How to Trust Yourself When Building a Business | Anna Wiggins' Entrepreneur Journey

Content Note: This episode includes a conversation about suicide, grief, and mental health as Anna shares part of her family's story. Please take care while listening and skip this episode if now isn't the right time for you.

Welcome back to Tea Time with Erin, where we share honest conversations about entrepreneurship, money, mental health, and the stories that shape the way we build our businesses and lives.

In this episode, Erin sits down with entrepreneur Anna Wiggins, owner of Surseen Style, for a conversation about entrepreneurship, financial decision-making, risk, grief, and learning to trust yourself through seasons of uncertainty.

Anna shares her journey from working in nonprofits and philanthropy to opening a bridal boutique, selling that business, navigating a season of transition, and eventually launching her newest venture, Surseen Style. Along the way, she opens up about family influences, money lessons from childhood, business loans, entrepreneurship, and the challenge of balancing financial security with pursuing a vision.

Together, Erin and Anna explore what it looks like to trust your instincts, embrace the unknown, and build a business that aligns with your values rather than someone else's definition of success.

In This Episode, You'll Hear:

• Anna's journey from nonprofit work to entrepreneurship
• How a difficult first job helped redirect her career path
• The inspiration behind opening her bridal boutique
• Why she chose not to pursue a franchise model
• The emotional process of selling a business she loved
• How writing and reflection helped her navigate a season of transition
• The realities of funding and growing a small business
• How childhood experiences shaped her relationship with money
• Why paying yourself matters as a business owner
• The importance of trusting your intuition in business decisions
• How nervous system regulation impacts entrepreneurship

Key Takeaways

• Entrepreneurship often requires trusting yourself before you have all the answers.
• Seasons of uncertainty can create space for creativity and growth.
• Business growth often requires financial investment and calculated risk.
• Money beliefs formed in childhood can influence business decisions later in life.
• Paying yourself should be a priority, not an afterthought.
• Success doesn't have to look like constant growth—it can look like alignment.

Learn More About Anna on Instagram: @‌surseenstyle

Connect with Erin

Learn more about Erin’s work around money mindset, financial therapy, and building businesses that support your life.

• Book a free financial clarity call with Erin: https://calendar.app.google/bTLBrJFex9KHpFKz9
• Instagram: @‌erinthemoneytherapist

Erin’s Tea for This Episode

Erin is drinking Soothsayer Teahouse Masala Chai during this episode. 15% off your first order! Use code WITHERIN at checkout.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, today I am joined on the podcast by my sweet friend Anna, who is the owner of Cersei Style, and she has owned other businesses over the years, and we're gonna talk all about that. But I am thrilled to have her with me today. Anna, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. This is my first podcast. Oh my gosh, you're the second guest I've had. This is their very first one. I'm so happy. And I love I'm so happy to be your first, your first podcast. Yay! Welcome to the show. I'm so happy you're here. Okay, so Anna, tell us all about you. Tell us who you are and what is going on in your world right now.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Okay. My name is Anna Wiggins. I am married to my husband, Gavin. I have an almost six-year-old daughter, Luna, and I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I have a background in economics and city and regional planning. I got my master's in city planning and then promptly went into the nonprofit sector and from there started my first business. And then once I did that, I found that I was finally in my lane and in the right track for me, which was entrepreneurship. I guess you would call me a serial entrepreneur at this point. I've had a few businesses and the latest of which is Circine, which started as a personal styling business, working one-on-one with women. And I found that I missed having a brick and mortar space and just the ability to interact with, work with, serve more women than I was able to in a personal styling role, um, working individually with people. I wanted a place where more people could come and really a space to have more community-driven events and workshops and yeah, just a safe space. So that business has now the brick and mortar piece of it, has been open just over three months, and I am loving every minute. I'm remembering what brick and mortar life is. Yes, yes, what that roller coaster is, but even in the in the valleys, I'm loving it. So that's always a good sign that I'm in the the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yes, I love Sarcine. I recently obviously got to go for my first time for an event. So we did. We had a community event there, and also had an impromptu meeting with someone there at the same time. Like all the things you want to happen are happening. And this dress I'm wearing came from Cersei. Oh, yay! I love it.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

