Lead with your Heart if you want a life of Flow
19 days ago, we packed up our belongings and headed to rural Nevada ✨
In the next few months, we'll be:
🏠 settling into our community of <200 people
💒 finishing our alcohol-free wedding planning
🌿 starting our herbal farm
🎓 completing our clinical herbology program
🎤 creating more online educational content
🔮 establishing a new & exciting business
🔫 practicing responsible use of the 2nd amendment
⛏ prospecting for gold!
People can't help but to share the highlights of their lives because that's what *seems* to make it feel like it's worth every ounce of energy they've put into something, but I think that list doesn't even come close to communicating WHY or HOW we left Arizona.
I bought my first house as a single woman a little over 2 years ago. Back then, I remember thinking "I know I can do this, but I'm scared to be a homeowner because I feel like I know nothing."
I also had real estate agents trying to convince me to rent out my 2nd bedroom to "increase my earning potential" but my stubborn self said "I'm not one for roommates that aren't my person. And he's out there, so that room is reserved for him."
Within the first year of owning that home, Tyler and I found each other and he settled into the space that was always meant for us.
We loved that home. We adopted our shelter pup Honey in our first year there, then Wiley the next. We shared our first Christmas and holiday memories together next to that fireplace. We carved out the first chapter of life together within the walls of that home.
The goal of buying that home when and where I did was to help me find Tyler, and for it to act as a lily pad to help us get to wherever we wanted to go next. It was not my forever home. The moment that goal was fulfilled, the staircase up to our bedroom suddenly felt like it had too many stairs and we started looking for our single-level rural family retreat. We've been wanting to leave the city simply because our desire for personal and financial freedom dramatically outweigh any and all conveniences the modern city provides.
We've spent about 11 months preparing for this moment. We asked every single question in the BOOK to figure out how to get here. What's the right spot? Are we in the right jobs to support this vision? How much cash flow do we need to make everything happen? When's the right time? Then, one day in January, we had to remotely deal with a staff crisis that made absolutely everything click into place for us.
Tyler and I were approached by our team about the fact that while they were grateful for how far we've come as a company, they needed more support. For those of you who have been in the service industry, you know that General Managers are usually salaried, and are usually working way more than 40 hours per week. It is a labor of love, and something that almost ALWAYS leads to burn out and high turn over throughout most service industry businesses. Unfortunately, most 18+ lounges require some level of management to always be present because of the incredibly random instances that require attention. However, Tyler and I were not about to live at the bar 24/7 and sacrifice our entire lives. Instead of accepting the status quo or quitting, we decided to do something about it.
We wholeheartedly agreed to build more structures of support for the staff, and asked each of them to make a proposition of their dream job, as well as a list of what they felt were the shortcomings of the current paradigm. I was able to promote 3 staff members, which contributed to our 33% increase in sales! Not only that - but this inspired our newer kavatenders to step up because they now see that they can actually build a real career out of this job.
We created a brand new management structure that is tailor-made for our needs in the kava bar industry. Instead of having one manager be responsible for everything, we decided to break the bar into well-defined departments and have a different manager claim ownership over each zone. We built in some overlap to ensure that no one felt like they could never clock out.
We spent the last 3 months rigorously training our ride-or-die team members how to run each aspect of the business so that we could spend our efforts GROWING the business in ways that felt the most aligned with where we need to be. We chose to not hoard knowledge or impede the evolution of others out of fear for our own security, but instead chose to share the magic with everyone so we could amplify it. I mention this because there are intelligent people EVERYWHERE with great ideas to improve on current business models, but many companies have selfish managers / owners that refuse to make way for anyone but themselves. I'm sure we're not the first people to think of a lot of things, but because we're a team that has each individually committed to being better for and with each other, we are able to execute ideas in record time.
I say this all the time, and can't stress it enough, I have a team of literal Angels. They want to make the world a better place, they're sweet and ready to help, and when they show up to work THEY SHOW UP! But in order to recruit angels, you have to create incredibly strong boundaries and remove your ego from the decision-making process.
If you're in a position of leadership either personally or professionally, I've got some free advice for you. When people want to step up and take responsibility for something, listen to them. Figure out what the motive is, and why they're so passionate about it. Then, trust them, and put them in the position to do something about it. This also gives you the opportunity to weed out those who find motivation in less aligned muses. We realized this was our chance to not only rearrange the company to be able to work remotely, but that we could also rearrange the way our industry chooses to structure it's management so we could provide more employees with more stable income, increase the quality of the work environment, AND increase the quality of our service.
And as a bonus piece of advice: Family is always the most brave and worthy investment you can make. For many reasons, I feel like our media and overworked culture is pushing us further and further away from our roots. The degradation of the family unit is a tragedy. It is the same technique human traffickers use to get their victims in a more vulnerable state so they can use them and abuse them. So if you get an opportunity to be closer to your family, or to grow your family, take it. There is no business opportunity that can replace the value of quality time with loved ones.
If any of my story has you thinking "I need to figure out how to do this in my life / business", please fill out the form below because helping people find their flow is both my passion and my area of expertise:
