Episode 47: The One For the Mom Ready to Build Life on Her Own Terms With Kalin Sheick: Go Time, Slow Time, and Why Your Worth Isn't Your Accomplishments

Kalin Sheick started Sweetwater Floral with $500, a ping pong table and zero business experience. Now she's a nationally recognized entrepreneur who's redefining what it means to thrive as a working mom and baller business woman.  With keeping hobbies as a top priority, not questioning family McDonald's dinners when the season is busy, and absolutely zero apologies, she's building an intentional life full of the good stuff.

Main Topics & Discussion

Building a Business While Building a Family

From fertility struggles to three kids in three years, Kaitlyn's entrepreneurial journey collided head-on with motherhood in the most chaotic way possible. When her daughter was born early and spent time in the NICU during their busiest wedding season, everything imploded - and that breakdown became the breakthrough that transformed their business. Sometimes the worst thing that happens becomes the catalyst for the best thing.

The Hobby Revolution

Here's where things get spicy: Kalin believes every woman needs hobbies that produce zero results. Not side hustles, not "monetize your passion" projects - actual hobbies that exist purely for joy. Golf, sourdough baking, mahjong, and wellness journeys that don't need to make Instagram content. She challenges the notion that moms should lose themselves in the "mom era" and argues for reclaiming multiple identities beyond motherhood.

Delusional Confidence and Strategic Failure

With a "done is better than perfect" philosophy, Kalin shares her most spectacular failures - from missing speaking engagements to tanking on QVC. Her secret weapon? The ability to compartmentalize mistakes without taking them personally. When you've experienced real stress (hello, NICU), business failures get put in perspective quickly. She operates on the principle that if you're not failing 20% of the time, you're not trying enough new things.

Find Kalin on Instagram @kalinsheick and check out her podcast, Lucky Girls Don't Quit. 

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Host & Show Info

Hosted by: Cally & Emily O’Leary

About the Hosts: We’re real moms and real sisters. We may look and sound alike, but our motherhood journeys are uniquely ours. We all do Motherhood differently, and thank goodness for that. Let’s learn and grow together.

Podcast Website: https://therealmomhub.com/

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Transcript

wait, can I ask a question before you introduce Kaitlyn? Yeah. How do I keep my snake plant alive?

(...)

It's flops. It's like

over watered.

(...)

Wait, this snake plant, like the, the long spikey plant is flapping. Yes. It's just,

it also very well could have a disease. Like 90% of the people who come in who are like, I have this house plan and it was doing great and I can't keep it alive. I'm like, it's not a you thing. Like most house plants have diseases, especially no judgment. If you bought it at like a big box store or.

I got it from my friend and it was dying in her house.

Yeah. It's probably just, it's probably just time. We should not take on house plants that are dying.

I mean, is it like infecting your other plants now?

It can, it can, especially if you have like spider mites and a lot of really gross stuff, they could be hopping all around your house.(...) It's gross.

Plants were only good for you in the house.

(...) No, they can have a lot of diseases, especially the ones that come from the grocery store,

(...)

which is why we try and tell people not to buy. House plans from someone who also like sells cottage cheese. Like we need to let people be their creative zones of genius. Grocery stores are for groceries. Flower shops are for flowers and plants.

(...)

Okay.(...) Glad I asked.

Glad you asked. I'll stop talking now. It's your girl's show. Just tell me when you want me.

No, that's what I want. I'm just thrilled that we opened with kind of like a gloom and doom from you because just, I'd like you to introduce yourself to our listeners in just a minute. Caitlin Sheik is with us today and she's actually a powerhouse and a doer. A happiness. Oh yeah. So I think it's kind of perfect. You just brought gloom and doom on Kelly's household. Really funny. Um, you wear a lot of hats.(...) You're a business owner.

(...)

Um, you have your own personal brand. You're a mom, a wife,(...) a regular girly.

(...)

Trying.

(...) Hardly a regular. I don't know. I'm just like out here trying to exist. That's what I always say.

I mean, aren't we all, um, can you tell our listeners what a normal week looks like for you or a normal day, whatever is easiest for you to parse?

feel like I'm always against a clock, which a lot of people listening will relate to. I feel like I wake up in the morning and there is a stopwatch and it starts the moment my eyes open and the rest of the day is a lesson in time management and letting go of things that just are not on the priority list for the day. So in an average day, I will try, try being the keyword to work, spend time with my kids, cook dinner, do something for myself, sleep eight hours. And,

not take anything too seriously. It's, it really depends on the time of year. We own a flower focused lifestyle brand. We're nationally recognized. We flower for weddings for a living. So if it's in the summer during wedding season, where I live here in northern Michigan, we are easily working 10 to 12 hours of the day,

at the shop at a wedding, but I also do a lot of speaking engagements and travel and teach a lot of classes. So one day may have me doing one of those things. Um, I'm really lucky that my husband works full time in the business with me. That is the only way we are able to have three little kids and really split a really fair division of labor. I would say he carries the brunt of most kids stuff during the summer go time.

but then in the winter, my days are way, way, way more structured and way, way, way more laid back. I work part time in the winter, uh, part time in person full time in my head is what I say, because it's like, I can't turn it off as a business owner. But, um, in the winter, I'm like a regular, I'm like a wellness girlie. Like I want to go to Pilates three times a week. I want to see my girlfriends one day a week. I make dinner for my kids five nights a week. I try. I love to cook. It just depends on the time of year.

Which I'm learning now as a mom to tune in more to just kind of what the natural world bringing, I just didn't really care about it as much before it, something earthy happened, you know, pop out a baby.(...) That seems pretty healthy.

(...)

We call it go time and slow time. You, you possibly cannot fire on all cylinders 12 months of the year. There's just no ways. I don't care what people do for a living. You have a busy season and you have a time where you can pull off the gas a little bit. Um, as moms, I feel like we aren't given the pull off the gas from the home front very often, but just really professionally leaning into that. And also in any relationship I've talked often about I, the search for balance is completely, absolutely a waste of time. It is fruitless. There will never be balance.

(...)

I will never live a balanced life of, Oh, I have this really dialed in at work and Oh my God, our family is thriving and I'm like being super mom. Absolutely not.(...) Really early on into my parenting journey, I just agreed and kind of let go to the fact that some days I'm going to be 90% mom and 10% business owner. And some days I'm going to be 50 50. And some days I'm going to be 30 70. And that is okay. There is no balance. There never will be. And that has given me a lot of grace.

(...)

But I love also being in Michigan. Like you're in a true, like, true. Place of the country. Right. So like you're really leaning into that. A lot of moms summer is there slow in prison because it's like still crazy time.(...) And then the school year life gets crazy, but you're kind of going with like that body clock of summer, their son, you have vitamin D, like you're outside, you're probably ready to go. And then the winter you can start to slow down. That's actually brilliant.

We've talked often about how kind of what a gift it is that during like a really, well, you girls are Midwestern girlies, like a really long, hard, dark winter.(...) I am not being asked to work 80 hours a week at a bustling flower shop. And, and I really take the projects on in the winter really.

I want to say it? I think long and hard about work I take on during like, I'm talking January, February, March, like I really try and pull back during those times. And yeah, I do kind of like turn inward. Like it's dark. I go to bed super early. I make a lot of soup. I love a carb. I went on a sourdough journey. Like we are who we are. I, you know, just like honor it, honor it. I, I really want to like binge a true crime Netflix doc and go to bed at 850.

(...)

In those things don't care for me.

No, I'm up all night. Yeah. But love that for you.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yeah. Really impressed.

Okay. You talked about hobbies. Can I jump in? What I feel like we need to get off the table now.