That's one of my favorite things is seeing people in the wild wearing the things that they've gotten and knowing that they're getting joy and pleasure out of something that you know they found and discovered at Cersei, and that makes me so happy.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I love it. I love it. Every time I put that white shirt on, which is not often because I have little children, but when I do wear it, I'm like, I love this shirt. It's one of my favorite shirts. Okay, so we obviously talked about yes, you kind of are a serial entrepreneur, but I would love to talk more about your early sort of origins. And so one question that has come up a lot when I'm talking to guests is all about that entrepreneurial through line and where it sort of showed up for you the first time. I know for me personally, I never thought I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. And then when I became one, I felt like it just kind of came out of nowhere. But then when someone asked me if I could dig further into as a child, like, did this ever show up for me naturally? I actually found a couple of places where it was obvious to me, like, no, I really sort of had that entrepreneurial spirit as a younger person. So I would love to know if that's the case for you and if you can remember being a young person and seeing entrepreneurship show up for you.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Absolutely. Um, so my dad was a banker all his adult life. And so his job at the banks ultimately was to assess business ideas and determine whether or not those businesses would get funding. So I think even though as a young child I really didn't understand all of that, I think subconsciously maybe it was played in. My brother started his own baseball card shop, like a physical store for selling baseball cards when he was 13. And so while my parents were not entrepreneurs, I knew that they supported that. But I also always felt like it was my brother who had the more creative entrepreneurial mindset and that I wasn't cut out, in quotes, for that. I was salutatorian, magna cum law, like did very well in school, and just kind of thought like I'm gonna stay in my lane or on this path, and I'm gonna become an attorney. I'm gonna do something very academic. And I just kind of thought that that's like the path that was slated for me, and that I wasn't allowed outside of that. But I graduated with economics, I took a nonprofit role and moved immediately from my very first job down to South Beach, Miami, which was a great place to live right out of college. Um I remember very specifically walking through the streets of South Beach one evening. I had very soon into taking that job realized it was not the right fit for me. And I called my dad so worried that I was like, okay, my parents just moved me 16 hours away from home for my first big girl grown-up job. And like two weeks in, they were threatening not to send me to training because I wasn't meeting goals. And basically, it was asking people for fundraising dollars on the street, and I just it wasn't a good fit. So I felt as someone who had always done very well in school and everything, like all of a sudden I was this failure, you know, two weeks into my first run-up job. And I called my dad, so worried to let him know like the direction it was heading. And when I explained to him some of the things the company had said to me and how they were, you know, threatening not to send me to training, and like judging my performance before I had been trained, yeah, he was just like, Anna, no, like life is too short to be this miserable, this early into a job, and the way they're treating you is not okay. He was like, quit. And so hearing that from love you, dad. Thanks. Yeah, like Mr. Banker, you know, like it just was kind of it was so freeing. It was yeah, it was just reassuring. So I quit that job two weeks in, started working in a restaurant down the street, was making more money and enjoying my life. But I also was like, okay, this isn't what I'm going to do forever. So I had seen a like make your own pizza place when I was in college that was similar to Subway, where it's, you know, you pick all your toppings and they make it for you right in front of you. And I thought, I think I could do that, you know, I think I could start my own place like that here in Miami. And so I remember being on the phone with my dad, walking the streets of Miami and peering in windows that were vacant and talking to him about this concept and how it might work here in Miami. And so I ultimately did not pursue that career. I decided food business was not for me. But I think that was the spark that was like, oh, this path that I've been on isn't working. And maybe I could try something new. And just being on the phone with my dad and talking through the idea was like, okay, I could pursue something different.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah. Okay. I love that story. I wanna I want to zero in on two things. Number one, the permission from your dad to say no, you know, that is not the most common answer, right? There, I think that our parents especially really want us to be safe and secure. So you're not always gonna hear that. Like someone who's listening might that might not be the experience that you had. But when you have the opportunity, like you said, to just kind of walk in, talk it out, your brain actually looks for solutions. And sometimes when you're in it, like you were in this job, it might not have felt like, oh, the next path is gonna just show up. It's not gonna all of a sudden look obvious, but then you just thought about it for a second and remembered, oh, I saw this pizza place that did this thing. And just that the process of thinking, that higher level of thinking, is such a permission granting moment for ourselves, even if only from ourselves, right? Even if what you're doing is walking down the street peering in windows, it might not be an idea that comes to fruition. So that's the other point is that every idea that we have, especially as entrepreneurs, because guys, we have so many good ideas, like not every single one of those ideas is going to come to fruition. And sometimes I think there's like some level of grief that comes with that. That the we might have a really good idea that doesn't pan out or or we don't even explore it beyond it being an idea. And sometimes I think we feel like we left that part of ourselves down or whatever, but but that's just all part of the entrepreneurial spirit that sometimes you're going to have because we do, we have a ton of ideas. That's like part of the persona of being an entrepreneur, and they're not always gonna pan out, but what a lovely sort of journey for you to have taken and to have that just almost immediate pivot, right? Like, oh, we got to do something else. So talk to me about the okay, so here's all the feelings and things that you're doing in Miami. What kind of happened next? How did it unfold? And as you look at those steps that took you from point A to point B, was there ever a moment that all of a sudden you could just like see into the future? Was there ever a moment that you were just like, okay, I have the vision now, this is what I'm doing? Macro vision, I mean.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Um I feel like when I was starting my first business, I had that. I had such belief in myself. Um and I think a lot of people. Would you say it was a delusional level of belief? It was it was a little naivete, like, you know, a little um I'm just unstoppable and young and nothing can hurt me kind of thing. Um I was also engaged slash newly married and no children, you know, like the level of responsibility was less. So and the level, which ultimately feels like the level of risk is lower. Yeah. So a lot happened between that conversation. I don't know how deep we want to go here. My dad, I will say, trigger warning to anyone who is listening. Um, my dad took his own life shortly after that conversation. So my kind of world was put into a little bit of a tailspin where it wasn't even about like what I was there was definitely a period where it was like, what am I doing next? And I did, you know, study for the LSAT and prepared to go to law school. And then, you know, it was there was a lot of figuring life out amidst some grief and just kind of what was next. So it wasn't like I jumped immediately from like, oh, here's this idea, oh, here's this next idea. Entrepreneurship is it, let's go. It was um, what is next? Took some time, decided to get a master's degree. From there, I met my husband. He moved us here to Knoxville. I took a job in philanthropy here in Knoxville just because I knew I wanted to be in the same city as him and started working in philanthropy, and it was lovely. But during that process, we got engaged and I went wedding dress shopping and had experiences that were fine. And then I had one experience out of state that was just really lovely. And I thought, wow, why are they not all more like this? Like, this is such a special time, and you're spending probably the most amount of money you'll ever spend on one piece of clothing for many of us. So it's just it was a big deal, and especially at that point in my life, it felt like such a big deal. Um but I thought this just deserves better. And I thought that there wasn't really a place in Knoxville that was serving brides in an intentional way where each bride had the entire store to herself and was really catered to and felt, yeah, like she had the kind of space to take in that experience with her loved ones the way that I felt like we should get to experience. So yeah. The place I had gone out of state was actually a franchise. So I initially looked into becoming a franchisee of this business. And I read their FTD, their franchise disclosure documentation, and was having regular conversations with the owners to pursue that. And the more we talk, the more it was like, okay, well, you're gonna pay this much money for build out to make sure it meets our requirements. You're gonna pay this much money for our branding, this much money for our systems that are in place. And it was all adding up pretty significantly. And I was having the conversation with someone of like, this is not a franchise like McDonald's, where it's a name that a household name that everyone knows, and I'm paying for that. This is a small franchise with like four other locations, so I'm paying a lot of money for something that doesn't really yet have brand recognition. And I think I can figure it out. Like I think I just I think I just want to do it on my own. So I I did feel a little bit bad, I guess, that I like had had those conversations and then decided against it. Like I didn't want them to feel like I was misleading or anything, but I really wasn't. I was using that time to evaluate the decision and ultimately decided it wasn't the right decision for me. So I from that decided I'm going to start my own bridal boutique and it's gonna be intimate and it's gonna be sweet and special. And initially I started with consignment wedding dresses where I was getting, I was driving to Nashville and Atlanta and other larger cities and going to stores and taking samples from these stores and trying to sell those off the rack in a consignment way, and then I started from there to evolve into a special order wedding dress store.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, that almost has uh that almost has the Sir Scene through line, right? So we see Circine kind of show up there first. I love that. Okay, so I love the natural path of that story, and I wanna just since I've known you, one thing that I really love about you and your work is that when, and for those of you listening who might not know the story of this bridal boutique, obviously, Anna, you can go ahead and tell us. In what year did you sell the business? Uh, I sold it in October 22. So 2022. Okay, so I was very pregnant and having babies at that time. My twins were born in September of 22, right? So, but around there somewhere, I think, is where I learned about you or came into knowing who you were. Uh, and so I loved how much time you took between that business closing, or not closing, it's still open, but selling that business and opening what is now Circeine. I feel like you were so purposeful with your time in between of this, what would be, let's just call it the liminal space, right? The time in between what was and what is now. So I would love it if you could share with us when you take that intentional time, just like you were talking about, it wasn't like, you know, you went from thing to thing instantly when you guys moved here to Knoxville. Obviously, you found something that worked for you, but it wasn't a long-term fit. I would love for you to talk to us about how you spend that liminal time and what you're doing in that in-between with yourself and deciding what's what you're going to do next. How do you kind of weigh those decisions and how do you, you know, how do you tend well to your soul in those seasons when you're in between?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

