Episode Sneak Peek: "Who ever said that our careers have to be these finite things? That we have to stop growing at some point?"   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

Making the decision to quit is one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

Yet, I've made it nearly a dozen times throughout my career and entrepreneurial journey. From quitting a job after only six weeks to closing a business after two and a half years, I've experienced my fair share of quitting one thing to move on to another. In this episode, I'm sharing about my own experience, the shame I felt around quitting, and how you know when it's the right time to call it quits.

  go behind the scenes   "Knowing when to quit and move on is terrifying, because even when your gut is telling you it's time, it means that it's going to require you to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And that's scary."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

Episode 81: My Not-So-Typical Career Path

Episode 83: Closing a Business, Depression, & The Butterfly Effect with Eileen Guan

Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "I know what it feels like to say 'I need help," and no ones paying attention to you, until it's too late."   Listen! listen and subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

A young girl battling self-hatred after losing her mother and her father finds her way back to self-love again.

If you listened to Chakayla share her inspiration without hearing her story, you'd have no clue that she spent a decade of her life hating everything about herself. In this episode, I sit down with Chakayla Taylor, a certified goal success life coach, to dive into her story. Chakayla shares both the good and the bad that have shaped her into the inspirational, kickass woman that she is today, as well as the nuggets of wisdom her mother imparted to her that guide everything she does.

  "You have to want it, even when you're stumbling."   go behind-the-scenes   "This is something about life that you just cannot control. You cannot control somebody else's actions. You cannot control somebody else's reactions. The only thing that you can control is what you say ... and what you allow yourself to go through .. what you allow yourself to experience."   join the conversation in the Facebook community   "Perception is everything."   Links From This Episode:

Shonda Rhimes, "My year of saying yes to everything" TED talk

The Soup Podcast

www.chakaylajtaylor.com

Chakayla on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest

S-Town Podcast

Chef's Table on Netflix

Grit + Glitter on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: “This is never where any of us thought that I would get, and so I sometimes wonder, “Am I doing enough with the life that I’ve been given?””   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

So many of us experience a lot of guilt around feeling the need to justify our time and how we spend our days and how much money we're making. It's a debilitating cycle that I think a lot of entrepreneurs have found themselves in.

In this episode, I sit down with the artist Alexis Drolet to talk about the guilt she's experience from chasing her dreams. After graduating with a degree in Biology and Neuroscience, Alexis spent the first part of her career working within that field. After having kids, though, she decided to start a new career as an artist.

She shares about the initial guilt she experienced because she wasn't doing what she, and others, thought she'd be doing now, given her background and degree. She also opens up about wondering whether what she's doing is living up to other people's expectations and the guilt the feels pursuing art and feeling like she should be doing something "more".

  go behind-the-scenes   “I say, “I’m an artist,” and I’ve been trying really hard to hold my head up high and say that that is who I am and what I do.”   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

www.alexisannecreative.com

Dashes of Happiness Etsy shop

Phone + desktop wallpapers Alexis created for the podcast

Alexis on Instagram and Facebook

Episode 81

Grit + Glitter on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "I'm too much for a lot of people, and that's OK."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

Maybe I've been living under this safe little shelter, but after nearly 4 years in the entrepreneurial world, this is the first time I've gotten (or seen) a public, negative review of my work. And honestly, I was quite shocked at my response.

In this episode, I'm sharing with you exactly how I felt the moment I read the review and how I've processed it over the past two weeks. I also share a little about the anxiety I've been dealing with recently (more on that in a future episode) and how this negative review unexpectedly freed me from that anxiety.

  go behind-the-scenes   "It happened and it didn't crush me. Instead, it did the opposite. It made me want to stand up taller. It made me want to talk faster and louder and be more myself than I already am. It made me love me even more."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "It's hard to convince yourself that you have a place there, you have a voice there, and you have the confidence and the will to make something happen."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

One perspective we don't hear a lot about in the entrepreneurial community is the hard parts of deciding when to close a business and how to move on from there.

In this episode, I sit down with Eileen Guan, one of the founders of Billion, a social enterprise crowdfunding platform, to talk about the journey through starting and growing Billion to deciding to close it very recently. Eileen shares about why they closed Billion, how she made that decision, and what she's doing now. We also talk about working in tech as a young female entrepreneur, dealing with depression, giving up the title of "founder/entrepreneur", and her experience as a minority female with immigrant parents.

  "I could not have done it without really strong, smart, wonderful, powerful women that bent down and extended a hand and helped lift me up."   support this episode through Patreon   "We put a lot of respect and we put a huge spotlight on people that lead in that huge way - like that are CEOs or presidents - but I think for a little while, I'm OK being someone that's working the machines in the background."   join the conversation in the Facebook community   "Originally why I pitched Billion was because I wanted to change the freakin' world. And there's probably a lot of ego in that thinking that I could do something like that, but at least I wanted to try and to be a part of it."  