Oh, I'll talk about hobbies all day. I'll talk about them all day.

I think we need this because Emily and I are both married and our husbands are really good friends. And there was some point in time that they were on one of their phone calls that they both realized that Emily and I like don't have hobbies.

Yeah. It's really common.

And it's also funny, like to give you a tiny bit of backstory, we both have music degrees. So it's not like, I don't know. Like we have done creative things.(...) We've like missed the hobby train.

Well, you've missed the hobby train because how old are your kids? Really quick. Fill me in here. How old are these kids? Okay. Mine are four and two. And then I do around Christmas. Okay. That's absolutely insane. So no hobbies for you. Yep. Emily next.

Mine is too. I would say my whole, and I'm in my thirties. Like I would say my whole twenties where it was on one big hobby.

Your husband says you didn't have any.

So the reason I got into hobbies was because I was, I saw how many hobbies my husband had and how fulfilled he was by them and how I had a moment where I felt not jealousy,

(...)

not resentment,(...) but a very deep, like, why can't I do that? Like, why can't I have something that I do that does not produce results?

(...)

It is not goal-driven or trying to better our family.(...) It is not about me being good at something. It is not about me starting a business or making money off it. Like, why can't I just have something to do for fun that brings me joy?

(...)

And a lot of pushback I get when I talk about hobbies is people thinking that they don't have hobbies, but they really do, because like, if you regularly go out with your girlfriends and grab dinner and talk for three hours, that is a hobby. Like one of your hobbies can be spending time with your girlfriends. But when I had my kids, I had, I had three kids really, really quickly, three and less than three years, um, they're super young. I have a three year old, a four year old and a five year old.

And I woke up one day and was like, who am I outside of all of this?(...) Who am I outside of these kids, this business, my marriage. I adore my husband. I am absolutely head over heels in love with him. He is fabulous.

(...)

But also I was like, I'm pretty great and cool and fabulous and wonderful too.(...) And I wanted something outside of being something to everybody else. So I'm a huge, I mean, huge, I gave like two years of my social media presence was all about I'm going to find hobbies. And so I found some, I'm happy to talk about what they are. If you want to hear what they are. Okay. So the first one I found was I went on a huge wellness journey because after three kids in three years, both of you know, you don't even, I was like, I barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror, not from a size of my pants perspective from a, like, why do I have no, like, why do I not have any glow to me? Like, why do I look kind of dead in the eyes? Like,(...) and all this, where is my soul? Where is my soul? And also like, I love my kids. I love my life. I love my husband. Like I'm too blessed to be stressed. So we've got it made.

(...)

And also like, who am I? And so I kind of had to freak out, like, I don't want to wake up and be 48 and be resentful and I did nothing. So I was like, I'm going to, for a good chunk of time here, try and take care of myself and I'm going to take it pretty seriously. So my first hobby was my wellness journey.(...) And it was like, I am every few weeks going to go get a pedicure, go try a sound bath, go to a yoga class I've never been to. I'm going to get a massage every couple of months. I'm going to book myself a facial. All these things that felt so luxurious and so like, cause I feel like as women,(...) you know, we're like, Oh, the back to school backpacks, Oh, the, them having a magical Christmas, no questions asked. But me spending $38 on a sound bath for myself, I was having like, I'm going to think about this, I'm going to think about this for a few weeks. Meanwhile, time was just racing by no hobby. So wellness journey was first.

(...)

I went hardcore, hardcore.(...) I had an insane glow up. I'm at the hottest I've ever been in my life. And I think that's because I'm taking care of myself.

(...)

I also give the disclaimer, your wellness journey doesn't have to be expensive for like three months of my wellness journey. I focused on my sleep and just sleeping eight hours a day, which is a lot.

That's really hard to do when you're doing a lot of life.

Yeah. It's actually, and I don't function well without

eight hours, I know myself, but it's still hard to make it happen.

Nearly impossible, nearly impossible by the time you do third shift, which is once everybody's sleeping, you get all your crap together, your wiping counters, your, and then it's like, I also want to be a human being and like kind of scroll Tik TOK and just like laugh for an hour, but I'm like the sleep, prioritizing the sleep,(...) sleep wellness journey. Then I got into golf.

(...)

Now I'm a golf girly golf.

(...)

Then I realized I needed a winter hobby. So I got into sourdough, sourdough changed my life.

(...)

then lastly, playing mahjong.(...) So now I am a mahjong girly.

(...)

And so it's mahjong cooking and sourdough, uh, my wellness journey, golf, seeing my girlfriends. I mean, I'm, I'm obsessed with hobbies. We all need them.

Okay.(...) Yeah. I think I don't even remember what a wellness journey is. It used to just be my life. And now I'm like,(...) what with the time that's, I really have never heard that before because our car husbands were actually very perturbed. He was disturbing to them when they both realized we don't have hobbies and I'm sitting here and I feel fine about myself because I'm like, my work was my hobby for five years, you know, I cook a pretty damn good meal. Like that's enjoyable to me. There are so many things I can do and do do regularly. I was just like, these are just integrated. What's your problem? And now as a mom, I'm like, Oh no, no, I think there's something about no results needed, just the time for yourself getting in that flow state.

You're in a really crazy season of life. Like don't get it twisted. You're

not in a hobby season.(...) But

you know, when you're seven, eight, nine months postpartum, when you kinda, the fog kind of starts to lift, I just challenge you to like, look for something for yourself. Like I have an Instagram follower. My Instagram community is amazing. She DMed me and she was like, I've never had a hobby in my life until I started listening to like your podcasts and all your stuff. And I, um, I have a baby at home. I'm on maternity leave, my first child. And I got into embroidery. She bought a little kit. She brought one of those little kits on Instagram.(...) And at night she just has her Netflix show on and she's doing embroidery. She's not going to sell it.(...) She's not be trying to be the best.(...) She's just doing it for fun. And also hobbies lead to, I feel like we're in an amazing time to be a hobby girly, because now she's looking to go on like an embroidery retreat at some like bougie boutique hotel in Savannah, Georgia,

(...)

that she never wise would have taken the trip gone doing, and she's like, we embroider for like two hours in the morning, then I get like a free weekend. I'm like, that's it. That's the gateway of like, Hey, I got into this thing and I'm pouring into myself and it feels a little selfish at first, especially when I have so many people and things to take care of, but who am I to think this is selfish? I don't see any, I don't see anyone else thinking it's selfish that I what took 30 minutes for myself.

Yeah.

So girls, I believe in you. I believe in you.

Thank you. I think, um, your wreath fest might be what I'm aiming for.

The wreath fest is a great hobby.

(...)

Because I've always had this like dream of having a Christmas tree farm. So like some, oh, really? Oh yeah. Like flower farm in the summer, Christmas tree in the winter. Why don't you, why have you never told me this before? I don't know. I can wear the overalls. Like I have these cute Patagonia overalls.

I know about your overalls. Christmas tree farm. But why did you never tell me about this? I don't know. Cause it seems silly. And when I'm going to do

it, it's not silly at all. It's not silly at all. Wreath Fest will scratch that itch for you. Wreath Fest is pretty special. It is the largest, we always say it's like a hallmark holiday weekend. Like if you want to live in a Hallmark movie, you come to Wreath Fest and it's a weekend long girls getaway. It's like girlhood personified. We always say it feels like millennial moms having a sorority reunion with early bedtimes and really great food and beverage and you make a holiday wreath. And it's like, Santa's there and there's a balloon drop and we listen to a lot of Christmas music, but also you can do all your holiday shopping and you're by yourself and you get to go to a spa.

(...) Oh my gosh. Yeah. If we'll, okay, we're recording this in August.

(...)

Do you even have slots left in the 2020?

We do have tickets. Do you have tickets?

(...)

Boyne Falls, Michigan. You may have heard of Boyne Mountain Resort. Um, yeah, there's still tickets. You can go to Boyne Mountain's website and type in Wreath Fest. You can also go to KaylinChic.com. Um, and it's a steal of a deal and it's, it makes me cry every year because every year it's gotten bigger and there's like groups. It's your group chat. It's you and your girlfriends. It's people who fly in from all over the country and they meet there for their girls trip. It's the carpool line group comes up. They drive the eight hours from somewhere in Southern Ohio and they wear like, they get like crew neck sweatshirts made that say like carpool and like they have like flair, they have flair. And it's like, we, it's, it's so fun. Please come. I mean, you're both going to either be in labor or freshly still wearing the diaper. So like, this is not your year.

(...)

Not your year.(...) However, maybe some listeners will come and have like the time of their life and we'll be there next year. We've, so fun.

(...)

I might be there this year.

(...)

Why not?

The amount of like hella pregnant girls at Wreath Fest every year. I'm like, okay, we're fine. We're fine. We're 10 minutes from a hospital.

Well, I'm planning a home birth anyway. So I bet there's a midwife in the crew.

A thousand percent. There is a midwife there. Let's have a Wreath Fest baby. We've done crazier.

You could do it like between the Christmas trees. Why not? Maybe with Santa there to bless the baby

underneath the balloon drop.

(...)

Underneath the

balloon drop.

All right,

Well, okay. So we've been talking about like really fun things and really, you know, the hobbies. I'm getting some juice for that. I think I'm feeling inspired, which is great.

but I want to go back to the start of Sweetwater.

(...)

Just so our listeners can get a sense of this like beautiful monster that you've created that's huge, which makes it like so much more impressive that you have.

(...) Thank you.

(...)

So take me back to,

was it a ping pong table?

It was a ping pong table. Good research. Yes. I started the flower company on a ping pong table in our basement in 2015.

(...)

I drained our savings account, $500. I remember the amount cause you needed a hundred dollars left in the account to keep it open. So I took 500. We had a hundred dollars left in it. We were in a really, really dark spot financially as a family. We were freshly married. Um, and I started the flower business with no business owning a business. I'm completely self-taught. I was working full time still at that point. I was a television reporter and I would be on TV during the day and then I would flower for people's weddings on the weekends.

(...)

And today we're a seven figure company. There's eight of us full time. My husband came on to work with us full time. So it employs our entire family. Uh, we've done over 600 weddings. I've taught 8,000 people around the world how to design flowers and holiday wreaths. And now we've launched the Kaitlyn Sheik brand from it. And we've been on QVC.(...) We speak to groups all over the world. We opened a flower shop. We are a full service flower shop. So people come in off the street every day who have no idea who Sweetwater is. They don't follow on social media. They just need a birthday arrangement for their mom. And I love that. And then we have people who come from all over the world to learn, uh, with me and my team on how to build a life out of moments, which is under the Kaitlyn Sheik brand that's bloom and then also come to learn from us, how to design flowers and become florists. It's wild. It has turned into something larger than I literally ever thought it could be in my life. And, um, it's such a gift. It is such a gift. It's really a team effort though. I'm the yapper. Uh, but there's so many people behind me, behind the scenes that works so incredibly hard.

When did kids come into this?

Yeah. So the kids, it was wild. We in 2015, we started the business. I don't have my son until 2019.

(...)

And we spent about three years trying to have kids and had a really, really

up and down fertility journey. I just could not get pregnant to save my life. Then I was having a couple losses.(...) Um, I had an ectopic pregnancy, which really derailed me. And then, um, we eventually have my son and then my two daughters and rapid, rapid succession, but,

of the things that's the most crazy to me that I don't think we talk about enough is that the business was not what you see now. When the kids came into play, like it was really still small and kind of gritty. And it's still gritty. I mean, we're Northern Michigan people. Like we live in rural resort town, like we're scrappy midwesterners, but when the business was four years old and I had my son, he was in a flower studio. Eight days later, it was eight days. Plus part of them like designing wedding flowers.(...) Yeah. Cause I didn't have a team.(...) So it really took until my daughter or my third was born to really realize we did a lot of time in the NICU when she was born. And so,

I, in my, like I talked to groups all the time about this, but like my life literally imploded overnight. And that's when actually I realized we had to hire people. We had to make the business

organized. It couldn't just live in my head anymore. And that actually catapulted us to like rapid and crazy growth. So like the worst thing to ever happen to me actually turned out to be one of the best things.

Tell me about that time. Like, where was the business at when this same thing is happening in your life? Like, did you have any employees or was it just still you?

So my daughter's born in the summer of, um, 2022.

(...)

And it's the biggest, biggest wedding season we ever have booked. She's supposed to be born at the end of August.

(...)

I'm supposed to have a hundred weddings that summer and I have a great team then, but I have no one full time. So they're all just like part-time help. They're coming in, you know, there's no contracts. It's very much like 10 99, like very, very laid back.

because the business was just, it could still all exist in my brain.(...) And she's born, of course, like we always say like we plan God laughs. She's born in mid June and overnight.

(...)

I'm like, we have a, we have a serious problem here. Like the Nikki was three hours from our house. So I moved there for the summer. Yeah. For the summer. For the summer,

I have a

year old and a one year old at home and I'm like, bye. You know, like by business. I think it

I realized when she was born that I had sacrificed a lot of my soul in search of like all these accolades and all this growth and all this, like, I want the business to be bigger and better and magazine covers and all this, you know, awesome, amazing opportunities. But I was kind of like, that was really propelling me forward instead of like building a business I was really proud of and a legacy I was really proud of. And so, um, pretty much overnight we were like, we have to hire help. We have to find team members and, and it was insane. It's the fact that the business survived that summer, if I'm being really honest, is kind of a testament to the people we had alongside with us who then were part-time and many of them, three of them actually who were there that summer are now full-time team employees because I was like,

were showing me their, you know, their true colors. I can't even talk about them, how amazing they are. But when something's happening with your kids,

(...)

none of this matters, you know, like none of this matters. So I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, like it can all go up in flames. Like I do not care. I remember I said to my husband, maybe we just refund every single person's wedding deposit because I have no will to, to do anything right now.

she was really, really sick, really sick. And he was like, we're going to figure it out. And we did, but it really helped us transform the business. And now she's awesome and a thriving three-year-old and she's crazy. Um,

but it really kind of stopped me in my tracks and made me kind of rewrite the script for my life.

That's a crazy story. And it makes sense that there was a huge explosion for you professionally when you aligned it with what you needed. Personally.

It sometimes feels like especially high achievers, especially first-born daughters,(...) especially oldest children.

I've actually been wondering about your birth order.

Oh yeah, of course. As if there was any question, um, especially any of Graham threes, any threes in the room. Uh,

(...)

it sometimes takes being rocked off your,(...) your balance. Like it kind of takes being rocked to your core in order for you to see how badly you're burning it down. There is no way the business was sustainable with a two-year-old and a one-year-old and I was going to have a baby that year. It wasn't like the baby was a surprise. It was just like when she showed up. So I was going to have a two-year-old, a one-year-old in a newborn and think I could do this all still by myself.

(...)

Like that's crazy, Kaylin. And so it really reframed everything. It was, it was the worst and best thing to ever happen to us.

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I mean, okay. But in that place,(...) you have a one-year-old and a two-year-old. Having my first shook me. Like I thought that I thought I was this pretty developed person, right? I was in my thirties and like, I've learned some stuff. I'll probably just keep learning some stuff. But like with a baby,(...) had the kid and was like, oh my God, this is, my whole world is shattered.

(...)

And he's going to be two always. Yeah. He's going to be two tomorrow actually, when we're recording this. And I'm just now starting to feel present in myself again. You didn't get that. You had one right after and like, you literally didn't have any of that time.

I mean, I'm sitting here thinking you probably haven't even gotten there yet with like three under three or whatever.

Like, yeah. So when I, it's funny enough, it's when the wellness journey, that's when, when I was like, oh my God, I barely recognize myself. Like because I had never, I had never not been pregnant. Or nursing for over five years. Cause I was just pumping nursing, like pregnant with another one.

remember she was 15 months old. So we're home from the NICU. She's great. She's had one follow-up surgery. She's thriving. I take a group trip. This is October of 23.

(...)

I take a group trip to take a group of women to Tuscany on like a Kaitlyn chic brand of retreat. You're on this retreat.

Insane.

Insane. And I like, I wish I was on that trip, but oh, it was so fun. Oh my God. You guys would have thrived on this Tuscany trip.

I love Tuscany. Emily used to sell wine. Like she was a fine, right?

Oh my God. Emily.

Emily,

you could have, please let's talk off error. We can key key on something.

Oh, so fun. Please let's all go back to Tuscany many times. We can. We can. We

come back from the trip and I'm literally like, Oh, I forgot how I am a person outside of being their mom. Like, because for years I just had a baby, had another baby, had another baby. We were never out of diapers. No one ever slept. We always had a crib. There was always a baby in our bed. Like, and so I kind of go on that trip. It's kind of my first big thing since Nicki was since three kids. And I come back and I'm like, I forgot. Like now I'm realizing like, I'm going to have to be a person outside of being their mom, or I will be 55 and 60 and just so resentful. And that's not fair. My life cannot be these children. They can be the most full part of my life, but my life cannot be their existence.(...) And so I kind of do have my, my meltdown, my existential meltdown.

in Tuscany and I'm like, I forgot how fun I am. Oh my gosh. I forgot I'm like funny and I can talk to people and like, no one's crawling on me and I'm not touched out and I'm not overwhelmed by just opening my eyes in the morning and I realized I'm like, Oh, I want to feel like that all the time. And still be a great mom.(...) But yeah, it's, it's, they're so close together that I, there was never a time for,

you know, your, your baby blues or my postpartum to kind of lift. It's just kind of like I lived in it.

Is this a good time to talk about delusional confidence?

(...)

Oh, delulu, my favorite thing.

It's, I mean, it just feels like you had to have a really healthy dose of that.

Insane dose.

(...) To Tuscany with a group.

With a group.

When you, like leading the group, hosting,

leading the group, hosting the group.

When you were in this place.

(...)

Yeah. I always say like, you know, I didn't realize how dark it was until it wasn't dark anymore. Does that make sense? Like I was so blinded by my own.(...) Um, I'll tough this out. I'll just, I'm just figuring this out. Like, and I kind of like, once I got out of it and started feeling better, I was like, Oh, I can't even look at pictures of myself from like August, September of 23, because I am so I don't, I barely even recognize that person because I'm so anxious. I'm so probably majorly untreated postpartum stuff.

because I had it all figured out on the outside. So it's like, I run this big, beautiful, amazing, successful business of this big family, these beautiful, healthy kids, a marriage I'm really happy in. Like, what could she have wrong? And I was like, Oh wait, I was burning it down. And I literally would be a monster if I had continued at that speed.

(...)

like, I can tell you're a powerhouse and

mean, you're so confident in yourself, even if it's deluginal,

(...)

for sure.

But I'm really curious, you go to Tuscany with a bunch of women and with your team. Like, I don't know their demographics, but was there some sort of like just women being surrounded by these women, do you think that kind of helped you get out of yourself? Yeah,

I think,

think I'm surrounded by so many women daily. So our team is all female except for my husband and then one other guy. And we are like a family. It's like siblings.

(...)

And so I spend a lot of time around powerhouse women at work all the time. But I really see women, that's my life's work. So I take 40 women to Tuscany. You see every demographic. I see every different life. I see every demographic. I see every different life stage.(...) We have Wreathfest. There's hundreds of women and I get to see them. And I kind of just was like, who out of this group do I really want to be? Like, what do I want to, what do I want my life to look like when I'm in my fifties and my sixties and my kids are grown. And I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of women in my life who are just like thriving in their sixties and thriving in their fifties and take really great care of themselves and have beautiful, robust social lives. And then I'm,

inspired by that. I think, and also I'm a big, big, big believer in like no one's, this is probably delusional confidence, like no one's reality is outside of my own. So like, I look to the women that I'm so inspired by like, um, Amy Poehler, Michelle Obama, like these gen hat maker. I'm a huge gen hat maker girl. Like these people who are in midlife, like no offense to us. I'm kind of really doing a great thing at 37. Like I don't need to be inspired by 30 year old women or 32 year old women. I see us all and I honor us all and I want to rope us all together. Cause we're taking over the world, but I'm looking to like these women who are in midlife in their fifties with grown children who no longer need us to wipe their butts and cut their food and lay with them at night.(...) When those children have their own beautiful lives,(...) what do I want my life to look like and what do I want my life to look like adjacent to their own? And what I don't want them to do is be like, man, my mom,(...) she's got nothing going.

I don't know what my mom did. She raised us. Then she went, I want them to be like, dude, my mom is a bad ass. Like my mom, that's crazy. That's my mom and my mom's busier than me. Cause I'm going to be like, bye guys. I'm in Tuscany. See you have fun in college. Like, I don't know. I just want, I just look to like all these women that inspire me and I'm like, what do they all have and what they have are hobbies, passions, friends. They have strong female friendships.(...) They take care of themselves. Not about the size of our pants. Just feel good.(...) That's the stuff that really inspires me.

I had a friend stop by this morning who she's a crazy story, but she's in her mid forties, I believe, and she has two grown children that she had super young. And then she has two really young children.

Oh my gosh.

Is four and he has down syndrome, but she is just so beautiful. Like she comes into my door and she's so stylish and has these beautiful pants. Her hair is done her make, and just like the way that she parents, I didn't see her parents, the older kids, but these younger, she's just so patient. And I can just tell it's because she's learned like how to take care of herself.

(...)

And then she's just such an amazing mom. And every time she comes over, I'm just like, I feel like my battery is filled up of like, that's how I want to be.

Yeah. Like energetically, she's projecting something so special, probably because her nervous system is not in like complete disarray, like from

it down and not taking care of herself. Like she's putting herself first and able to project that in such a beautiful way to others.

So when you're talking with other women, you're doing these workshops, you're speaking and

when you're lifting other women up,

are the really uncomfortable lessons you think

you the informed position to kind of boost them,

I think how you can see them and help them ask for more,

but in this period of burning it down, et cetera, you know, what were you learning or unlearning?

have done so much work in unlearning that my worth is tied up into my accomplishments and when I talk to every group,(...) I tell the story of, I went to a professional development this past spring. I was in a room with some really crazy people, success wise names you would know,(...) New York times, best sellers, all these taglines, we all are like, Oh my God, they have it made.(...) And the woman leading the professional development said, okay, we're going to go around the room. She was a psychologist and we're all going to introduce ourselves and you cannot say what you do for a living

you cannot talk about your kids and you cannot talk about any of your accomplishments or accolades. Like you need to introduce yourself, you,

But the thing that struck me is that the women who on the

outside seemingly have it all and these big accomplishments could not speak.

Like when it came to them, they did, they literally did not know what to say.(...) They were saying like their name and a couple of things they enjoy doing.

(...)

And I was like, you know, the one woman was pretty emotional and she was like, I have some deep learning to do here. Like who am I outside of all these things I've accomplished.

(...)

So my biggest thing is that I try and do is to tell people that we're more than the titles like we give ourselves and we are,

(...)

my goal is to inspire other women to bloom, build a life out of moments. We don't need more things.

(...)

You know, we do not need more

Amazon carts and we do not need another box to arrive on the doorstep to give us like a little dopamine hit. I think we really need to carve out time to create moments in life

that that's the stuff we rest on. Like that's the legacy we want.

family project we talk about or every thing we're doing, I often think about like the legacy or the feeling it's going to leave our kids with or the feeling it's going to leave me with and not the thing itself.

Right. Because it's always, what is the quote? You're not going to remember what, what they said or what they did. It's how they made you feel.

Yeah.

And in 2025, I don't know, there's a service for everything to make your life more efficient, right? Yes. There's a service to give you back all of that time.

And it's a non-renewable resource. No, no.

Time is a non-renewable resource. We are not getting any of it back.

(...)

So I'm in the camp M of what you said, like anything that will give me time. I am a fan of anything that'll make my life easier.

(...)

I'm a fan of if I had an a limitless budget for all these things, I would hire out every single thing in my life, but I can't. So, and not many can. So it's really prioritizing like what's going to give you time to do the things that really matter, the moments that really, really matter. And what are the moments you don't want to miss? That was a big reason I changed my career. I felt like I was missing a lot of moments in my own life based on my TV schedule and my TV requirements. And so I just feel like women are so much more than,

just kind of like a set it and forget it like, Oh, she's in her mom era. So now she's a mom. And I'm like, why can't she be like so much more than that for the next 15, 20 years?

yeah, she's somebody's mom, but she's also a lot of other things.(...) A lot of other dynamic, amazing, brilliant, beautiful, creative things. So it's just like mom era, mom mode activated. And I'm like, what about cool hobby mode? Hot girl mode, wellness mode. I don't know. Pick a million other things. Doesn't mean you love your kids any less. I would argue it means you love your kids more.

(...)

Which yes, when I think about the women and the moms that I'm like, hell yes. I want to be around you. It's because they're doing more of that. Did you like you and I both grew up, I think, and started our professional whatever's in the girl boss era.

Oh yes.

(...) And I feel like the message was kind of,

we'll get it in before you have kids, push the kids. This is so do have kids. You don't just lose yourself. You know, like, yeah, it was, it's just, why is it girl boss and then mom mode? And if you don't reach a girl boss status before mom mode, it's going to be really hard to be, you're just going to be a mom.

It's girl boss. I, I'm really always tiptoeing on when I talk about girl boss, because number one, I don't think I would be a business owner if that movement had happened.(...) It really, really inspired me. The thing I always felt resistance against is why does it have to be one or the other?(...) Why does it have to be like girl boss, girl boss, you're too close to the sun, girl boss, your heart out? Cause then when you have kids, you can just set your business and forget it. And it'll make you back end like in disposable passive income. I'm like, why can't I just be both? Like this goes back to the thing. There's no balance. Sometimes I'm 75% boss and I'm here now with my team and we're firing on all cylinders and my kids are eating the McDonald's happy meal for dinner.(...) And that is okay. They will be favorite meal of the night is of course. Would it be any other favorite meal?(...) No. Would it be the homemade zucchini bread I made yesterday with zucchini from our garden with eggs from our chickens? No, no, no, it would be the happy meal.

So I agree with you completely. Like, Oh, you know, I, I used to get so weirdly triggered,

by when I was pregnant, Oh, enjoy it now.

(...)

Oh my gosh, your marriage, enjoy that marriage. It's going to be a total disaster. Like people really love,

projecting their own shortcomings and in the, in their own pitfalls onto you. And so I just kind of from the jump was really like, I'm in control here. I'm going to call the shots. It's really hard. It's still hard, but it's really fulfilling.

(...)

So I got married right out of college and then we accidentally had a child.(...) So, so I did not have an era of like building my career before that. I don't even think I got any of that noise because I couldn't. I was like in survival mode from the beginning, trying to work, trying to have my kid.(...) So what I'm really curious about, I mean, you two have had that journey, but now you're both at a spot where you're juggling kids and a career and trying to figure that out, like, where do values come into play for you? And how do you sort those out when you're figuring out your percentages or your seasons or the balance of the day?(...) Yeah, I'm trying not to use the balance day, the balance word.

(...) That's okay. You can use it. It's like busy. Like I tried for like a year to take busy out of my vocabulary and I'm just like busy is the word that works. Like everyone is busy.

(...)

Values. This is something I'm really going through right now is, um, want versus need.(...) And so I'm doing a lot of work on want versus need.

(...)

And

have a really love filled marriage, but I also have a very goal oriented marriage. And so we are great teammates and great partners, but we sit down every year, usually on or around January 1st, only because we're off of work and it's like chill and the kids, it's dark at 4pm. So like, what else are we going to do? And we sit down and we make our chic family financial goals. And then we make our chic family goals, personal goals, fun goals for the whole year.

(...)

And I used to be like, this is so lame. Like I don't want to talk about how much we're going to put into retirement and,(...) but it works. It works for us. We keep it on a spreadsheet, but now as we've,

gotten ourselves in a better place financially as we've reached some of these goals together, we're in a house we're going to be in until our kids are out of high school. This is the house. We're not moving anymore. Like all these things we've checked off. Now I look at the goals list and it's financial and kind of more

legacy or value driven. Like what is really going to fill our family values here? Family values, quality time, like quality time, the five of us. And so this year for the first year ever, we went on a family vacation, just the five of us.

Really,

(...)

once you've been successful or reached a certain level of success,

(...)

the want versus need thing is a real humdinger that comes into play because do we need more business? Do we need more projects at work? Do I need to take on more around, you

know, building a team?

Probably not.(...) Do I want some of those things? Yes. But is my reason of wanting them still one from a place of just another accomplishment to write in a bio or is that something that I really want it because I want it for our family. I want it for our marriage. I want it for, because it will allow us more time. It will allow us to earn more money so we can leave a more of a legacy and, you know, donate more that we want to donate, invest in a way we want to invest. So the values thing is like, I don't ever feel like we're like, okay, our last baby, we knew we were done after three.

(...)

You know, our last baby is two years old. Now we can sit down and come up with like family values. I think it really just ebbed and flowed and naturally unfolded itself in front of us. And that was really a gut check on when do I feel best? You know, who are the people I feel best around?(...) When do my kids seem to feel best? I'll tell you right now, my kids feel best when their parents are thriving and when we're able to spend quality time with them and not be pulled on our phones for work and not be like kids all love routine. Human beings love routine. But like they love that clip to winter when we obviously work less. And so I think the values just unfold themselves as your kids age. And it's like a really wild thing to watch. But having kind of a yearly check in as a family and how are we reaching those is really powerful.

As you're talking, I'm like, man, kids are so resilient and truly happy parents make happy kids. And I can get so stuck in values first, which shouldn't sound like a negative. But like, as you were talking, I'm like, am I obsessing about the kind of mom that I want to be? And taking away from just the kind of human that I am? And is that actually negatively affecting my kids? Because I think I wasn't getting the girl boss noise as much as the like, yeah, frickin like homestead memes and like, yeah, mom and the farm dress and the eggs and the you know, like, like, I'm going to be making fresh blah, blah, blah. My kids will never be eating McDonald's. Yeah, that's the noise that I'm getting. And I was getting even when I was working full time, and it was impossible. But now I'm like, that's not actually the goal.(...) If I'm not happy, and it's not attainable.

