SPEAKER_00: 0:01

I had allocated three months to myself. By month two, I was itching to get back to my desk because that was the only thing that felt familiar to me. The only thing. Motherhood was so foreign and overwhelming and scary, and I felt like I was constantly screwing up that I wanted to get back to a place where I knew I could do well and feel good about that. Right? So I get back, I get back a month two postpartum, and all of a sudden, my time isn't completely flexible anymore. I don't have from seven to seven to work on things.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

Hi, I'm Becky. Welcome to Short Story Long. In this podcast, we discuss ways you can integrate who you are into how you lead. Today my guest is Kayla Seshe, the powerhouse behind Umari Digital. She's built a reputation for crafting stunning websites, graphics, and marketing that have fueled the success of more than 75 businesses across industries, as diverse as entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, real estate, and beyond. With a degree and awards in graphic design, Kayla's not just a creative. She's also a speaker, fellow podcast host of Bringing Up Business, and a proud mom. She brings curiosity, bold ideas, and a love of beautiful visuals into everything she touches. I'm so excited to dive into her journey and the inflection point she will be sharing today. Hi, Kayla. Welcome to the mic.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

Hi, Becky. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

Absolutely a pleasure. And like I say, I'm super excited to just kind of dive into your story and the before, the afters, all of the fun things that that come up to be where you are today. And so, as you know, we're talking about an inflection point today. So, do you mind just sharing with the audience really quickly what that inflection point looks like in general?

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

Oh boy. So in a nutshell, I decided to go from solopreneur slash freelancer to marketing agency owner, which entails a team of people to help me. A month after starting the agency, I found out I was pregnant. So yeah, yeah, found myself at a point where I'm raising two babies at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

Yeah, exactly. Growing two things. How exciting. Yes, absolutely. I can't imagine you had factored that in to that switch to agency at that point in time. Talk to me a little bit about where you were that prompted that decision to move from solopreneur to agency.

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

Yeah. So I had started, I had started freelancing in 2016. I had taken that leap of faith, took that bet on myself, went from nine to five into working for myself. And that was that was really, really scary, right? Fortunately, I landed in a space where I was able to rely on my network to bring in some business. You know, I put my feelers out there. Hey, I'm I'm a graphic designer. This is what I'm doing. And the leads came in and they blossomed into this beautiful garden of clientele. I mean, word of word of mouth is really what helped me float for a good five or six years. And then it got to that's fabulous. Oh, it was the the biggest, the the biggest blessing. I I did not expect that. Um, but I will say that I had always worked from, and I still continue to this day, to work from a place of value. Am I providing the maximum amount of value for my clients? You know, if if they're hiring me for something, they're trusting me with their dollars, and I am going to deliver a product that I can be proud of and that they can feel great about. You know, I'm I'm serving small business owners. And so I'm helping them go from idea stage to full on, we are running this thing. Or sometimes even, you know, we're running this thing, but we're looking to upgrade. Right. So that's that was the mindset that I was that I was in. And but I got to a point where I was really busy. I wanted to take on different work, more work, explore different industries. And I just couldn't do that with the time constraints. You know, there's only one of me, 24 hours in a day. And I needed help. I reached out to a business mentor. She, along with some fellow colleagues who worked with this organization. The organization's called Score. Highly recommend for Score is amazing. Score is absolutely amazing. So my business mentor, along with her colleagues, they all weighed in on how I was running my freelance operation. And they gave me some of the coolest advice. And and and one of those, one of those bits was to branch out, get some people to help me. And so that's what I did. I focused on branching out. And and in doing so, I had to rebrand. I could no longer say Kalas Ashe as the name of the company. I mean, I guess I could, I could do Kalas A and Co, but it just felt a little weird. So I don't know. For me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:08

For me, at all.

SPEAKER_01: 5:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

Not my cup of tea.

