One Step Leads To A Stronger You

On this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive, our guest is Krystal Lynn. She is a jewelry designer based out of New Orleans, Louisiana, and I'm just super excited to have her on the show. I've been following her for a while, and her story really does resonate with me in a, in a way, um, and her challenges. And what I really appreciate, and what I think you'll love, is that every step that she's made has brought her to a stronger version of herself today. And I think you guys will find this inspirational. She shares some tips and tools for her life and her business. And just FYI, I had a few technical difficulties recording this episode with her. We had to actually do this, um, twice. So bear with me. I hope you really hear the audio and really enjoy it. It's one you don't want to miss.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative Thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey. And on this podcast, you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives. I'm so excited to have Krystalline. Is it Krystalline or is it Krystaline?

I knew it.

I love it. I'm so excited to have you on the show. I started to follow you when you just had started to talk about your jewelry line and we're in the same group. With Jasmine Starr, and I just really love following you and all of your mom stories and your real life stories, and I'm just so excited to have you on. So excited.

Thank you so, so much. I'm so glad that we've connected, and I feel like we need to like have a coffee chat besides this, like on like a weeknight one night. I don't know. I just wanna get to know you better. Yeah. I'm getting to know you online, which is great, and I'm excited to be here. I love what you're doing for women, And I'm just like, I feel pretty flattered that I'm even able to be on here with you. So thank you.

Oh, thanks. I, I, you know, we're all the same and all different. It's a weird thing. We're all the same and all different in so many different ways. But, um, that's kind of the point of the show is just so that everyone knows that even though we have different struggles, different challenges, different goals, um, we all are the same. We still deal with the same things and we can all learn from each other in some way, shape, or form.

So 100%.

Thank you. Thank you.

100%.

Thank you. Thank you for being on the show. So tell us a little bit about yourself before we like really dig deep.

Sure, sure. I'll start with my name because that's like one of the funniest things. People are like, what is your name? Because it's my last name's Cajun French. My first name is different because it's two names put together. So my name's Krystalyn Oakwyn and, um, that's the name of my business. That's So that's my name. I used to be Krystalyn Scott before I was married, so that was way simpler. But yeah, I am a jewelry designer in New Orleans, and so I design minimalistic fine jewelry for ladies to wear every day. I've been in the jewelry industry about, I was just figuring out the other day, 'cause I always say over 10 years, but I guess it's been about 13 years now, which is crazy. But I just launched my own line last October. So that's kind of who I am in a nutshell. I'm a mom. I'm also a young widow, which does make my life kind of interesting in a way, and in some ways a lot harder, in some ways a lot richer, weirdly enough. And so a lot of people have kind of, I think, connected with me through just like my journey of going through a really tough situation in life and just really trying every single day to just show up and be resilient and try to live my best life today, you know? And so I think that seems to have connected me with a lot of pretty amazing women, and I'm so grateful for that, for sure.

That's so great to know. Thanks for sharing that. I know that you share a little bit about that, about being a young widow. And I think I read recently, it was like in an article that you did with the jewelry company that you're working with that you released, and I read that article and I was just so touched by it because it's not something you know, a lot of people talk about or even feel free enough to, you know, to talk about it. So, but before I dive into that, because that's to me, that's a powerful story in itself. You said you've been in jewelry making, like the jewelry industry for 13 years. So have you, how have you been in that? Like I know you just launched your line, but where did that start?

Sure. So that started About 13 years ago. So I was, I graduated college and I was selling advertising. I had studied marketing and advertising. I loved it while I was in school. And then when I got into the real world and I had to like go cold call and knock on doors and try to sell on my own, I just didn't love what I did. So I joined my sister at a store called Oakwynne Hart Jewelers in New Orleans. They're one of the top independently owned jewelry stores in the South. And she worked there and she loved what she did. Like it totally brought her out of her shell. She used to be really shy. And I could just like see her life was like so lit up by this place. What was interesting is she didn't graduate from college and she went to be a flight attendant and then she did this, like she was a little bit more of a free spirit. And so I was like, wow, whatever she's doing, I guess I went to college and spent all this money on my education, but I want to go do that. Like I don't even care anymore. I just want to be happy and I want to love what I'm doing. So I joined her there and she taught me so much about the industry and And she still works at the store, so she— which is really funny because they sell my jewelry there now. And so she's selling my jewelry and she taught me the whole business, you know. So it's funny how things go full circle. Um, but yeah, I got— so I started working there with her and I sold jewelry. They manufactured in-house too, so I was really exposed to everything, um, from how to sit down with the customer and just design from scratch and the whole manufacturing process. So what it looks like to have something hand-fabricated, which means like a jeweler, um, actually fabricated out of like wax or metal by hand. And then what's a newer technology that is used mostly now is like CAD/CAM programs. So you have a designer who just does it on the computer first and then, um, will, will make jewelry from there. There are machines that grow waxes and then they do like the traditional casting process with metal. So, um, a lot of people ask me, they're like, okay, you're a jewelry maker or a jewelry designer, like what does that mean? So I design jewelry, so I will sketch it, figure out all the dimensions, every, every angle and aspect of it, and then a jeweler makes it for me. So I am not a maker. I really want to learn how to do some of it, but my skill is like figuring out what a woman would like to wear just from being in the industry for a long time, what's wearable, what's makeable, you know, like a lot of things you can think of, but they might not function well as a piece of jewelry, right? So yeah, that's what I learned to do there. I met my husband working there. He was the diamond buyer. So one of my favorite things to do, and it's just amazing to me, is to design engagement rings for couples. So I have so many couples out there wearing their engagement ring and they will have that as an heirloom forever. And my husband was the diamond buyer, picked their diamond, and I helped them create their custom ring, which is just amazing. I love that.

That is such a cool thing. That's such a cool beginning of a creative business. That's so cool. And I don't know, I want a design ring. I'm like, nobody else is going to have it for real. It's one of a kind. That's so cool.

Yeah, the one of a kind situation is so cool. And at that store, they just had capabilities to do everything on site. So it was just so fun to be part of the process with the customer and walk them through the whole thing. And so all of that set me up to be able to do that for myself. When I think of an idea, I already know if it can be made, if it can't be made, or how it needs to be made because I had done it for, you know, 8 years in the store. And so yeah, now it's pretty cool because I'm kind of doing that for myself. Like, I'll think of an idea, or even somebody will give me an idea and say, hey, can you make something like this? And now I know how to do it, you know, and it's very fulfilling. It's fulfilling because I make real jewelry that lasts forever, so it will stay with the person and go on their journey forever, which is awesome. You know, that is so cool.

I think jewelry is one of those things that when you're like younger, you don't really appreciate until you get older and then you're like, you know, when my grandmother passed away, she had some jewelry. She didn't have much left over, you know, she didn't have much left and my mom, she took her wedding ring and she made it into two sets. She made it into earrings and a necklace and she wears the necklace and the earrings occasionally and I never even would have thought like that was so meaningful. But jewelry is one of those things that you can keep on holding on to it. It's like memories coming along with you and I just think it's so cool that now the story of whoever is wearing that ring or that piece of jewelry that was specifically designed for them, it's like no one else has something like this. This is completely, you know, and to be a part of that is so cool. Like, you know, you're being someone's family story forever.

Yeah, it's cool. It's really a neat thing and what's really cool lately is like now that I have my own line, I typically give the pieces, I assign them some type of meaning or I create them from a meaning. And like my biggest seller is called the Gratitude Pendant. And it's just, it's my logo. It's very simple, but it's got so much meaning behind it. And the neatest thing is for when people will say like, oh my gosh, like one of my son's teachers has the necklace. And she told me one day she stopped me as we were walking from their chapel to their classroom. And she said, you know what? Every day. She goes, "I don't even take it off to sleep. I know I'm supposed to take it off to sleep, but I don't," she said, "because when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I see, I turn the light on, look in the mirror, and I see my gratitude pendant, and it just reminds me of all the things that I'm grateful for. And just when my mind goes to think of all things I need to worry about, I look back at that." And I was like, "Oh my gosh." Like, for her to tell me that and for that to be such a meaning for her, I don't know. That's just, you can't buy that feeling. You know? It's just amazing.

That's so cool. It's so cool. It's like when your passion meets like reality of like real people, like when what you love to do becomes a part of someone else that you never thought it would like hit them like that, you know, that's such a cool piece. Like it's a bonus, right? Like a big bonus.

Yeah, it really is. And I always think of it like I literally like see my jewelry, like it's so funny. I'm going to sound really, really woo woo when I say this, but there's no such thing.

No such thing.

Like when I pack, so I package everything myself. Like I'm a one-person show at this point. I do have friends that help me that are amazing, but for the most part, I'm doing it myself. But like when I see a piece of jewelry go out, like I package it and I love my packaging. People tend to really like it too, thank goodness. But it's like this little gift that's about to like go out in the world. And like, I just see it, like it's so great to have like Instagram and Facebook now because I can like literally see my little baby that I packaged up and sent off, like living in the world on this new journey with the person and like, It's literally part of their story. Like if you think about your grandmother or when you think about your mom, you're going to think about those pieces she wore every day, you know, and it's going to resound to you. It's going to feel like part of her forever. You know what I mean? And it's part of her identity. It's part of her story. And I just love that about my pieces. Like, oh, it just gives me so much joy. It really does.

That's, that's, yeah, I could tell. You could just tell. Like when, when I'm watching you online and all that, I can tell that's just something that you love. It's something that you love to do. Um, so my next question for you is that you just launched this line. So where was that like space and time? And I'm guessing it has to do something with, with your husband and dealing with all of that. So if you don't mind sharing a little bit about that.

