Leaving Corporate Was Only the Beginning w/ Tracy Medeiros

Have you ever left one job only to realize you brought all of your old habits with you?

When Tracy Medeiros lost her father, she and her husband made the life changing decision to move to Hawaii. She planned to continue working for her corporate employer after the move, but when that opportunity fell through, she accepted a new job in Hawaii. A year later, that company planned to lay her off, and instead of starting over, Tracy turned them into her very first client. What began as an unexpected career change eventually became a business dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create companies that support the lives they want to live. 

In this episode, Tracy shares the story behind her unexpected journey into entrepreneurship and the lessons she learned along the way. We talk about the corporate habits she had to unlearn, why so many successful businesses have messy back ends, how entrepreneurs become the biggest bottlenecks in their own companies, and why redefining success often starts with building systems that create more freedom instead of more work. 

If you're ready to stop carrying old habits into your next chapter and start building a business that truly supports the life you want, this episode will challenge the way you think about success, freedom, and growth.

Connect with Tracy:

Medeiros Consulting Substack - https://medeirosconsulting.substack.com/

LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/medeirosconsulting

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/medeirosconsulting/

Chapters:

01:40 Tracy's unexpected path to entrepreneurship

05:55 The corporate mindset that followed her

10:05 Why boundaries are harder than they seem

13:50 What a Business Design Architect actually does

18:55 Why successful businesses are often messy

22:50 Hiring isn't always the answer

27:20 Why systems create more freedom

31:45 Letting go of hustle culture

35:30 Building a business around your life

38:25 Building routines that support your business 

40:15 Tracy's advice for scaling with intention

This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Liz Chapman & CO

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey there, and welcome to Business Over Cocktails. I'm Laura Najar, your host and hype woman, bringing you real talk about entrepreneurship. This is the podcast where we dive into the bold whys, the messy middles, and the game-changing aha moments that lead to success. You'll hear unfiltered stories from entrepreneurs plus bite-sized solo episodes inside the Business Chaser series, where we cut through the noise and get straight to what actually drives sales, visibility, and growth. So whether you're here to get fired up or finally feel seen in your business journey, pull up a seat, pour your favorite drink, and let's have a real conversation. Hi everyone, welcome back to Business Over Cocktails. Today I am sitting down with someone who's bringing calm to the chaos of entrepreneurship. We were literally just talking before I hit record of systems and how we wish they could be more sexy. So that's going to give you kind of a taste of what we're going to talk about today. This is Tracy Madeiros, a business design architect and trusted fractional COO for visionary CEOs. Through her work at Madeiros Consulting, Tracy helps purpose-driven leaders streamline operations, build strong teams, and scale their businesses without burning out or compromising their values. Known for her strategic mind and soulful approach, Tracy is the behind-the-scenes force helping CEOs move from firefighting to flow. And I will say she is Hawaii-based. So, and that is something that I love to connect with her on. So thank you, Tracy. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. So we actually touched on this a little bit before I hit record too, but we kind of were, you were touching on your corporate background. So can you take us through like your background and how you've arrived to then now having your own business?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

