Today on the podcast we welcome our good friend, Jordan Ellis of Jordandené. She is an amazing woman who has a geeky lifestyle brand based in Brooklyn. She sells things that are subtly nerdy, from tee’s, to tanks, to mugs, to phone cases and more. Jordan also recently started the Sartorial Geek, a quarterly magazine and now a podcast all about girl power and promoting that nerd culture. Jordan is so amazing that it’s no wonder this is our third time having her on the show!

We’ll give you an overview of the other episodes Jordan has done with us, in order to give you a bird’s eye view of her business and some of the strategic moves she’s made. In this episode however, we discuss adding extra aspects to a physical product-based business as a way to contribute to bigger goals that might not be present today. We also discuss the challenges around diversity, representation and inclusivity in the online space and look to Jordan as a business owner who is really leading the way. We also get her insights on how to stand out in a super tiny product-based niche. There is so much to be learned from Jordan and we hope you enjoy her company as much as we do!

“I don’t have enough time”, “I don’t know the right people”, “I don’t have enough money.” There are a lot of excuses we make for not being or most successful selves. We’ve all used them at least once, or have heard other people use them, over and over again! But how true are they really? This is a conversation we have recently been having and we wanted to bring you in on it. In this episode, we are talking about the excuses we make for not achieving success in our business and the things we like to tell ourselves about how others achieved their success.

We start off by looking at geographical location and how the attitudes toward money and status can influence the way we start to define and articulate our own success. We also discuss the “overnight success” myth and why time is one of the most misunderstood aspect of success. We also want to take this opportunity to remind you that you don’t need to know all the hot shots, or even know much at all for that matter, to be successful. The most successful people are great learners who focused, made the time, didn’t blame their kids and tried! If you are finding yourself constantly making excuses about your business, or the lack thereof, then this is the episode to listen to for a fresh perspective and a kick up the rear!

Today on the podcast we have our work husband, Parker Stevenson. Parker is our bookkeeper, our CFO, business adviser, our friend, our frienemy and everything in between. You have probably heard us mention Parker throughout this podcast series. He is like the Where’s Waldo of TCC and an absolute hoot. Today, we are revealing the mystery of Parker Stevenson and are going to be talking all about scaling a service-based business. Instead of teaching you sexy bookkeeping things, Parker is actually going to talk about his own business and give you a peek into some of his own business strategies.

Parker went down the same rabbit hole that many entrepreneurs do, where he thought creating a passive online course program was going to be the solution for his business growth and scalability. But in this episode, you’ll learn how they decided it wasn’t going to work for them and why they decided to scale the service side of their business instead. Parker has a wealth of experience and is here to share with you why service-based businesses are severely underrated. If you are a new business owner or in the process of re-thinking your current online business model – this is definitely an episode you won’t want to miss!

On today’s show we’re doing things a little differently and taking you through a process that we believe can make a world of difference in your life! This episode will be all about inventing a new possibility in your life, and you’ll see just what a shift this can make. Abagail tried out this exercise recently and found it super helpful and enlightening, so we could not resist sharing it with our listeners. Full disclaimer though, it might be a bit of bumpy ride because let’s face it, most things that help you grow are not pain free. But we promise you’ll thank us in the end!

Emylee will be going through the guided exercise for the first time during the episode and you can join in with he. We can all get down to the nitty gritty together! A lot of the time we deal with the positive and negative aspects of our lives in repeated patterns of behavior that do not allow for very much progress. The process we will be detailing is simple and straightforward, yet it provides a lot of insight and hope into how small adjustments can change our lives in big ways. So if you’re game, grab your favorite notepad and buckle in, we’re going deep!

We're taking a break from #BBS to reflect and share with you where we've come from and to remind you that no matter what you have been through in life, you CAN accomplish great things. We're jumping back to an old episode, so have a glass of wine while you’re listening to us. Kick back in your PJ’s, just chill, and be with us for a second. We are getting super real today. Not that we are any less real any other day, but we are taking it way back.

We hear so often that lives on Instagram look fancier than they are, and that Facebook portrays a certain façade. However, we are also really are in tune with being authentic for you guys and portraying our real selves as much as we can. We show our real selves as we are now and I think sometimes we forget where people have come from and what they have gone through in order to get to be where they are today. So that is exactly what we are doing today.

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.

So, we have a crazy idea! We’re excited and nervous about it and can’t wait to share with you. We have big dreams this year and yep, you guessed it. We want to take you on our journey to $100k per month. We recently came to the conclusion that making this amount of money every month is realistically quite doable for us at this point. We have formulated some new strategies, broken down more of our goals and in the next few weeks, we’re going to be pushing to make our $100k month a reality.

In this episode, we will be sharing with you how this dream came about and delving into the shifts of our money mindset, our questions and fears and why money is amoral and much like a brick. We want to open up the conversation about money with you and encourage you to examine your own money mindset. So, by the end of this episode, you should feel more comfortable talking about money, dreaming big and feeling less guilty about wanting more money – if that is what you truly want.

We are super excited to welcome our guest on today’s show and know you will love this episode! We talk to Lisa Robbin Young of Ark Entertainment Media about the idea of a six-figure business, something all entrepreneurs have thought about at least once. For many of us, Lisa included, six figures is a bottom line a business needs to reach in order to feel successful. Lisa also talks about how this does not have to be the case. There are in fact some instances where these standards do not apply, but realizing when is the key.

Lisa has a wealth of experience and expertise we cannot wait to share with you as we discuss different types of entrepreneurial styles and personalities and how they influence the way a business is run. We break down how to start translating those strengths into money and success as well as tactics such as freebies and promotions. We sure are grateful for Lisa’s know-how and know you will be too after this great episode. Get ready and let’s get into it!

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.

Hey ya’ll! Today we wanted to take you back to our most popular episode ever, and it happens to be one from the very beginning where Abbie shares her story and tells you all about her journey before Think Creative Collective was born. Abagail graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Fine Art in Graphic Design and a minor in Business Administration. Before the launch of TCC, Abbie had an incredible five plus years of business and design experience accelerating companies of all shapes and sizes. Inside this episode she also shares about her time running her free lance design business.

One of the most amazing stories is how, within 30 days of getting the pink slip, she was able to completely replace her corporate income. Wow! Before the inevitable moment came along, Abbie created a website and started blogging five days a week. Eventually she grew her own business and worked day and night to find success. So if you are just starting out in the business world and you haven’t heard her Abbie’s story of how she went from getting laid off in the corporate world to replacing her cushy corporate income within just 30 days, you are in for a treat! So put on those slippers, bust out the coffee and enjoy this throwback episode.

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!

On today’s episode, we welcome our good friend and social media whizz, AllieDanae Walker. AllieDanae owns a Virtual Assistant and Social Media Managing company called of The Social Walker Agency. She works with companies, running their online presence and keeping their social platforms in check. We are actually lucky enough to say we have had first-hand experience with AllieDanae while she has been the VA for The Strategy Hour Podcast! We love AllieDanae and know you will too and we cannot wait to share all her knowledge with our listeners!

What are some of the ways you can apply for a Virtual Assistant position? How do you grow a small, one-person operation into a company with employees and assistants of its own? When looking for VAs, what can companies do to ensure a healthy and successful relationship in this regard? If any of these questions sound faintly familiar or if you just want to get the lowdown on an important aspect of present-day business, then we know this episode is for you. Tune in to hear more!