Today on the podcast we are bringing back Cyndie Spiegel. Cyndie is a Brooklyn-based consultant, coach and TedX speaker. She is the founder of The Community of Us – an inclusive strategic community for women change makers, founders, creative business owners and solopreneurs. Today, we are talking about creating real relationships, what it means to have friendships and empower other women. In the creative community, particularly the entrepreneurial women’s space today, there has been a shift in the way we support one another; all love, all positivity, all empowering, 2018 feminism, all sisters high-fiving sisters! When in reality, it’s all a little phony.

Despite what we promote online, there are often still shameful feelings of jealousy, envy and resentment that are difficult to talk about. These feelings often get in the way of us helping others, which is really not what we want as good human beings! So, how do we release our shame, embrace this community mindset and truly empower other women? Cyndie gives us four really tangible steps to analyze how we are treating other women, be it in our industry or in our friendships, in order to help us forgive ourselves and quit the Tall Poppy Syndrome! Take a listen to find out what that is. It’s real!

Today on the podcast we’re covering a little bit of a different side of being a business owner and working from home. Our guest today is Ashley Stephens. She is a mom, a teacher, a tech geek, a bossy big sister, an amateur home cook and the average girl next door – all bundled up into one great big personality. Ashley co-founded a company called MacroEd which is a program dedicated to helping you become your healthiest self, focusing on real food nutrition while controlling your insulin levels for long-term health benefits.

We are so happy she is here today to tackle a subject a lot of us struggle with; how to take better care of ourselves, eat healthier and invest in our own macro nutrition – while trying to be boss business women and super moms! We all make excuses for why we don’t make healthy choices and in this episode, Ashley shows us how to make this lifestyle change without changing our lives much at all! We’ll be breaking down what macro nutrition means and how we can take better care of ourselves (without living on kale smoothies)!

We’re excited to be doing something new over the next few episodes and this is thanks to all your amazing feedback! A question came up inside the TCC community, “Where are the podcasts for brand new business owners? Business owners who haven’t made anything yet or haven’t got off the ground yet?” Over the next few episodes, we’re going to be sharing our five-part Beginner Business Series (BBS). We’re going to be asking you to share your homework, takeaways and insights inside our community using the hashtag #bbs.

If you’ve been in business for a while, a lot of these things are going to be in review for you, but it might also be an opportunity for you to go back and solidify a foundation. Regardless of where you’re at or what industry you are in, you should definitely be listening. If you are brand new and wondering where to even begin, this is an awesome place to start! In this episode, we are going to help you identify your skills and unique strengths, your why and your goals and help you discover your potential, most viable product or skill that you can start putting out this very week! Making you nervous? The good news is that this is something you already have!

Today on the show, we welcome Micala Quinn. Micala is a wife, mom, teacher, lifelong learner and founder of The Live Free Mama Movement. She helps moms launch their freelance business using the skills they already have so they can have more freedom, flexibility and financial stability. Our lives were very similar to Micala’s since she had worked for a bit, started freelancing from home and then started a business. A lot of moms want to work from home in the freelance world, but don’t know where to start. It can be daunting and overwhelming, but not if you know where to start. This is where Micala comes in.

In this episode, Micala shares how a mom can do things from home to create a sustainable business. If you’re out there wondering, “What is the thing I can do to bring in some extra cash-dollar bills this month?” this is the episode you want to listen to. Today, we share so many brainstorming activities and questions you can ask yourself to help pull those skills into a profitable service you can actually charge for. If you’ve ever had an interest in freelancing or VA work, this episode will sure as hell give you some ideas.

In this episode, we are talking about our word of the year. We’ll be reflecting on our words for 2017 and revealing our words for 2018. There is an energy shift that happens at the beginning of the year. The word of the year is the word that is to establish the tone for the entire year. We really want this episode to inspire you to pick your own keywords so whenever you get overwhelmed, lost or can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel – you have this word to rely on.

We want you to remember the headspace you were in when you chose that word at the beginning of the year. So use this time and energy shift to choose your word. Is it “hustle”? Or “relax”? We want to know what your word of the year is going to be. Whatever it is, write it down and put it up somewhere where you can see it. Add this word to your vision board… it’s amazing what it can do! Take a listen.

Today, we are going over our 2018 TCC bucket list. Yep, that’s right. We are confirming our 2018 dreams it into the world so you can hopefully be inspired and hold us accountable to make it happen! This is part of our affirming process, creating a vision for what is to come. After this episode, we want to challenge you to go and write down the things your heart desires for 2018.

This is different to goal setting. These are things you really want to affirm into your life. They don’t have to be business related, even though many of ours are. They can also be affirmations about your family or personal life too. In no particular order, we are going to go over our bucket list and in the next episode, we’ll be setting the goals. So let’s jump in and get this thing started!

‘Tis the season! And we’re heading into good, stressful, happy seasons in business and in life. This is a busy time where we are forced to make many decisions. Are you doing the whole never-making-a-decision thing? Are you second-guessing every move and letting the process of making a decision stress you out so much that you don’t make a decision about anything, at all? If this sounds like you, then we want you to use this episode as a little fairy godmother on your shoulder to help you decide.

The cat’s out the bag! We have just started our own new businesses. Two different businesses. Two different industries. And we’re building them completely on our own. Emylee’s latest side-hustle is selling her own hand-painted artworks online and Abbie has started an MLM business with Young Living products. In addition to TCC, we wanted to start something completely on our own and as exciting as it is – truthfully, we’re both a hot mess and are grappling with so many aspects of product-based entrepreneurship that we didn’t even expect as mentors in this field.