I mean, I would argue it's like five other episodes. But like, that is all like a commercialized version of the patriarchy. It's just like how they made women feel like they had to be housewives. Yeah, like if you're if you're a woman who cares for her children. Yeah, if you're a woman who cares for her children, like they're might they're my grandma found something in her attic that literally said, when your husband comes home, the children's faces will be wiped. Yeah. And they'll be in clean neat clothes and dinner will be on the table. Yeah. And like, to find you, that is legitimately how my mom grew up. My mom lived that existence with watching my grandma. And so I feel like we've been fed this like chickens and gentle parenting and your kids knowing how to read by the time they're three because you've spent so much time doing vocabulary with them and like, never yell and they don't eat McDonald's and they're drinking at their lunchboxes or stainless steel. And I'm like, I'm just like, no, that's it's it's we're being sold something that just isn't true. Just

raise.(...) It's like you said,

happy parents make happy kids like kids feel most secure when their parents feel good and their parents are in a loving place and when they feel loved from their village of people. And that is their Nana, my mom giving them like sour gummy fish and like maybe like I'm trying not to do red dye like on occasion. So being like, I'm just trying. And I'm like, why they're not going to be like, they're not going to be serial killers. Like we're all doing the best we can. They are loved, safe, fed.

(...)

They do not live in my they're so privileged. There's no violence.

they get to go to the doctor when they're sick. I'm like, they have it made.

(...)

Just love them hard and try and be a good example of who you want them to be in the world and show them hard work and whether that's tending goats and chickens or running a flower business.

It's a lot, guys.

It's so much. And they're a little for this, but but do they get to see you in your sweet spot yet?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, if it relates with that because it will when they're older first.

(...)

they've never seen me like on stage or speaking.

seen me on TV and it's like really not that big of a deal because when when we grew up, if someone you knew was on TV. Oh, my God.

(...)

Oh, but now the phone, you know, the phone. So everyone's on a screen all the time. Yeah.(...) Yeah.(...) But they've never really seen me speak or be in front of a crowd. And

is the first year they're going to come to Wreathfest. They're going to make an appearance at it so they can see.

(...)

But they do fully understand the flower shop. When I leave in the morning,(...) they always say, are you going to the flower shop to design beautiful flowers for people? And I say, yeah.

then we grow quite a big garden. We grow a lot of flowers for the shop. And so my yes. And so my youngest, my middle, my middleist, as she calls herself, she loves being in the garden with me. And she'll pick them and help me. And she'll be like, are these going to the shop? Are they going to go in someone's arrangement? So like they understand that kind of what we do, but I don't think they understand the breadth of it. But I often say that they're learning so much just by absorbing it. Like they come to the shop sometimes and it's it's crazy. And there'll be customers walking in the door and I'm like, if you're going to be up front, you need to be customer ready. If you're going to be in the back, you can draw on the whiteboard. You can eat a snack. You can hang out. But they've also learned a lot about like how to be around adults and they see me manage a team. So I have to think that it's wearing off somehow. But they're a little young for me to see if it's really helping. But I'm hopeful.

I mean, that just sounds so wholesome. It's like the dream.

It's very wholesome. I know. And we're always like, oh, they'll be able to tell people they grew up in a flower shop in a little room.

Hallmark movie.

It is. And they're probably going to be like, it was so annoying. My mom worked all the time. Like I hate flowers. I don't want flowers in my wedding. I want all candles. Like they'll go through there. They're like they're going to be like, mom, I'm engaged and I don't even want flowers. Like I'm going to be like, OK, cool. Yeah, like revolt. OK, rebel. Cool. You're 23. You don't know what you're doing. Sweet.

Oh my God. My husband and I are both music teachers and like directors and whatever. So yes, our children have been in a lot of like musical rehearsals.

For sure. For sure.

Or homes or high schoolers. Yes. Yeah. Oh, drama high schoolers like and sometimes I'm like, are we scarring them? And then we went to the marathon last year to cheer someone on and we left and my son said,

can we go back to the running show?

(...) Yeah,

(...)

literally. We got to get them out. Literally. Sometimes we'll be out and about like in someone's like walking by someone's landscaping like. And they'll be like, oh, my God, mom, I pitched this. It'd be great in the face. I'm like, please put that back.

(...)

They're also really into anywhere we go. Anywhere we go. If there's flowers on a table or in a vase, they're like, my mom did this.(...) And I'm like, we're in Florida at an ice cream shop. I did not whip these together. But thank you. So it's just sweet what they pick up. The running show.

The

Well, and also what strikes me is that like it's not about flowers. I understand that you run a flower.

Not at all.

It's not about flowers.

(...)

No.

So I mean, I think for them to see it out in the community,(...) that's kind of like subconsciously instilling this in their brains from an early age.

(...) It is. I often think about like what age, especially because I have two girls

and I feel like so lucky to raise women in this day and age.

(...)

But I often think it like what age will my girls be like, oh, man, my mom, like(...) she like traveled the country and inspired women to design lives. They actually like living like what on stage. Thank you. And my mom was hot.(...) I honestly feel like they'll be 30 like they have they'll have to become moms. Like if they choose to be moms and one day they're like, oh, my God, wait, my mom was doing some serious stuff. I'll be like, I'm not doing it for them. Like I this is another thing I'm really passionate about. Like we're not building this business to like leave it to our kids. And one day our kids will run the shop. Absolutely not. Zero pressure. Like if they want it, cool. We'll talk about it. But a lot of family businesses in the 60s, 70s, 80s, it was like, and now we're setting our kids up. You know, I had a friend in college who was like, my parents are mortified that I don't want to take over their business. It's like a very deep.

This it's disrespectful that I don't want it. So we really try not to be like one day, you know, this will all be yours. This this really cool back room of vases. Like I really just think it's by proxy them seeing it and absorbing it. And just honestly, for us, it comes down to work ethic. That's family value. And so like they see how hard we work and that's it. And they see how we treat our customers. And that's literally all I care about.

And that you can craft a life like you craft.

(...)

Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, I often think like they'll be way younger when they realize like, whoa,

(...)

our parents were working full time and also drove us all these practices and all that like in a part of that flexibility was because we owned a business because that is something that there's no way around it. Like part of the reason we can be at everything and take them to things. And I can leave in an hour and 10 minutes and pick them up for the day is because we own our own business. And we've intentionally made it really flexible to fit our life as a family.

(...)

So something I've been wondering this whole time is you start with flowers

you start with no kids and you had kids and then you totally transform your business model, but you don't stop there because(...) you you have your own personal brands. Now you are a speaker. You are, I would say, a development coach, a development leader.

Thank you.

Yeah. You do these workshops so much outside of a flower shop. So literally, where do you find the energy and why? Because I'm sure the energy probably doesn't exist. Actually, let me just answer that question for you. And you tell me if I'm wrong. You probably have to manufacture it. So why?

(...) Why?

Why? Why add?

I live by the motto that done is better than perfect.

(...)

I am a type B parent.

(...)

OK, so I am not a.(...) Oh, my God, they leave tomorrow for a day camp and I don't have the water bottles ready and I haven't I've nothing to pack them for lunch, I'm going to burn it down and go to the grocery store at 10 o'clock at night. I lay in bed and I'm like, in the morning, I'll find something

in the morning. I'll find something. They have never gone hungry. If I make a box of mac and cheese and divide it into three little ziplock containers at six in the morning, that is better to me than burning it down. So I live by done is better than perfect, which is how the growth has happened.(...) Because I feel like we could all.