Sure, sure. Yeah. Um, so So, you know, I was working in the jewelry industry. Everything was going really well. And then we decided to— my husband and I had been married maybe a year and a half or so, or a year or so. So we got pregnant with our son. I was super excited about that. About a month later, he got ill. He became ill. We were at a trade show working together, doing exactly what we love to do. And he started feeling bad with some back pains. Fast forward. So we're pregnant. The day we found out we were having a little boy, we found out he had cancer. So it was a very bittersweet time for us. He had a very aggressive, poor prognosis of a rare cancer called peripheral T-cell lymphoma, NOS, which means not otherwise specified. It was a weird, weird disease, weird cancer. And so kind of everything halted and didn't at the same time. So like we had to focus on obviously his health. The fact that we were about to have a baby and how we could try to keep him alive, you know, and what we could do. So we went through a lot and he was sick for about 2 years. He was here for the birth of the baby, thank goodness. He passed away when our son, who is Winston, was 16 months old. So for that time while he was sick, like, I started working part-time. He worked here and there when he could, but we had to, like, move from Louisiana, move to Texas to go to MD Anderson. So it was kind of like our whole life just stopped, shifted, turned around. Like, I always think of that, weirdly enough, that Will Smith song from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, like, "My life was flipped, turned upside down." I don't know, I just always think of that. Because that's how it felt. You know, like, I just, that lyric always comes to mind. Like, my life was just, our life was flipped upside down. Gosh, it was. And so we just dealt with it the best we could, and he fought really, really, really hard. And my focus became keeping two people alive. 3 actually, because I had to keep myself in there, but trying to keep him alive, trying to keep my son, my newborn baby— I mean, gosh, I didn't even know what I was doing— and him alive. And so that was where all my focus went. I had zero creativity. I didn't design jewelry. I didn't work. I mean, I worked very minimal, like if I could, I would, or if I— if they needed me to do something, I could, but my focus was them. And after he passed, we moved back to Louisiana. I mean, it was just temporary. We were in an apartment, so we came back home and I was just in a fog. I'm gonna be honest, I was in such a fog and I was trying to figure out where my life was gonna go. And I focused on some charity work. Some people got me involved in some helping some other cancer initiatives and things like that. And that really, really helped me. It lifted my spirits. I felt like I was living purposefully, but I wasn't like, I didn't have a career anymore. Like I just, I had worked in sales. So all of my customers had moved on to their other people. I wasn't working at the store anymore. I was focusing on my son and My creativity started to come back. I started to get excited about jewelry again, but I knew I couldn't do it the same way. I was working a lot of hours when I was in retail, and I was a single mom of a toddler. I just— a baby, really. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. So I decided I'm gonna take this dream that I kind of always had, the vision of having my own business. I didn't know what that was gonna be. And then I knew at that point, like, I wanted to be involved with jewelry. That's what I know. That's what I love. And so I decided, okay, this is this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go for it. And it was very difficult. It took a long time. So he passed away in 2016 and I didn't launch the business until October of 2018. So it took a lot of time, work. Uh, I was in slow motion. I was in such slow motion. I had so many factors in my life happening. Um, but somehow I was able to push through it and say, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm going to push for this dream. I'm just going to make it happen. And I'm going to go at my own pace and give myself grace because I can and I should and I shouldn't beat myself up over it. And I don't know, I just feel like that's, that's how I got to the point of even launching a business. But I literally couldn't have and probably wouldn't have launched it without a lot of amazing women like yourself that I met online that encouraged me so much because I had a lot of people in my life that were very encouraging and loved me very much and still do. But they would almost discourage me from doing it because they wanted me to take a safer, easier path. They saw how much I struggled in the last few years and they knew that this was like such an uphill battle. And, you know, people will tell you, oh, 75% of businesses fail within the first 3 years or whatever the statistics are. And there's so many discouraging words out there, but I just like fought through it and I just got like all these amazing boss babes around me that are going for their dreams and helped me in so many ways, like tips and tricks and tools and encouragement. And I don't think I could have did it without the people that I met online and continue to meet online. It's pretty incredible, especially people like you. So thank you for sure.