Inside this episode, you will find out more about our latest side hustles, why we started them, how we are growing them and the many challenges we are currently facing in this new terrain. If you are a compulsive entrepreneur or are in the same boat of juggling your many business passions, then this is definitely an episode you’ll relate to. So take a listen, find out how we are going about our new ventures and most importantly, know you are NOT alone!

Today on the podcast we have Kris Wittenberg of Be Good to People. We fell in love with her brand and the impact it was making on people around the world. The idea for Be Good to People was inspired by a rude experience that Wittenberg had back in the spring of 2008 while running errands at lunch. Kris has long forgotten the exact bad experience but the idea that people need to be better to one another has stuck with her ever since. We have loved hearing her message and getting to the root of how she got started.

Inside this episode, you are going to hear a pretty crazy story all about how a failed business helped Kris follow her passions and her dreams and then how she landed in front of Oprah and Gayle. Like actually hugging and seeing Gayle in-person. That exposure had huge impacts on her business, her confidence and everything Be Good to People stood for. There are a lot of lessons learned here from an entrepreneur who has been in business for a while, so we hope you take away some good nuggets today!

Today on the show we have Carrie McQuaid. If we could describe her in any way, Carrie is truly a kindness spreader. She loves pink, Taylor Swift, confetti, having fun and traveling the world to speak to companies and colleges about the power of kindness and generosity. She is head over heals in love with mason jars, sweet tea and rocking chairs on a front porch. A classic Southern belle at heart. Picture fresh flowers, polka dots and stripes, a day filled with love, laughter and spreading joy to others around — that’s Carrie!

In this episode, Carrie comes with some pretty fantastic ideas for business owners, entrepreneurs and just human beings in general and how we can be nicer people, helping fellow strangers (even in the Target parking lot). She also shares her story of viral kindness success. You might have heard of her on the little Southwest Airlines birthday party that she threw? This is a really upbeat episode and if you have ever wanted to start implementing small acts of kindness in your every day or in your business, Carrie comes full with ideas for you to take away and start implementing right now. So let’s jump in and spread some kindness around like confetti!

Today on the podcast, we have our friend and our mentor, the lovely Mamma Heather Crabtree from The Savvy Community. If you are not familiar with this woman, what rock have you been hiding under? Her Facebook community and her community in general that she has built over the last few years is phenomenal and literally the online space where we first met. Sparkles and all the confetti for that! We talk a bit about the legendary Savvy Community where we met online, and how it’s transitioned over the years.

In this episode, Heather shares with us how she has grown just a couple hundred members to over 13,000 and how that evolved into her bringing on a membership community where she hosts female entrepreneurs from all over the world and helps train and coach them. We also go into the programs she has brought along with her and even how she has been able to walk with her daughter as she has gone through stage four cancer, what it’s like balancing a business and a chronic illness like cancer and how that has affected her as a person and really made her stronger for the better. This is a little bit of a rollercoaster episode, but know that it comes from a good place and we are so excited to have her on.

On today’s episode, we welcome Marissa Pane. Marissa is a life coach for women with depression and anxiety, who works to heal and inspire others. We have both struggled and continue to struggle with mental illness throughout our lives. In this episode, we talk through some of our own personal struggles with mental illness and give you some tactical ways to help you get through it while running your own online business.

We focus on your ‘why’, how to deal with frustrated customers, and how to not have them affect you so emotionally. We also get into journaling, what happiness means, and finding out what is taking away from your joy. Marissa has 15 ways to combat mental illness and today’s episode is about solidarity with women who “get it” and equipping you with actionable steps to improve your well-being, your business and your life! So grab the tissues (or the wine) and take a listen!

Ever wondered, “How do they work together?” Well, this is a question we get asked a lot on the show and the answer may not be as simple as you think! How do we divide tasks? How do our personalities work well together and where do we struggle? How do we deal with stress? Today, we are embarking on a journey of self-discovery – digging into personality types, astrology and just a bit of “woo-woo-ness.”

Knowing how your brain, body and personality work can be an empowering tool to strengthen yourself, your team and your business. So we hope that by the end of this episode you might have learned something about your own self; your characteristics and how they affect the way you make decisions and interact with others in your business. If you are looking to improve your relationship with yourself and with others, then this episode is for you! Take a listen.

We are coming in with a little light episode today. Actually, it might not be so light with the questions that have been coming in right now. We get a crap ton of questions from you guys all the time, both personal and business related, and usually we have already recorded or written something about it. But sometimes we just get this kind of hodgepodge of questions from you guys that just don’t quite fit into any particular topic.

So today we decided to tackle them in a Q&A format. This isn’t fancy, it isn’t organized, but it is going to answer those burning questions that y’all have for us! We are just going to go down the list and answer your questions, one by one. We are giving the people what they want. As simple as that!

Today on the podcast, we have Dana Malstaff of Boss Mom. She is a mother, author, business owner, content strategist, coach, podcaster and blind spot reducer. Dana is a big deal! We have known Dana for quite some time now, but she has been guiding moms all over the internet for a while and helping them nurture their businesses and figure out this whole game of growing an empire while growing a family.

We’re covering a lot today, trying to get to all the topics and questions that you guys have brought up over and over but we just haven’t been equipped to deal with yet. So we brought on Dana to cover the good stuff, like how the heck do you handle mom guilt and business guilt? Can you actually build an empire with little ones at home? What’s this whole myth of balance, and what can we reframe our mindsets around in order to make sure that we are being awesome parents and awesome business owners and awesome people in general? We’re talking about some really great tactical items that you guys are going to walk away with to really let go of that guilt, and reframe your focus around what you are doing in parenthood and business ownership.