SPEAKER_01: 5:10

As you made the decision to shift from solopreneur into agency, I am imagining that there was a lot of thought that goes into how does that change the structure? How does that change who is selling the work and involving in some of that business development in terms of the completion of the work? You talked a little bit about the different parts that you were putting together and everything. And of course, when you're a solopreneur, you're the only one doing all of those things, which means that you are the core of all of the revenue generation that is happening. So as you were shifting into agency mode where you get to share that as an opportunity, how did that start to process in your mind when you realized, wow, I'm going to have to be on maternity leave for a period of time, and I wouldn't be able to hunt, if you will, during that period of time, and my revenue might take a tank. How did you balance all of those thoughts out?

SPEAKER_00: 6:15

Oh boy. A major shift that I had made before, before going on maternity leave was changing my pricing structure and and the overall billing process. So as a as a freelancer, everything was hourly. Everything was hourly. So I was directly trading my time for hours. And of course, bringing on people that doesn't that doesn't always work. That structure doesn't always work. And I also found that clients luckily were starting to expect a more complete idea of how much they were going to be spending on a project. So instead of just kind of going along with the ride and watching the hours stack up or the bills stack up, I could instead say, hey, this is the price for this service up front. So that was that was a big shift. That was one big billing shift. The second big billing shift was the the actual um recurring model of some of these services that I was offering. So for example, previously, again, hourly, if I was popping into a website after it had already it had already been launched, and I was doing all the maintenance, that was on an hourly basis, right? And I was just I go in, I'd I clean it up, do whatever I have to do, fix the thing, pop out. But that was recurring, right? Businesses, you you can't just build a website and then let it go forever and that's it.

SPEAKER_01: 7:51

Let it hang out out there for a while, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

Exactly. It needs it needs to be maintained to a certain degree depending on your industry and your business model. And so I uh with the with the guidance of my mentor, we decided to create a subscription service and figure out all of those different services that I was offering, and how can I put those on a recurring basis instead of this one-time or hourly structure? So those subscriptions actually helped to float some of the active income while I was on maternity leave. Unfortunately, I was still in the infancy with that, so I I wasn't able to supplement the entire regular income. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 8:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:33

Now I I did also have a mindfulness with with my padding and and my my safety net. So I did build that up before I went on maternity leave. That helped a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 8:45

Good.

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

So yeah, yeah. So financially that helped a lot. Um, and then as far as the actual who is doing what, that was the hardest part of me to to to wrap my brain around, you know, who is going to be doing these tasks. Ultimately, when I zoomed out and I examined all of the different tasks that had to be done, I I would rate each from one to ten. What do I enjoy the least versus the most? And okay, the the zeros, did they even need to be done? Could I just eliminate them altogether? Or did I have to delegate them? And so going down that list, I I realized that the tens for me were all of the interactions that I got to have with other people. I love client meetings. I love getting out and into the sales meetings and talking with new people, hearing their stories, figuring out what it is that motivates them. So I decided to keep on that part. But all of the graphic design parts, which is kind of ironic, I have a degree in graphic design, but I decided to hire that out.

SPEAKER_01: 9:51

Yes. So that that wasn't all of everything when you're in an agency, by definition, there were other people in order to do some of those things. And that's right. May I just say I love the mathematical diagram of that as well, of we're just going to kind of map this out and really be analytical about that. And so often I talk to people who are like, well, that's just weird. And it's like, well, except it when it works, then it's not weird. Then it actually just gives you a way of thinking about how do I manage this process? And it makes me think about too, at one point, you also had to recognize, wow, I'm in labor. I'm going to be going out on maternity leave, and I'm going to be shifting my focus entirely to my human baby as opposed to the agency baby. What was necessary for you to be thinking about as you shifted to, okay, this is family time now?

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

I had to trust that everything that I had delegated or put on autopilot was going to take care of itself. And if for any reason it didn't, look, the world is not going to explode. I will be okay. It was just this trusting and this knowing that all of the energy and effort and dedication that I had put into this business, whether it was freelance or agency up to that point, was going to pay off. Because at the end of the day, I was so dedicated and still am, obviously, to my clients that there was a loyalty there. There's an understanding that Kayla's going to come back and Kayla's still going to make sure that this is taken care of.

SPEAKER_01: 11:38

Absolutely. And what really strikes me as you say that too is flashing back to I quit my nine to five to do a solopreneur and then I jumped forward from solopreneur to agency. What I really think is powerful about what you're sharing with me, even so far, is you're talking about a couple of really dramatic and courageous shifts, right? So there's the one that's, hey, nine to five or doing my thing, jump into my solopreneur and really trust in my network and grow my business that way. And then all of a sudden it's, wow, I'm I'm ready for some interesting things. I want to expand. And so, hey, I know. How about I make another leap and I'm going to go from solopreneur into agency? How did those two shifts feel the same or different for you?

SPEAKER_00: 12:29

Oh, that's such a powerful question. When I was at my nine to five, I felt like I had maxed out all of the potential in that position. And I was at a point where I wanted to shift the way that I was living life. And that sounds, maybe that's a little airy-fairy, but it got to the point where I wanted more control over my schedule. I was having health issues and stress issues because of that job. I I just wanted more freedom and flexibility. And so in my what was it, 23-year-old brain, I was like, okay, let's take the leap and just go solo. I had no plan. Let's be very clear. I had I had zero plan. And this was this was kind of on the back of something major that had happened at that job, which is part of my prompting and quitting. But when I came back home and I realized, like, okay, I'm I'm here. It's just me. I don't have any boss or structure anymore. What do I do? What does this look like? That was a that was a huge shift, right? Whereas going from solopreneur to agency, I had a lot more direction. I had a lot more vision in what I wanted to do. And so that was a major way in that those two were different. Now, the similarity between the two was the unknown. Stepping out into this next new world and just not knowing what was going to happen and trusting, having that faith in myself, in I don't know, the universe, if you will, like what's going to happen next. That faith was a huge key.

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

Yes. Yes. You have to believe that it's possible in order to even step out, much less step out and make it successful. Yes. And recognizing that this is something that at least it sounds like. So you tell me if this is true or not. But it sounds a little bit like it was just something within you that was saying, Yeah, this is this thing I need to do now. It wasn't like someone pushing you to do it or anything like that. It was you hearing from the folks at score, hey, this could be a thing for you. And you saying, Yeah, that could totally be a thing. And really finding that vision, finding that plan, and then recognizing that, you know, as plans often do, that's not going to be exactly what happens, right? And sure enough, it sounds like that's exactly not what happened. And you discover that you were pregnant. How did that change your plan?

SPEAKER_00: 15:08

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01: 15:09

It uh question of the year, Becky. Seriously, everything changed. I get it. I do.

SPEAKER_00: 15:17

Yeah, it's it's not so much that the plan changed. I I mean, other than the the very practical, like, well, okay, well, what is my day-to-day gonna look like now? You know, it it was there was definitely a shift in how I had to think about my my days upcoming after giving birth and in even right before giving birth, right? It was more so how I was spending my time in that moment. That was the major shift. Because now, instead of just focusing on the agency, I'm also trying to learn how to be a mom and be pregnant and give birth and all of the major milestones that happen so quickly in such a compact amount of time between finding out you're pregnant, which for me I was what, two, two months in already? Okay, which meant I already had seven, yeah, I had seven months left of pregnancy. That was it. You're seven, eight months, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 16:12

You're like, wait, hold on. I was supposed to have more time than this. And and like you say, because my understanding is that this was your first child. So this learning curve had to be really steep. You were in this place of, you know, maybe you had some familiarity with pregnancy, but not your own. And and so going through that learning cycle, what what did you notice about having to balance the growth of the agency with the growth of your baby?