That's such a good question because I feel like it is something that I think I can say we all struggle with when we're in that unknown period. I know I certainly did as someone who had found my like, oh, this is it with loveliest with that bridal boutique. It was like, that was my baby. This was my future. And it was for six years. It was beautiful, and I loved every minute. And I think people were really shocked when I sold it because they were like, wait, what? Like, you are loveliest. Like, how are you letting go of this thing? And you know, life circumstances just dictated that that was what needed to happen at that time. After some very intentional time with Booth Andrews, I realized that.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

But you guys know how much I love Booth. I talk about her all the time on the show. She takes such good care of us, right? She really helps us tend well.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yes. I went to a retreat with her thinking I was gonna come out of it with like marketing and business strategies to just skyrocket my business. And instead, I came out with this very strong sense of peace that I needed to sell my business, and it was not what I was expecting, but it came to be. And the story of how that happened is a long one, but it's beautiful in its own right, but it was just further confirmation that I was again just moving, you know, moving in the right direction. And I think at first I was so incredibly uncomfortable with the unknown. I sold my business in the middle of October, and I was like, okay, so by January, I'm gonna have a full-time job and know exactly what I'm doing. And, you know, I knew that I needed to step away from entrepreneurship for a minute because my mom had been had been battling dementia for a while, but it was progressing more obviously at that point. And we had survived the pandemic as a brick and mortar store. And, you know, I had a two-year-old, like life was just a lot, and I knew I I couldn't just jump right back into owning a business, but it was the not knowing what was next was really difficult. And the way I took that time was really to start writing. So I started a blog and I just started sharing openly how difficult that space was. Um, but I think writing about it and reflecting on it really helped me better. I'm not gonna say it it made me slow down or that I did fully, but it helped me better slow down and appreciate what that space was, which was this intentional pause. It was a space for the figuring it out, the space for creativity and the ability to write. I've I've greatly missed writing in that long-form fashion since I've dived back into business ownership. Um, because I just haven't had the creative space and capacity to do that as much anymore. And so I think reflecting on it for what it was, which was that. And I think all of that creativity percolates, just like we were talking before we started the podcast with all that you have worked towards has led to where you are today. And sometimes it feels like it's just magically appeared out of thin air, but it hasn't because you've been planting all of those seeds. I think that time in the unknowing really allowed for the creativity that has led to what is now Circine. Um, but I approached another small business owner, local business owner who is an interior designer, Katie Simpson, um, because I had seen she was having some. Yes, we love Katie. And yeah, even just seeing her business and how it has flourished since like when I was there. It's so fun to watch all of these businesses and these women just the growth and evolution and the yeah, it's all fun. But anyway, I had reached out to her. I had seen her posting about some kind of health struggles, and I was like, you know, she's a solopreneur and she's having all these other things happening in her life. I wonder if she could use some help. And I just reached out to her because I knew I needed to do something. I was like, okay, I am ready to be working again, and I don't yet know what I want to be doing for myself. And when I first reached out to her, I said, my goal is to ultimately be an entrepreneur again. I don't know yet what that looks like. I don't know what my next business is, but I am finding that I have no desire to apply for a full-time nine to five job. Every time I look at job listings and I try to work myself into applying, my body is like, nope, that's that's not it. And so I approached her very clearly with like, I would love to work with you part-time and help you if that would be helpful for you, knowing that I'm working towards the next thing. From there, I was approached to teach the co-starters and then ultimately business 101 and 201 classes through Knoxville Entrepreneur Center. I was also approached by Erica Biddex at Ott to work with her and also help women entrepreneurs. And I think everything again just kind of builds upon itself. The time with Katie helped me realize I could work with other entrepreneurs and help them. I was helping her kind of with her back end and her processes so that she could do the work that she does so well.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

I was helping with the the admin side of things and organizational piece, and I was like, oh, I could do this for other entrepreneurs. And so it felt like moving into those roles with Erica and with Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, it just made sense. I was like, okay, maybe this is the next step in this journey. And so I did that for a while, and in that time started a fractional. Business helping business owners. Um, and I got to work with a few business owners and loved it. Yeah. And I felt like I was really good at it and people were pleased with my work.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And then Yeah, I I miss it so much, Anna. I wish you were still working with my business to helping me with the industry.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

