Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today is a very special two year anniversary episode. And I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much for joining me today. If you're new here, welcome. I hope that you enjoy the show and you will continue to join us each week. But if you've been here for a little while, I just want to say thank you so much for your support. It truly means the world to me. That started as a passion project of mine a couple of years ago, and it has grown incredibly.

beyond my wildest dreams. has been something that has not only fulfilled me and a passion inside my heart, but I hear from you guys constantly about how much these episodes are helping you. So I just want to say thank you so much for inviting me into your car, your home, wherever you're listening to me and allowing me to be a part of your journey. I want to ask, let me start this episode by asking you, how many times in the last few days have you said, I'm going to deal with that later?

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Jane Harris. She's the co-founder of The Virgin Hair Fantasy, which is a luxury wig and beauty brand, and she is helping women reclaim confidence through hair and self-expression. Now, Jane started her business with just $500, and she grew it into a multi-million dollar global company. And this was all while being a homeschooling mom.

a mentor and a speaker. She has taught and mentored hundreds of students through her wig and beauty business trainings. And she's passionate about helping women feel empowered, not just in how they look, but in how they show up in their lives. And so we're gonna be talking about what it really takes to scale a product-based business. We're gonna talk a little bit about the confidence side of beauty and of course, some of her practical tips on how to wear your wig better. She's got a challenge for us and everything. So Jane, welcome to the show.

Jane Harris (02:45.176)

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's such an honor.

Shauna Lynn SImon (02:49.774)

I can't wait to dig into your story a little bit, because it's a pretty impressive story. Like you didn't just build a wig brand, you built a confident brand and you did it on literally like a shoestring kind of budget here. So let's go back. So when you started the business, you mentioned you started this with $500. What did it look like? Where was that $500 being spent? How were you?

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Fabienne Fredrickson. She is the founder of Boldheart and for more than 20 years, she's been mentoring thousands of women business owners and helping them to grow and scale without sacrificing their freedom or their relationships or their peace. She is known for helping women move from overwhelmed at six figures to building leveraged, self-managing businesses.

on a path towards seven figures while reclaiming their time, including the bold goal of having 14 weeks of vacation a year. Imagine making seven figures and actually taking that much time off. She's the author of The Leveraged Business, How You Can Go from Overwhelmed at Six Figures to Seven Figures and Get Your Life Back. And today we're gonna be talking about what that leverage really looks like, how to scale without burning yourself out, and how to build a business that supports your life instead of.

consuming it. So Fabienne, thank you so much for joining me.

Fabienne Fredrickson (02:50.766)

I'm happy to be here, Shauna Lynn. Thanks for having me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (02:53.87)

I'm super excited to talk about this because of course, you know, let's talk seven figures is kind of the hashtag goal. But what I find when I'm speaking to a lot of women is exactly what you like. You've touched on this. You've you've nailed it with the I'm already overwhelmed at six figures. How the heck can I scale to seven? And this is such a common misconception that in order to "grow" you need to just do more of all the things you're already doing. And when you're like, I'm already at capacity, how can I

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. Thank you so much for joining me today. I want to tell you something that you may not be aware of and that you may not even want to hear. And that is that most business owners, don't really build a business. You think you've built a business. What you've actually built is a really expensive job. One that doesn't even necessarily pay you the same as you would get paid if you actually went out and got a full-time job.

And if someone were to offer you money for your business tomorrow, would you even know what you're selling them or how to sell it to them or how to value it? Like, do you think that your business even has value to it? I'm going to tell you something you might not want to hear. that is that most service businesses aren't actually sellable, at least not in their current state. And that might be surprising to you, but it also might kind of resonate with you too, because think about when you started your business.

We first start our businesses. We're all excited about the launch of it. We're thinking about launching it. We're thinking about growing it. These all sound like fun things. And the last thing on our mind is exiting the business. But honestly, it should be one of the first things that we think about when we launch our businesses. And it doesn't mean that you have to have the exact plan in place. But if you built your business as one that you would want to be able to sell one day, even if you never sell it, what that's going to do is it's going to make it that much easier for you to be able to run your business today.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.094)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Today I'm being joined by Sonia Barney. She's the founder of Kaivari and Sonia Barney Designs and is an award winning interior designer with over 20 years in the industry and 10 plus years as a business owner herself. She created Kaivari to connect designers with the right coaches, the right resources and the right community so that they can grow sustainable businesses without getting overwhelmed by all the options that are out there. Now, full disclosure.

Sonia has been a client of mine and she's also learned from multiple other coaches over the years. So she brings a really grounded perspective on what makes coaching worth it and how to choose the right person when everyone seems to be promising the same results. So today we're gonna get real practical about coaching. We're gonna talk about how to know when you need it, how to choose the right coach in a sea of options and what to ask you can feel that you're clicking with them with confidence. So Sonia, welcome.

Sonia Barney (02:47.778)

Thank you for having me, Shauna Lynn I'm just glad to be back.

Shauna Lynn Simon (02:51.182)

I'm excited to have you on, especially because of course I've been a little bit on this journey of Kaivari with you. And I want to kind of like, let's for anyone who doesn't know who you are, maybe they didn't listen to the previous episode that we had you on the podcast. Let's just kind of go back to basics and tell us a little bit about your background, your interior design background and what kind of brought you to where you are today

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.35)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Zahra Carol Baghdadi, fractional CFO and Financial Strategist, and she is the founder of Crunch TimeZ CFO Services, Inc. So Zahra works with startup founders and small business owners who are tired of reacting to cash flow surprises and want to lead with clarity. She's known for breaking down finance into practical, relatable insights, and today she's going to walk us through

the three numbers that help you to stop flying blind. I'm gonna let her share exactly what those three numbers are. So you're have to stay tuned to check it out. And we're gonna talk about not only what they are, but how to use them to make smarter business decisions. Zahra, welcome to the podcast.

thank you so much for having me, Shauna Lynn

Okay, so let's start from the beginning. So let's see when you're saying that founders are flying blind financially, what does that actually look like in real businesses? Because I think a lot of people think like, I don't know, like I know what's going on here. I'm running my business, I'm getting sales in, my clients love me and you know, I've my website works great. I think a lot of people tend to look at all that front facing kind of stuff. So when you say they're flying blind financially, what are they missing here?

That's an amazing question to start with. So I work with a lot of founders that when they come to me, that's the position they are in or they have been for a bit. yeah, financially flying blind. And what I mean by that is they have a lot of cash surprises. they often tend to ignore looking at their bank accounts, which you're going to get to it later on. But then they're like.

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.062)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I want you to tell me if this sounds familiar. You send out a proposal to a prospective new client, a couple of days pass, you don't get any reply, and your brain starts to write an entire Netflix series about all the reasons why you haven't heard back. This is incredibly common, especially for high achievers. High achievers are accustomed to being told that they're doing great things.

that the world is going to be handed to them, that everything that they touch is gold, essentially. And so if we don't hear from someone, we automatically go into kind of this worst case scenario. And today we're going to be talking about how to turn those spirals into a repeatable process that allows you to remain calm, professional, and avoid the stories that we're telling ourselves. Because this is happening pretty constantly. here's the thing. Here's what's happening. The reality is that our brains

hate uncertainty. What your brain's going to try to do when something is uncertain is it's going to try to fill in those gaps. So, you you might be telling yourself with this proposal situation, for example, you're saying, well, I think they're shopping around. They're going to try to find someone else. My price was too high. They hated the proposal. I didn't get the scope of work right. I didn't nail their vision. You know, that if they're questioning anything, you immediately start to think,

Well, they don't trust me. Or if they ask you a question about something, this is one of my favorite things. I have this happen. I've had it happen with team members, with my clients, where, you know, let's say you send them the proposal, someone responds back and says, hey, can you just explain what this charge is here? And immediately you get your backups and like, well, they don't understand the amount of work that goes into this. And that charge has to be there because of this, this, this, this, and this. I get that. But they're just asking a question. So instead of getting into defensive mode,

Shauna Lynn Simon (01:49.998)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. Today's guest is Christine Blosdale. She's also known as the Expert Authority Coach and is a five time number one bestselling author, an award winning radio personality, and the host of the Expert Authority Coach Podcast. And with over 25 years in personal branding, magnetic marketing, and multimedia, including creating content for brands like America Online and Microsoft.

She helps entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, and thought leaders step into their brilliance and become the go-to authority in their field. Her style is simple, easy, and my favorite part, it's fun. And most importantly, it's effective. So we're going to be talking about how women can go from invisible to in-demand, build authority without burnout, and get seen in a way that actually feels authentic. She is speaking our language, so Christine, welcome.

thank you so much, Shauna Lynn I'm very excited about being with you today. Thank you.

I've been looking forward to this conversation because, we just had a little bit of an off-camera conversation about the importance of understanding your authority and being able to project that authority out there. And at the same time, there's probably some people who are wondering, like, what does this actually mean? So if someone's meeting you for the first time, can you tell us what is it that you actually do?

Right. Well, you know, I used to be like a lot of my clients that come to me and I used to say, what do I not do? Right. I'm a writer. I'm an, you know, I'm a published author. I'm a speaker. I do this. I do that. I help people create podcasts. It was all these different things. And then I realized that my messaging was being diluted by all of these really cool things that I like to do. And I have a lot of women come to me.

Shauna Lynn Simon (03:10.382)

How do we sum this up?

Christine Blosdale (03:37.182)

And they're in the same boat. They're very creative. They're very talented and they can do many things as we're women. We can spin a lot of different plates. But what I've what I've found over the years is that that message gets diluted. And what happens is your potential clients or customers are completely confused and they really don't know. They might like your posts or they might like, you know, "Oh she's cool. She looks cool. She seems cool."

Multi passion is the name of the game, yeah.

00:01:49:22 - 00:02:16:24

Shauna Lynn Simon

Hello and welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Today I am joined by Abby Bradetich, the founder of IlluminEssence Creations. And Abby is an embodiment-led brand and web designer and content coach. She's got over 15 years in marketing and design and a background in professional dance, and what she helps women to do is actually to stop performing online because we're all doing this kind of performance act online, whether we know it or not.

00:02:16:24 - 00:02:28:08

Shauna Lynn Simon

Sometimes she helps them to ditch the so-called rules and build an online presence that really feels like them and actually works. And I can't wait to dig into this conversation. I think you're all going to love it. So, Abby, welcome to the show.

00:02:28:14 - 00:02:30:06

Abby Bradetich

Yeah, thank you for having me.

00:02:30:08 - 00:02:53:24

Shauna Lynn Simon

I'm super excited to talk with you because I absolutely love I think you and I have connected on a few different things, but I love the way that you help women to really show up authentically. And I've talked with other guests about this, about this buzzword of authenticity that has been so overused the last several years that almost feels disingenuous now when you say the word authentic.

00:02:54:04 - 00:03:06:19

Shauna Lynn Simon

But it is really what you're doing. So let's start with a little bit about your origin story, because you've got kind of a cool story where you went from dance to marketing and, and created this whole brand around it. So tell us a little bit about your background.

00:03:06:21 - 00:03:29:07

Abby Bradetich

Yeah. No, I totally hear you on, on the whole authenticity word thing, and I, I hate that too, because I'm like, it is it? But it's real. It's what we're doing here. But it has like gotten this whole like taboo idea around it. But yeah, I, I grew up dancing and loved that we were my family is very artistic, so it was really encouraged for us to actually pursue those types of things.

00:01:49:21 - 00:02:12:06

Shauna Lynn Simon

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and this is episode 100 of the Real Women Real Business Podcast. And I just want to say thank you. If you've listened, if you've shared this episode, if you DM'd me, or if even if you've just taken one idea and use it in your own business, you are the reason that this show exists.

00:02:12:08 - 00:02:42:15

So let's get into today's episode. I want to talk about people pleasing, because this is a chronic issue that I see so many people suffering from, and especially my women and my accidental CEO. So if you've ever said yes to a client request and like immediately felt that stomach drop, this episode is for you and I want to reassure you, you can be kind and boundary and still not be a people pleaser.

00:02:42:17 - 00:03:05:20

There's a way to get allow you to be able to support yourself, and you will realize the more you support yourself, the better you're actually supporting others. So I see this in my clients and even in myself, that we want to please others. We want others to accept us, to like us. We want to be fair. We want to be kind.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And if you've ever discounted, over-delivered, or squeezed in some quick quote extras to avoid some awkwardness or having to confront the money conversation with your clients, this episode is going to show you not only how to spot some of those micro-moments, not only are you going to learn how to spot them, but we're also going to help you to replace them with some CEO standards that are going to help you to protect your profit.

I like to practice what I preach. Despite that, I have definitely found myself more times than I care to admit going against some of my standard practices. And last month I was very intentional about this. I was really mindful and really paid attention when my instincts were telling me to give someone a discount or price something lower than I thought it should be priced. Basically what I...

What I did last month was I caught myself on so many of these moments where I'm like, really teach against this. How am I finding myself in this situation? And ultimately, I ended up making an extra $4,000 US last month, not because of one big project, but because I held my boundary and my value on multiple occasions. It wasn't as though there was just one big thing that I almost

discounted or almost gave away the money or said no to it. It was a bunch of tiny little reasonable decisions and together they would have cost me $4,000. Like said, no one was demanding a discount. No one was forcing my hand. My brain was just going to like be fair, be helpful, don't make it awkward or how do I talk about this with them? And as much as I had to have those conversations with myself on multiple occasions,

The more I was having that conversation and explaining to people what the fees were going to be, not in an awkward way, not, you know, if you don't mind, like I kind of just, you know, I should charge for this and I, you know, I think I hope it's OK. It was none of that. It was very confident. was well delivered. It was not defended. It was simply here's the price for this and and then wait. And this this is something again, I've been doing this for years, but despite how often I do it well

00:01:47:15 - 00:02:21:12

Shauna Lynn Simon

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today I'm joined by Britt Holmes, founder of Merritt Media Inc. now, Britt is a paid advertising strategist with nearly 14 years of experience in digital marketing, including over a decade leading campaigns in corporate environments. Though she's managed millions of dollars in ad spend across Google, Meta and LinkedIn, she's been helping service based and women led businesses to grow with clarity, with ethics, and with measurable results.

00:02:21:15 - 00:02:54:03

Shauna Lynn Simon

And she's known for making ads feel clear and doable without all the hype, and helping founders to build ad strategies that actually support sustainable growth. So, Britt, welcome to the show.

Britt Holmes

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Shauna Lynn Simon

I am thrilled to have you on here. And we talked about this a little bit before we hit record, about how excited I am to have an expert like yourself talking about paid ads, because I got to tell you, I can't even explain how often my clients will ask me a simple question or quote simple question for anyone who doesn't see the video version right now.

00:02:54:03 - 00:03:09:03

Shauna Lynn Simon

This is air quotes that I'm saying here. And they'll they'll say to me like, do you think I should do some ads in this question for my clients? You think I should do some ad, some paid ads on Facebook? I'm seen what an Instagram ad, her Facebook ad. What do you think about that? I like well, that's that's a loaded question.

00:03:09:03 - 00:03:34:23

Shauna Lynn Simon

Like, there's only so much I need to like when I ask about their strategy, they're like, I don't know. I just thought, like, I just create like a post and I would just do it as an ad. So you spent 14 plus years in ads, you've managed millions and ads, then what do you think is the biggest misconception that business owners have when it comes to paid advertising?

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is KJ Blattenbauer a powerhouse publicist and founder of Hearsay PR. So for nearly 30 years, KJ has been turning overlooked experts into headline news with clear, actionable PR strategies that actually fit real life. Her client stories have been featured everywhere from Forbes to Architectural Digest, and she's the author of How to Be a Media Darling

and the second book recently released called Pitchworthy, which is a modern guide to building lasting visibility and authority. She is known for her bold but approachable style and her belief that women entrepreneurs shouldn't have to burn out to be seen. So she's speaking our language here. Today she's gonna be sharing how you can become your own best publicist, build credibility and attract aligned opportunities without selling your soul to social media. So KJ, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

I am so excited for this conversation. We had a little bit of a pre-interview chat and let me tell you, we are very much aligned in so many ways. And one of things that we were talking about though was just that this is something that comes up time and time again with my clients. And I can keep speaking to them about this until I'm blue in the face, but until somebody else says it, ⁓ sometimes it doesn't quite resonate the same way. So before we start diving into all things visibility,

Let's just take it back a little bit. You said you spent nearly 30 years in PR. How did you get into this line of work? Like what pulled you toward helping women founders specifically? You know, I think I, well, I tried everything else and then I landed in something that fit really. I didn't even know what PR was when I went to college. I had a basic understanding of like, communications. I could do marketing. I thought I wanted to be the next Barbara Walters.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello ladies and welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and I am also your business sustainability expert coach. It's January and if you're feeling the pressure to have your whole year mapped out and all of your habits perfectly in place, let's take a deep breath together. OK, you're not behind. You're right on time. So welcome. So we are going to be moving today from vision to action without the overwhelm and without the hustle.

Now, if you listened to my episode that was released just before Christmas on December 23rd, I did a great episode about how to end the year like a CEO. And we talked about reflection and we talked about letting go. And you know, we're all about starting fresh, but I wanna get really real about what it takes to make those big dreams happen on a day-to-day basis. So today we're gonna be talking about the micro habits for real CEOs and how we're going to apply them to make sure that this is your best

year yet. So let's be honest, January is often sold as like this magical reset, right? But most of us, we're still shaking off the holidays, catching up on emails, wondering if we're already behind. I don't know about you, but the calendar, like December 23rd and 24th, you're gearing up for the holidays and the 25th hits and you you do the family thing and you're exhausted the next day, but there's the 26th and you have more people you got to see. And by the 27th, 28th, you don't even know what day it is. And then you still got to get through New Year's.

And so we kind of get played this mad game of catch up the first game of the first week of January, even though we know that we're basically all in the same place. Essentially, we still feel as though we're starting off the month behind the eight ball a little bit. We didn't do all the things maybe that we had set out to do in the previous year. And now we feel like we're kind of paying the price for it. But let me tell you, you're not behind. I promise you because we've got

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is going to look and sound just a little different than what you're used to on this podcast because today I'm being joined by Rusty Osborne and he is the go-to mindset coach for entrepreneurs who need to get out of their own way. Rusty, can tell you, has helped hundreds of business owners use their negative self-talk to ditch overwhelm.

and break through the mental blocks that keep them stuck, even when everything of course looks fine on the outside. I'm fine, right? We're always fine. He's also the author of The Power of Negative Thinking, which is available now on Amazon. And Rusty is one of my success partners, which means he works with my clients. So I have seen firsthand how his work creates real shifts in my clients. And honestly, for me too, we're talking about how to break mental blocks, how to stop the overwhelm spiral and head into 2026.

with a whole new way of leading. So Rusty, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to have you. And I will say that you are the first male that we have had on the podcast. And something that I do want to make very clear to the audience is that at no point have I ever discriminated and said men couldn't be on this podcast, even though we are called the real women, real business podcast, because we want to be an inclusive space. And if we as women want to have equality.

and be inclusive and promote inclusivity, we have to of course express that as well. So I'm not going to ever exclude someone from my resources and keep someone from my clients who I know can genuinely help them. And I gotta tell you, Rusty, I have seen firsthand the work that you have done with my clients and you have helped me through some mental blocks over this past year as well, which sometimes our mental blocks, we don't even know that we have. And that's the coolest thing of how you're able to work through it.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hey there, real women and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And can you believe that we are just days away from closing out 2025 and whether you're wrapping up client projects or preparing for some time off or maybe you are already in full relaxation mode. And if you are, thank you so much for bringing me into your relaxing time. And I want to talk about something that a lot of business owners tend to skip this time of year.

cost them. It's cost them in terms of clarity, in confidence and momentum heading into the new year. And all of that costs us real time and money. So today I want to talk about how to close the year like the CEO that you are, not with guilt about what didn't happen, not with overwhelm about what's coming, but with intention, with celebration and strategic clarity. Because how you close the year determines how you're going to open the next one.

Grab your favorite beverage, find a cozy spot, and we're going to do this together. I'm going to walk you through the exercises that I go through and share a little bit about how my year went this year as well. So here's the thing. Most business owners, either ignore this year end reflection entirely or they beat themselves up for what they didn't accomplish. And there are a few ladies that I know that I work with who I know are going to be doing this this year, and I really want to help them to prevent these negative thoughts from coming in.

and instead help them to find a way to intentionally learn from these challenges that they might have faced in the year, the things that didn't happen.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest that's joining us today, we've got RuthAnn Rafiq owner and lead designer behind R Art Space, a branding studio that helps coaches and service providers to establish themselves as sought after experts through sophisticated branding and custom Squarespace websites. Now, RuthAnn specializes in working with entrepreneurs who are ready to scale to six and seven figures and need their brand to reflect the premium quality of their offers.

So beyond building beautiful brands, RuthAnn is also a wife, a mom out of three little ones, and is homeschooling, proving that sustainable business growth is absolutely possible even in the busiest seasons of life. So in this episode, we're gonna be diving into how premium positioning becomes your best sales tool and that connection between branding and the money mindset and organic marketing strategies that are gonna turn your website into a client magnet. So welcome RuthAnn . Thank you so much for having me, Shauna Lynn. I'm so happy to be here.

I am so excited to talk to you about this because I think there's definitely a difference between someone who's just starting their business, just launching, and you're working with people who are already established, but they're working to scale. And I think that we often see, or I'm assuming that you probably often see some patterns in some of the things that they're facing. And websites are still something that is very important in terms of our brand image, despite social media and everything else. Websites are one place where we can actually control our own brand.

So you're working specifically with coaches and service providers who want to scale to six or seven figures. What are some patterns maybe that you see in their branding when they're stuck at sort of a certain revenue ceiling? Yes. So one big thing I see for them is that, you know, visibility isn't the problem. Like they are getting visible. They normally have a podcast. They normally have a membership of some kind. They have coaching programs. They have one on one specialties. So they are out there. They are doing their thing.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today we're going to call out one of the biggest profit leaks that I see in specifically in women run businesses. If you feel like you are working harder than ever, not just physically, but mentally as well, you're probably not imagining it. One of the biggest profit leaks that I see in women run businesses. It's not pricing. It's not marketing. Do want to know what it is?

It is emotional labor. This is the invisible work of carrying every decision, every doubt, every relationship, every fire drill, every outcome all alone, all by yourself. And today I'm breaking down the emotional tax that no one really warned us about when we entered into entrepreneurship, right? And we're going to talk about how to finally set your business up to support you instead of draining you. This is a conversation that I've been having over the last several weeks with clients who are

just exhausted, feeling just burnt out and drained, not because they're lazy, not because they're disorganized. Yes, could we have some more efficient systems in our businesses that would give us a little bit more energy and revive us a little bit? Sure. But that is just a fraction of what the challenges that they're facing. The problem is that they're carrying everything. I can't actually count how many times in last few weeks I've had conversations about people

pleasing specifically. And so we're going to talk about the emotional load that comes with running a business, serving your clients, serving your family, taking care of everyone and basically keeping it all together. It really adds up and most of us don't even realize that it's happening. I actually had a conversation recently with someone about my experience with burnout, which I have talked about on this show several times. This happened back in 2017 for me and it took me

three long years to recover. And I've talked about how burnout can sneak up on you. So I have conversations with women all the time, every day, different women, usually women who are running businesses and especially women in the creative fields. And one of the big conversations that often comes up is just talking about their energy levels, talking about their passion, talking about their mental health. And a lot of what I'm seeing, I'm telling them, you know, I feel like you are

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is someone who took one dollar and eleven cents and a whole lot of grit and turned it into a multi seven figure legacy. Kandi Lee is the CEO and co-founder of the 111 network. Guess where that name came from? And for over 30 years, she has coached over 10,000 or sorry, 100,000 entrepreneurs to scale their businesses with clarity, confidence and systems that work. And she's been where we've all been.

Over 30 years ago, after divorce left her with two suitcases, her daughter and just $200 to her name, she made a decision that would change everything. And she didn't just rebuild, she redesigned her entire life. Kandi has been where so many of us have been. She's the strategic force behind the Cashflow Compass, a proven system that helps legacy led women scale freedom based profit without the hustle. She's been featured on CNBC, HuffPost, HGTV. She shared stages with

legends like Mark Victor Hansen, Bob Proctor, and Jack Hanfield. And so she's not just teaching business strategy. She teaches the identity shifts that make million dollar momentum possible. And today she's going to share exactly how you can stop plateauing and start scaling with structure and not stress. So welcome, Kandi, to the Real Women Real Business podcast. my God. I love that. So funny when someone's reading my bio and like, yes, I remember all of those moments in time. I those things. I did those things.

Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. I am so excited to have you from the very first conversation you and I had. was like, I got to get this woman onto the podcast because you have such a powerful story. And I think the best part is that you're so grounded and so real. And I think that's where you and I really connected.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And if you've ever felt attached to your branding, especially if it is a DIY, you did it yourself kind of branding and you're feeling guilty maybe about wanting something better or maybe you've wondered if a rebrand is really worth the investment of it or maybe you're just scared of what is this investment going to look like and not just financially but time? What is it? What all is involved in this? This conversation today is really going to hit home for you because today's guest

Puja Malhotra is the founder and creative director of Roop Creative Agency, a boutique branding and web design studio. She's got over 15 years of experience in branding and marketing and has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs across North America to create brands and websites that don't just look beautiful, but they're built to scale your business with clarity and purpose. And she's also the creator of Corporate Dropout, which we're going to touch on a little bit as well. She's created this mentorship program.

that helps designers like herself and creatives like herself to build profitable agencies of their own. So today we're to be talking about the emotional side of rebranding and what rebranding looks like. I've talked about branding on this show. I don't even know how many times and I've touched on rebranding very lately as and I always say do it sooner than later because it doesn't get any cheaper the longer you wait.

But I'm so excited to actually dig into this today with Puja . So Puja , welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I am so excited to get into this. Now, before we get into the rebranding side of things, let's talk a little bit about where you're coming from, because you've been in marketing for a number of years. You started your own agency back in 2016. That's Roop Creative. What was that leap like for you? What was that transition like from corporate to entrepreneurship?

⁓ I think I was a little delusional.