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

I think ultimately I just cared about both so much. And I still do, obviously, right? It just it it's a good thing. It's great to hear. Yeah, yeah, you know, there's yeah, I feel like this thing. But it's it's more so like a caring in in a in a hopeful, almost scared, anticipatory type of way. You know, like I I hope I get this right. There was a lot of pressure that I put on myself in both arenas. I hope I can do this right, you know. If I I hope I can build up the agency enough, enough, have enough bones and structure put together and ready for me so that when I jump into maternity leave and then I return back to work, I have some sort of a of an oiled machine. I won't say well-oiled, I wasn't putting that much pressure on myself, but enough of a machine so that it would it continued running while I was away. And same with with motherhood. I I have so I had so many expectations about what motherhood would look like. And I realized a lot of those were rooted in some sort of a perfectionism, if you will, uh really dangerous, insidious thinking that ended up spiraling me later, later on, and I had to work back out of that and and rewire that part of myself. But but yeah, ultimately I just had so much self-imposed pressure in both of those arenas. And after giving birth, I realized, oh my gosh, none none of that was really that serious.

SPEAKER_01: 18:19

Interesting. Yeah. So when you're putting that pressure on yourself during that growth phase, during that development phase of the agency and your pregnancy, what do you look back now and recognize? Wow, you know, when I was building up that agency, there were things that I worried about that maybe were worthy of attention, but not that much concern.

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I was really focused on setting people into the right placement, right? I wanted to make sure that I had this part going self-sustainably on its own without me. I wanted this other part going self-sustainably, you know, all of the parts of a business. I wanted them basically to run themselves while I was away. But going from freelancer to to the the beginning stages of an agency, that's just not feasible. That's unfair to think that way because there has to be a transition from one person being being the name behind a company to to the shift in in how the client thinks about the company. You know, instead of thinking of uh you know, beginning Umari Digital as Kayla Sachet, Kayla Sachet is the one doing all of the things, we all had to shift our thinking to, hey, Umari Digital as a team is going to be taking on this project.

SPEAKER_01: 19:41

Right, right. You don't have to talk to Kayla in order to get things done. Some things, yes, absolutely, probably still went up to you, but you had other people in place to manage certain things. What do you think would have been a more realistic expectation of yourself in that growth phase?

SPEAKER_00: 20:04

I I think it was a more realistic expectation of myself and of the company would be to have realized the reality of the situation. Look, my people, my clientele, they're so used to coming to me for for everything. And that's okay. That's okay. That's just gonna be that's gonna have to be how it is until I I am able to better structure and build up this thing. And yeah, I even had a client where I I was ready to hand her off to to someone while I was away. And my client was a hard no. She was like, no, I I just I don't even want to do any of any of this until you get back because I only want to work with you. And so it was that that mindset, that thinking that I that I realized I had to honor and respect within my clients, and then I just I had to roll with.

SPEAKER_01: 21:01

Right, right. What do you notice now about the contracting and the setting of expectations with your clients so that they recognize that it's not only you and all you?

SPEAKER_00: 21:14

It's really just a pronoun shift, I versus we, right? Instead of I, I will, I will build this website for you, I will create this flyer for you. It's it's a we. We will get this done for you. And the the timeline, there's also an expectation too with ETA, right? So when I am in full control of a project and I am the only one working on it, the AT the ETA can actually be a little bit faster, right? Because I am able to bend over backwards to make something happen. Whereas when I'm handing it off to somebody, I have to be reasonable and say, hey, that other person needs a lead time. And I need to give them that respect of having enough time to be able to do this project in a way that feels good to them too. Because it's not just me, it also has to feel good to them.

SPEAKER_01: 22:03

Yeah, yeah. And and Kayla, I know that a lot of my listeners are, you know, within corporate environments. They're not entrepreneurs like you and me. And the parallel that this really makes me think about is this idea of becoming a people leader within your career, where, and especially when you said, I no longer say I, I say we. And also my time frames need to shift. And it becomes this whole balance of right, I can't just pull an all-nighter to do this for this client, or, you know, and that might be an internal client, might be an external client from a people leader perspective in a corporate environment. And that can be such a difficult transition to be able to articulate that to someone else that and say, look, I it's not just me. I'm relying on other people. And maybe you don't even want to say, you know, hey, you know, having a team kind of slows me down because it's not actually that, right? It's we have more capacity to do more things, but sometimes things take longer because we're making sure it's the quality that we believe is right for you. That's right. What were some of the important things that you learned through that transition?

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

Ultimately, the value of my own time and my own boundaries and expectations of how I feel good about using my time. In the very beginning, after I came back from maternity leave, which by the way, I cut it a month short. I had allocated three months to myself. By month two, I was itching to get back to my desk because that was the only thing that felt familiar to me. The only thing. Motherhood was so foreign and overwhelming and scary. And I felt like I was constantly screwing up that I wanted to get back to a place where I knew I could do well and feel good about that. Right? So I get back, I get back a month two postpartum, and all of a sudden, my time isn't completely flexible anymore. I don't have from seven to seven to work on things. I have to split that. I have to split that with my son. I also have to honor my husband's schedule. He works from home as well. He also has his own business. And so we we found ourselves doing this dance of trying to get all the things done. And then ultimately, I did for the very first time ever in my business, I set desk hours. And I said, okay, these are the set pockets of time that I will be at my desk. That helps me know exactly when I can schedule meetings months in advance because they will always be the same desk hours. That also starts to build an expectation from my clientele over time. They realize that if they email me on a Saturday, I'm probably not going to respond. Or if I do, lucky them, right?

SPEAKER_01: 24:57

Right. This is a this is an off-norm kind of thing, and you shouldn't be expecting this forever. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 25:03

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So ultimately, honoring my time and respecting it, that was a brand new concept for me that I got to learn through through all of this.

SPEAKER_01: 25:13

Yeah. And such a powerful thing to recognize, which is I can't be everywhere to everyone all the time. And I need to make sure that, and the phrase that I use all the time related to this is that we train people how to treat us. And so when you were a solopreneur, you were training people and your clients that you were available to them whenever they wanted to reach out to you to, I'm sure, some limited right kind of degree as well, but not as structured, not as planful as what it sounds like you're continuing even now to do and started at this stage. And the importance of that shift and that recognition that it's not all me. And yet, like you were saying, you're also learning to be a mom at this point in time. And that too is a big shift. I think I've said this before, maybe on the podcast. I know I've said it to my family and friends. Never have I ever heard anyone say, wow, you know, parenting was exactly what I expected it to be. Right. Never, never have I heard that. And there's all this planning and all of these expectations that that I've heard people do. And now I've learned to say, yeah, yeah, I think it'll it, the baby will really probably dictate how all of that stuff goes. Some people hear me and they're like, oh no, we've got a plan. And I'm like, hey, good you. Um, we'll see how that goes, right? So talk to me a little bit about that experience, particularly while you were trying to grow the agency as well.

SPEAKER_00: 26:48

Absolute madness. So normal. Exactly. I had a really hard time with the immediate postpartum period, which they nicknamed the fourth trimester, the first three months after birth. It was it felt odd. It felt, it felt like I was undeserving of the grief that I was feeling in a way, because I had so much structure and control over my life. I designed it exactly the way that I wanted. I I really took so many different steps in order to line up my personal ducks in a row, and my career ducks in a row. And I felt so good about about all those circumstances. Had an excellent pregnancy, had a relatively smooth birth, aside from some pushy hospital staff. But, you know, I'm I'm a Sagittarius, I'm a fire sign. We don't, we don't tell me what to do. I'm the one who runs the show here.

SPEAKER_01: 27:49

I will I will decide. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:51

Okay, I love it. Exactly. Very intrinsically motivated, uh, filled by integrity. So, you know, I have I have all this smoothness in in my adult life that was so very intentional. But we we kind of we faced a ringer two weeks before I gave birth. Our my my husband's best friend had passed away.

SPEAKER_01: 28:12

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00: 28:13

Out of the blue, it was it was uh it was a it was it happened pretty quickly over the over the the span of a month. We went from, hey, you know, here's here's John, he's in the room with us, we're all laughing together to wow, John's no longer with us. He's gone. That's it. So I I felt like my husband and I were on two separate islands in that postpartum period. He was he was knee-deep in in he was neck deep in in grief. And I was neck deep in motherhood, you know, the the breastfeeding, the staying up with my kid, the the healing, the physical and the mental healing. And layering that on top of all that perfectionism that we we spoke about earlier, well, that was a nasty cocktail. That that sunk me into an actual depression.

SPEAKER_01: 29:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 29:08

Thankfully, uh again, Sagittarius fire, fire breather over here. I uh I vouched for myself several times at the doctor's office until finally they took me serious. And I said, look, I need help. I filled out this this darn survey a million times about asking me about my mental health. And and I've been honest. I've been like, look, I I don't want to I don't want to be here anymore. And nobody's taking me serious. I need help. Finally, by by the grace of who knows, a psychiatrist who I actually used to see as a as a child, she was still working at the same organization. Uh, she just transferred into the maternity ward, I guess. Yeah. And and she happened to come across one of my surveys and be like, oh my gosh. She rang the alarm bells. She she literally chased me down the hallway and said, You need to get your butt back in here. We need to talk. And that was the start of a very beautiful healing journey where I ultimately met a another psychiatrist who was able to walk me through some of these thinking patterns that I had fallen into. And one of them was the perfectionism. And after I was able to drop that, freedom, absolute freedom.

SPEAKER_01: 30:21

Okay. And yet it is an untangling. It is a process. And it's unfortunate. And I'm I'm sad to hear for you on your behalf that you were ringing your own bell and there were so many people who weren't hearing it. And yet, what a blessing that someone is going, oh, wait, hold on. This is worthy of me chasing you down a hallway, bringing you back in, in order to make sure that you're safe, you're protected, your family is safe and protected around this as well. And let's find our way to unravel everything that's been tied up into knots. When you look back at that situation at this point in time, what do you recognize about how you see perfectionism now?

SPEAKER_00: 31:08

Oh my gosh. It the way that I view it now is unnecessary. It's absolutely unnecessary. It is totally self-imposed. I I can't say that it's um that it's so easy to just flip the switch and get rid of it because it's it can be very, very deeply ingrained based on how we grow up and and all of our experiences that we collect over our lifetime. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we do have the power to rewire it.

unknown: 31:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 31:41

In one way or another. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 31:43

Literally rewire it. Yes. And so it it to me it's a necessary baggage. We don't need to put all this pressure on ourselves to be 110% for everybody, everywhere, all the time. Just us showing up to the table as we are can be more than enough to fill somebody else's cup. And we might not know it yet.

SPEAKER_01: 32:04

Right. Absolutely. And it makes me think too, as you were building the agency out. Who we are in one place is who we are in every place, in my mind. And where was the perfectionism in your way when you were growing the agency?

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

Oh my gosh. Just in general, from freelance all the way through growing the agency, that perfectionism showed up in me excessively spending way more time and energy than was needed on almost every task. It was it was so wasteful. I didn't need to be spending so much energy on something that honestly was good and was great enough three hours ago.

unknown: 32:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 32:52

And yet that last little bit, I'm sure if I tweak it a little bit more, it'll be just great. And I'm sure that people are really interested, right? In terms of yes, it's a rewiring process and a letting go of some of these beliefs that we've accumulated over time that that keep us in this belief of, oh my goodness, it has to be perfect or else I'm not good enough, kind of thing. As one iteration, anyway. I'm curious, what were some of the strategies that you learned to use as you started to unravel this and became less focused on perfection?

SPEAKER_00: 33:31

One of my favorite strategies, and this this applies mainly to business. When I'm in the middle of a task, right? I I just do a quick check-in. Hey, where are we actually at with the progress on this task? Do I do I just think that I'm at 50%, or is it really at 95%? How much more does this task actually require to be able to send it off? So that's that's that's the first one. The second one, this can apply to to personal life as well, is just catching those thoughts when they float through my mind. So if it's something like, I don't deserve this opportunity, well, why? Why don't I deserve this opportunity? Questioning it, or even more powerfully, flipping it and saying, of course I deserve this. Of course I do. I've I've put in and and maybe even edifying it. Hey, I've I put in so much work effort, da da da, or just saying, hey, by birth, right, I deserve this.

