Katlyn Samifua: This Mom, Entrepreneur, And Podcast Host Wants You To Align Your Passions And Purpose

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. All right, guys, here's the thing. I love taking you on my journey in life, and I feel like today is the day that you are getting to come join me with a really cool person that I have just met recently through a group that I joined. And I feel like it's so cool when you join groups and the people are wanting the same thing as you, and they're really aligned in so many things that you're doing. And I felt this immediate connection with my next guest in that way. And the other thing, I got to kind of see how her brain works in the true do the Thing fashion. And so that's what initially called me to want to interview her, because I'm about to start the do the Thing Start a podcast challenge. It starts on Monday. Oh, my gosh. Monday, April 17th. And she was speaking in a way that was in the ultimate do the Thing. And then it's funny, because I booked the interview wanting to talk to her about how she's doing this really cool thing with her podcast. And then I realized that she's also doing this really cool thing with her business. She actually has this amazing brand called Parenting On Purpose. And what an amazing name. First of all, because who. Who doesn't want to parent on purpose with intention? And so I'm just so excited to get a chance to talk to her and dive into her story. So I am welcoming Caitlin to the show. Hey, Caitlin.

Awesome, Stacy. And thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here, and congratulations on the start of your do the Thing podcast challenge.

Yeah, thank you. I know it's so exciting because we get to see each other in this group, right? And it's a group thing, so we get to hear each other talk individually, but we haven't had a chance to really dive in together yet. And because we have a podcast and we're interested in having conversations, it gives us a reason, really to be able to sit down and have this conversation.

I've definitely find that your vibe attracts your tribe. So typically when you're aspiring to do whatever in life that could be in the business world, it can be in the spiritual world, community, whatever it is, you're going to find like minded people and it seems like we found each other for a great reason. So I'm super excited to be here and however I can help serve the community. I'm down.

Yeah. Have you said that before? Your vibe attracts your tribe. That's a serious quotable right there.

I think it's a bumper sticker or something.

Oh my God, I love that. I never heard of that before. I'd love to start off and have you just share with the listeners really about you and your story and then we can kind of go from there.

Okay, yeah, sure. Happy to do it. So my name's Caitlin. I am a mom of two. I've been in the corporate world for about 10 years and I've always been really creative, always done things on side projects that just speak to my creativity. I think that's really important as a person and especially as a parent to give your children outlets to be themselves and be creative. So recently I have a three year old now and my eldest daughter is 15. She joined our life in a non traditional way through adoption. We're very lucky to get such an incredible, amazing woman in our life. We always joke, my husband and I, when we were found out we were pregnant that out of the three of us she was the most mature and the most ready to have a kid. Even though we, we totally trove her in age, she's definitely got the maturity part down. So we're very fortunate. So we decided when my son turned 1, my 15 year old said, hey, the stuff in the industry that they sell for these kid brands, really bad. I don't like it. Can we, can we make something better? And I was like, sure honey. That's amazing. I love the entrepreneurialism and I was so ignorant to what that process would be. If anyone ever wants to make something, make scrunchies. Oh my gosh. Food products are not for the faint of heart. But nonetheless, there we go down the path and to really understand who we were going to serve because it's us. But I wanted to learn more and it was the coolest experience ever because it really opened me up to what people are seeking. And our parents are seeking tools. They want to be better, they want to enjoy being a parent and still know they can achieve their life. They want to know that they can still have their ideal body, their ideal goals, and not have to give that up and forfeit that to become a parent. And I think our society. I don't mean to be overgeneralizing here, but I think our society does a decent job of emphasizing that now that you're a parent, the rest kind of goes away. And that always fascinated me. So I was looking at other cultures, other times in our history, and it just seemed like this is kind of a newer phenomenon and you culminate that with mental health and all this other stuff. So I just got hooked on this whole family optimization thing. I went down a year and a half rabbit hole of just understanding this person. And it's me and it's all my friends and it's parents. And that led us to the Parenting On Purpose podcast. So we just really started interviewing best in brands, people who are anything from mental health to coaches. I was hypnotized the other day. That was a fantastic, fun experience. Yeah. So just having people on in whatever modality to provide potential tools to give parents so that they can have another option right now. I gotta hear it.

I'd love to hear.

Really?

I wanna get into your brand too. And.

And.

Cause I love what you said about just make scrunchies. It's hard to get into. But I love how you started the podcast almost. I don't wanna say accidentally, but coincidentally, to be able to really serve this person even better and get to know them in this way. So how long has that been going?

So I've started a YouTube channel a while ago. The podcast is relatively new. It takes a little bit of setup, so we got a bunch of people and who we were going to speak to. And obviously, you know, because this is a similar modality, but when you're not just yourself recording at your leisure, we have amazing guests from all over the world. I was talking to somebody in Australia, somebody in the uk, somebody in Germany, somebody in Scotland, all in the past few days. So I would say I've been doing it for a little over three months and just getting all that set up and then editing and all of that stuff. Because when you are not a teenager anymore, you gotta learn all that stuff.

Yeah. What have you been learning? Because I feel like for me, with my podcast, it was kind of like my reset in life. Because it's the first time that you're really getting to really sit down intentionally and be able to just ask questions that you're curious about without any. Or someone else is Knowing exactly what you're doing.

I love that. That's awesome. I feel like that might be a different journey for each person. For example, I know people who are super afraid to talk. Obviously, that's not something that you and I have a fear of, but podcasts help them come out of their shell, and I think it's one of those fun things, like, life gives you an opportunity to really sit with and release the emotion so you can build from it. So for me, it was really just showing up for myself in a way that I knew I could add value to people and look at myself. The cool thing about what we do is I don't have to have the answers. I'm just a conduit of conversation. But you do have to show up with an open heart and a place of serving, and I think that was the cool part. To me, this is a culmination of my skills, my passion, and my willingness to serve, and that's been really, really fun. And it reset what I wanted to do in the business, because business, to me is not just about selling products anymore, not in 2023. It really needs to be a more holistic kind of approach. So having that deep connection now with our customers and our community, I just feel like I want to serve them the best I can, and now I know how to do that better, if that makes sense.

Oh, it totally does, because you're getting time to talk to people that are serving your industry, and you're getting to know who that person is, even on a deeper level.

Right, Exactly. And. And you learn things that you didn't know. So it's funny because we all. What's that saying? It's. I was doing a parenting quote the other day, and it was like, you do what you can until you know better, then you do better. Right. And it's kind of the same about you. We're just learning ourselves and taking pressure off the journey, and as we learn, just adding one skill to the next.

Yeah, I'd love to hear. What I was really excited about also, in addition to everything else that's exciting about you is just you got to show who you are by how you're getting your guests. So I'd love to have you kind of share a little bit about your approach to that, because I think this really shows the on purpose part of your podcasting. If now we're quoting your podcasting on purpose.

Yeah.

Purpose is how you're going after that, too.

And just a quick accolade to you, I think what makes this brand so Attractive is that it is so on purpose. And it is really you. Doing something is an action. Setting a stage to do something and setting a stage for other people to do it seamlessly, that is an art. That is the sacred femininity of setting a space. And you do it so well. So I just wanna say thank you and for your listeners, I'm just excited for you to plug into that. Cause Stacy's got it going on. It's awesome. Thank you. That's really good. Okay, so to answer your question, I wanna say I started by doing what most people do. I tried outreach, asking for just making connections. But it did not feel. It didn't feel great to me. I felt like I was trying to get somebody to do something. I don't like that I had to back up and say, why are you really doing this? I have a vision. I'd like to serve a community. Let's start there. So part of the coaching course that Stacy and I met each other from is you really come up with a very vivid idea of the vision of how you want to serve. And I want to help families bio optimize their time together. So what we decided to do was I really put a lot of time into understanding that vision and then all I did was share that vision with people. And I found the people who resonated with that vision. I have a few specific tactics that I found really helpful. I found a site called it depends on where you are in the world. Udemy or Udemy. I've heard them both because I talked to people on like six continents. So far nobody answered until yet. Working on it. I'm not sure how the WI fi is up there, down there, depending where you are, whatever hemisphere, it's all perspective. So I found that site and I actually stumbled across it in a coaching call. Someone mentioned it on a podcast or a YouTube site of someone I follow. So I went to the site and I just understood. It's courses that people put out to get their vision and their message out to the world. And I kind of just had that epiphany of I have a vision, they have a vision. It's like you go to Trader Joe's, I go to Trader Joe's, we should be friends. So I just reached out to them very simply, like, hey, I was very moved by your messaging and your course. This is what I'm doing. If it resonates with you, I'd love to connect for a minute or two. May be able to get you in front of my audience. And that was It. And I got a really, really crazy response rate in the 70s, which I did not expect.