I know. And I worked with I worked with Bonnie and I feel like it was just this like magical work that was happening. And yet I still was feeling like, this isn't that I did a good job, and I'm getting the pat on the back. And normally when I get the pat on the back, that's enough to make me want to keep going. Yep. And in this instance, it was like, I'm getting the pat on the back, the gold star, and yet there's this void. And so this isn't it. This isn't as much as I love working with other entrepreneurs and teaching the business classes was a lot of fun. I kept saying yes to that because I didn't yet know what my next thing was. And when I finally was like, I have figured out what I'm going to pursue now, and I asked to step away from that, only then was I able to have that creative space and capacity to start to create Cercine the way that I was envisioning.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Okay. I love that. And like I said, from an external, like from my third person point of view, observing your entrepreneurial journey, it really was lovely to just watch you in the in-between. Cause you really, I think we have this idea, especially as entrepreneurs or people who are very high achievers, right? We have this idea that like it's on to the next thing always. We're always on to the next thing, on to the next thing that's going to be better, bigger, more. All of that just is constantly, I think, running in the back of our minds. And I loved how well you stewarded the time in between and just use your skills in the in between while you sort of, I want to say, waited for that internal wisdom, right? Waited for that deep knowing to say, here is the next step that we're going to take. Okay. I want to pivot just a little bit and talk about the finances of all of this story. Okay. So obviously, let's go all the way back to the streets of my Miami, South Beach. Let's go all the way back to the streets of South Beach, and you're having this conversation and you're going to quit this job. At this point, you're a single person. Um and this could go even further back. Obviously, as we're recording this episode, I'm in the middle of a series about generational financial beliefs. So let's go all the way back to money conversations at home growing up. Obviously, we know your dad's a banker, right? So I'm going to make a broad assumption here that, like, not only you probably had money conversations growing up, but they were probably pretty healthy money conversations. It seems like he probably had at least some stable financial knowledge to pass on to you, right? So let's just talk about maybe those conversations growing up and then making this decision. I'm going to quit this job financially. What does that look like? And then following all the way through these in-between seasons, I'm going to sell this business. Potentially there's going to be a payout with that. Is that going to be enough to fund me until XYZ time? Like, talk to me about how you financially prepared for each of these different times and decisions.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, growing up, my dad always, I don't know, like, I feel like we had kind of a good balance. It was like he would encourage me to save money by doubling anything I would put into savings, he would match to like make sure that I knew that strategy of saving. He also had me investing in like Coca-Cola stock, you know, very sure, like solid foundational things. But then I remember when we would go on vacation, it was kind of like money doesn't matter. We're on vacation. And so I liked that I was taught to balance both the like save for a rainy day. Yeah. But money, you can't take it with you when you go. Like that like a work hard, play hard in real life. Yeah, yeah. I think with his passing, he was a banker. He very much prided himself on financials and appearances of wealth. And he had lost his job in 2009 with financial crisis, and then felt like life was not worth living because of that. And so I think that probably has more deeply impacted me than any of the foundational conversations we had, because it was like very eye-opening to see that someone could think that money mattered so much.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah. And if you lead to that. If you're listening to this and you're a listener of the show or you have heard the other episodes, you will see this in the Money Scripts episode. I talked about this idea that your worth comes from your income, your worth comes from your job title. And you're seeing that here in your story, Anna, play out in real life. That the identity was so tied up in that job, in that title, in that financial position, that it became not worth living anymore. Like that's such a deeply held identity attached to that financial story. And so, well, I want to thank you for vulnerably sharing that with us, but also holding that story. Like you said, those foundational conversations of money didn't teach you as much as this story did, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

The story you tell me. Yeah. And this was obviously more of a cautionary tale of like what not to do. Yeah. And so I feel like, and I think this is easy to say from someone who has had financial stability. I feel like I was someone who grew up middle class and, you know, always kind of had that stability. And then I always worked. I worked since I was 15. I was always in restaurants working and like paying my own way of things. Um, but with help from my parents, you know, I didn't have to pay for college. Like that's huge. Those are things that I don't ever want to take for granted or take out of the equation of the conversation because it's really easy for me to say, like, oh, I wasn't worried about financial success. And I'm to this day, I'm still, that's not my barometer for success. It's not how much money I can make. I don't want to franchise, I don't want to grow the, you know, to the biggest and best stoutest thing. But that's easier to say when you feel like you have a foundation of at least sensitive. So I just feel like that's important to recognize. But um I guess that was my foundational wisdom regarding money. I took this nonprofit job. I was making so little. And so when I quit, I literally just printed out a bunch of resumes and walked up. And I lived on Lincoln Road, which is a pedestrian-only street mall of just restaurants and bars. And I think there were like four Starbucks within this one strip from of mile from the bay to the beach. Um, so I just walked up and down with my resumes to all the restaurants and applied. And the next day I had a job and I was making more in tips working there than I had been at the nonprofit. So that it wasn't even a like, oh, I quit and I'm out of money. It was like, oh, I can do this temporarily. Grad school, I worked while I was in grad school and received financial aid and made it work. And then took the nonprofit job here in Knoxville. That was a grown-up, big girl salary. It still wasn't very much, but again, it was just my soon-to-be spouse and me, and uh, that was easy to make it work. And then when I started Loveliest, I'm so embarrassed. I used to say I bootstrapped. I did not technically bootstrap, I borrowed $50,000 from my mom. And so I took out a loan from my mom, so that was great because it was interest-free. And my goal was to pay that back over five years from the business. And I think I paid it back within the first maybe year and a half, two years. But I also kept my nonprofit job while I started Loveliest. And I was at that point saying yes to anyone and everyone, you want to come in on a Sunday? Gladly. I'm not open on Sundays, but I will come into the store and give you a three-hour appointment on a Sunday, even when the appointment should have only been an hour and a half. I was just new business willing to do anything and everything at the expense of, you know, my newly married life and my own social life. But I feel like I learned from that, as many of us do. I feel like we have to almost that's one of those lessons that I feel like you can tell every business owner.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