Links From This Episode:

Margaret Cho

XPrize

"She Has a Name"

Give Back Hack

Claire Coder in episode 33 and episode 70

Call Your Girlfriend podcast

The Butterfly Effect

Eileen on Twitter

www.hiitsjack.com

Hi it's Jack on Instagram

Episode Sneak Peek: "Fear has to be present in our lives ... but the trick is not letting it control all of your actions."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

Lady Gaga pretty much said it spot on when she sang, "Rejoice and love yourself today, 'cause baby you were born this way."

Embracing what makes you different is this amazing thing that allows you to play to your strengths and build a business and a following of people who truly love you for you. Easier said than done, though. For so many of us, embracing what makes us different is a long journey. In this episode, I sat down with Michelle Knight, a business and branding coach, to talk about her own journey, moving through the fears of standing out, and getting OK with the fact that not everyone is going to love you.

  support this episode through Patreon   "Someone somewhere needs to hear your message."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

www.brandmerry.com

Michelle on Instagram

Grit + Glitter on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "I was a really smart, intelligent person and successful in school, and I had just always assumed that my career would reflect that."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

I had 4 different jobs within 9 months of graduating college and 7 jobs within 2 years of graduating.

After spending all of my educational career as a straight-A student, I felt like a complete failure when it came to figuring out my career path. In today's episode, I thought it was about time that I sit down and share the real down-low with you about my career - all the jobs and dirty details. I share about working multiple jobs at once to make ends meet, how I got started with freelance work and working from home, and I answer one of the most-asked questions I get - how do I actually make money (or do I?).

  support this episode through Patreon   "It's so important to remind ourselves that we don't have to go the typical career route. And it's OK to not know what we want to do and who we want to be. And it's OK to try lots of different things, in a span of several months or several years as you're figuring that out."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "I literally cried because it was the first time that someone paid for Frost'd, and it was just magical to me."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

An ultra-runner followed her passion and turned her sweet tooth into a business.

In this episode, I sit down with Jessica Hamel, the founder of Frost'd, a coconut oil snack frosting, to chat about the first years of starting a business. Knowing she always wanted to be an entrepreneur, Jessica shares about why this business idea was the one that stuck and how her passion for ultra-running led her to it.

We talk about "overnight successes" and not getting swept away in the doubts and expectations of that when first starting out. Jessica also shares about balancing her social media business while trying to grow Frost'd, her Follow Your Passion project, and how she decides how much of herself to share through her brand.

  "It's a lot of work. It is not easy. And you're not going to make money from it in the beginning. So, you have to be passionate."   support this episode through Patreon   "I'm not just selling frosting, I'm building a brand. I'm building something that inspires other people, and that's not just through the product."   join the conversation in the Facebook community   "It's the story. You do it for the story."   Links From This Episode:

Follow Your Passion Project

Sweet Talks video series

Real Athlete Diets

Wylder Goods

www.eatfrostd.com

Frost'd on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

Grit + Glitter on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "We have a choice here. We can choose imperfection."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

Perfectionism isn't just a personality trait. It's a coping mechanism we use to cover up what's really going on inside - hurt.

In this episode, I sit down with Wendy de Jong of The Gratefulist to dive into what perfectionism really this. In our conversation, Wendy peeled back the layers of perfectionism and really blew my mind. She talks about what the root of perfectionism really is, the two core birthplaces of perfectionism, and why it seems to affect females so deeply. Wendy also opens up about her childhood and how she's used perfectionism in her own life to cope. It's a goooood one - one of my favorites, if I'm being honest.

  support this episode through Patreon   "Perfectionism is a dangerous and harmful way of thinking and behaving. It's a coping mechanism that we use when we feel scared or insecure or uncertain or not good enough."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

Brene Brown, "The Gifts of Imperfection" (aff. link)

Brene Brown, "Daring Greatly" (aff. link)

www.theimperfectboss.com

www.thegratefulist.com

The Soul-Connected Squad Community

Wendy on twitter and instagram

Grit + Glitter on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Episode Sneak Peek: "I felt like when I hit that number that I would believe in myself. I felt like hitting that number would mean that I was justified in this work that I'm doing."   Listen! listen & subscribe in iTunes   What's In This Episode:

I'd been looking forward to hitting 25k downloads of the podcast for several months. It was this number that I decided in my head would change everything ... or at least some things. I started to believe that hitting that number would somehow justify my work and prove my worth. It didn't hit me until the night I hit 25k, though.

In this episode, I sit down the day after hitting that milestone, get a little emotional, and honestly share how I didn't find my worth in that number like I'd been expecting to. In fact, I didn't feel any different at all.

  support this episode through Patreon   "25k downloads is simultaneously the most amazing thing ever and something to be celebrated and simultaneously it changes nothing. And that's a really hard pill to swallow."   join the conversation in the Facebook group   Links From This Episode:

Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook