Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Digital is a demanding and competitive field. And women are still grossly underpaid & underrepresented. But we are not powerless; we have each other. Together Digital Power Lounge is your place to hear authentic conversations from women in digital who have power to share. Listen and learn from our amazing guests along with host Amy Vaughan, Owner and Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital. Together Digital is a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital who choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. To learn more, visit www.togetherindigital.com.
Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Gratitude in Action
Welcome to another episode of "The Power Lounge." This week, our host Amy Vaughan, Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital, sits down with Rachel DesRochers, an entrepreneur and community builder whose ventures are rooted in the practice of gratitude. In this episode titled "Gratitude in Action," Rachel shares her journey of founding multiple businesses, including Grateful Grahams, the Incubator Kitchen Collective, and the women’s initiative Power to Pursue. Rachel and Amy discuss the importance of incorporating gratitude into daily life and career, offering insights for reshaping mindset, fostering connections, and navigating challenges in entrepreneurship. Tune in to hear how Rachel’s commitment to gratitude has sustained her through tough times and propelled her ventures to create positive change within her community. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or seeking a new perspective on your path, this episode is filled with wisdom you won't want to miss. Join us in the lounge and discover the power of gratitude in action.
Connect with Rachel:
Rachel DesRochers
Founder of Grateful Grahams
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-desrochers-b2356760/
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
05:18 - Trust Building for Efficiency and Reduced Turnover
00:00 - Introduction
03:40 - The Role of Gratitude in Career Choices
07:56 - Cultivating Authentic Connections Online
11:02 - Atomic Habits: The Importance of Consistency
14:38 - The Influence of Gratitude in Business
16:06 - Launch of Grateful Grahams at Whole Foods
22:15 - The Value of Taking a Moment for Gratitude
23:23 - Embracing Mindfulness and Wisdom
28:01 - Stephanie's Influence in Editorial Work
31:44 - Exploring Emotions Through Language
33:30 - Balancing Intuition, Gratitude, and Achievement
37:19 - The Challenges of Compartmentalization
38:51 - Sharing Gratitude and Reflection
43:25 - The Significance of Rest and Recharge
47:56 - Balancing Social Needs with Relaxation
51:04 - How Anticipation Fuels Happiness
54:01 - Understanding the Concept of Love Languages
58:02 - Outro
Quote of the Episode:
"Power to Pursue is my passion—our movement creates a safe space for women to feel seen, heard, and loved." -- Rachel DesRochers
"Abundance starts with recognizing the riches you already have; if you want more income, connections, or time, appreciate what’s at your fingertips." -- Rachel DesRochers
Hello everyone and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power and connections. You can join the movement at togetherindigitalcom, and today I am so thrilled because we are diving into something that has the power to truly revolutionize the way that you do business and life, and that is gratitude with action, in action, in action. I am thrilled to welcome fellow business owner and dear friend, rachel DeRochers, a remarkable entrepreneur who has built multiple successful ventures with gratitude at the core, from the Grateful Grams to the Incubator Kitchen Collective.
Speaker 1:Rachel shows us how leading with purpose creates ripples of positive change in business and community For our live audience who's joining us today. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. We always appreciate you listening in live. Bonus, you get to ask your questions, so don't be shy. Leave comments in the chat, ask questions if you have them, if there's anything that you would like to know more. We love the curiosity, so feel free to bring it your insights and curiosity truly do make these conversations richer. Rachel, so grateful to sing of gratitude, grateful to have you here with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Truly, it always feels like an honor to take time out and share the work, but like also just connect in with women a love language. So thank you a ton.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I got to meet Rachel. I think it's been maybe a little over a year. I kind of just sought her out. Fellow businesswoman in the community, a tremendous community builder, contributor, just so many alignments and like passion, and so it's just wonderful now to have gotten to know you over this last year and a half and to witness and see all the amazing things you've done Well and partner with you Like.
Speaker 2:I think that's the nice thing I love about so much of us and this work is like we start collecting the collaborators you know, and so what we did with Startup Sensi Week together and, just like you know, it's so important when women leaders show the impact and amplification that supporting and coming together with other women actually have versus the scarcity mindset so much of us have to unlearn, right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, I've been listening to this really good masterclass.
Speaker 1:It talks about the 49ers coach and how he says the score takes care of itself, and that has been like stuck in my head because the philosophy is that when you unite people with like a common sense of like value and trust and collaboration, like everyone goes farther and everyone moves farther faster. And so he was always never one about like looking at the scoreboard and saying, like it's all about the this. I mean the stats are important, sure, the metrics are important, but at the end of the day, right, it's like that, and I just it was such a big unlock for me to help me sort of begin to articulate what it means to have and even build community, because it mobilizes so many and really, truly the success almost takes care of itself when you're open enough to show up and be a part of community. So I know both of us share that passion and we probably could have a whole nother podcast conversation on community okay, 2025 watch out right, we're bringing it rising tide lifts all boats yeah, right, I mean um, we're better together, for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I want to get into gratitude, though, because I do think that's something that's just, it's a fantastic practice of yours. I see it and not you don't just say it, you do it. You know all the time, whether you're in person with people or through your social media channels, you definitely are a person who practices gratitude, and I just love seeing that being modeled and reminding me, and you know we've got a lot of listeners and members here who are reshaping their careers and considering transitions, and you have made quite a few, my friend, and I'm curious to hear from you how gratitude has guided you on your own sort of maybe more pivotal career decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so can I just reverse quickly and just maybe share a little bit? Would it be important to like, maybe just quickly, bio of the things, please? And then it'll lay forward that answer. Because one, I think gratitude is me. I am it right.
Speaker 2:It's been a practice that I've had since I was seven, eight or nine, like I just. I was given to me very young and I'm thankful for that. But I started my entrepreneur journey in 2010, literally starting a company called Grateful Grams whose mission it was to spread the message of gratitude and build community. You know, I always said with Grateful Grams we were a gratitude company that made a cookie. We weren't a cookie company that talked about gratitude. And from there we opened the Incubator Kitchen Collective. It's a nonprofit shared use commercial kitchen space for food entrepreneurs. We have Good and Local, which is our food show and food education program. Power to Pursue is my love. It's a women's empowerment movement that we've been building here in the last four years with the mission to create a safe space for women to be seen, heard and loved in.
Speaker 2:And then there's this Rachel Bucket, where I do a lot of speaking and consulting. I have a book coming out, a gratitude journal coming out. And so you know, amy, back to that question of how has it? Gratitude has caught me every single time I have fallen down. You know, I had a call this morning. I spoke in Italy in December and so I just did a mentoring session with one of the entrepreneurs there and she asked, and she said I get stressed, right.
Speaker 2:And then I also think that I can't stop working. And even in that which is such a common thing, I think, for founders right, like we're workaholics is that gratitude starts, laying groundwork for you to actually see what's being done, because we're so much in thinking about the 32 things that have to be completed and in all, reality is like we have clean drinking water.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have a laptop that I can call and do this podcast with you. My house is warm, you know, and so it's this opportunity, because I truly believe, like the lack or the path of abundance starts with that. Like, if you are a creator who wants more, if you want more income, if you want more connections, if you want more time with your kids, like it doesn't matter what the more is Right. If you're not looking at what is actually already happening and taking place and the riches that you actually already have at your fingerprints, we're missing the whole point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, see, already you got me feeling more grateful. We're like that. What five minutes in You're so right and it's like the law of attraction, right, the things that you pay attention to and the things you give gratitude to you find more abundance in that. And I do think as a business owner you know scarcity mindset is such an easy place to get into right Because you might be limited on resources.
Speaker 2:We need a staff of 10 and we can afford somebody 10 hours a week Like well. Welcome to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I do think your mindset here just really just breathes a whole lot of new life and perspective into how we look at our work and the business that we do. So even if you don't own your business and you work at a job that you're kind of like quasi-miserable, it's so easy to notice the negative right. Our brains are sort of pre-programmed right For the sake of survival, to notice the negative and you have the power to reprogram, yes, and to find gratitude, because I think also when you find gratitude you're more prone to see the opportunities, because you're not always looking at the barriers and roadblocks. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 1:So obviously you've built a couple of communities from scratch, as you mentioned earlier. As you were kind of giving us a quick rundown in your bio, I'm curious if you could share some insights with our members about what it means to create, or how they can begin to create, more authentic connections in an increasingly virtual world. A lot of our members and listeners are working with teammates that they may never be in the same room with, or be managing people that they're not in the same room with. What are some ways that you have found to kind of make those authentic connections happen?
Speaker 2:The thing that I say, that nobody likes to hear is you've got to show up.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:And it's hard. I you don't think we're not all tired, right? I'm a single mom, three kids, not all tired.
Speaker 2:I'm a single mom, three kids having the time of her life, and I have to show up. I still have to show up, whether it's virtually and whether it's in person. But when you get asked, when you get an offer, when you have an opportunity, you have the choice in that moment to take it or not. And what I know is on the most exhausted nights when I've pushed, I've met one person who's made a difference for me. I've made one connection. It isn't about 32 connections, it's about one singular connect and the power that one person can have on everything for you. And the ripple and so you know it's the behind the scenes work of what's holding you back from showing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't feel like you belong, you don't feel worthy, you have fear of missing out. It's the juggle you know you get invited to so much. How do you choose? Yeah, ask yourself, and let it's kind of like when you spin the map. You remember as a kid you'd spin the map and be okay with where that lands, because you also. There is also like a dating in this connection community place too, whether it's with your team, whether it's with friends, where you have to kind of massage out a little to say like, where are my people? That's what I think is so empowering with Power to Pursue is that's the thing I've heard the most. But I think I hear it. It's because the women that are showing up aren't coming with the lens that I'm the best. The women that are showing up aren't coming with the lens that I'm the best. The women are coming and showing up with, oh my gosh, I can meet like-minded women who I know will listen to me and who I can feel safe enough to ask for help, and so like it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. You're right, it's about being intentional. It is showing up a hundred thousand percent, it absolutely is, and it's sort of even like um gosh, again, get back to that. Like, uh, I was, we are reading group within together. Digital is re. Some of us are rereading, some of it are reading it for the first time.
Speaker 1:James, clear, autonomous, atomic habits. And one tool for this might be say you do struggle with some social anxiety and maybe you've been burned before by other groups or other people. Um, he had an example of this gentleman that literally like, was like obviously overweight, like hundreds of pounds, and he decided that he was going to just show up to the gym, drive to the gym, pull into the parking lot and then drive home. A couple of times he's like I might not get up and go in, but I can at least show up. And there was something about showing up that really helped him be like okay, well, now I'm going to get in and I'm going to go to the gym and I'm only going to stay for five minutes. And so he gradually increased his time. So, even if it's a little bit of like a mindset trick to yourself to say, okay, I really don't necessarily feel up to going to this said event. However, I'm going to go for 30 minutes and then I'm going to. If it's not, if it's not going well, if I just need the time away, then, like, take it.
Speaker 1:But I think also being intentional, right, like you were saying, surrounding yourself with the kinds of people who are going to let you show up and be yourself, right, so you don't have to have the extra exhaustion of putting on the mask and feigning to be somebody that you're not. And I think that's what I love about both of our communities. It feels very similar. I got to go to my first Power to Pursue last year and excited for this year to really get to be in a very similar space where there's just no pretense, the women can truly show up as themselves, and it just doesn't feel contrived or forced, it just truly feels real and authentic and it is sad to say, but that's such a rare thing. So kudos to you for creating that space, because it's not easy. We're societally conditioned to just be overburdened constantly in our own minds. It's head to heart work.
Speaker 2:You can listen to this, or you can drop down and be in your body and listen to this.
Speaker 2:Love it and so that's always my goal is how do I get out of here and into here? And the other part of that, amy, is, I think we think it's like an all or nothing. And I love that example because it's taking this big thing and it's bringing it down to that micro level. And so I'm going to go to this thing for 15 minutes. If I feel safe and if I feel grounded, I'm going to let myself stay for another 15. And so it's not black or white and we want it to be black or white. We want it to be black or white Right.
Speaker 2:Like you want it to be in this pretty little box with the boat. It's so cute and yeah that's not.
Speaker 1:That whole attachment to outcome is another big thing I mean. For me, even if I show up and it's a total bust, I learned something. So it's like I didn't lose by doing this. If you're present, you will learn. I learned something, yeah, and if I stay, usually I'm really hella happy. I stayed at the end Because, like you said at the very beginning, it's sometimes all it takes is one connection. I mean, I would not be sitting here doing this and this work if it wasn't for one connection that helped get me into Together Digital. That eventually led to me running and then owning the business. It's just literally walking into one room one connection.
Speaker 2:And I think again, if you kind of have that mindset, and I think the more that we as the, you know, the leaders share that, the more it normalizes what's possible.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah Right.
Speaker 2:So, like the vulnerability to say this is how I did it or this is why I did it, to give permission to anyone who's holding themselves back.
Speaker 1:Yep Agreed, absolutely All right. Let's get back to gratitude a little bit more, because I think some people tend to see it as a bit of a soft skill, which I'm like, and a very results driven industry like you know, ours with together digital, digital marketing, advertising and technology. I'm kind of curious, you curious. Obviously you're running businesses. There are still metrics and data that you have to kind of hit. Could you maybe share a specific example of its impact on sort of your business outcomes, the practice of gratitude.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm still here.
Speaker 1:Right Still in business. How many businesses now?
Speaker 2:I've been told that I'm never going to make money, because how do you make money off of gratitude, right? And so the work is still the work.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:The work is still the work, but the practice can amplify the work. Right and so when we brought on an investor and he stole all of my money, oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:I remember you telling me about that. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I fell deep into my practice because I still owned a hundred percent. I never signed anything. My family was safe. My kids were still being able to get food on the table. I survived that.
Speaker 1:Right, that's a lot to go through.
Speaker 2:I think that there's those case by case scenarios way too often. I tell this story often, but I remember when Grateful Grams we closed Grateful Grams in 2023. So, um, when we were doing our first national launch with Kroger, we were going um into 90 Kroger, no, 90 Whole Foods stores. I'm sorry, Whole Foods picked us up in the mid Atlantic region and so we were in five or six stores At this time. We still did all hand production at a time, and my brother at the time was our production manager and we were literally we had two weeks to produce 52,000 cookies. Wow, All by hand. We had no right, no machines.
Speaker 2:Those little cookie scoopers, girl man, they loved to see me coming Because they're like yep, yep, here's another 12. Um, and I remember him looking at me and going I need you to bake the last four trays of peanut butter chocolate chip bites. Then all the peanut butter bites are done for this order and we can move on to the next flavor. I burnt every single one of them. Oh, no Right. So, like gratitude reminds me, Mm-hmm, I didn't put the company out of business.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I can run and buy more peanut butter.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I have to ask for help.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:This idea that I can do it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is no longer true.
Speaker 1:no, longer true.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely so. Like every single time I've hit that roadblock, that barrier, the joy and jubilation. It goes both ways. This isn't a get me out of the darkness, though it is right. Gratitude, always. You know the way that I think and talk about it is like gratitude's, that little glimmer. No matter how dark it gets, there's a little glimmer possible and so. But it's also for me equally as important to reflect back, like those Friday posts that I put on Instagram, is this idea that I'm looking back every single Friday at my week, the people that I got to talk to, the impact, what didn't work, what did work right and just normalizing the fact that growing stuff's hard and exhausting and really effing beautiful.
Speaker 1:It is amazing. You're absolutely right. I mean, in that case, rach, I really just feel like, not just once, but maybe even twice, gratitude saved your business at the end of the day, because you could have quit. You could have just said, but maybe even twice. Like you, you gratitude saved your business at the end of the day, cause you could have quit. You could have quit. You could have just said I'm done.
Speaker 2:I have written closing letters for three out of four of my companies. Middle of the night, wake up two o'clock in the morning, absolutely panicked, drenched in sweat. I remember calling my dad. I have grateful grams andubator Kitchen, so this was probably seven or eight years ago and I remember calling him and just saying I'm done, I'm done suffering. It's too hard. There is nothing left for me to give up. I gave up because we were unfunded. I started it all with $1,000 in 2010. And so I gave up the fun, I gave up the cool clothes, I gave up being able to buy my kids full price stuff. We ate a lot of beans and rice and I said I just don't think I can. There's nothing left in the tank. And he said you can give up and I'll support you, or you can take the weekend to rest.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Close the computer, write the letter, write the letter, get it out of your body Right Move it, Then close the computer and tell everybody I'll be back on Tuesday.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, If it's on fire you can text this person, but I need to just walk away from all of it and especially, I think there's so much fear that you can actually step away from it. If I take a day off, the whole thing's going to crumble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a truth that you can choose to believe or not, right, and so, um, I know that to not be true anymore. You've got to walk away for 15 minutes and then 30 minutes and then an hour. I'm 15 years into entrepreneurship this year, amy, and last year I took a two week vacation in the summer. I've never been able to do that. That's amazing, you know so going back to like this idea of with my dad and him reminding me that I was up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was making decisions from my headspace, right and that if I could just rest for a weekend. So then, when I came back on Tuesday, the dust settled.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The fear settled, the exhaustion was gone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was able to come and just take a big deep breath, get back into my body and go. Okay, what do I have to do today? Not this week, not next week, but what? Is important to get done right here and right now, and to me. That to me is gratitude and action, because it's allowing the muck to be there.
Speaker 1:You know when I teach it.
Speaker 2:I always say, like gratitudes, like you've gone through the hard thing, right, like the fear, the pain, the trauma, the death, the business closure, you got fired, you have a sick kid, it doesn't matter. And I think women are notorious for comparing oh, her trauma was not, um, my trauma wasn't as bad as her trauma, right, like, oh, I can't see anything because she had this experience and I only had this experience. And so gratitude does not care, it does not, it does not matter the size. And so you have this fear, you have this pain, you have this anxiety, you have whatever, and gratitude just comes and sits right there.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Sup girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You okay, it's okay. I'm just going to take a moment here and in that moment you know you you can't push through the question what are you grateful for? That's one of the most important parts of it, in my opinion. So, if you allow that to come and that question of what are you grateful for, the first thing that you do is take a breath in. Oh wait.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what does that mean? Like you get a little present you get a little skill. This isn't a 17 minutes, it's a 30 second, it's a 10 second. So you have to get back in your body for that response to come. You can't run right that.
Speaker 1:That's where the magic is yeah, showing up and then sticking around. Ah, gratitude to show up, gratitude to stay I love that and so wonderful to have like your dad there to support you in that way. I love that guy. That's so wonderful and I can see just where a lot of that like wisdom has been passed down to kind of get you to slow down and be like it doesn't have to be everything, it's not black and white, it's not the end all, it's not the be all.
Speaker 1:We fall into these mind traps so often because, again, like you said, I think we can all relate. We get so caught up in our own heads and I know we've talked a lot in the past about like rumination and how a lot of us struggle with that, right, you know, throw menopause on top of that and nobody's sleeping, right. So really I think you're right, gratitude is a way to bring yourself back to being present. So if you struggle with rumination or anxiety in the moment, you can practice gratitude and it's kind of like. It's like Kegel exercises Nobody knows, you're doing it and you can just do it and you're going to be back where you are.
Speaker 2:If you are the person that needs the special pen and notebook, permission granted to order it or buy it. If you have a text with your friends you know, note, app, pen and paper, like, allow the practice to meet you where you are. It doesn't have to be any other way, any other way, you know. And to talk on that stress and anxiety, amy, the question I come back to time and time and time and time and time again, especially when I get into that space, is what is real?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's real Right? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:I want to throw in a bonus question then too, because I do want to get into this. I do. I look forward to your Friday posts. I think they're always so inspiring and just, and I know when you're doing them you're not doing it for everybody else, You're doing it just as much for you as everybody else. But I think, like doing it socially right Is there's like it keeps you accountable, Cause I don't know what I would. Would think I'd probably be calling to check on you if I didn't see a Friday post right.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of your way, um, and you might have other ways, but what give us?
Speaker 2:give our listeners a couple of different ways in which they can begin to kind of practice gratitude you plug this and I will shamelessly plug it because the publisher came, came yesterday and brought me the first hard official copy, so we just pushed the full order in yesterday. But I published two book projects this quarter. One is a memoir and it is coming. Pre-orders closed this week for that. Um, this journal was in companions. So the publisher said you know, you really need to put a gratitude journal out there, girl and I I fought with that, amy.
Speaker 2:I fought with it because, you know, in my head I'm like nobody needs that. They need a pen and paper and but I have. I have. I have done gratitude groups, private groups, challenges. I've went into classrooms and taught it and the thing that I'm proud of with this is that there's a level of prompt. You know we need it. There's light pose. There's 90 days of light post here. You know, from your bed, I love my bed. It's my sanctuary in the season.
Speaker 2:One of my best friends, tara, came over after my divorce and helped me create my sanctuary, a room I could feel safe and restored. I'm grateful for her. But now, what about you? From your bed, can you see five things that you're grateful for just in your bedroom? Again, bringing it back into these micro pieces, and so, um, I'm so excited that this is going to be out in the world. I can't. Where can people get it? We need to know. You can go to the gratitude collective website. There is a pre-order link if you find all of. If you're following us, um, there's a book tour that will probably be coming late summer, but we most likely will be doing a big book launch. I know Jungle Gems wants to host something oh, that's so fantastic. Roebling Point Books wants to host something. I love that place. We're just going to start, you know, getting it out there. Oh my God, it's really surreal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know like I've been talking about it for so long and now it's really surreal. I, you know, like I I've been talking about it for so long, and now that it's really here, um, because there's a deep level of vulnerability and um, even though I tell people all the time, vulnerability is like one of my superpowers, this has like stripped me to the bone, you know, and so, um, yeah, the process, would you say that was like the process of the memoir. Yeah, Sharing the depth of truth that I pushed myself to write.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:And how um you know Stephanie is. She's been with me for gosh 16 plus years and I joke that she knows where all the bodies are buried. I had a editor but then I brought her in a secondary editor because she pushed me deeper into my uncomfortable space. She's like you're only telling the gloss and we need behind the gloss, right, like I know there's more here and so, and that process with her took almost a year because I would pick it up and then it would be too much and I'd have to put it back down and then I would be able to pick it up and then go back to it and the book is.
Speaker 2:It really started when my mom was passing. She died in 2020 at the age of 63 from early onset Alzheimer's and through her dying process, writing was my form of sanity and sanctuary. So I wrote and people were telling me wow, I didn't know death could look like this. I didn't know grief was part like how it was, because grief's like black and white right.
Speaker 1:Like you're alive or you're dead. That's all we know. I am right.
Speaker 2:And so then, once I started writing, it was going back into childhood and these girls that were so mean to me and my dad telling me like no, your job's to love who you are. And then I became a mom when I was young and I dropped out of college to take care of this kid and Amy. That story I've never told publicly because the you know the shame and judgment that's still real. And to face all of that um was uh brutal.
Speaker 2:I love that you know into that right, I was like this was not going to be an ex-husband book. And then, um, that story changed my world in the most beautiful, incredible way. Like it is the most surreal hope I've had, with my marriage deteriorating and the miracles that have come and continue to give me hope and life. And so that's what that book is. It's called the Morning Light. I love it. Morning M-O-U-R-I-N-G. Ha, we're clever and so right, like yeah, it just it's a real honor that I was sitting in this sunroom. I bought my parents' house. My mom died here and this was her favorite room. And I remember looking at Ellis last year my youngest and tears streaming down my face and I said I think I did it, I think I wrote all of the words.
Speaker 2:Oh that must have been amazing.
Speaker 1:So good for you, good for you. I love that room too. By the way, that was my favorite room in your house. It's just like I just like I'm just gonna stay here. I'm going to book next time.
Speaker 2:I see why she liked it, I see how she liked it.
Speaker 1:That's just so amazing, rachel, and I think it just shows you what a gift vulnerability is, not to those that you share it with, but to yourself you know, at the end of the day it takes so much courage, but it's like I love that word beautiful. I'm going to use that for sure.
Speaker 2:That was a Glennon Doyle, of course it was. That was a Glennon and it's, and it's. It captures so much, right, it does, oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:Like excited is another one of my favorite words of hers. I was scared and excited at the same time because, yeah, sometimes it's a mash of all these things. Because, as we know too, another favorite of all of ours is Brene Brown Atlas of the Heart and that book just to give you language about emotions that we don't even have, and the English language was just astounding. So highly recommend you all check both of those amazing women out, because I do think maybe that is part of the challenge, right? And I think why we do need your gratitude journal, rachel, is because we don't always know how to express those very complex feelings.
Speaker 2:The ego says it can't be that easy. The ego tells you there's no way that thinking of three things a day to be grateful for is going to do anything for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, you'd be amazed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will tell you there's nothing more powerful than finding three things a day to be grateful for if you want a richer life.
Speaker 1:Agreed, agreed. I do that practice with my kids. My daughter was struggling with sleep anxiety for a while and the way we got through that was what are three things you're grateful for? Every night, right before bed. And and she's held me to it after all these years, I kind of thought we'd drop the practice, and then I just picked it up and started doing it with her brother. And you're right, it is amazing because it's like it doesn't. Once you kind of get into the practice, it doesn't take much, and then you just find yourself doing it on a more regular basis. It's a new habit. Yeah, it's a new habit.
Speaker 2:You guys, if you're going to go run a marathon, you don't just go buy new shoes and get to run it. Right, you may go. I'm going to walk a mile today in the shoes I have and try to maybe run for 10 seconds, and so it's the same thing, with gratitude. You have to allow the muscle to develop and so if you start today, love it, and so, if you start, today. Look how much farther ahead you'll be.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Oh, I love that analogy. It's a great analogy. You talked about the process of writing your book and then sort of wanting to kind of have or maintain that glossy image which we all understand. Like you said, the ego kind of tends to get in the way. I'm curious when you're running a business, how do you balance intuition and gratitude with that kind of perception of and desired success? Right, you don't start a business and say I want to fail.
Speaker 2:You define success for you. We missed that step. We think success is a big bank account, and you know Apple watches and you know success for me for a long time was being able to pay my bills on time.
Speaker 1:Right, it feels good.
Speaker 2:Success was being able to take a draw out. Um, so I had a little vacation money. Um, so first step is what is success for you? I want to be. I said to somebody. I was like I think I want to be a billionaire. I said for a long time I was like I could be a millionaire. I'm not there and I said, but like, why not? Because look at what I've built from pennies. Could you imagine? If I had dollars to pay, I know right.
Speaker 1:If you only would fund us people. Oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:It allows me. And so how is it weaved into my businesses? It is the business. They're not separate. There isn't a bank account and then a gratitude account. It's all together, and so defining success has allowed me to realize on the really shitty months or on the really positive months, it's all okay, we need all of it. That's the duality of life and living, and so it's weaved in by empowering a team to do their best and me being willing to meet them where they're at and help them where we all need to go.
Speaker 2:It's in talking through my team and allowing the whole human to be there, right? Um? It's asking for help because we think, as entrepreneurs, we have to know it all in part. You do, right, but there's people out there that want to help you, a lot more people that want to help you, that want to hold you back, and so I think, amy, it's all in one piece, right, like they're not separate for me, and what that has allowed me to do is show up every day and do work that I believe in, that I want to use to change the world, and the work in getting there was allowing all of me to be in the work, and we want to be like I talk about the hats right Like, okay, I was a wife, I'm a mother, I'm an aunt, I'm a community leader, I'm an author, I'm a speaker, I'm a CEO, I'm a founder, I'm an executive director. What I really am is just Rachel. And what would happen if I took all the hats off?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And I said Rachel's here today and Rachel's going to do her best job. That meant therapy, it meant spiritual advisors, it meant lots of dark nights of the soul. It meant losing my marriage. It meant losing friends right, but it allowed me to become. And so now there's no, yeah, it all just is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do try to really over compartmentalize. I still I feel that so much when I was still working in the industry and like life would just take a crazy. When I was still working in the industry and like life would just take a crazy, crazy turn or things at work got really, really complicated and it was just hard. Because you do, when you try to compartmentalize, it's like you're you're taking time to suppress things that really truly need to be addressed, which can be hard to do. Right, because some people might see certain things as like, well, okay, I can't, you know, you've she can, I can't.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly Cause you're modeling certain things, right.
Speaker 2:I tell people all the time you choose a lot of your own suffering.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, you guys, I'm not I.
Speaker 2:There's no high horse here.
Speaker 1:There's no, I'm holier than now.
Speaker 2:I will tell you about every time I fall Right. I will tell you about every failure. I will tell you about every burnt cookie. Yeah, it's not about a higher superiority. No, it's about me loving who I am.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, I definitely say with modeling, you bring gratitude into the workplace. But for those who are listening today, what are some ways that they might be able to bring gratitude into the workplace as like a mindset, as a practice, even if they're not the leader right, Because we have a lot of folks that are listening.
Speaker 2:What if you started the meeting and before you jumped into the work, you actually let the work happen? And so what if you round robin that question hey, before we start the meeting today, we're just going to quickly go in a circle and everybody needs to say one thing they're grateful for. Hey, you're doing a one-on-one. Before we do that, I'm going to let you know three things I'm grateful for.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that you know, hey, we've got a wall of post-it notes and you know we're going to make it accessible, so when you're in this office, you can just come and post what you're grateful for, because all of a sudden, too, again it goes back to that mirroring that you've talked about, which is so beautiful that you can start seeing. You know, I tell people all the time like somebody goes you're not good at it, like I don't have a boat. I don't have a boat. Yeah, you know there's a boat, and also I want a friend with a boat, I don't want a boat, right? And so, like it's not about the boat, it's about the breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not about the new car. It's about clean drinking water, you know. It's not about this guy got a promotion. It's about that. I'm like in clothes that make my body feel confident.
Speaker 1:Yes, holy Amy, yeah, yeah, it's such a good unlock. It's such a good unlock, I love it. It just allows for so much and, yeah, you just come in better for it. On that note, you know, um, you know burnout. The word gets thrown out so much that I think we're all burnout on the word burnout. But it's like, what else do we call it? What are some ways that we could maybe leverage latitude or gratitude, not latitude. Clearly it's Friday, that's true too.
Speaker 1:Both can be true to really help people, kind of work through. You know, when you're kind of it feels like you're going nonstop. How can gratitude help you navigate the complexities of what feels like just day-to-day life, sometimes without burning out?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it goes back to reflecting on you. I think sometimes in the burnout space, it's because we're so forward thinking.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:And gratitude brings us back to the moment right, it's because we're so forward thinking, yeah. And gratitude brings us back to the moment, right, like we all want to solve tomorrow's problem today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I also think that you know I will be crass, like welcome to entrepreneurship. Yeah, you know, like there is a jost hustle there. Right, there is a hustle, and, um, I don't want to push everybody to burnout, but what I want to share is is, every time I didn't think I could, what happened was my capacity was allowed to deepen, so I Pushing to the brink might not be so bad. Yeah, if you realize that you can deepen your capacity so I can hold more.
Speaker 2:I can hold more energetically, spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally. Burnout helped me in a way to be able to get there, yep. The other thing is a self-check, that burnout with your ego going my mind's telling me I can't take a day off. I have a Sabbath day once a week and I'm not good if I don't have it. That might look different. I might not be able to have a full day, but it might mean that Saturday and Sundays I don't get out of bed until 10. Yeah, I drink water. I think you know that is one of the top health care tips I give all the time You're dehydrated, period.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I go to bed at eight o'clock. My kids tuck me in. I love it. You know there's things that I have learned and allowed to help me shelter some of the burnout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's also very clear seasons. And so I know when I look at my year, I'm running January through May. Right, I put a break in there, like I'll take a long weekend. June is recoup. Yeah, july is pull time. Yep, august, I'm running for the races through November.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right, and so if I know, I can do something about it. Yeah, so the long weekend I do a long weekend in October with some girlfriends, and so it's not that you have to leave the city. There's days that I don't get out of bed. You know I love the Christmas holiday break because I think I watched a ridiculous, shameful amount of movies over Christmas break this year. I mean Netflix. Can you please drop some new stuff, Because I'm pretty sure I've watched it all.
Speaker 2:And so I think it's that it's understand. And guess what? Nothing crashed and burned no. And guess what? Nothing crashed and burned, no. And the other thing I bring into that is someone said to me if you don't learn to rest your team, you will run through your team because they will be so burned out. So by me learning and that was one of the most the best lesson I think that was I don't know if it was 23 or 24 that that came in what that allowed me to do was realize, as a leader, when I rest, they get caught up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's really important to my ecosystem.
Speaker 1:Well, and how beautiful is it to, as somebody who's running and leading a business in a team, to know that you have trust in them, they have trust in you and you can kind of just take your hands off the wheel for a moment and you don't go off course. You stay on the road and sometimes, like, like you said, things happen and sometimes they get like that chance. It really is and then when you walk back it's like it's not, like at least for me, it's not like an ego hit to be like, oh, they didn't need me after all. No, they still need me.
Speaker 2:No, I'm like thank God, you didn't need me. I'm taking three weeks next time.
Speaker 1:Right, it's beautiful, it's a. Really. To me that's a sign of know. Maybe I otherwise wouldn't have made and I would have just kind of stayed in the sameness or safety and not made leaps and bounds. But by looking back at what I've learned through kind of the difficult things in my life, it's like no, I'm kind of grateful. It was hard and it sucked, and I don't.
Speaker 1:I would prefer not to go through it again, but there is a sense of gratitude there because I came out a different person, a stronger person. I definitely had some growth. I've said that so many times too. But if you ever want to get your ass handed to you or kicked, run a business, start a business and just like you're going to learn so much about yourself because at the end of the day it's like a marriage You're waking up every day and deciding am I going to keep going or am I just going to call it off and say I'm done? Like you said and actually one of our mutual friends, crystal Rainer, um, always says like she's like I quit every day, I quit every damn day from it.
Speaker 2:You know, I I challenged myself as often as I can to be done with work when I pick the kids up by three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and part of that is is when I'm 15 years in and I sacrificed a lot of that time with them in the front end, and so now's my time to kind of make up for a little bit of that. And I have teenagers now, so they're like really, mom, we don't want to hang out with you, you're not, and so you know like it's just a fun dance that we get to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, 100%, and I love it's so funny, like your seasons and my seasons very similar. It took me about three years of business ownership to sort of see the trends. And I love it because, like my kids, spring and fall break align with both of those kind of trends and seasonality. So everyone knows like, yeah, this week and this week and once again March, this week in October, usually in the mountains with my kids, where you can't reach me via cell or internet. It's such a tremendous thing. And so, on that note of like taking rest in a Sabbath, as you mentioned, elizabeth, one of our live listeners hey, elizabeth, thanks for asking. She loves the idea, but she's kind of wanting more details on what that means for you. And she says it's so hard with all these Sunday reset videos. Yeah, One.
Speaker 2:I don't watch those Right. Turn those off. There's no reset. So what does a Sabbath day look like? For me Is that the question. Yeah, so good. When I got divorced, my ex-husband would bring me tea every morning, right? So the first thing I did when I got divorced was get an electric kettle that I can turn on from an app on my phone.
Speaker 1:Sweet.
Speaker 2:So that when I finally do wake up, I turn that on and I take a long slow hour drinking.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Then I go am I, am I needing to be in community, Like do I need to have somebody, a girlfriend, over Like you know, those dinners are a little more casual, a little more laid back or do I just need to like be home? So like, I ask myself that question, um question, mainly because I'm an extrovert and sometimes I need to be around the humans, right?
Speaker 2:To like have that kind of bump that I need to feel my best. I typically will write out on Sunday, on that day of rest of like, what the next week looks like, that little bit of inventory. So I'm starting to like I don't want to work. There's no work here. Am I taking the kids to a movie? Are we renting a movie on Amazon? I am not. Most 99% of those days I am not cooking.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I am ordering DoorDash, we are going to dinner somewhere, um, which then again too, is, I think, really reflective time with my kids, right, like as they become teenagers. They just want food out, right? Mom's not cooking. So you know, I there's no expectation that anything has to get done on my Sabbath day, that's. I think. The thing, Elizabeth, is that a Sabbath day is not a Sabbath day if there's 17 tasks on it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:A Sabbath day is going. I'm okay with the piles of laundry and the dirty floor and, um, the messy bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's really hard, because I also am like this is my day, I've got to get it all done. No, I need to do laundry, so I'm working from home. Tomorrow I'm going to put the load in before my call starts. So that's part of that. Look at what's happening and what might need to get done, so that I know, because otherwise I'm in my head and I'm and I'm telling myself you know, you have all this stuff that needs to get done. You shouldn't be resting, you should not. That should word man, shooting all over yourselves. That little reflection shows me where I can put in the things that need to get done so that I can actually rest. And for me, if it's out of my head, then I can come down. I also had to train myself. It didn't start with a whole day, it started with an evening. I used to work 15 hours a day. It was normal seven days week, like I just never knew how to turn it off.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Um, and I'm up to a whole day.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:And I probably get three out of four of those in the month Right, Like in all actuality, like, um yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, I think, being intentional and making time for rest, putting it on your calendar so important, Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, as many of us live in my rest, yeah, you schedule everything else. Oh my gosh Well. And then I know, in the dentist and you schedule eight nights with your husband. You schedule stuff with your kids like get over it, right?
Speaker 1:Well, and then for me, it's like I have something to look forward to. You know, I read a study a long time ago Lots of you have probably heard it about the fact that, like most of us are our happiest the week before vacation, not while we're on vacation. It's everything about the anticipation and having something to look forward to, which is why my phone is filled with like multiple lists of awesome air bmbs, because it's like I finished one thing. What's my next thing to look forward to? Yeah, you know, because it's like I'm gonna work my ass off the next four months. What can I put at the end of that tunnel? That's a little bit of light to be there to like, look forward to and rest. So, yeah, you got to plan for it. Oh, my goodness, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, is there any more questions? No, you're good.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to say I want to make sure our live listeners audience. If they've got more questions, they can definitely ask them. But I was going to jump to our power round questions. But before I do that, was there something else you wanted to say?
Speaker 1:No, this is so great, I know Right, it's so fun. Um so yeah, audience, if you've got more questions like Elizabeth had, don't be shy, drop them in there. I'm going to go through the power round questions real quick. So these are some some fun um, quick fire questions for you. What is your go-to practice during back-to-back meetings and things? Water, oh, that's great, like I yep, that's it I love it.
Speaker 2:That's right like because I don't like. I think so much is like we have to have all of these practices and systems. No, I just need to like, make it simple.
Speaker 1:Make it easier on yourself.
Speaker 2:Done. This is with me everywhere, Like I love it. People are like it's like a safe security blanket at this point, you know, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, I love that. All right, quick gratitude reset when between your professional and personal life, which I feel like you don't separate much of the two based on how I'm sending your earlier answers, yeah, so there's like not a need for a reset, right, because you're not forcing compartmentalization Like hey, there's a little bit of an unlock for y'all.
Speaker 2:It's pretty wild Again. I've been practicing gratitude for over 30 years, yeah, and so You've gotten good at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if you start today, right, exactly, you just got to start today. You just got to do that one little bit. Don't make it huge. It doesn't have to be everything in one.
Speaker 2:Three things.
Speaker 1:Love it. One way to show gratitude to a um a team member, whether that's in person or virtual.
Speaker 2:Listen to them, because if you listen, you're going to hear. You're going to hear the worry and you're going to hear the fear, you're going to hear where they feel lost or stuck. And then you can be the gratitude in that light because you listened. And then you're like, hey, I heard you feel like you're a little stressed out. Is there anything be of service?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Here's a cup of tea. There's a glass of water. Do you need anything else?
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. What are you?
Speaker 2:grateful for Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so beautiful, rachel, because we talked about this before too on the podcast how, like, I worked at a place where they wanted to know your love language and I thought that was so strange, but that's such a wonderful way to listen and learn and understand how do people receive love and which I would include that as a gratitude. Like you know, maybe I'm not incentivized by you just being like you did a great job. Here's a hundred bucks. Some people that's like yay. Other of us want, you know, gratification or thank you, something as simple as that, and oftentimes we tend to, I would say we probably show up and show love and gratitude, the ways we like to receive them, and so, by listening, you're kind of treating others not how you would want to be treated. You're treating them how they want to be treated, which you know people where they're at, not where you're at.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's such great advice. All right, my last one that I've got for you is best gratitude habit for staying positive during a ton of change, when things just kind of are like left and right, a lot out of your control.
Speaker 2:It's. It's actually. It's actually doing the practice because again, it's going to make you present you guys, your life is not in your control. Love you Right. I love bursting that bubble and the more you want to control it and strangle it, all that does is constrict and suffocate.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like allow the breath to be there. You're free there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, if it's hard, practice more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, like what does the Buddha say? Like, if you don't have time to meditate for a minute, meditate for an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause it's all what's real right Like. If you are too busy, I will call bullshit Right Like. And so nobody's too busy for a 60 second practice. So maybe when it's really hard, push yourself, expand depth capacity. So instead of three things, it's 32 things that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Instead of five things, it's it's 12 things that you had that you were grateful for that day. Stretch and make the capacity deepen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love it too, cause it's like often said, but I don't. I know, you and I both listened to a lot of mindfulness and meditation and read a lot of the similar like you know literature and all that. So I want to say it and hopefully not being too obvious to our listeners, but it's called a practice for a reason, right Like it's. It's just because you're just, you're showing up and you're, like you said, building that muscle. It's not meant to be perfect every time and there's never going to be a time when you're perfect, because there's no such thing.
Speaker 2:Why do you want to be perfect? You're beautiful, you're human Right, absolutely. Perfection's not going to make you go farther or faster. Perfection's going to bury you in burden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, it'll hold you up. Yeah, I agree, I agree, well, you know what friend? Thank you for showing up and for doing this.
Speaker 2:Thank you for giving me this space to show up to.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I'm just. I always feel so lucky to be able to kind of you know, work with you and partner with you and see what you're doing and then bring it to our group and the broader group of listeners.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share with them Of course, my absolute pleasure and listeners.
Speaker 1:Again, thank you for showing up and sticking it out. We know there's always a lot of things that are pulling on your time and I don't know. I just always thought, every time I show up to things like this, I walk away feeling a whole lot happier that I did so. Hopefully it was all well worth your time. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us this week. It's been a fantastic conversation. Rach, I really appreciate it, excited to hang out soon, and everyone else until then. Hopefully you can join us next week. Until then, keep asking, keep giving and keep growing. We'll see you all soon. Thanks everyone. Bye.