SPEAKER_01: 34:33

Right, right. I breathe, therefore I deserve, right? And and and and it's such a powerful thing to be able to, and I love this inverting something. I I do that with my clients a lot. Like when you say, you know, I don't deserve this, well, what about it do you actually deserve, right? And really pushing in that particular direction. And so sometimes those negative thoughts, if we invert them and try to justify the opposite, we start to see it in a different way. And we think, oh, yeah, okay, so that was totally made up. I can let that go now. And, you know, maybe we're a little sheepish. Sometimes we're really excited and enthusiastic, and sometimes we're thinking, why do I have to do that all the time? The other one though, I'm really curious, because I would expect that this takes a bit of practice. This whole idea of, am I really 50% done? What are the kinds of things that you take a look at to analyze to understand that no, actually it is 95%? How do you calibrate that? I guess is the best way for me to ask that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:37

What's helped a lot is developing project scope before getting started on the project. So very clearly laying out, okay, what are the parameters that need to be hit that not only I agree to do, but that the client agrees to receive. And, you know, sometimes, you know, laying out that scope can do a back and forth negotiation process until we land on a final scope of work that we both love. And that that black and white really helps to lay the tracks for the actual project. So it's it's really easy when, say, we're in the middle of a website. Website projects are huge. There are so many different moving parts. But if I go back to the scope of work and I say, okay, well, we just need, we just need an about page, we just need a contact page, we just need the home page, you know, whatever, whatever. And this is what needs to be on each page. Well, I can look at the website, I can use my eyes and look at it and say, are these things on the page? Yes or no. Yes, they are. Great. So me fiddling with with the tint of this teal color is just wasting time.

SPEAKER_01: 36:45

Right, right. And and yeah, it's a difference without a distinction kind of thing. And and it becomes an opportunity where if the client wants to tweak the teal, but if the client is ecstatic with where it is already, then what's the point of spending another three, five, 10 hours playing with all the different color variations, right? And and yes, I can absolutely see that. And, you know, this isn't, again, it's not just in uh an entrepreneurial space, because often there's often fuzzy, ambiguous, regularly changing. That's also true in the entrepreneurial space. However, even in a corporate space, you know, I mean, even in your private prior nine to five, you know, I'm sure that there were moments there that you were going, okay, so this is the expectation. And you were just to use it as the the metaphor, tweaking the teal in some of those things as well to make sure that, oh, well, I want to make sure it's the best that it can possibly be, versus we're going to meet the expectations and then we know that we'll take a look at it and get feedback about it. Absolutely and being able to iterate can be such an amazing piece of it. Absolutely. When you look back on that decision to switch to agency, the recognition of I'm going to have a baby, and that's exciting and also terrifying at the same time, right? Because really now, um, it I mean, it becomes so much happening all at once. And now you have a bit of distance from that time. What do you see? I mean, we talked about the perfectionism, but what do you see different about the way that you manage some of the decisions that you make at this point?

SPEAKER_00: 38:35

Hmm. I think I just I tread more lightly and more softly, more gently, both on myself with my with my team. I I do still have expectations of you know, if someone says ETA is is by this date, I will follow up. I will be a project manager in that way. But if someone says, hey, sorry, I I am really sick right now, I just can't do this thing. Or hey, I'm having an off day, I'm feeling funky, I don't know if I should be taking this on. There is a lot more grace in that space that I'm able to hold. Whereas before, I think I think I'd be a a bit more sharp, a little too sharp with with managing people. And and now I think about leadership and working with other humans in a more realistic way, really. I mean, it we're we're all human, we have our moments, and I I I prefer to roll with them instead of steamroll over them.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

I think that's a very important distinction. And there is such a power in recognizing the humanity of someone else, whether they work for you, whether they work near you, they might provide a service to you, whatever that might be, we don't know what kind of day they're having until they tell us. And it's so important to recognize that when we give grace, we're more likely to get it back when we need it as well. And it's such a powerful thing to be able to recognize that connection as part of the value. So I'm just thrilled beyond like my HR, my co-chart, like all the hearts are very happy as I as I hear you talk about that. And you know, as you look forward now, what are the big things that you're looking forward to with the agency, with being a mom?