We all seen our dues, right? We did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

It's like we want to say no and set those boundaries. But until you like have your boundaries kind of crossed, I think it's harder to do that. Like you almost have to suffer the consequences of not having strong ones to get to the strong ones. But yeah, so I was very fortunate that my philanthropic job allowed me to stay part-time and that salary helped cover that initial phase of launching Loveliest and getting it to a point where it was able to pay the bills and pay me. And then when I sold that, I used that money to invest in. I got a new car and then I invested in a rental property. That has actually been, I think, a good, I think it's been a good strategy for me because I don't feel as comfortable investing in the traditional stock market. My husband does that well. I do not. And so I feel like by investing in the property, the money is kind of it's tied up in this home, but then I'm getting something out of it monthly that feels like a return that I can bank on versus the stock market where I'm like, I don't know how much my return will be or when I'll cash it out. And it's like, I know I have this home I can sell down the road. And so there's that piece of it as the asset itself, but the recurring cash flow coming from it monthly felt like the stability I needed in that in-between time of figuring out what was next. So it was just a way to supplement my part-time income while I was in that liminal space that we talked about. Yeah. Until I could start this business. And I again took out about the same size loan. This time I don't have the part-time job to um support that. So the payback period might be a little bit longer than with the bridge store, but I'm not your advisor now.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

But I wasn't your advisor when you were owning the bridal shop. But as your advisor, I might have, from a cash flow perspective, told you to spread that out over the five years that you had, as opposed to paying it off early.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

And I think it feels good to acceleratedly pay something off. But you know, it could be from from the business perspective, paying it off over the five years might just be that's just part of it. I know for me personally, as just part of that story, I I want to tell this because it could be pretty relatable. Number one, I think borrowing from friends and family is still in line with bootstrapping. So just giving you that permission, that's still, I mean, yes, you did have to borrow it, but technically, I would still consider that bootstrapping. But when I started my business and I got sued, it cost me almost as much as my whole home. Okay. And when I still got a mortgage for my home, I have, what do I have? 30 years to pay that off unless I have an accelerated payoff, right? Which of course that's part of my financial plan, I do. But when I got sued, it cost me almost as much as my home. I put all of this pressure on myself to pay all of that money off within like five years. And I'm like, I would never force myself to pay off a home in five years. But this is the like capital outlay, this is how much it costs. And I'm like forcing myself to try to pay it all off as quickly as humanly possible. But it's just such a significant amount of money that actually, if I have to spread it out, that's just like part of it, right? Right. So, you know, I think it's it sometimes feels uncomfortable to have to take on lending to grow something in the business or to start the business in that phase of growth. But I want to, for anyone listening, I want to just give that permission. And to you, Anna, like growing businesses eat money for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Okay, they just do. They need money to grow. And until the business is generating that profit that fuels that growth, which we hope happens quickly. But in the startup phase, it's not always perfect. And in a case like mine, where you have unexpected, unforeseen, tremendous financial expense right at the beginning, like you just have to deal with what happens. You it just you can't plan for every single little thing. But all that to say, if it takes you five years, then it takes you five years. Like that's what the structured lending is for, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:37

That is definitely one of those money mindsets that I don't enjoy debt. Even when I know it can be advantageous and it can help me in the long run. It's something I still, it's not comfortable to me. And I don't know if that's something from my upbringing that is seated in there somewhere, but it's definitely something that I recognize as a challenge for myself personally when it comes to finances.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Yeah. I have written about this on my LinkedIn. I have talked about this. I'm gonna actually, we didn't pause on this, but I'm I wanna talk about it on Substack too. I love Substack, by the way. You guys, if you love long form content like me and Anna do, go get on Substack. Okay. I love reading your Substack, Anna. I hope that you get to write more as you want to. I know. I need to get back to it. I love it. But I talked about this, and it is that women entrepreneurs in particular, like if you have had to take on debt in the business for any reason, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with you. The debt is just what it is. It's I think that sometimes, especially as women, we take on this as an identity. There's a difference between I don't like having debt and I feel totally overwhelmed by this debt, depending on what the story is, how much it is. There's there's it's nuanced for sure. But no one really likes to be beholden to anyone else. Like that's not a good feeling. But in business in particular, growth sometimes requires some of that. You won't necessarily just have a profitable venture from day one. In a perfect scenario, yeah, that's how it works. We'd love to see a profitable business. Every business be profitable on day one. We love it, right? But that's not real. So I want to just speak to anyone listening who's like, oh, well, I've had to take on debt in the business, whether it be from friends and family, which sometimes is even a little more pressure. I hear, especially oddly enough, boutique owners in particular have taken on lending from their parents and they feel so, so strongly that they have to pay it off early or they have to pay it off right away. And I it could be because they want to prove to their parents that they can do it, right? Um, and the pressure of just like, we don't like to be financially beholden to anyone, but especially not someone we love and are close to, because we don't want that to mud the water of that relationship, right? But if that's your story, you've taken on lending, be it from friends and family, or that you've taken on traditional bank lending, SBA lending, anything like that, that is just part of the business growth story. And that debt does not define you. It is not your identity, it's not your business's identity. Okay. I actually have someone in my inbox. So right now I talked to her this morning and she said, Do I need to bring anything for our call? And I said, No, just bring yourself, you know, we'll talk through it. And she said, Well, I do have a PL and I have a very long list of debts. And she felt like she needed to say to me, I'm sorry that I have this long list of debts, you know. And I, of course, and True Form was like, Don't number one, don't apologize to me ever. But also, this is just part of the story. It doesn't have to be something that you have to explain or fix or change. And I'm grateful that you shared with us both times. Yes, I did take on lending. Here's what it looked like, because that's just real life. The point of the show is that we're telling these real life entrepreneurial stories, right? So if that's you and you've taken on lending, that is just part of the story. And again, how fortunate you are if you can access lending a hundred.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

If you can access funds, I mean, yes, such a access to capital is not always there.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yes, absolutely. And so if that is, you know, that's part of your story, like congratulations, truly. Great. We're like great. That's congratulations to you. Now you know we make the plan. So, okay, and I have loved all of these parts of your story. I learned so much about you that I didn't even know. But I want to ask you as you sit here today, Circeine is the business that you now own, and you look through the stories that you have shared here and just your life in general. Is there anything you wish someone would have told you about money and finance and business somewhere along the way? Is there something that you had to learn the hard way that you're like, oh, I really wish someone had warned me about that?

SPEAKER_02 38:33

I think it's just, I mean, from teaching the entrepreneur classes, I feel like we talk about this a lot. So it's probably just on my brain. But I think it's the timeline to becoming profitable is generally longer than you expect it to be. So I think going into this venture with that knowledge from previous ventures has helped me. But also I am implementing profit first with this venture, which I didn't do in the past because I've only since learned about it. Um, and I feel like that has made probably the biggest difference of anything. Um, I've done it with the rental property that I own, and I've done it with Cercine and both time, you know, setting that money aside for taxes, for property taxes, for income tax, sales tax, like having everything just in its bucket and being able to have a clearer picture of like, okay, what funds do I actually have available to me? And then also like my business is brand new, just starting, and I'm already paying myself.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Yeah, we love that.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Because I'm making it a priority. Whereas with Loveliest, I certainly did not do that and probably could have been paying myself sooner or more if I hadn't structured it that way. But I'm grateful to that framework.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah. Okay, you guys, if you are listening to the series in part two of Generational Financial Beliefs, we talk all about paying yourself in your business. This is so critically important. So if you haven't, go listen to that episode. But I love that Anna has brought it up here because organically, like this is part of something we have to learn in business. It does not come naturally. You're not just gonna know it. It is not gonna fall from the sky onto your lap that this is exactly how it's done. So I love that. I love that that's what you would, you know, want to teach maybe your younger self to do sooner.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Um yeah, even like a lot of the female entrepreneurs, especially that I see and work with, like I see them not wanting to do that. We're so used to taking care of everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

So yeah, so true. Man, that is so true. Yes. Take care of yourself within the confines of your business. This is so, so important. Okay, and I have two last questions. Number one, for anyone who is listening, what piece of advice would you give to them or what would you want them to know, either from listening to your story or just some like wisdom you could impart onto them based on your experience and what you have learned in business over the years?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