It was by accident, to be honest with you. So I started my career in middle management back in the early 2000s and worked my way up from there and work for some wonderful billion-dollar companies in the ops realm. So that's kind of how I got started. I'm always been a planner. I've always, I've always thought systems were sexy. Could probably talk about them all day. And so I would be in the midst of those companies and creating departments and really working on the back end of how we can be well, what is that old saying? Bigger, better, cheaper model back in the early 2000s. Yeah. So I was all about that. And then unfortunately, my dad passed away. And when that happened a year after that, we moved, we didn't move everyone. We just brought everyone here to Hawaii to put him in the veteran cemetery. And I decided I didn't want to leave. So I also got married at that point because we had all the family together. It was great. And so my husband and I said, okay, we're going to give ourselves a year and then we're going to move to Hawaii. And in that midst of time, I thought I was going to move with my current company. I pitched them. I had, you know, really shown the, and this is way before remote working was even really a thing, but you know, that it could be done. I do some traveling here back and forth, and it could be done. And two weeks before I was supposed to leave, they brought me into their VP of sales office and said, we don't really want to promote this. So you're welcome to stay. But if not, unfortunately, you're going to have to leave the company. And so I did leave the company and just kind of took a job here that was an operations manager with a small company and worked with them for a year. And then they were going to lay me off. I'm like, wait, no, we're not going to do that. You're going to, you're going to be my first client. And so I turned them into a client and really just immersed myself into the community here and worked here on the islands. And then I was really kind of noticed that the island's pretty small. So then we emerged out to the other islands. And that's really where my heart and soul is is working with the islands here. But it's still kind of small. So finding that remote online like niche has really been nice because I like to work on like Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada. I have to admit, I like time zones that are close to mine. So I have had clients that are in Australia. That was really difficult, to be honest with you. And then clients on the East Coast. And so for the right client, we'll do that. And that's the, you know, amazingness of technology that we have here. I love that. But yeah, it just kind of started by accident. And I've been in business since 2016, and it's just kind of morphed into what it is today.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah. Yeah, that is one thing that I've noticed, and I've had to almost like overexplain on my end, is that how I have been able to build a business online solely, right? Like over the last year, I've been getting involved more locally here in the Chicago area, northwest Indiana. And the people that I meet do not have an online business. Like a lot of their businesses are just here locally in Northwest Indiana. And the thought of building a business solely online is just like really crazy to them. And I feel like I've I've had to really explain that of like, you know, just some of the questions they're asking. It's like, well, no, I don't, I never had to deal with that because we have this wonderful online space where we can connect. And another thing, too, is I've noticed, and I think like where you're at, right? In Hawaii, I think like there's probably a lot of that, the similarities of like people want to meet in person all the time and not like do things like virtually. That's at least what it is here. It's everyone wants to meet up for coffee or do the thing. And and I get that. I like that, but the possibilities are endless when you connect online. And kind of like what you said too, like it's hard for me to have clients. I actually had a client in India this year. And so our time difference was like 10 and a half hours. And it's A, that's weird because it's like on the half hour, but B, that's also difficult. And I would, you know, for us, like then that means I would have to only be, I would have to be available at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. my time in order for her then to have a call with me, you know, 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m. her time. So I would do it for the right client as well. So I agree with that. But yeah, the online business is wonderful to have. Like that is such a a wonderful thing to have.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

It is wonderful, but for somebody who came from corporate and everything is very tactile. And then even living in a community that I live in, where it's, you know, meeting your your people at the grocery store or, you know, at the coffee shop. And it was a different beast for me to really like immerse myself into that online business. And I even say it to this day that for me, sales-wise, sales for me is easier in person than it is in this online space because I am, you know, very interactive with conversations. I can gauge, you know, the body language. I can see where you're not quite getting something where I need to go into further explanation. And that's so hard to really gauge online, especially when you don't want to be on the phone all day.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah, definitely. You know, I and so I spent 10 years in banking. And when I finally left that job to be full-time, I definitely had to decondition myself because I, you know, I like structure, I like routine. But when I left my job, I found myself like, I need to work, you know, nine to five, right? Like and I need to take calls and I need to do all these things. So I resonate with what you just said of like coming from corporate, it's definitely different, right? Like, when did I leave the bank? So like I was working at a bank when it wasn't normal to email your clients. So like they would have online banking, right? But but we wouldn't even have text message availability or email. And like for me, I would love, and I actually started doing that on my own. So I'm maybe deep down at that point, I knew that this was going to be a medium that I would thrive in. I didn't know I was gonna start my business online at that time. But, you know, I was again to your point, is everything was done in person. Everyone had to come in to open up a checking account or a loan or things like that, or want to talk on the phone or have a phone call. And I'm like, why can't we email? Because then you can just get more done. But then it is such a shift when you are in corporate for so long, and then you then have this business. And I struggled with that for a long time too. It's like, yes, my clients are online, and I was doing that for a while, but the fact of like I felt like I needed to be busy all the time and take calls all day long. Like that was that was what I needed to decondition myself from.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Oh, I can totally, I totally recognize that as well. You know, it was always glorified in corporate, the busy you are. You know, you saw it in your calendar and your bank account, how successful you are. And, you know, and that kind of I still, to be honest with you, it kind of like, oh, what am I doing? Or my husband will ask me, like, hey, can you go to Home Depot or something? And it'll be like, no, it's like it's like four, three, eight thirty or something. I can't do that. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also really weird because I don't have kids too. So like it was really like, oh, it was probably before COVID, but I don't have kids. So I've always told myself this. It's something that also is bred, I think, in corporate, where it's like, you can do more. You don't have to, you know, take the kids to school and do the kids' activities, and you can just always do more. And so I had that mentality in my business too, where scope creep was huge because I would have a client that had kids and I'd be like, oh, don't worry about it. I'll take care of that for you. And I'm like, wait a minute. I am like so busy with things that are outside of scope that one, it's not fair to the client. And two, it's not fair to me because, like, wait a minute, like that's not how I, you know, structured my life. So that was a hard one for me to like really pair back and say, hey, you know, okay, this is this is the deliverables, this is what we're gonna go through, this is your expectations, my expectations, and just leaving it at that. And then obviously reenrolling or or having a conversation further if we did want to go outside of scope. So that was a huge learning curve for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, I think so. I again, I agree with a lot of that because I remember being at the bank and I worked there. I I was 21 when I was first hired, and then I worked there until I was 32-ish, so 31, 32. And so I didn't have kids, wasn't even near becoming a mom at any point during my career. But I was always asked to work days. So Halloween, for instance, right? Yeah, all the moms, all the moms, you know, like regardless of age, like they could be like obviously between the ages of 21, 31, people are having children and people are getting married, but I just didn't get I didn't have kids like right when I got married. And like that was always frustrating to me. And even now being a mom, being a mom, I was never in corporate. So like I had my daughter at like long after I left corporate and just had my own business. However, I still remember that and I'm still such a proponent of that's not fair. Like, like you're here to do a job, and like, yes, I can see the difference of like, okay, yeah, like maybe you get first sibs on Halloween because you want to take your kid trick-or-treating versus like the girl who isn't doing anything, right? But at the same time, I hated that. I still remember being like, oh, well, so-and-so gets Christmas Eve off because they have kids. And that's like not fair. Like, who's to say that's more important or not? So I feel like I can go on a rant about that, but but I will say, like, and I've said this, I think, in previous episodes or just to people, like, honestly, at least this happened for me. And, you know, my daughter's two years old now, and I do way more, way more things than I did when I didn't have children. And so, like, that just amplifies everything that I feel of like I hated when bosses would do that. And I I really did have a toxic boss at the bank, but it was just like always like a proponent for moms and especially single moms, and you know, was very out to get the people who were married and had like happy relationships because she was like just toxic. And so it was just so interesting to be in that space and work with a bunch of women, and like you were always the one that needed to stay, or like again, like you said, you're the one that could be given opportunities because you didn't have children, didn't have other obligations outside of work. So, guess what? You get to do all the extra things, and I hated that. Oh, I could go on a rant about that, but that would that's another topic for another day.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

And with me, I guess it just never really bothered me. Like the how I do remember when you said Halloween, that one was a big one. So, like whenever somebody asked me to take on another project or stay later for Halloween or whatever, I didn't necessarily see that as a negative thing, but I always made sure that they came and trick-or-treated because I wanted to see the cute little kids too. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, but yeah, it's, and I guess that's something we need to analyze and make sure, you know, as business owners now we have full, you know, sovereignty over that. So we just need to make sure that we're fair as well when we're we're creating our teams.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah, no, that's so true. Yeah, I love that you said that. That's something to be mindful of, depending on who you have and who's working for you. But I want to ask you, so you call yourself a business design architect. And so what does that exactly mean? And how is it different than like maybe a typical COO role?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So, to be honest with you, I have always come at my business as the consultant. I want to come in, I want to get my hands dirty in your business, and I really want to see, you know, what's working, what's not working. And I like to work with my clients for a longer period of time so I can really see that and not just the band-aided versions of, you know, doing what I do and going into businesses and very successful businesses sometimes, where you think they have everything together, and then you get into there and it's like, oh my gosh, this is such a mess. How are you as successful as you are, you know, operating this way? And so I think so. I was always a systems and operations consultant. And then just recently, the last couple of years, I've really like, yes, the systems are the backbone. The systems are a necessity for us to be able to do more, to, you know, have time off and have some white space so we can think, you know, like bigger visionary ideas. But in order to do that, we really have to, for one, be confident in ourselves and create exactly what we want. Don't listen to those sparkly gurus that are over here yelling at you to do it this way and only this way, because most of the time, that way was never made for you in the first place. And you're never going to see the success that they did because it, you know, there's so many different components. And so I think really, for one, it was surprising to see how messy back ends really are. It was surprising to hear how many businesses didn't have business plans or just an idea of where they wanted to go in the next, you know, not even 10 years, like three to five years. People had no idea. And so taking that into perspective of like, okay, we need to not only look at the systems piece of it, we need to see how they like to work and really figure out based on their industry, based on their personalities, based on what they do, based on how they work with their clients, based on so many things, really create from the ground up an infrastructure that supports however it is that they like to do what they do. And it varies so greatly from, you know, you probably, you and I probably work totally different as well. And so we need to really embrace that. And I think, especially in the online space, it is like, oh, well, we've got to do this, and I have to have a, you know, a project management system and I have to like set it all up like this, and I gotta do that. And to be honest with you, a system is only as good as how it's gonna be used. And if you're too scared or you hate getting into that system, you're not gonna do it. So if you like doing the post-it notes, I'm all for it. Let's just make it simple. Cause I've found too coming from corporate, we don't like simple. We like these beautiful, elaborate systems that are so convoluted. And so that was something that I also had to kind of scale back in my own business is that simple usually always wins. So let's let's take what works in your business, amplify it, simplify it, and really make sure that you're, you know, you're embracing a business that you love. So designing a business that you love.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, I resonate with all of that. Simplification and simplified business strategies, that's what I'm all about. Like I twitched when you talked about corporate work systems because I remember one of them and I hated it. And it was so funny because I had to deal with it at a bank, and then like the last like two to three years of my corporate career, I actually worked somewhere else, and they were so excited to get this one system. Oh wow. And I'm like, it's so pretty, it's gonna do so much stuff. I'm like, oh no, you're gonna hate it. You're gonna hate it so much. And then like I left shortly after that, but like everyone, of course, hates it. So it's just so funny to see like that reminded me of that instance of like, nope, you're gonna hate this system. I had to deal with it, I've had to work with it for like 10 years. It's not fun. So you mentioned about like messy back ends, and I'm also familiar with that. I've seen, you know, just like my clients, of course, but then just being a peer or seeing successful businesses behind the scenes, and I can attest to that, like, yes, it is very messy. I think for myself, like I feel like I can always improve and I might be a little borderline perfectionist too, but you know, we hear stories all the time that businesses are making millions of dollars, but like they don't even have like a business bank account, right? And so do you, and I feel like a lot of times with creatives, right? Like me and you were kind of talking too about how we like the left brain kind of stuff with systems and data and analytics, but do you find that it's maybe the purpose-driven CEOs and they lead with purpose and they are the creative brain? Do they maybe have the pattern of being messy in the back end, or is it kind of just like across the board? Surprisingly, it's across the board.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Granted, and I will even say this too: systems people are sometimes the messiest because we like to get into other people's stuff, not necessarily our own stuff. But overall, to be honest with you, creatives I think are given. Like a lot of them are like, I don't want structure, it, you know, it limits me, or, you know, I just don't have the brain for it, you know, and systems, it's not for everyone, and that's why you hire other people to help you out with that. But across the board, it's funny because it's pretty much a problem across the board. But then you do have those other business owners that are pretty like tight in their back end, but they're usually also micromanagers.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

So then you have a whole nother issue to deal with.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, that makes sense. How did you find like the industry of like operations and systems? And why do you like to be in this industry?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

For one, I think it's what I know, because I was in it in the corporate realm. And then I was really blessed when I did move to Hawaii. I was thrown into a JOB that threw me into the community. And so also a little bit of my background, I was here in Hawaii for a while. My parents came every summer, you know, we were here. And then as I was a teenager, I stopped coming and then I went to college and then career, and I hadn't been back for a pretty long time. And so it was kind of a culture shock coming back to Hawaii. And all of these things that I remember being like so nostalgic for my childhood, these businesses were going out of business, or they were trying to sell and they were just having some challenges. And so I was able to see really quickly, you know, they were amazing at what they did. They had an amazing service or an amazing product, but it always seemed to contribute back to the operations piece of it. Like they just weren't stellar in that area. And so it led to burnout. It led to, okay, I'm in retirement age. Let's just sell, let's get, you know, let's, and I didn't like that because a lot of times the selling piece didn't happen because. They didn't have the back end, they didn't have the systems. And if you're gonna sell your business, you need to make sure that it works without you, right? So, like I just kind of saw that this was a problem and it was something I actually like to do. Like, I could I love getting into people's businesses and just kind of, oh, this is interesting. Why do we do this? And then my favorite thing is when they say, Oh, I don't know why we do that. We've just always done it that way. That's when we really dig in because it's like, well, do we have to do this or can we get rid of it?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Mm-hmm. Where do you think that comes from? Like, did you grow up just like loving organization as a kid? Like, where do you think that comes from?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

I'm not entirely sure. I don't know. My mother would probably have a totally different answer because I had a I had a persona back then when I was a kid. I told the neighbors my name was Barbara, and I had like a briefcase. And my mother was a Sunday school teacher. And when I was fairly young, like really young, probably like under kindergarten age, I would always get the kids to like, no, no, come over here. We're gonna play meeting. That's just my mom. We're gonna go over here in the corner. So I've always been able to move people into a certain direction. And, you know, the the organization piece. I think for me, it's more like if you have more structure in your business, the more freedom you really do have. And so that's what I really want people to learn is that yes, it looks like it's time consuming. It may be hard work, but if you put the time in now, you're gonna have so much more freedom than what you have.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, that's exactly it. And so how do you help people, I guess, see the light in that way, right? Because I and I see it all of the time that people, you know, specifically my clients as well, they are the bottlenecks of their business. And they want to grow, right? They want to make more sales, they want to sign more clients, and they're hiring, which, okay, great, you're hiring, but that still isn't fixing a problem.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Be making it worse.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Right. And you're making more work for yourself if you don't have the systems or the SOPs in place to then just like give them so then they can figure it out when really like so. I and I I like I said, I see it all of the time with a lot of clients, and you know, they hit plateaus where they're making money. So, say six multi-six figures a year, and you start to just, oh, I need to hire someone. But do you actually have the systems in play? So, how do you feel? Like, what do people need to hear or believe to finally say, okay, I need to stop taking on more work. I need to stop hiring, I need to focus on my systems, I need to take a few steps back so then I can spring forward.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yes. And I think that's really the root of it is the education piece of it. Because yeah, I don't know how many times I'll go through a sales conversation with someone, and all they really want is they want that SOP given to them. Or they want this, you know, this pretty project management system given to them. And I am like the opposite of what you hear most of the time. It's like, oh, wait, no, we we're at that, we're not even close to that. We have to start from the bottom and work our way up. And that's a little scary. A lot of times, you know, I have to talk a lot, my pipeline is long because I have to really convince people that you can't just hire. And everybody keeps saying that. You need to hire. Hire before you're ready. You know, what are all those little cliches that people talk about hiring? But if you don't know what roles you need, and in small business, we're having multiple people do multiple roles. It's not like in corporate where you have this pretty job description and you've got one role and it's, you know, pretty easy peasy. You hire for that person. No, in small business, they could have three, five, you know, depends on how small it is, different roles. And if you're not hiring for the right roles, you also need to, and this is another thing I think where I speak differently, is that we need to really know what, as the business owner, we need to know what our weaknesses are, because we should be hiring for those weaknesses. And my SOP lens, too, is like, this is how we are doing things now. Cause I do agree, like if you're hiring people, you need to have that baseline and they need to have somewhere to go besides you to ask questions. So if you have an SOP, that's a perfect scenario, right? But they're hired for a reason. They're either faster at whatever it is, they're either more knowledgeable, they're there's something that's gonna have more value added to that SOP. So this is like, okay, this is how it is right now, but I'm so excited to see what you put together in an SOP standard operating procedure, it's a living, breathing document in your business. It's gonna change as you grow and it's gonna change as more people come on and there's different holders. And so, you know, like I think that's my main mission is to really educate that, yeah, SOPs are great. And if you have a baseline for people to use them, that's amazing. But they're not gonna stay. Like some people like, I want it done to a T. It has to be done exactly to a T like this. And I'm like, what? Why? If they're gonna do it better, we don't we want them to like, you know, fly and and do it better for you. So I think a lot of it's just that education piece. And I think one of the reasons too, I like to call myself an architect is I think that leads more into that. Like we're definitely creating, if you think of a house, we're creating that, you know, that infrastructure, that first cement pour and then working out.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Do you feel that you've had struggles with hustle or burnout in your businesses or in the corporate aspect? I have no eyebrows.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

So I know from experience, yes, burnout, it's a real thing. And unfortunately, you can ignore it all you want, but your body is going to take you out. So, and it's not like I like to say, like when I first got into this online space, I was like, oh, this is gonna be so different. You know, people are starting businesses for freedom and spending more time with their families, and they have like this whole new definition of success. But if you really get down to it, we still have that pressure to do more.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

We still have that pressure to be busy, we still have that pressure, like our to-do lists are never ending. So, like when people say, Oh yeah, you get to, you know, lay at the beach all day, yes, that's a priority for me. Not all day, but I do like to go to the beach on a Tuesday. And so that's built into my business. And I think we have to recognize that there's things that's important to you, let's build that into your business.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Mm-hmm. You know, one thing that you reminded me of is like actually, so today. Today before we recorded, I left my house and I drove to pick up lunch and I drove back. And I literally had that moment of, oh, I can like do that every day if I wanted to. And like I can't some days, like I'll have calls, you know, throughout the day and stuff. But I always have a break for lunch, and I'm like, yeah, like some days I not that I want to spend money every day, but I literally as an adult can go and do this all the time. And like I still have those instances where I'm like unraveling from that restriction and that busy culture of like, oh, how am I gonna fill my day and my time? And I do feel also that like while I do admit that me being more focused as a mom has really helped me versus before I became a mom. However, even in like, say, the eight hours I get each day, you know, we have thankfully my mother-in-law comes four days a week and watches our daughter here at home. I get eight hours each day uninterrupted. But I feel like I need to pack that as fast and as full as I can because I, you know, I don't want to work at I can't work after 5 p.m. And really I shouldn't be staying up late working anyways. But sometimes I have to. Sometimes we have to, right? But we don't need, to your point, we don't need to do that. And to my kind of like struggle that I've had is always like, I don't need to get to-do list done every single day because this isn't corporate. And why I'm constantly reminded of this is my husband also works from home, but he has a corporate job and he can sign out, right? He clocks in and clocks out, and yes, he has projects he needs to work on. Sometimes he works outside of normal work hours. But for the most part, he gets that time during the day to specifically work on his stuff, right? When us, we wear so many hats, it's difficult to, like you said, we can have a to-do list a mile long. It can be forever a mile long because we can continue to add and make up things because it's our business and we get to do whatever we want. But yeah, that is something that I still struggle with sometimes. It's like it's not necessarily resentment, but I think it's just like, yeah, like I can see the difference. I know what I'm doing in my own business of like, it's okay to shut off the computer and come back to this work. Like, and that is up to us, maybe then the systems and the boundaries we put in place. That, okay, like if I'm working on a project for a client, I'm not going to say, I will get to this for you tomorrow. Like, I will get to this by Monday, right? Like you can have those boundaries. And I think it's really important to do that too. So yeah, our to-do list can easily be a mile long, but I think it's important to recognize that even though the to-do list might not ever be done, we do have to take time to have that freedom as well. Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Well, and it's not fair to the people that are important to you. Like, you know, your husband gets to get off at a normal time. He wants to spend time with you, but if you're locked in your office and, you know, their pressures there. I also want to say though, too, like, there's gonna be times. Realistically, there's gonna be times you're working until 10 o'clock, whether it be because of deadlines or whether it be because you've got like this creative sprint and you're just like putting everything out there. It's gonna happen. And it's funny too to see the guilt for people that are like, you know, talking about freedom in their business or the fact that, you know, we have systems in place. So I don't have to be, you know, behind my computer all the time. But then there's the guilt of, oh, I worked this weekend, you know, maybe it was just a creative, like, oh my gosh, I had this amazing idea and I had to get it out and I had to do it right then and there. There's guilt both ways. And I think as business owners, we're a little bit perfectionists, we're workaholics, and we may be a little bit of a control freak. So we kind of get it from both sides.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah. It's all encompassing for sure. I think that was something I had to break like my mindset of to. Again, deconditioning from corporate culture is I always told myself it's not good to work on a weekend. And now, again, becoming a mom, I'm like, but also it's not even just that. It's like I've been so aligned the last couple of years with how my business has grown and what I'm doing that I love what I do. I love all the work I'm doing, that I don't mind working on a weekend, right? And like, and again, it's up to us. We can decide two hours, three hours, five hours, whatever. And we're very active, you know, as a family. We go out, we do things. I like to leave the house because we're home all week long. So like I like to go out and do special things. It's getting close to the holidays, so we're gonna get even busier. And so I don't mind working the first couple hours of the day or working during my daughter's nap or working on a Saturday night, because if we're not doing anything, like I can get caught up, which then makes me less likely to continuously need to do that. Stay up late, you know, work early, work another weekend. If I can take that time to do some work. And so, like, that has been such a huge shift for me over this last year, if not two years, where I'm like, why don't I want to work Saturdays? It's just like, again, a construct of like, I'm not supposed to, or like it's not good to work on weekends.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

And I think that's something that you know we can't talk about enough, is that you're the boss. You get to decide. So if you work Wednesday through Monday, you know, like perfect. Or let's go Wednesday through Sunday. Yeah. Like that's your decision. I think the important thing to remember is that we do need to weigh our priorities. And, you know, I'm assuming family is a big priority. So as long as we slate those priorities in, we've got our business priorities, we need to take care of ourselves. So we have to have our self-priorities. And as long as we are, you know, cognizant of those and we plan for those, and we just take that guilt. I think that's another thing. It's like systems, I would love for them to be sexy, but also like you're the boss. There's thousands and thousands of ways of doing business. You get to decide how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Oh, yeah. Preach, preach to the choir. So we talked about hustle, but what is one or what is rest or grounding kind of look like for you just in general?

SPEAKER_01 35:58

So I probably not the best person. Flexibility is a huge thing. Like, I want to be able to have breakfast with my husband whenever he can get away. I want to go to the beach. Beach is grounding for me. Like, I my husband will tell me, you need to go to the beach right now. You're you're kind of bitchy. Go to go to the beach, take some time and go to the beach. So I think, you know, that's something that's important to me is to make sure that I have that time, even in the middle of the week, to like get away and and go to the beach. I tried to be that structured person where I would go to the beach at like 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning, do a swim and come home and be able to say that I'm at work before nine o'clock. And that just doesn't work for me. I don't like the rush of it. I like to like, you know, sometimes I do need to think and reflect about things. And so that's my time to either take care of myself or take care of the business. Because sometimes it takes you out of your business to really kind of look at some maybe challenges or some opportunities. And if we don't have that time to recognize those things, it's just, you know, gonna either be pushed away or it's gonna become a bigger problem.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

I think that's a system to have in place, right? Like we think of systems in business, but that is a system you have as well. That is a system and a boundary that you have that not only helps you with your health and overall, like, you know, just being, but it also helps your business. And that's something I talk about a lot is I go to the gym first thing in the morning. Like I'll wake up at 5:30. I want to wake up before my daughter. I eat breakfast with my husband. A lot of times my daughter's still sleeping. I leave for the gym at 6:30. I actually enjoy more my car ride to the gym, listening to my music or drinking iced coffee. And then I go to the gym and I come back and I always feel so good. And like, I'm kind of like you, where like in a perfect world, I would love to start work at 8 a.m. But sometimes I like take longer at the gym or want to walk a little bit longer, just depending on how I feel. And sometimes it's like 8:30 or 9 a.m. that I start my business or start my day. But then like I'm also coming into the house, my daughter's awake, I'm gonna spend time with her. She can talk now, so she's gonna be calling out to me. So, you know, I don't rush to my office to be like, nope, gotta go. Like, and I also, again, maybe another system to keep in mind is like I also plan calls for the most part. My earliest call will be 9 30 in the morning, and I'm not going to talk to anyone before that unless like I already have already pre-scheduled that, but my calendar set to no one can book before 9 30. But yeah, I think like that is a lost system to have in place, is we need systems for ourselves too.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Well, I think everybody does. And this is one of my biggest preach things is that everybody has systems. We brush our teeth. The way you brush our teeth is probably totally different from the way I brush my teeth. But we both brush our teeth, or at least I hope so. But like we have laundry. There's so many systems that we have in place in our life, and it's just a thing. Like we just know that we have that, right? And then there's like this cringy thing when you talk about systems in your business, and I don't know where that disconnect is. Is it, you know, lack of freedom or I don't know, and it's my brain thinks totally differently about it because I do think everybody, for one, everybody needs systems in their business. Your business will not grow if you don't. And it will get to the point where you're the biggest bottleneck in your business and you will probably not have a business much longer.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

So if you don't have systems in your business and you don't have that culture in your team of systems thinking, you're not gonna go very far.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yeah. I almost want to leave it there, but I have one more question to ask. Like, I guess like that might have that might have answered the last question I have. So if you could leave our listeners with one intention is they scale their business. So something different than what you said, I guess it could be the same answer, but what would it be? What's something that people need to keep in mind as they scale their business? If you want to leave something like that, it's one note with them.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

It's not a rigid line. I think that's the biggest thing, especially perfectionists. We have a plan, we've got it all plotted out, we have this nice pretty document or you know, something in our computer, and we follow it step by step because we've broken it down into bite-sized pieces. And if something goes wrong, something that probably is mostly out of our control, we don't know how to recover, or there's a long time to recover. So I think the biggest thing in scaling in general is it's never going to be the way you thought it was, and be open to the opportunities, which then you have to have your systems in place to give you some white space to be able to recognize those opportunities and just be flexible. And I know we're not always the most flexible kind of people. So I think we're entrepreneurship has definitely been the biggest growth, like reason for growth in my whole entire life.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Yes, I can attest to that too. I uh it's the biggest personal development journey for sure. And and just the amount I've grown in the last seven years of having my business is wild. It's the most you probably have grown in like your whole life, truly. But thank you so much, Tracy, for coming on, having this conversation. Can you tell us how we can connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 41:43

I love connections. So I actually have Voxer on my Instagram. You can vox me. I am totally open to that. DM me on Instagram. I'm also on LinkedIn as Tracy Madeiris on LinkedIn and Madeiras Consulting. And soon there will be a website. Coming soon.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Well, we will have all of those links in the show notes. And then Tracy will be back with us on Friday, giving us a quick educational topic and her area of expertise. So make sure you tune in on Friday. Thank you so much, Tracy, and we will chat with everyone later. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Business Over Cocktails, where real stories and bold business moves come to life. If this episode lit something up in you, share it with a friend, tag me at Lauren Najar or the podcast page at Business Over Cocktails. Make sure to leave a quick review as well. It helps more than you know. Until next time, keep chasing what matters and building the business that feels like you. Cheers.