SPEAKER_00: 40:39

Just continuing to to grow at a gentle pace. Before I had these these huge visions, okay, I want to do this and I want to have an office and I want to have this huge team. And now I'm like, you know what? I really don't care so much about all of these extrinsic things, you know, all of these accolades and and you know, having having a certain certain numbers, hitting certain numbers. Now I more so value how my day went. How was my day going? How was it today? Did I enjoy it? Did I get to laugh with my kid? Did we get to make a little memory? Like those are the the the true values to me now. Just those connections. And and you know, same same with my husband. Do we do we giggle today? Do we do we you know, do we do we connect? Do we do we have like human-to-human moment, or are we like both in robot mode, robot parent mode? You know?

SPEAKER_01: 41:37

Right, right. These are the tasks that must get done. We're gonna just going to toss them back and forth versus let's be connected while we do this. And really, it sounds like that's true within your agency as well, that you want to be connected to the people and maybe even giggle with them a little bit as well. And, you know, it's just really inspiring to hear how what might have felt like a really big challenge, and certainly objectively, big challenge, is where you you slid into that and you kept on learning and kept on trying to find your way to that next step and getting to that next place. Being sincere, being honest and straightforward with yourself about that. And I guess, Kayla, as we've been talking here, I'm wondering, is there anything more that I didn't ask you about that you'd want to make sure that we had a chance to talk about or any other things that you would want to discuss?

SPEAKER_00: 42:34

At the end of the day, what I want people to know is that life is so precious. It's just so precious. And maybe this is more of like a takeaway than it is a question, Rebecca. Okay. I I think it's so easy to to slip into our our day-to-day and and think about the problems that we're facing, the problems of the world, and and get get caught up in that. And this isn't to discount the very real issues that are happening, right? That's that right. We we still have to to hold space for that. But but getting caught up in that is is different, right? And letting that so deeply affect the way that we move about the world. Because ultimately giving ourselves the grace to say, hey, we are human is going to affect other people, and that and like you say, like it does bounce back to us, whether from them or just within ourselves. So it's just extending grace to ourselves, to other people, trying to treat each other well, love each other, you know. Yeah. The basics.

SPEAKER_01: 43:41

Right. And while acknowledging all of those things that are happening outside of us, there are so many things that we have a small contribution to changing. And yet we and we can be a catalyst for change in some of those regard. And at the same time, it's not necessarily ours to carry every day, all day. And so we can set some of that down and then go back and pick it up and have a different kind of experience of what that looks like. But the things that are the most important to us are really where I feel like you've you've really talked about today. What are the things that you hold really dear that are those kernels of just who you are, who you choose to be, and how you choose to show up? And then those external things are happening. And because of all of that inside the kernel kinds of things that you're doing, it kind of goes out and affects that in some sort of way. Is that kind of a fair representation?

SPEAKER_00: 44:43

Absolutely. Absolutely. I I deeply believe in in butterfly effect, you know, like a ripple effect. Yes. Right? It's it starts with us. How do how do we talk to ourselves? Okay, now how are we talking to our inner circle? And then eventually that that ripples out. How do they go out into the world and and interact with other people? How are they treating others? So it starts with how we treat ourselves and and first tapping into okay, what's actually going on with us? Asking those hard questions and giving the honest answers.

SPEAKER_01: 45:14

Absolutely. It it becomes a really powerful way to choose how we affect other people, is how we choose to interact with ourselves. And well, Kayla, just such a pleasure talking with you today. I'm so excited that we had a chance to do this together and uh wish you the very best in all things going forward. Thanks again for coming up to the podcast with me.

SPEAKER_00: 45:36

Thank you, Becky. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01: 45:38

If you have interest in connecting and learning more about today's guest, check out the show notes for ways to connect and follow up. Thanks for listening. If you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who could benefit from it. Until next time, I'm Becky Fraser, reminding you to integrate who you are with how you lead. Okay, bye.