I mean, I think it's to bet on yourself and to like listen to that inner knowing, that gut. It's so funny that you said watching that in between time for me seemed intentional to you. And it was intentional, but to me, it felt so incredibly uncomfortable. And I did, I kind of took the leap, you know, trying the fractional business. Like, yeah, maybe that was the wrong move and it because it didn't ultimately become what I'm doing, but at the same time, not necessarily. Like, I don't regret that decision. It brought me new perspective, some income, like perspective as to what I didn't want to do. And I think so often we're so afraid of getting it quote unquote wrong that we just don't pursue, you know, what we're really lit up by or what we're intrigued by. Um, I have so many friends in corporate jobs that are absolutely miserable, but they feel trapped. They feel like they can't go find something else. And I just I'm like, I see you with your ideas. Like, yes, take a chance. Talk to somebody in, you know, like at Tennessee Small Business Development Center or somebody at Score or whoever the resources for where you are. Like, just take that first step.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

One step, yeah. Absolutely. And I think one other thing that has really come out of your story that I think is really important for the listener to hear is that you spent time at a business retreat working with Booth specifically on your nervous system. So hear from Anna, hear from me, this is a really critical, important investment in you as a person and your ability to hold space for your business and its growth is that regulation piece. Obviously, if you are in my world, you are listening to this podcast, you have heard my work. I'll just talk about it all the live long day. But you know, you're hearing this in real life. This is probably one of the most valuable things you can do in the business is work on regulating your nervous system, understanding yourself well enough to trust yourself that yes means yes, no means no, because you might see online people will be like, oh, if it's if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. But if you're not well enough in here to trust your own yes or your own no, you may find yourself feeling trapped in situations you don't want to be in, financial situations you don't want to be in, jobs, business ventures that you don't really love, because you haven't taken the time to learn that about yourself. And, you know, the takeaway of that retreat with Booth for you was you literally sold that business. Like that wasn't it for you. And that wasn't just at the surface, very obvious. That's just another piece. If you are feeling that liminal space, if you are feeling maybe just not sure what the next step looks like for you, learn more about you. Take good care of yourself and your well being. Like, for instance, if it's writing or if it's whatever creative outlet works for you. Your brain is going to allow you the space and capacity to dream and think and be creative when you pause enough to let it practice that way.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

That just made me think of honestly, probably the even bigger one that I would say is talking about the pause and like when I was in that liminal space, I was taking anything and everything that felt like I might be good at it because I felt like I needed to and because I thought I could. But when you are like code switching between different jobs and roles in your life constantly, it takes such a toll. And I literally just before I got on this call, had my former boss reached out and asked if I could take on a side project with some of the work I previously did. And it's really tempting in these early days of business growth to be like, oh yeah, let me take that and get a little extra adding and it'd be an easy, like one-off project. But I said, I'd rather you find someone else because if we don't allow ourselves the space to focus on what it is we're actually pursuing, and we keep like throwing these other yeah, darts at the wall, it just distracts from what could ultimately be. And I feel like so often we're fearful of allowing ourselves space. The space, the calm.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

We don't our brains go so quickly anyway. Naturally, we do that. But then the more time we spend with technology, it's even worse because that's how the technology moves very, very quickly. And so the constant switching of tasks. Actually, a lot of people think that you can multitask. You can't. Your brain actually can't do two things at once. But what it does is it just learns to switch so quickly, so quickly from one thing to the next. It feels like multitasking, but you're actually just constantly changing tasks. And it's exhausting. And it is so, so tiring for your mind. Oh, I love that last tidbit there to share. Final question. If you could describe your relationship with money as a drink, what would your drink be?

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Gosh, I knew this was something you asked, and I forgot to prepare. Okay, a drink with money. Oh, gosh. I'm like, is it alcohol related?

SPEAKER_01 46:08

I've gotten such good answers on this.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

You have, and that's why I'm like, I don't have a good one. Um, maybe water because I need more of it. And I think I'm the only one that can control that, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

So I love that. And what I mean, we're I'm not gonna go down all the rabbit holes of water, right? But water is free-flowing, it's moving just like money is. That's such a good answer. I love that. Okay. Anna, thank you so much for joining me for tea time. I loved having you here today. And I have loved hearing even more of your story than I already knew. I mean, obviously, I have been a third-party observer of your story, but I have truly loved observing you going so carefully through your different movements and just lighting up at every step of the way with what's in front of you instead of constantly trying to pursue what's next. You just are all in on what you're doing. And I have loved watching you do that. And I'm so grateful that you took the time to share that with us today. So thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Thank you so much for having me. This is lovely. Lovely inaugural podcast for me.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

I love it. Yay! I'm so happy. Thank you, Anna. Thanks, Erin.