I'm like, I know what you're saying is so true because finding a community online that's separate from your like day to day is different. I don't know. It's kind of like there was a period of time where my husband and I was learning Bulgarian for our ministry and we were like, it was just a group of like 20 of us and we were so close, but it was because we were all in like the same boat. Like we were all in the same mindset. So when you say that, and you're not the only woman that has said that on the show, that like once you found your tribe, like that's separate from the people that you usually like hang out with or know, like all the things you struggle and gone with, like you said, they just want to protect you. Like they just want to keep you in this like cocoon and be like, okay, well, you know, just take it a little bit easier. That's too hard for you. You know? But the person inside of us is saying like, no, I can't stay here. I have to go there because if I stay here, I will never move. Like I will never grow. I'll just be stuck. That's what I feel like it would feel like. You're just stuck. And for me, I'm pretty sure if you're anything like me, I hate that feeling of being stuck. I will have like arguments with myself. I'll talk to my husband and be like, I can't stand being stuck. I cannot stand it. So I just think it's a powerful statement for you to say that, you know, for you to kind of move through the grief and kind of move through to a new life. I mean, I can't imagine. I can't imagine. Like, I can't imagine. Like, I just can't imagine. Like, I mean, to be young and to be a new mom and just starting off, you know, a relationship. With someone you think you have years, decades to be with, and then you're like, that path is like, okay, where do I go now? I can only imagine, like, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. Like, I can't even imagine that.

You grieve not only the loss of like your best friend, your spouse, we work together, you know, people used to joke, they'd be like, Ryan, how do you work with your wife? And he would like laugh and be like, because I love her. We actually love each other and we love what we're doing. And we really did. Like we would come home from work and design together and he worked on advertising and I studied advertising. We both studied advertising in college, so we had so much in common. But I think even bigger than just missing the person, you grieve the loss of this path that you visualized for yourself, for your children, future children. You know, I thought we would have multiple children. I'm so blessed and lucky that we had Winston, and what a gift. But yeah, you grieve for a lot of different things. But, you know, one thing I think the best advice I was ever given was from him and he kind of looked at me and he just said, listen, don't— and he actually wrote me a note that I keep too for my first Mother's Day, but he was like, don't let this, like what's happening to me, he wouldn't talk too much about him dying, but he would just, he was like alluding to it, you know, don't let that steal a life of happiness from you. Like that would make it so much worse for me if you let this steal your happiness. You know, he told me, you know, I promised your dad when I was going to marry, you know, asking for your hand in marriage that I was going to provide you a life of happiness, you know, and he said, I was so worried that this is going to steal it from you. He's like, but I can see that spark in your eye. I can see that you're not going to let this happen and I know you're going to do it for Winston. And that's my motivation always is like, I can have bad moments, but I cannot have bad days. I can't let those moments turn into days because I'm not really living and then that's taken away from what he asked me, what he put on me, you know, is to just live a happy life and this is it and he said, and he also told me, he said, "Do what you want to do every day, like just do it, whatever it is, this is your life, every day is a gift, just do it." And that's when I'm like, you know what, I can do it and I will do it and it's going to be so hard but it's so rewarding when you look back. Some days I just stop and I'm like looking back and I'm like, oh my God, I can remember after he died, like I had so much— this is how crazy it is. I would have so much stuff on my bed, okay? I'm in a bed, but I had piled so much stuff on his side of the bed. I didn't think about it. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't do it on purpose, okay? I put so much stuff on my bed and I would just sleep on one side of the bed and like all the other stuff was on the other side and then I would like, you know, change my sheets and all and then it would just accumulate back on and I was just sleeping on this little side of the bed and one day I listened to a TED Talk and they talked about something like similar to this and it was like, I don't know, I was like filling that space where he was supposed to be, you know. And now that I can see every day my bed is clear, it's made, it's, you know, it's— I'm living differently. Like, I took all these little steps that took me what seems like an eternity, got me here, and I'm happy, you know. I'm doing what he asked me to do. I'm happy finally, you know.

Yeah, yeah, those little steps. Yeah, I think that's so important. I think we focus sometimes so on like the big— the end goal. Like, I think we always get so stuck on the end goal of something, like, oh, I need to be here. But in order to get there, you have to take these really tiny steps, and sometimes you go backwards.

Yeah.

You know, and then you go forward, and then you keep making more and more steps forward.

But I think it's just inspiring to know that for you to recognize where you were and accept it. Obviously there were some fears and like, like you kind of alluded to it, you know, friends kind of telling you, no, this is not the right time. Like, no, do something easier. What have been some of the fears that you've personally had to like overcome in order to get to where you are right now?

I think like the biggest fear was like investing in myself, like saying, okay, I'm going to take time where I could be like definitely earning an income if I went somewhere else and worked, you know, I could earn a minimal income compared to what I was doing before and like try to build back up, or I can like invest some of my money savings into myself and my business. And I was, and still am obviously because I'm early, early on in this, I was worried about spending the money on investing in myself. And so Like I went to a trade show last year and I had to do packaging, so I had to commit to buying packaging for my business. And I took a couple of, well, I didn't take them because I am not paying for anybody. I can't afford to pay for anybody to go with me, but my sweet friends packed up and went to Las Vegas on a trade show with me. I said, I got the hotel room if you all get the flights. And they were excited to come and help and they were amazing. But we were doing packaging and, and, you know, I had to order packaging and they were like, listen, like, I, I'm an e-commerce, I have outer, outer boxes, I have inner boxes. And so we're doing it, we're finding this great packaging, I just love it. We're customizing it how we want it. And then they say, well, your minimum order is 1,000 boxes. And I was like, what? I'm like, I can't, I'll never sell 1,000 pieces of jewelry. I'm like, we're gonna go take a walk. And so we're walking around and I'm like, y'all, I'm never gonna sell 1,000 pieces of jewelry, like this is crazy. And the girls were like, sit down, sit down. Slow your roll. You're gonna sell 1,000 pieces of jewelry and it's probably gonna happen pretty quickly. And I was like, let me calculate it, let me think, I could sell this much, you know, like I knew what I was gonna sell, I had no idea what I was gonna sell. And they convinced me that I just needed to do it. And so I did it. Thank goodness I did because it's beautiful. The packaging is amazing. It's part of what sells the pieces. Thank you. People are like, oh my God, I don't know what I like more, the box or the jewelry. But I've sold hundreds of pieces already and it's only been launched for 5 months. Like, that's crazy, right? So I can get through 1,000 boxes. So it's that mental fear that we give ourselves. But it's so good to surround yourself with people, not just that are going to tell you what you want to hear. They do need to push you, and they do push me, but they can also push you over to— you had put a post up recently about leaping. You know, you're never gonna fly if you don't leap, right? Yeah, they push you to leap a little bit so that you can do it. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the biggest fear, is just thinking you can, you know, investing in yourself and just believing in yourself that you will do it.

So, um, for you and your business, what are some of the things that you've, you know, what are, what is, what is some advice that you've been given that helps you kind of keep going in your creative juices, I guess you can say? And what are some other things, like if you were to say one piece of advice that you've been given that makes the biggest difference in your business now, what would that be?

I think Gosh, that's a great question. I think the one piece of advice that I was given that I can definitely see the change in and see the difference in is connecting with other women in business, like literally having groups of women. I have one group in particular that we're pretty, pretty close. We schedule calls every month. We get together. We're from all over the country and we're from all different industries. And so like this recently we were talking about course creation and I don't even create courses, but I learned so much from just being in that meeting with them in that group and taking takeaways that I can apply to product sales even though they were talking about selling courses. I think connecting with people who can understand what you're going through. For me, the woman entrepreneur who possibly works from home, has a small business, that has been just invaluable to me because it, and I can't tell you that it's translated into sales, that's not, but it has expanded my understanding of business and of my potential and it's given me so many ideas that then have translated into sales. But it's really, it can be a really lonely journey to be an entrepreneur by yourself, you know, sitting in your space. I mean, even if you try to get in communal space, you know, go to a coffee shop and work or do something, it can be pretty isolating. So I think surrounding yourself with other women who kind of get what you're getting, what you're going through, and can just like bounce things off of, you know, just bounce your ideas off of. That's just been invaluable to me. So I think that's the biggest piece of advice people have given me is just to connect, you know, and it's been so great.

Yeah, I think that's such a good point because as entrepreneurs that work from home or online, we, we were by ourselves. I mean, you know, especially if you design things, you're kind of in your own head and your own space. And when you reach out to other people that aren't in your same, you know, it's funny you say that because Angie McPherson, she said something similar. Every, actually every woman I've talked to on the show has said something similar that being, reaching out to be a part of a community that's not necessarily in the field that you're working in has helped them grow overall, like in a more a more round type of business, has given them a more rounded thinking process of how to do things. Maybe even take some things from a different business that you never would have thought to put in a jewelry business or into a photography business from someone who's like, you know, doing the opposite or something not in your field. And I think that's the beauty of a community. That's the beauty of reaching out beyond, you know, where you're comfortable.

Yes, I love that. No, and Angie's one of my girls.

She's—

that's so funny that you mentioned her, and I know she has been on your podcast.

She—

yes, she's one of the girls, and she actually did my branding photography recently. She flew from Virginia to New Orleans for— with 3 of us got together here, and she did all of our branding. But, um, she, she's one of those people. Yes, she is. What would I have in common with a branding photographer if I'm a jewelry designer? You know, you would think like that's just Why would y'all talk about business-wise? But I have grown and learned so much from her and so many other women. And so yeah, as far as the tool goes, you know, it's funny as to think of that as like something or advice that could really help, but it's just other people getting input, you know, being open. I think I've always in my life been kind of defensive. I don't know why. It's part of my personality trait to just be defensive and like, I kind of know it. And I had to like really like humble myself and and get back because yeah, I know the jewelry industry because I've been in it for 13 years, but I don't know how to run a business. I'm learning now, now I'm getting it. I still don't know everything, I'm learning every day. But to put yourself around other women who are doing it too is just, it's invaluable, it really is.

Yeah, I like how that you just said. I'm the same way where it comes to being defensive about something I know. I think it is just a lesson in humility. For all of us, I guess. But, um, I really like how you just brought out that we don't know everything about everything, right? Like we can't know everything about everything. Even with business, it's changing. I mean, just the way that we do business now and what business used to be like years ago, it's so different.

I mean, so different.

Mm-hmm.

I just, the fact that we have met, like we've never met in person, but we met through Instagram and we've created a, you know, a relationship from just from the digital waves. You know, it's just kind of really cool and amazing at the same time. But then how do you really harness that in your business without actually having that human, as I say it all the time, it's like the human thread. Like that's, if we don't have a human thread, we don't, technology doesn't matter. I mean, that's why Facebook and Instagram became a thing because they wanted to connect everybody together so that they can be in South Africa and be here in the United States and like have a conversation. And now, I think in general for businesses, we somehow forgot that, right? You know, there's so many, so many people are like ads, ads, ads, and they kind of forgot about the connecting, connecting, connecting part. And I think for any business, and one of the fundamental things about business, I think it's still true, is that people do business with who they like, know, and trust. And that will always, that'll always be the case. And referrals are the best type of business. And you can only do that if you like reach out.

100%. Yeah, people do business with people. I mean, there are definitely big companies that we do business with to make our life easier in a lot of ways, like Amazon and things like that. But it just feels so much better when you're like, shop— like, I shopped online with a girl I've never met that does this body scrub and like coconut vegan whole skincare line of like scrubs and moisturizers. It's called Pure and Coco. And I met her online and I bought her product and it feels so good. For one, her product is incredible. And for two, like, we feel like we're already friends because we know each other online. And I forgot to leave her a review, although I keep telling her like, oh my God, I love your stuff. And she was like, hey, do you mind leaving me a review? I'm like, thank you for reminding me. And I went on there and left some, you know, great reviews because it's amazing. But I feel so much better buying from her and her product's so great. Like, I, also ordered that FabFitFun box that everybody gets, like, so silly. And I got some scrub in there, and it was like nothing compared to hers. Like, it was terrible. And I was like, this is why you need to buy from small and like stick with, you know, um, I don't know, the small business. It makes you feel good, and it's quality, you know. Um, but anyway, I'm like going on a rant on that, but I'm just— I love connecting with people, and I love like supporting them, even if it's like just a local like shop I can walk into, or online, getting to know all these ladies. So it's been so good. Really?

Yes.

That is so awesome. And I love, I love, love, love that. So with your business, do you have any tools or different things that help you run your business in your life and like, and run your life? Cause you know, you're a single, you're a single mom and all those different things. What are some things that help you kind of stay even?

I think, um, I think the tools that I use the most, for one, I use a planner. I have to handwrite things. So having a planner that I can actually plan just everything in. I was never a planner over my life. I was just not really a planner, but I've learned to plan, you know, when my husband got sick. I just had to schedule and plan everything with having a baby and him. And so that has transitioned into my life now, my business. And so that's the biggest tool for me. It's like every night I sit down and I just go over what I'm gonna do the next day and like literally write it out into the planner. I use a planner called the Purposeful Planner from Kori Clark. She's incredible too. She's also awesome to follow. She's one of my friends. But I'm literally like, this is my— well, you're not going to be able to hear that, but I'm showing Nikita my planner on our call here. But it's just so cool because I can just list like, you know, giving yourself daily things that you just have to do. Like I always try to list 3 things I just have to do that day. And even if I don't get anything else on my list, because it's usually really long, As long as I get those 3 things done, I can feel like good about the day. Because what I used to do is make lists and make lists. They were endless. And I every night would feel so bad about myself. I didn't get enough done. I didn't— I could have did better. I could have done more. And you can't. You can only do so much, right? There's only so many hours in the day. Like you said, I'm a single mom. I'm running a business and I can't do it all. So having those 3 things up there obviously gives me like priority in the day. Like you got to get those done. Motivation. And then at the end of the day, it also gives me time to just say, you did good, girl, you did good today, you know, and just give myself some feel-good time because our self-talk can be so negative, you know. And so that's just one way to keep positive. And that's the biggest tool for me. Other than that, I mean, my best tool after that is my website. I love Shopify. That's what my website's on. I love the backend analytics of it. That's been like my number one, like, just business tool has been just that website and what it does for selling products. So if anybody's listening that sells product, I definitely recommend, recommend Shopify site. It's just incredible. I mean, the tools that they have for you to just understand your business better on the backend of it, like even just to see how many people are visiting your site, what time of day, like whenever you send out an email,, you can see the traffic on your website increase and you can see when it doesn't increase as much and like kind of gauge what's working and what's not working by the backend of the site, which I think is pretty incredible. So anyway, that's my main tool would be the calendar. Second tool would be the website.

Okay.

For the, for the website, you know, you're the second person that's mentioned this about Shopify and I didn't ask this other person this question, so I'm going to ask you. Um, is Shopify affordable for you? Like I know that a lot of people like Etsy, selling their stuff on their jewelry or whatever they're selling online. But is Shopify affordable and is it easy to use?

It is incredibly easy to use. I am not tech savvy at all. I had someone create the website for me even though it is a template, so it should be pretty "easy." That's just not my strong suit and that's one thing I'm learning as an entrepreneur is to don't spin my wheels on things that are going to take up a lot of my time that I don't know about.

Exactly.

Invest in the people who know. And so I had a great girl who did my website, very affordable price. And it's, you know, you have a monthly fee with Shopify and then they take a percentage of your credit card sales, which everybody's going to do that anyway. But it's, it's not bad. It is affordable. I would say the thing about— I don't— I'm not as familiar with Etsy. I know the website, but as far as selling product on it, I don't know anything about their fees or anything. But I would say this, It's the same thing I say about using Instagram and Facebook, Pinterest, all those things as like your main way of like selling. You have to own your space on the internet. You have to own this real estate and that would definitely be a website. So even if you are getting all of your sales from Etsy and traffic and all that, I would definitely suggest getting a website too because if something changes on those sites that you have no control over, you really want to get people back to your space and, and 2 ways of doing that is you have to have that email list, you know, keep getting connected with them again if anything ever happened to your Etsy or to your other shops, and you can get them back to your website. But I don't know, I just feel like your website's like your own little real estate online. Yeah. The more people you can get actually to that space. I have my shoppable post on like Facebook so people can buy in there, but it also connects through my website and also on Instagram. But yeah, it's affordable. It's so easy to use. Like, it's incredibly easy to use. And I'm still learning all the little tools. Like, I'm probably not using everything that I could use. But I would definitely, if you have, if people have product, I would recommend definitely checking it out because I went back and forth between doing like a Showit website and like different ones. I did a lot of research to figure out which website to go with. And I'm very pleased that I chose Shopify just because I am product-based. If I wasn't product-based, I don't think I would I'd probably do like Showit or one of the other ones. But yeah, it's been great for me. It really has.

Cool.

So those two are great for your business. What about life? Do you do anything in particular? Like for example, like I was mentioning before, some women will have someone come clean once a week or someone come deliver groceries or things like that. And that's not for everyone. I get that because some women and some people in general, they just have the bandwidth to do all of those things. But I know that for a lot of people and a lot of listeners, of my listeners in general, some of them are working a full-time job and have families and, you know, trying to run the side hustle. Are there any things that you're like, okay, I have to give this to someone else to do because I need to focus on my family or I need to focus on my business?

So this is something that I've recently started doing. Yes, I can't do it all and I want to say I can do it all. I want to feel like I can do it all. I want to show everyone I can do it all. And what I was doing, I'm going to be really honest, I was not doing it all, but I was trying to hide it. Like I would be like, oh, you want to hang out? Like my friends would be like, let's hang out. I'd be like, I'm coming to your house. Like, I'm not letting people in this mess of a house. Like, and my house Yeah, and I had my house renovated, you know, a year and a half ago. Like, it's a beautiful space, but I just had, I couldn't keep up. I could not keep up with everything in the business and I was just like running myself ragged. And so I was like, I'm going to try a couple of things. So, so I'm a single mom, y'all know, but I started to evaluate balance and get rid of the myth. Okay. So I thought, I'm actually writing a blog post about this now. I thought that balance meant that I had to literally balance everything equally. Like everything in my life had, like my idea of balance was so skewed that I thought I had to give everything equal attention and that's what balance meant. And so I actually looked up the definition of balance and looked up different meanings of balance. I understood that it doesn't really mean that. It means when you are trying to balance, if you think of standing on a ball and you're trying to balance yourself, you're not distributing everything perfectly even. You're like shifting and you're moving and sometimes you're this way and sometimes, you know, you're one way, sometimes you're the other. And that's when it hit me. I'm like, okay, I have to figure out what balance looks like for me. And that means what can I give away or take, you know, like, okay, I would love to have a housekeeper, but do I have that in the budget? Like, I'm not, you know, I'm starting a business, like, and so I looked at how much it would cost, I got prices, and then I said, what can I take away from to get that? And so I started editing my budget. I started, got rid of cable, you know, I just, you know, like we can watch, you know, we'll get it. Like I got a little antenna thing. We watch, like my child likes to watch videos on YouTube so we can get that on the TVs. So I just started like cutting back so that I can add in what would make our life better versus what even made it more like convenient. I don't know, it just wanted quality of life. So I hired a a housekeeper, which has been incredible. Gosh, it's just been such a weight lifted off me, which also helps me keep my house cleaner anyway, because I got to clean it for her anyway. Like, even if nobody else came over in the week, she's coming. I can't leave her a huge mess, you know?

Right, right, right, right.

And then what I started doing was ordering— it's just my son and I, so we shop at Whole Foods, which I know for a lot of bigger families it's hard to do because it's expensive, but we eat the same thing all the time and it's it's not too bad price-wise because it's just him and I. It's like 1.5 people. So I started ordering from Whole Foods. They got, you know, Amazon bought them, so they deliver now. And what I found, and this is funny because I had to go to Whole Foods today, I spent $50 more. $50, that's a lot. I'm going into the store because there's stuff I'm picking up that I don't need, that I'm just throwing in the basket because that looks good. I'm gonna try this, you know. So I started doing food delivery. And it actually saves me money because I'm not going into the store to purchase. So that's been such a huge life changer for me. And it gives me time. Like, I usually go grocery shopping after I pick my son up from school, and he used to like it, and now he hates it. He's getting to the point he just doesn't want to go. And now instead, I'll spend that hour that it would take us to go to the grocery playing with him, going outside with him. Like, I consciously use that hour that I'm getting back to do something good. You know, for him, with him. And so that's my two things that I do that I just have been game changers over the last— it's probably only been about 4 months that I've been doing those things and it's really just like lifts me. I feel, I feel lighter because of those two things, you know?

Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's so great because I feel like as women we feel guilty, like if we have, if we are like, I can't do it all, or I need someone to go and do it, or hey, I have someone clean my house, like you feel guilty. Why do you feel guilty?

Like it needs to be done.

Like it needs to be done. So why not have someone do it? I don't, you know, I don't get it.

And I'm thinking like, people are like, okay, you just said you only have 1.5 people in your house. How messy could you make that? Why can't you pick up after yourself? Like, I get it. Like, I get it. But it does feel pretty good when like people come over now. I'm not embarrassed to have them over. And then when they come, they're like, oh my God, your house looks so good. And I'm like, thanks. You know, I'll tell them that I was keeping her. I'm not like acting like I did it all myself, like I'm magic, but it does feel good, you know?

Well, I think, I think it's great that you have found your harmony. That's what someone in my last podcast said. She's like, it's really about finding harmony versus balance. Like balance is like a weird, like you were saying, we can't really figure, not everything is getting equal. In reality, balance isn't what we think in our head, but harmony means like things are working together, but they aren't all getting the same amount of time, but they're working together. And sometimes you need to offload this and shift this and make those adjustments. So I love, I love what you just said. And I actually changed the intro to my podcast instead of saying balance to being harmony. When I was talking, when I talk about, you know, women trying to find their passion and balance, I say passion and harmony because I believe that's such a good way of thinking about it. I just love that. I love that.

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, balance to me means that you're not giving everything equal. Like, you cannot be good at everything, you know. So if I'm gonna be really good at quality time with my son, then you know what, the laundry might not get done tonight, and that's okay, you know. Like, it's— and it's giving yourself permission to say, when you have that self-talk that says, I cannot believe I didn't get that— move that out of the washing machine, here we go, I'm gonna have to wash it again, you know, and give yourself Right? You're like doing the smell test, like, I don't know, can I throw that in the dryer? Nope. All right, that's gone again. I'm not being very environmentally friendly today, but you spent the time with your child, you know, and so it's giving yourself grace in that balance, in that your balance and somebody else's balance will never look the same. Will never look the same.

Exactly. Thank you so much for all your words of wisdom and your story and I'm just so glad that I was able to have you on the show and you said yes. Like I said before, I get like the happy dance going on when people say yes to me that I like following. And I know some people think I'm weird the way I ask my guests because I like, I don't stalk you. I just follow you. I engage, like I comment. I want to know if like you're the type of person that I would want to sit down in real life and have a conversation with. So I'm just so thankful that you said yes and thank you for coming on the show so much.

Oh, well, I am so honored. It's kind of like dating in the dating world, right? Which is so scary to me. But yeah, no, I'm glad that we have connected and I can't wait. I can't wait to do coffee with you and it doesn't have to be a podcast. We'll just hang out on Zoom and drink some coffee or tea, whatever you drink. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for introducing me to your audience and I'm just, I'm just grateful to connect with, with all of you. It really, it makes my life richer. It makes me feel good. I'm going to leave this podcast today and feel lighter, feel happier, have a smile on my face. And that's because of you. So thank you for bringing this to the world.

Oh, thank you. But before we go, tell us where we can find you online.

Yeah, so you can find me on my website at kristalinoakwin.com. And you can find me on Instagram or Facebook at Kristalinoakwin Jewelry. Williams is the handle. So I know you'll probably put that in the show notes because it's not easy to spell. But I love connecting online. So if you hear this and you connect with me online, please let me know that you found me through Nikita. I would love to know that and get to know you even better too.

All right, ladies, thank you for listening. And I hope this conversation inspired you.

Be sure to subscribe and tell a friend.

That's it on this episode.

And yes, you are crafted to thrive.