If we wanted to grow and expand and bloom in this way, if we weren't so freaking obsessed with what other people were going to think about it,

women, especially, I see being paralyzed by taking action(...) because they're really worried about what other women may think or what it'll look like to other people.(...) And so

I feel blessed that I've never had that. I just

I'm so confident that me building something that matters to me is more important than others opinions of it that I charge forward.

(...)

Why launch a personal brand? Like, why would I take all this on when I could just hang out and design beautiful weddings and teach a few workshops here in Walden Lake, Michigan?

(...)

Because I got very, very

kind of obsessed with realizing how much more full my life felt

(...)

when I started working on myself. Again, going back to I am more than somebody's mom.

(...)

And I felt like I had given so much of my life, five, six, seven years, eight, if you count my infertility into this obsession of building this family. And I thought that when I built this family, not like it would click or it would be great, but I was like, that's another accomplishment. Like, I want three kids. Like, here they are. Now I have my three kids. And and it kind of felt like, what is this all for? Like, what is this all for? If not to build something we're really proud of. And so I my cup is very filled by speaking to groups and by hearing from women

a few weeks ago, last week. Oh, my God, time last week. I was at a thing and I was speaking to a group and this woman came up and she was like, I just have to tell you that, like, you talking about your struggles with anxiety, postpartum and getting into therapy. I heard it and I enrolled myself for therapy the next day. And it helped me so much. That is like my why. Like, I take those comments with me and I'm like, of course I can keep forging ahead. And then also every yes to something is a no to something else. Vice versa.

(...)

And then my other motto is if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. So my gut, it tells me right away. So I take on a lot of projects, but I'm really selective about the ones I do take. And then I love delegating. I've got a fabulous team, a fabulous team. And they really helped me because I could not do this all by myself. But yeah, I don't know.

don't know when I'll max out or when it'll it'll be enough because it's already enough. It was enough 10 years ago. Like it was enough eight years ago. So now it's just really making sure that what I'm filling it with is like soul filling to me.

Which then there's that energetic exchange, right? If you want to go for a minute when you're in that.

Oh, I'll go all day. I didn't know how we were going to get.

(...)

Ladies, charge your crystals in the window. Let's go. 11 11 to 2 2.

(...)

I'll go all day. I'll go all day. OK, how would we want to get the energetic exchange? Go. I cut you off.

Oh, I was just saying, like, when it's aligned to you and where you arrive, your energy, you get more energy. There's always going to be an exchange in that room for you, which is outside of everyone in that room. Like it's for sure. It supersedes your person and I'm sure just kind of moves things along organically.

It does. And also knowing having a partner that that knows how you are, I think is a game changer because I will teach a group example. I'll teach a group, a teacher workshop. There's 35 women. Cool. We do flower centerpiece. Gorgeous. It's kind of like stand up comedy show. It's kind of like a personal development thing. We're designing flowers. Like I'm working the room.

(...)

And then I will come home and I cannot speak for like two hours. Like I need to just.

(...)

Be. Yeah. And.

(...)

I'm in a place in my marriage and my husband's like, he just gets it. Like after Wreathfest, like truly after Wreathfest, I am so filled. I am so emotional and I am so like I cannot be on for a few days. So it's that energetic exchange of when it's a lot, it's a lot. And it's got to kind of filter all through. And when it's a little, it's a little. So it's like I have an energetic exchange when a customer comes in the door and I really enjoy them and I talk to her for 10 minutes. Easy, easy in, easy out. When there's 750 women in a room and you're trying to meet and greet with them all weekend and they're having the time of their lives and you're so overjoyed and you cannot believe you created this. Of course, you're going to be crying in your hotel room on Sunday morning in a fetal position and texting your sister, please bring me a handful of cashews and a tampon, like I'm melting down. I can't function like, like someone rub my feet and I'm like, I'm not.(...) Cameron Diaz, like calm down. I'm not, it's not a celebrity thing. I'm just like, so there's a lot of energetic exchange.(...) So it's a lot, it's a lot. And so I think it's just building it in. It's like my family knows November, Kaylin is in wreath season. It's going to be insane. It's out of control, but also the team and my family knows Kaylin is done working for the year on the 10th of December. I'll see you in the new year.

Yeah. And keep thinking about those cycles for you.

Like you have to, you have to go time and slow time energetic exchange. So it's like when I'm in wreath season and people run into me, oh my God, how do you do it all that? I say it's because I'm done working in two weeks and I have that date and I honor that boundary for myself.(...) Just like I showed up for every group at the time I said I would be there. I brought them an A plus program.(...) They had the time of their lives. I'm showing up for myself and my family December 10th. Kaylin's out. I'll see you guys after the new year.

If you ever get the stomach flu, it's not till January or February.

No, I go down hard last year. Influenza.

(...)

I like in December, January.

No, it was February. Like my slow time. And I was like, I don't feel good. And then I was like, like fever 104.

(...)

I was like crying. I was like, is this when it feels like people are sick? My, my poor nervous system was like, all right, we're going to let it German now. We're going to let it viral. We're going to take on a viral load. The body keeps the score. So if you don't take a break, the body takes a break for you.

February every year, I usually have like a winged dinger of a sickness and I'm trying.

Kind of scheduled at that point, right?

You know, why not schedule everything else?

(...)

Um, okay. We've heard so much about your successes.

(...)

Oh, let's talk failures.

Yeah. Okay. You got excited. I didn't even have to dig

so many. Oh my God. I love them.

So one that you just really want to share with everybody.

(...) Oh yeah. Okay. I was booked for speaking engagement. I didn't show up. That's a huge one.

(...) I had

the wrong date. My calendar. It was a travel one. They call me and we're like, are you going to be here soon? And I was, I was eight hours away.

Yep. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

That one.

(...)

Um, I finally get our wreath kit.(...) I've worked years of my life to get us on QVC to sell our wreath kit.(...) Um, and it tanks on QVC. Epic colossal by QVC standards. Yeah. Like we should have done a lot more epic colossal failure. Very public, very public.

I've launched so many things that never saw the light of day. I've launched so many things that haven't sold one of our business mottos as if you are not failing 20% of the time. You are not trying enough new things. 20%,

(...)

two of every 10.(...) And so every failure, I mean, the team is kind of like freaked out.

(...)

Like example, I had a delivery I was supposed to make on Saturday. This is like low level stuff. I had a delivery. I was supposed to make Saturday. I didn't make it.(...) Like I, I literally just left and didn't tell the team to take the delivery.(...) I'm still making crazy mistakes all the time.(...) I just am so obsessed with.

Okay. Why did this happen? Like, why did I not make it to the speaking engagement? Okay. Here's why I don't, I cannot manage this all myself. If we're going to launch a personal brand and I'm going to travel the country scheduling and getting myself places is not my

of tea. It's not my specialty. So I'm going to have someone come and help me an extra set of eyes. Why did the, you know, arrangement not go out Saturday? Okay, cool. I was distracted when I was here. I should have put it in this system. Like just, I just like learn from it and I don't, I am, Oh, it happened. I made a mistake. We're moving on.(...) I am never a sit and simmer and what is wrong with me and, and why did I do this and

think it's because

the question once you ask the why once once you have an acceptable answer, because it's not like you just, you're kind of like, why, how can I solve the problem?

Yeah. I'm kind of like, okay, where did we make the, where was the actual mistake made? Sure. Okay, cool. Here's where it was. Here's how I can improve it. And it's done.

(...)

