My Takeaways From the Women in Business Panel

This week I was able to attend an amazing event at Kiln in Meridian. First of all, if you have not yet been to Kiln and you're in the Treasure Valley, why!? What are you doing!? It is the DREAMIEST co-working space and it truly gets those creative juices flowing. Plus the girls that work there are so sweet and helpful and are more than happy to give visitors a tour of the space. Seriously, go check it out. They have events like this Women in Business Panel as well as yoga sessions, apres work happy hours, aaaand I'm working with them to host Watercolor Paint and Sip events as well ;)

Anwayzzz, moving onto the juicy bits.

This panel was moderated by Natalie Plummer, founder of the community page Hello Meridian and the Boise Bubble Podcast. The panelists were: Hanna McGee- founder of Empowered Women Connect, Lindsey Nadler- Founder of CEO Hat Club, Katie Villa- COO of Roundhouse, Shannon McGuire- Founder of Spark Strategic Solutions and SupreME Moms, and Jen Bobodzhanov- Life Coach and Owner of Barre3 Eagle.

The full recap of this powerful panel will be available to listen to on Natalies Podcast, the Boise Bubble. It's worth a listen.

I was just going to do a quick recap of the key points I got from this panel, but as I got to writing, I realized I have too much I want to say and I'm writing a blog post not a novel- so we're breaking this up into a series! Wooh! The first topic that was discussed at the panel was "Work Life Balance". Something I know SO many of us could use assistance with. I wrote down quotes and phrases that were said throughout the conversation and essentially, this is me elaborating and bring in some of my personal experience. So let's get into it.

“No is a complete sentence.”

And it's as simple as that. I don't know about you guys, but I am definitely guilty of feeling the need to over-explain myself when I say "no" to something. Something inside of me feels compelled to justify myself whenever I find myself needing to set a boundary. I like to think it's because I want to protect other peoples feelings, but if I'm getting honest with myself, it's probably more so because I want to protect other people's perception of me. But really, who cares? I don't even know what these people think of me to begin with and truly, it's none of my business. So why give my power and energy away just for the sake of being "liked" or perceived a certain way?! It's so silly. People pleasing won't get me any closer to MY vision or MY dream life. That is MINE to own. So from here on I'm giving myself permission to protect my energy. "No" is a complete sentence. No justification required.

“Work life synergy that leads to fusion”

A great point brought up by Shannon when discussing work-life "balance". As I've made the transition to pursing my business more full time, I found myself really relating with her and her verbiage of "work life synergy". We hear it all the time "work life balance" and I've found myself struggling with that concept for a while now. I still believe life is a balancing act of sorts, however- balance becomes easier when there is *synergy* in the equation.

I started a new job last year working from home. That was a whole transition that challenged my perspective on work-life balance. Since becoming an entrepreneur, that perspective has shifted even more. When you go from a 9-5 job in an office, it feels a bit easier to leave work at work. You physically leave it behind which makes it (at least for me) easier to detach at the end of the day. Working from home or owning your own business, it can feel all consuming at times. It can also feel like you're never doing enough and propel you to work yourself to death, or at least until sunrise the next day.

This idea of synergy paints a beautiful picture in my mind. This lovely dance, the ebb and flow of the tides, the cycles of the moon. I've been working on this a lot in my life personally- breaking down the conditioning of the classic work week. The 9-5, M-F grind. I mean I became an entrepreneur (at least in part) to not live that life, but here I am feeling guilty that I'm not on the same schedule as the "rest" of the world. So weird. Social conditioning and all. But that's a topic for a different day haha.

Anyways, I'm working to give myself more grace as my days are starting to look a lot different than most. It's amazing that I can go grocery shopping and run all my errands at 11am on a Monday when most of the world is working! But then on Saturday night I have an event I'm working. Or on Sunday I'm staying up late catching up on admin stuff, writing copy, updating my website, basically straight grinding while others are chilling out and getting ready for their week to begin. My days look different than what I was conditioned to believe a "productive work day" or work week looks like, and thats OK! Actually that is fantastic because that is exactly the life I wanted for myself. I should be proud of how far I've come and keep riding this synergy wave as my life and business grow and evolve.