Oh, so 70% of the people that you reached out to responded.

Yeah.

Wow. So you had 30% of people said no, and then 70% said yes.

Well, everybody who responded either is going to be on the call or has been on our guest already. I don't even think it's. It's probably 20 to 30% just never responded to the message. But that could just be. They don't have a Facebook, they're not active. That course they made us four years ago and is no longer in their wheelhouse. Or the perspective I prefer to take is that it's just not the perfect time. And in a year from now, when I'm busy running in another direction, they're going to respond. And then if we're hopefully still serving this community and doing this, it's going to be the perfect time and the message is going to really hit and resonate. So I always kind of like to look at it from that perspective. I don't have it all figured out and I don't want to.

Yeah, I think you just answered my next question, which was how do you handle rejection? So it sounds like you have a really healthy approach on it.

You know what's interesting? I'm in sales, so I will preface this by saying I probably hear no more than most people, so it doesn't bother me. But this is a beautiful mirror moment for people. It's an introspection on what does that mean to you or do you feel rejected like they're saying no to you? And I think that a lot of times the answer is yes. And that's how I look at it. I think they're saying no to themselves.

Right.

If you're denying an opportunity to serve a community, do you really want to be there for that community? And I have no ill will or negative toward anybody who's too busy or whatever. It's just not the perfect time. But I don't look at it as something is wrong with me and what I'm doing. I look at it as, oh, I feel bad for them. They don't see the potential and they don't see how amazing they could serve this community. I'll give you an example. There's this guy who I reached out to and he actually is going to end up being on our podcast. But at first I think he just had a little too much going on. He had a stuff and I kind of got an air about him and I was like, I'M just going to let that be because that's a humbling moment. And I think he's going to come around to what it really means to serve this community. Something's going to happen, that kind of humility component. And it happens to everybody. We're all there to grow and learn on Classroom Earth. So there's nothing wrong. But that's kind of how I don't. I don't internalize it. I try not to. That's probably a generalization. I'm sure I do, but I try not to. Yeah.

And you flex the muscle enough to hear. No. That it doesn't even phase you. I didn't realize you were in sales. So I love that. That's my background and that's actually kind of do the thing. Started as a sales book was what I wanted to write was a book on sales. Because to me, learning skills from sales have taught me everything. But then I actually ended up getting short story without making it too long complicated. But I got divorced, started dating again. And then I realized that the skills that I had from sales really applied to dating. Just with handling rejection, having a positive attitude and like all that stuff. And it was a different.

Having a qualifying process.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so. Yeah. So then it switched to do the thing. Cause I'm like, oh, okay. So sales is kind of like a sport where if you're playing sports, you're learning all these underlying skills. Right. With critical thinking and all these things. And so anyway, I'd love to hear because this is something I'm trying to teach people that maybe haven't done sales before. So maybe they don't know how to hear. No. Or they don't know how to ask for help, or they don't know. Really have that true learning mindset. Because with sales, right, you learn how to evolve. There's all these benefits. What do you think about helping people that haven't done sales really learn this practice of understanding that no is really not about them?

So I'm going to circle back to that because I think that's awesome. But I read a book a few months ago and I got the audio version. It's called Everything is figureoutable and Unabridged, read by the author. It's like the. If you ever make a book, don't put your name in one font. I want to say it's like Christy or Christie. Like Marie.

Yeah, I think it's Marie for yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't read it yet, but I do know her. Yeah. Not know her, but you know.

Yeah. Know of her? She's.

Know of her.

Yeah, she's incredible. So I will answer the question and I'm going to give a few little things as I answer it because I think it helps to frame a reference point. So the book is really cool because it talks about there's just you. And if you really, really go down to the bottom of it, everything is figure out she has a few cool tricks to do that. And one of them is to say, all right, there's obviously a fear of, of no, if this is coming up or in dating or whatever, there's a fear. That's okay. Fear was at one point very beneficial for us to stay alive and stay on this earth. But that's, you know, we're not being chased by saber tooth tigers now, so we don't need that every time we read Facebook posts and someone isn't like our cobbler or whatever. I don't know. So in the book she tells you to write down your absolute worst fear. So say your goal is to start a business and what's like the worst, worst thing that could possibly happen? Man, I'm going to. What if I fail? What if I look like a failure? What if people think I'm someone who can't do stuff and that's the worst thing? Okay, well if that really happens, is that the worst thing? And she drills you down to the worst thing you could possibly imagine. So someone says no to me, oh my God, I'm going to feel like I'm not worth it. I'm going to feel like whenever. And she really makes you like you drill down. If that happened, could you pick yourself up? Could you take one more step forward if you had to? And the answer is yes. The human being is meant to solve problems. So if we don't give it something constructive to do, the human brain is going to create problems in your own life. We all do it every single day. So I think that helps just put perspective around the 2 million year old mechanism in our head about how to handle that. So that was cool. And I've learned that recently. I also used to be a personal trainer back in a previous life before I had children. And they teach you something called loci of control. Then there's basically two types of people. Person number one has a external loki of control. It's something that you were born onto this earth with like I think the government or with this or this is happening that's going to affect how I feel. It's always due to external circumstances. Internal loki of control is doesn't matter if it's raining or whatever outside. I create my state of being. I look at that now. You can be tending to one way or the other, but you can actually develop more of an internal loki of control. So I think just because I've always had that understanding, I knew even if someone says no, I don't have to look at it like it's something like I said earlier, like it's something wrong with me. I can just choose to. I can choose how I react, right? They say life is 10% what happens to you, 90% how you can react. So that is all the groundwork to say one word, which is perspective. I think if someone's new into this business or any endeavor and you know you're going to fail, it's just giving yourself perspective. We have such high expectations for ourself, which is awesome because we are amazing as a species. We really are cool. We're pretty awesome. But just understanding you can probably do almost anything. But you have to give yourself the chance to try and to learn. You're not going to be good at the beginning. We don't expect a toddler, we don't expect a baby to get up and start walking. They're going to fall on their butt 800 times. Yet when we do it, we don't extend ourself the same grace. It's just that perspective. You can find that in religion or spirituality or in self help books or in community. But just being open to that perspective, I think that helps with any type of learning and any type of fear. It was a very long answer.

Sorry. Yeah, no, I thought it was great. I love that idea of perspective. I would love to also hear if you have, especially now that I know your personal training too. So you totally speak the language of flexing the muscle. Do you have a thought for helping someone get into the practice of exposure therapy? To be able to go for the things that they want by just doing it over and over again. I'm just even thinking about what you did where you reached out to Udemy and you're sending emails. And for you it's no big deal because you have that sales experience. What would be a really no risk way for someone to be able to do something like that and then be able to kind of put that into practice.

That's awesome. That's a good question. Okay, I'll give you one tactical business one. And I'll give you one more human one that I think will help. They will feed each other. I do something with my 15 year old a lot because she had a different start to her life and she's incredible. But you know, she's had some stuff that a lot of people don't have to deal with being from a situation. So we do this thing where we go in the mirror we and we look at ourselves, our own faces and we just stare at our eyes in the mirror and we stare at our eyes long enough where you can see or envision or feel connected to your inner child. It's really hard to be detrimental or belittle a very small baby cuz there's not an expectation there. It's just raw human potentiality just in a cute little form. When you can see that in yourself, something really clicks. At least it does for me. I just invite you to be open to it. If not, it's totally cool. You can say that woo woo chick she had on is super weird. Fine with that. And you really just connect with yourself at a level to say it's okay, you are enough. Tony Robbins says there's these six human needs and there's usually three or four things that we hold us back in everything in life. And once you can start to understand what those are for you, you can start to heal and grow from there. So again, that always helps me because I know that this is just a playground. I know that I'm going to fail and I expect to fail. But because I expect to fail, I know I'm going to win. It's the Michael Jordan. He had the most missed baskets and he became the best basketball player. It's the Lou Gehrig had the most home runs but he also had the worst record for years before that. It's again the perspective a no risk way. That was a. That was a very loaded question. So I would say if you could first understand what makes you feel uncomfortable about doing those things. You might just by writing them down that might even just be enough for you to be like, okay, I give you grace, good for you. And then do it anyway. They call it in sales, you probably have heard this term, it's called eat the frog. Because even people who make money and who support their children and put their kids through college in sales. Can I give you guys a secret? If you're not in sales, they are terrified. Terrified of selling. I was a regional manager and I had to go through. It's the weirdest thing. These people make money from selling but they are sitting in these call blocks and they are terrified to pick up the phone and we call it eating the frock. You just do it first. You get the thing done that you need to do, which is like the cold calls. So in this case of reaching out to people, which I'm assuming is what you're doing, I would say don't make it about you. That's my risk free thing. When you take it off of you and you put it on the community that you want to serve, the emphasis is on what you're trying to do. This is not a Caitlin failing thing. This is not a Stacy's failing thing. This is a I'm here to support a community. And if you're not on board, then they call it. There's another sales saying. It says some will, some won't. Who cares who's next?

I love that you also said that thing about being terrified because I think there's so many people that will see people that are doing cool things and they think that they just know everything that they're doing. They don't realize that there's fear involved in doing that new thing or whatever it is that person is doing. And it's until they either do it enough or they just get it done with early was when it sort of releases.

Well, you think a firefighter is not scared to go into a burning building. They just train themselves to recognize fear for what it is. So I teach my 3 year old this thing that bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the emotion of fear and doing the right thing. Anyway, that's bravery. I had a guest on my podcast a few weeks ago who talked about anxiety, depression, fear. Those are the same dopamine release that cause excitement, love, adrenaline. They're just misplaced. They are energy that finds a different path, understanding that you can bring it back to center and you can choose your reaction.

I'd love to hear about your guests on your podcast. So what's been the overarching theme of the people you've been talking to? What have you been learning from them?

So I went to them with just a overall vision and I always like to give them the poetic license to speak what's on their heart in terms of either serving parents on the path of parenthood or serving parents on the path of living their full potentiality in the parenting space. I have a structure to the way my calls go. By the way, your call is very well structured. I think it's beautiful. It's perfect. It's very representative of you. It's a cute little package. I love it. But I give them space to just play, which is how I got hypnotized and how we did some cool stuff. But the reason I'm doing that. This is kind of a joke. Some of you, this will land. Some of you, it's not. It's fine. I've already lost you. I call this podcast my gateway to introduce parents into spirituality. Because I find parenting is such a high calling. And if I can just pull some ancient wisdom from different cultures and some certain things, or show you how they're doing it in Munich, because it's just so different and we are really a global community, I think it's cool. So what I learned, I've learned so much from tactical routine, eyes, things you can put into your day. I've learned things on time saving mostly. I learned a lot of self love, a lot of filling your own bucket so you can be there for your kids. I've also learned that we are a global community. And you might think you are a circumstance very different from somebody across the world, but they're dealing with a lot of the same stuff, and that's a very human element. It's very cool.

I totally agree. I've been doing these street interviews. I did them in Europe and then I did them in New York, and my daughter's actually 15 too, and we're doing them together. She videos them, and then I'm talking to the person and we were talking about it the last time that we did them in New York, and basically just saying, it's amazing how no matter where they are in the world, we all pretty much want the same things, you know, and have the same values in terms of the things that we want 100%.

And it's also like, there's a culturalized thing where you look at what is in the media, and that's why they say in most coaches, what do you really want? Take the time and have the mental space to say, do I really want this or do I want this? Because this is what people tell me I should have. There's no shortcuts, but the more inner work you do, I find that your outer world is much more easily shaped.

So in addition to the mirror example you gave earlier, what's some other inner work type stuff that you do that you find really effective?

Okay, so I will preface this by saying I am just a culmination of a bunch of books and podcasts, and I just. I like knowledge. I was listening to a Tom Villian podcast the other day, and it was so funny. It was basically making fun of people like me and you, but amazing me for people who Take in all this information and not necessarily apply it. It's where information or self help becomes entertainment and not actually an application. And that was a really brutal mirror, right? I was like, oh, damn, that hit. I try, but not all the time. So some things for inner work, I'm going to give you one I probably wouldn't expect. And what's really coming to my heart is play. Play. I have a three year old, so play is very readily available. I have a million monster drugs across my house. So I think moving and being in a place of creativity and fun really helps to start generating those hormones that are going to help you with problem solving in different areas. And do you ever have those moments where you're like, why am I even doing this? What the heck is the point? And not in from a self deprecative, depressed way, but it's like spinning my wheels, running a million miles an hour. Do I really want to get to this goal so quickly that I'm not enjoying the process, which is kind of a conundrum for someone like me because I'm goal oriented, but I'm also very like, allow the universe to provide.

It's like, it's like this inner balance of it.

But I would say play. Give yourself an opportunity to put down the work, put down the phone, put down the external influences and be with yourself. That'll help you get some mental clarity and space. Obviously, if you're into silence and meditation and stretching and all of that, that's all great, but I think just by being having fun, it'll really help. Whether that's baseball, fishing, add more play.

I love that answer. I think that's so great. I actually talk about this on the podcast because I've personally tried to get into meditation multiple times. It hasn't adopted yet, but I have other ways that I able to do that. And I think play is actually a big part of it, nature and all that stuff. But I think some people say, oh, if you can't meditate, then you're not really doing the work right. But everyone's different. It's learning what do you like? And then adapting to whatever that is. You don't need to do something just because everyone else is doing it.

I love that I find so much wisdom in our generations above us. My dad says something, he's like, even if you try your hardest, you won't make everybody else happy, so you might as well do what you want to do.

Great advice, right? I'd love to talk about your brand again because I feel like you mentioned the thing about how hard it started and right now from what I understand, because I just saw your website and it looks amazing. You're selling stuff now, so you went all the way through. So do you mind just kind of talking about that as well and what that process was like?

Yeah, and I'll even layer in. I'm assuming a lot of people watching this have projects they want to start or things that they're starting and they kind of just feel like I'm doing three things and I'm crappy at all of them. Yes, yes you are. And you will be for a while. And then all of a sudden that starts to turn into I'm a little bit better. So it's a learning process. I don't have the answers, but I have self introspection and what I've noticed is I can do a few things well at one time. If I get over the threshold of 3, I'm not gonna be able to give it the mental energy. So right now I'm focusing on the podcast, I'm focusing on serving my community and I'm focusing on launching this physical products brand to provide better options for our families. I feel like because those all touch on the same person, I can weave in and out of those and kind of just have fun with it and it's really fun. I am not sleeping a lot. I stay up very late, but I'm so excited. It's really funny as a parent, everyone here like this if they have a kid. You used to stay up with your spouse, binge watching shows till like 3am when eating God awful foods that make you feel terrible the next day, but you wake up and you're fine. But if you're a parent and you're sleeping and your kid happens to wake up because they have to go to the bathroom or something, it's like, oh, I used to do this self imposed for decades and now all of a sudden it's a deposition. But that's what it feels like. It feels like I'm doing something fun and that's important. So yes, I'll give you a little backstory on where we are. So we're currently in our pre launch phase. I tried to be very cognizant of my community when we made this product. And I keep saying we because I allowed them to tell me everything. I did not use a white label or a pre made product. I did not contact somebody that already had an oatmeal bar with chocolate chips and say, can you put my packaging on it? I Didn't want that. We don't want, we didn't want fillers. I wanted more high protein, low sugar options to fuel my family and to fuel the families around me. So just a quick sidebar. My husband is Polynesian, he's Samoan. So my son is Samoan, Italian American and he's a big boy. He is super tall. He's a 99th percentile in height and he's in six and seven year old clothes. He just turned three.

Wow.

He's very, I mean he's not, he's not out of shape. He's just big kid. He's going to be a big kid. But the mom guilt and the expectation and feeling all of the things that parents feel when it comes to anything about your kid, their intelligence, their weight, their blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I felt that when Gabriel was younger, everyone would comment on his size and that really got to me. And then I had to sit with. And this is the same thing when you reach out to influencers and something's getting you sit with that emotion. Emotions are meant to be felt and released. If you do not release them, they will come up and they will find a way to weave themselves back into your life. Your spouse will do something that'll piss you off or whatever with a guy in the traffic jam, sit with it. So I sat with that emotion of why is this bothering me? And what I came up with was I don't want my son to hear all these comments and feel like he's anything but perfect. That really got to me as a mom. So that made me start thinking about what's going in these kids brands and their food. And when I started reaching out to manufacturers, there's a lot of filler crap in our kids food even. And I'm talking about the whole foods, the good stuff. The good stuff, it's very similar. So we decided to take the long road and I literally called close to 80 manufacturers. I got a bunch of doors, sand in my face. I got a bunch of, oh, we'll make you whatever you want, but it's going to be X, Y and Z. And we're going to have to run the thing. We're going to the extruder and put all this goo gum crap in it. And I'm like, I don't want that. I don't want that either. So I finally found somebody who would run the machine slower for me, who would give me the septic dyes that I needed. And then I went out into the community and I went to different Local bakeries. And we just had a fun party at my house and it had all my neighborhoods. It was awesome. A bunch of kids came over my target market and I just started. It's so funny. I have a video of this and now in retrospect, it's like me, all the parents were also in the house. It looks so creepy. All these children are on my table and I have this huge machete knife and I'm chopping up. I'm like, that looks awful. Like, I can't put that in any of my stuff. Like, come on in, children. It's fun. So, so funny.

It's so. Oh my God.

So I just chopped up a bunch of these baked goods and they gave me feedback on what they liked and didn't like and we just kind of had a party. Then I took all of that information and I started working with our food scientists and our manufacturers to start culling down a little bit of the product. And then we got something really cool. We got. We're introducing higher quality foods to our children at a younger age. So we have the quinoa. It has pecan and it has coconut. It's got a lot of different robust flavor palettes. Because I was so sick of the Rice Krispy treat with the sprinkles or the oatmeal with the chocolate chip. I'm like, in this entire world of diversity, we have three options. Cheese, crackers and those two things. It's like, come on, bro. So that's why we're kind of just playing with this. And our logo is kind of fun. Like I said, my husband's Polynesian and my 3 year old and our community helped pick the logo. So it's basically a tiger doing a shaka because, you know, shout out to catching a wave and kind of like do the thing right. It's like shopping, like lit. Just do it. Kind of just have fun with nature. And so that's where we are. So we went through a few rounds of R and D. Now we're bringing it to the community. The pre orders are because I want to test it again at a wider scale. Now we've tested it locally, I want to get it out to multiple. I've already people other countries that are getting it, which is just beyond what I ever thought this would happen at this point. But it's cool. So we're going to run that and then the goal after this initial round is to have it on Amazon in the next few months so that people can get it quickly.

Amazing. I love how you're a hustler. I feel like you've got the peaceful hustle, though, because you are still checking in with yourself as you're moving, and then you're giving it space because you're letting your community really help you do what they want as well.

I think it's when you don't have to have all the answers, it takes a lot of pressure off of you. Again, I just desire to be the do it. Yeah. And what's cool is the collateral beauty here is I have a lot of moms like you and me and Richie, and probably a lot of you watching is, hey, I want to do this. I. I love this. I want to really step into my own power. And I felt like that for so long, and it just. It wasn't the right time or I just. Whatever the reasons. And now I just started, so it's like you just start and it's been cool. And I'm sure there'll be a thousand challenges along the way. But again, if not this, then what? I'm doing something I love.

Love it. If not this, then what? Okay, I have a question, because I know you said you joined the Start a Podcast challenge, which is starting Monday, and you have a podcast, and so just. And it's going pretty well. So I'm just curious what's up there?

Okay. There's several reasons I joined. I'll be super candid. One of them is because I adore you. I think you are going places, girl, and I want to learn from you and people like you. Also, if I can duplicate my efforts, meaning if I can learn from other people who are learning, I use Riverside. This person uses whatever. If I can learn of other tips and tricks to make this better. I had this cool tip that I learned about Udemy and how to meet people somebody else might have find them this way, whatever that is. Yeah, why not speed up the learning curve?

That's why I wanted to ask that question, because I love it. And I do this, too. When you're already good at something, but you still want to learn more, because when you just learn that one thing, it could change everything. And so I just love that you're going to be in the challenge. I think it's going to be so cool because you'll not only be able to contribute to people that are freaking out because it is new, but you'll also. I'm sure you'll get a lot of value from it, too, 100%.

And I'm super happy to help it any way that seems like it's in service to you. I offer that right now.

I'm curious, have you gotten your community on your podcast yet? As a way of just connecting with them that way.

So it's really cool. I have 50. I'm going to get 50 podcasts. And I'm trying to time it to where the podcasts are coming out in totality, close to when we're launching, because I'm trying to do this semi as a unit. Even though we're selling snacks, the overarching goal of the brand is family optimization. I wasn't planning on it, right. I was just kind of releasing them because it's just easier to batch release. And then something crazy started to happen where I started to get messages like, hey, I saw this or this or this. And I was like, wow. So you, you see all these people on YouTube with the fancy thumbnail, and they're like, this $100 million. It was like. It seems so inaccessible. And there's a quote that says, people drastically overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and drastically underestimate what they can accomplish in a lifetime. And I think it's the same sentiment. Whereas if you just are doing something that is fun, so it doesn't seem tedious. And even if it's a learning like this could be scared the crap out of somebody, but that's okay. I jumped out of a plane, that scared the crap out of me. But damn, was it fun. Sphere is different, but if you enjoy it, you can still enjoy something that scares you. That's where you get the most growth. And you can do it consistently. You will be shocked at how quickly you see results.

I'd love to hear what your number one piece of advice is for the listeners on doing the thing.

Oh, I love this. Okay, I want to say just do it once and see how it makes you feel. Check in with yourself after you do it once, because if you haven't done it, you're limiting yourself and you're worth more to do it. And then after you do it, check in and see how you feel. And if you feel good, that's it. Sister or brother, that's your thing. Keep trying, keep growing. Humans. Humans are meant to grow. That's what we're here for.

That advice is so powerful because I feel like so many people can build up when they're doing something new. And just to give them permission to just do it once, you're freeing them to stop if it's not aligned with.

Them a hundred percent. It was like intuitive eating or Any type of parenting. It's not a one size fits all. Here's a really cool example. In America, by and large, broccoli is healthy and Cheetos are unhealthy. We have all been brought up in that belief system. Greens are good. This is this in other parts of the world, this is where perspective comes in. In other parts of the world, they do not believe that in a lot of Indian cultures and a lot of cultures out east, it is more about internalizing and checking in. And the. They don't have churros in there. Maybe they do. The sweet thing could be the poison, but it could also be the medicine in the moment. The trick here is that we are so not present that we aren't understanding what our body needs to give it the right stuff, which is why we barrel through life trying to do more and more in excess to give it more when we're just not giving it the right stuff. So it's the same thing with endeavors. You should always try because you don't know if you don't like it until you try it. But then give yourself the respect to see how you really feel about it.

I'd love to hear if there's anything coming alive for you after we talk today.

Well, it's like for me, it's so passion, right? I love knowing that there is a community of people out there who are just wanting to get better and ready to go. I think we're at this cool precipice of society where I think about our children who look to us, our society. I was just talking to a gentleman and something nice that he did spurred something else. And now this kid is a dentist in Mexico and you just don't know how far that ripple is going to go. But when you're living in your presence and in your joy, you could really change the world. Right? So I would just say being around people like that, to me is awesome. And it also reminds me of where I was very, very short time ago. So. And still am in many other endeavors. Right. So it all builds on itself. But I love the sense of community. It's very inspiring.

Please share with everyone where they can find your podcast and buy your new product and everything you got going.

I appreciate that. That's so awesome. If it resonates with you guys, I am on YouTube right now, just on YouTube, because it's in my three things. Eventually we'll be in other places, but I'm just parenting on purpose on YouTube. It's me and my sweet blend little family with like a big cutout. You'll see us. There's a golden doodle there. You'll know it's us. And then snacks by nature. Snacksbynature.com that is where you can buy our mighty morsel snacks that are right now on presale, which is exciting. So let us know and let me know what you think, because I'm honestly doing this for the community. So whether it's the videos, whether it's the snacks, I want to get better. That's why we're here. So let me know if there's anything we can do to improve. And thank you for being here guys, for yourselves. Awesome.

Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. It's been amazing getting to do this with you.

I can't wait to do it again. You're an incredible person, Stacy. Thank you for living your life on purpose and out there in the world for it to inspire other people. So thank you. And until the next perfect time and.

For the listeners, do the Thing. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it.

Thanks for listening to the do the Thing podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. But even more, we hope you'll be inspired to do the Thing. Do you have a burning question on Doing the Thing that you'd like answered? How about an inspiring do the Thing story of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear all about it. Just leave us a voice message at dothething co or email us@helloothethingpodcast.com.