I don't even take my own personal mistakes as a personal reflection of who I am as a person, and then also just having like a barometer for stress. Like I know real stress and, uh, this ain't it. So when you've had really stressful, scary moments in your life, it really reframes everything and it's like, yes, Terry, I'm sorry, that centerpiece that was supposed to be delivered to your house on Friday,(...) awful. Like I dropped the ball refund. This is a huge mistake. This isn't how we do business.(...) Let us make it right for you.(...) I will never think about this again. Like as long as I live, like I just will not, I will just compartmental. It's so far tucked away.(...) It's never again.

is not a good thing though. When you have the ability to compartmentalize yourself so well that you can push a lot of stuff down or not. So like it comes with its pros and its cons, but it's just not a personal reflection. Like, you know, my husband takes a lot of that stuff really seriously. He's like, we work too hard to let these things fall through the cracks. And he's right. We do work incredibly hard, but I once had a therapist tell me, rest on your body of work,

like rest on your body of work.

(...)

And that kind of changed my life.

(...)

She was like, rest on your reputation. Like this isn't your reputation.

(...)

The reputation for sweet water is not that we forget deliveries. The reputation for Caitlyn Sheik is not that she doesn't show up for speaking engagements. The reputation for Caitlyn and her products is not that they tank. So rest on your reputation. It's that we're always on time. Our work is beautiful. Caitlyn brings a killer program. She can sell so well. She's great on TV. That's what I rest on. Those are one-offs.

(...)

It's like trolls on the internet.

Say therapy along with that amazing like ability to forget. Cause I was about to say like, I think you might be the only person out there that can just like, know that and compartmentalize. That is so hard. So it was a great relief to hear the therapy word.

Oh yeah. Tons of therapy, tons of therapy, tons and tons and tons of therapy. I'm a huge proponent of it. I think any woman,

(...)

I feel like every person in the world should be in therapy, but I feel like women, especially as you move through the season that so many of us are in listening to this, it's an important part of the toolkit.

(...)

Cause look how powerful you can become. I mean, thank you.

Thank you. Well, I'll take someone to know one. I just, I just feel like women in general, we're, we're sold this thing that we always have to be more or work to be better. And I don't want any of us to be doing that out of someone else's wishes for us. I want that if you're choosing to improve, choosing to find a hobby, choosing to take on more at work, I want it to be because you genuinely want it. Like for yourself,

(...)

not cause you're somebody's mom.

This is a first. Um, I need to cut us off. Not Kelly Kelly. No.

(...)

Do you've been looking at the clock? This has never happened before.

Thank you. Thank you.

Also one, one, one is we're stopping one, one, one angel numbers are woo woo.

(...)

Okay. One, one, one before we got into lightning round. Dang.

(...)

One, one, one. When we looked at the clock again, everything will be fine.

(...)

Oh my gosh. Caitlin chic. Are you ready for a lightning round?

I'm I've never been more ready. I cannot wait.

Okay.

(...)

The best advice your kids have ever given you.

My kids don't need to have fun a lot and it kind of reminds me to have fun.

(...)

Wow.

(...) I know.

Water had a mascot who or what would it be?

(...)

I kind of always have dreamt about our, our logo as a Cosmo. It's my favorite flower. It would be so cute. We always talk about if we had a, got like a giant Cosmo suit and there was like a guy out on the road, like dancing and twirling the sign. Yeah. It's not really our MO. We kind of have a different brand aesthetic, but I just love a used car lot kind of energy on occasion. So I would love the Cosmo flower made into a suit.

(...) Okay. Well, keep us posted.

We will be, we have our eyes on the gram. Check Instagram. I will, I will let you know.

(...) Um, your most recent, Oh my God, it's this real life moment.

(...)

I taught a group on,

Friday and the speaker ahead of me was a TV anchor. I grew up watching and I had grown up watching her being like, I'm going to be a TV anchor cause like this woman is so cool. And she spoke ahead of me at the group and I was on stage right after her. And I really did so well. Like I, I, some like group, the energy and the energy out. It was just a great group. We had a great rapport. They were fun. They were funny.(...) And I just kind of was like, this is, this fills my cup in a way that I can't, you know, like place otherwise. And the feedback from the group was awesome, but it was kind of a weird moment where I was like, I remember watching that woman on TV and wanting to be a television reporter. And I went and did that. And now we're sharing a same stage.

(...) So full circle. I love it.

What's always in your minivan, but

it shouldn't be

pairs of children's shoes and empty McDonald's happy meal box. Um, like 50 empty coffee mugs, coffee cups, the trash, you know, just the trash, the string cheese wrappers, the pirates, booty wrappers. I mean, you name it, it's in there and I try so hard and it's, it's a lot to keep up on a lot of sand. I don't know where all the sand comes from, but we do live in Michigan. It's basically one big sand dune, but a lot of sand.

Uh,

thing you thought you'd never do as a mom, but totally do now.

(...)

Oh man. Every single thing I yell,(...) I lose my patience.

(...)

Um, I let them eat freeze pops. I let, they had Johnny's pops freeze pops for breakfast the other day. Um, Johnny's pops. Those are pretty Johnny's pop. Okay. We'll give them a pass. Um, they wear pajamas like everywhere. Like we're in a battle of like, I don't want, I want to wear these cozy sweats and I'm just like, whatever, wear athleisure, wherever, like I have to let this go, um, you name it. I've done it. And I remember going to the hospital with my first and I was like, I'm not going to do a passi and that child had a passifier in their mouth before we left the hospital because the labor and delivery nurse looked at me at two in the morning and she was like, I have some advice.

(...)

Give the passi or become the passi. And I was like, Oh my God, Deb, are you a sage? Like, is this a medicine woman moment? And so I gave all three of my kids a passifier and they all turned out fine.

In the hospital.

In the hospital. They love that passi from day one.

(...)

Quick turnaround.

(...)

Okay. And our closer, what makes you feel beautiful?

I feel most beautiful when I am on a date with my husband.

(...)

Um, and I don't get like really done up. I just like love time. Just the two of us and like feeling like it's us before it was all of us. It was us.

(...)

And then I also feel really, really, really beautiful early in the morning after I've worked out and I'm like not wearing a bra and I'm like, my hair is like seven days, greasy, swirled on the top of my head and I'm like drinking a coffee on my porch and I'm like,

(...)

yes, that's it. Like I'm like, man, I am strong. And like my girls will come down in the morning. Cause they're early risers and my middle will be like, mom, how was Pilates? You look so strong. And I'm like, thank you. Cause I'm getting strong. Like, cause you know, I'm also brainwashing them to be like mom goes to Pilates. So I can be strong. So I can lift you guys up.(...) And so I can like feel strong at the flower shop and I can feel strong when I'm out with dad playing golf. Like, but yeah, I feel most beautiful when I feel strong and when I've taken care of myself.

(...)

Ladies,

(...) I am obsessed with you.(...) Wait, this was so fun.

(...)

Two,(...) two, two. We're going to two, two, two.(...) Let's go.

(...)

I will come on any time to talk about anything. It would be the honor of my life. I love yapping with you.

(...) Always.

(...) Always.

(...)

I love it.

(...)

Hey, I'm not going to test me this year. I'm going to the South of France and Africa.

(...)

Good for you.

It'll be fun.

between, you know, this episode and the next release we do together, where can listeners find you?

Yes. Instagram is the platform I'm most active on. It's at Kaitlyn chic. K a L I N S H E I C K it's in the show notes. I'm sure Kaitlyn chic.com or sweetwater floral.com. And also on Instagram at sweetwater floral. We have so much fun. I send a mailer every Sunday to your inbox. It's called Sunday morning thoughts. I don't sell you anything. There's no clickable links. It's not about buying anything. It is literally like live journal, my space, emo blog post about motherhood and being 37 and trying to do it all. And I would love you guys to read it.

well, we are going to be signing up right now. Can't wait. Oh, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me ladies. Proud of you. Keep this going. This is important work. Thanks. Bye.

(...)