Wow sorry for my personal rant but some serious reflection here. So whatever that means for you, find your synergy. and follow it fiercely.

“Say yes to me”

I think this is so important! You MUST say yes to yourself. You HAVE to prioritize doing things for YOU. It is your life after all. It's harder and more draining to show up for anything else in our lives, if we don't first show up for ourselves.

I personally think it is SUPER important to intentionally get to know our inner workings, to find what sets our soul on fire, and to do things that challenge our growth and evolution. If we don't take the time to get clear on these things, how do we know where to go? Where is our North Star, our guiding light? This life is up to us to create. We have to spend the time and energy to know and love ourselves and do things that align with the vision of our dream life. If your actions and choices are inching you towards, or aligning you with the future you dream of, you're doing something right. But you first have to give yourself permission to say yes to yourself. And then show up for yourself.

A little bit of my background:

As I'm writing this I feel like I should give a little introduction to who I am so it might give you more insight into where I'm coming from.

My name is Kaylee and I'm from Boise, Idaho. I currently reside here with my boyfriend and 2 dogs. I am the owner and founder of Moonstruck Creations. We currently offer public and private watercolor workshop events in the Treasure Valley. I started hosting these events in March of 2022 (this year) and have found great success with my business so far. BUT it has not always been that way.

I initially started my watercolor journey back in 2017. I realized I had a natural talent for it and quickly became overwhelmed with custom order requests. Of course I wanted to pursue this idea of being an artist and owning a business. So I started a small side hustle doing commission work and chalk lettering, etc. Long story short. it burnt me TF out! I ended up resenting having to paint and show up in my business and kind of ran away from it for a bit.

I graduated from Boise State with a degree in Business and a minor in Marketing in December of 2017. By February of 2018 my entire life had changed. Like drastically. I moved to Hawaii, I had gotten a divorce at 23 years old, and I had basically started over. I went through a period of rebirth and expansion beyond what I knew I was capable of at the time. After a while, I decided I wanted to start up my biz again so I started creating more. I got a vinyl cutter and made products, I got my artwork printed on pillows, I got prints made, stickers, all kinds of goods. I found an amazing store off of Ali'i, SugarMomo, and got some guidance from the beautiful and kind Mo. She helped me learn about wholesale vs consignment, working with retailers, and allowed me to sell my products in her stores and share space with her at the Sunday Market.

I learned so much and had gotten so excited about expanding my business and my partnership with Mo and the gals at SugarMomo. Shoutout to the handmade bikini queen (or Bikini Bean), Dawson and the lovely intuitive, Peace. But then I got a wild hair to once again uproot my life and start all over. So I applied for a working holiday visa and moved off to New Zealand. I continued traveling after my time in New Zealand and explored parts of Europe before returning to the US to become a flight attendant.

Well fast forward to 2020 and I HATED that job. It was like babysitting in a floating metal tube and I was just not okay mentally. So I left the aviation world and got a regular ol' 9-5 job. Something I always knew I didn't want to do. But at this point in my life I had been through seemingly so much and had been working through so much instability, especially financially, that I was trying to convince myself that maybe this is the life for me after all. It's not. I was right haha. Always trust your intuition.

Anyways, there is SO much more I can elaborate and expand on about this crazy journey of mine. But most of these are topics for another day. The main reasons for me sharing my story are: to empower you to share yours, and to give you some back story so you can understand more about the process and how I've gotten where I am with my business today. It most definitely hasn't been all rainbows and sunshine, and I still have a looooong way to go. But I literally dreamt up this life I'm living, and here I am watching this dream continue to unfold in front of me. I sometimes just can't believe it.

Anyways, more blogs to come about other topics discussed in the Women in Business Panel. So keep an eye out ;)

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I truly appreciate your presence.

Cheers,

Kaylee