 26, 12, and 7.

Oh, my gosh.

See, there's a big gap. Same husband, big gap in there. I'm super grateful to have all three of them because that might not have ever happened.

Oh, good for you. That's a beautiful answer. We appreciate that. Now, you grew up in California, from what it sounded like, and what little town are you in?

So I didn't grow up here. I grew up in. I grew up all over the place. I grew up in South Africa, in Connecticut. And my dad. My dad moved a lot when we were younger. So I think my lesson from that age of. Of time period was to be really resilient and that, you know, you can always make a new friend. You just need to be who you are because that's the only thing that's going to be consistent. Moving from Place to place. Now I live in Irvine, California, which is in the middle of Southern California. And I did get to live there for my entire high school years, so I did get to live here the longest.

So the message attitude lesson for 10 is resilience. And you learned resilience from a very young age. And that is like you mentioned, probably the biggest, most tough thing for a 10 year old, just like for grown ups, let's be honest, is meeting new people, having the ability to connect right away and thriving in changing circumstances, which kind of hits on innovation. Any other thoughts on resilience? Have you ever studied resilience, heard any quotes about resilience? Anything that you want to add to that?

Yeah, you know, I think that resilience, resilience is, and I mean, it's a thing I'm proudest about of our kids right now coming out of COVID My daughters are learned resilience under fire essentially. So did our teachers, so did our health care system. I think we're going to have a whole generation that is going to be so amazingly resilient that we're going to see results we never expected. Lots of innovation, lots of things that are possible because they've learned that they can get through the impossible.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I agree with you. That's fantastic. All right, 20 years old, I want to know where you went to college, what was going on in your life at 20 and what was your attitude lesson at 20?

So I went to Rhode Island School of Design and I met my husband my first day of school and I wasn't even 20 yet. I was, I was 17, going to college. So because my birthday's late in the year. So like in those years I met my husband, I got engaged to him. I loved every bit of about college like that I learned how to enjoy life in college, which is something that I think I'd been too serious as a child before that.

I see.

And I learned how to enjoy life. And one of the things I said to my husband is, you know, our two younger ones, our older one, we missed the boat. She didn't love college. She didn't have that fun college experience. And I feel like she's missing. I was like, I think we need to sell some, even if they might be a little like off color. We need to tell college stories so that all they want to do is go to college and have fun because we need to make sure they have that great fun experience that we had.

I love it. I love it. And so with the, considering the Age of your oldest daughter. My guess is you've hit 30. And I'd love to know what was going on in your life when you were 30 and what was your attitude lesson at 30.

So I think 30 was the hardest for me. 30 was where things went really wrong in the world. Things went wrong for us. I think 30 was really difficult. And it was, was, I think, a lesson in. Well, first, I think it strengthened my marriage. I think it strengthened my ability as a leader of a company. You know, it taught me ways to be scrappier about companies and how to, how to make money when money was tight. Because, you know, we're talking about recessions that were going on, you know, in 9, 11. Right. You know, all this stuff was going on in my 30s.

Right.

And it was kind of. It was extremely hard to be a business owner and running that. We also had a lawsuit where id, where we had to sue IDEO and Palm Computing just to keep our business stable so we didn't lose our intellectual property.

Yeah.

The old patent fight system and, you know, that in and of itself taught me exactly how I wanted to be when I was moving on out of that. And so I think those hardships taught me a lot.

Right. So gappers, as we think about attitude booster number eight, love, adversity. You know, you know, guys, look at just as we've always said, that adversity is not meant to break you, but to build you. And here's just another example of one of our innovators and influencers who faced a lot of adversity. It was tough, but when you look at the good. And this is, I think, getting back to like, what our kids and healthcare and all this is going through with COVID who knows what's going to come out on the other side because hopefully all this negativity is meant to build us. So. What a great message. I'm guessing you might be 40.

Yep, I absolutely might be. I might be a little older than that.

Okay.

So, yeah, no, my 40s, I think were. But that was when I got my bonus children. Right. So I got my two extra girls during those years. We built two businesses during those years.

Wow.

Right? The one we're in now and the one before that, our design business. So we built two businesses, two babies in that time period. And so it was a high growth period for us. And I think it was because we came out of that adventure, we came out of this. The learning we used, the resilience we had and we used the opportunity to create a better environment for ourselves than we had been in the previous. So we took it as a way to innovate, be different, build something we truly wanted and would love at the end of the day. So we were really focusing on what would we love and what does that look like?

Great, right? And so, yeah, innovation, but probably clarity is a part of it. That and probably experience and saying, you know, let's get it clear and going, what do we want to do now? There's no way you're 50.

I am 50.

Wow. I didn't.

I turned 50 last year, and I called my dad and I said, dad, if nobody celebrates because we're in lockdown and I don't actually have a party, do I have to turn 50? And he's like, no, you don't, because that means I have to turn a lot older, and I'm not doing that.

Oh, my gosh.

But I did turn 50. And, you know, I think attitude lesson of. Yeah, I think I haven't quite figured out what this attitude is. It was. It was very shocking. And I don't mean that in, like, a horrible way. Like, I. You know, like. But it's shocking at how fast that time went. And I know I did a lot in my 50 years so far, but I was like, wow, there's so much more I want to do.

Yes.

And so I think this year of being 50 to 51, as I'm going through this first year of being 50, I'm really looking at the attitude is that I am going to fix the things that I don't love and dive deeper in the things that I do, because I want to enjoy every last minute of my time on Earth, no matter how long that is from this point forward. Hopefully another 50 years. But, you know, who knows?

I don't know. But you need to tweet that. That was a killer line. We'll make sure we get that to you in your storyboard. That was awesome. Love that line. Well, I tell you what, when it comes to influencers and innov, you've just given us so much information, and I hope that the entrepreneurs out there that are gappers and even those people that aren't entrepreneurs, that maybe have that spirit that flicker inside of them that this podcast did some good for you. We always like to give you the last opportunity to give our gappers a message of hope, give our gappers a message of encouragement from you. As you sit back and look around the world and you look about where we're at. What's the message of hope and encouragement for our listeners today.

Traci, Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum. Neither does great business, neither does great love. All the things we want out of life, all those amazing things, all the things that give us progress and make us grow, those all happen with other people involved in the process. And so when we treat things in isolation, put ourselves in a silence silo, do things in a vacuum, we are not going to accomplish what we think we can do. It is not all on us. And it involves community, outreach, curiosity. All of those things are inherent parts of being innovative, influential, successful. You can't be an influence if there's no one to influence.

Amen.

Right? So all of those have to happen together. So go out there, get some help, reach out, get a good coach, coach others. Because when you do get both, then you really learn something.

I love it. Attitude booster number five, have a mentor copy them. Attitude booster number ten, Be a part of something bigger than you. So, Tracy, that was beautiful. Thank you so much for your encouraging words. Thank you for being on the Get Attitude podcast and we will look forward to working with you in the future. I'm going to be working with her and her husband, and we look forward to spreading podcasts positive attitude with you. Thank you so much. Tracy Hazard. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c suiteradio.com.