Episode 256: When Slowing Down Is the Smartest Move | Stephani Clymer | Shop Common Thread
Stephani Clymer is the founder and owner of Shop Common Threads, a beloved boutique in Newport Beach, CA. In this episode, she and Kara talk about building a values-led business, how to lead with empathy, and what it really takes to run a successful brick-and-mortar shop in today’s digital-first world. Stephani shares her story of shifting from broadcast journalism to retail after a lightbulb moment watching Oprah, why she believes every leader needs a coach, and how customer service has become her brand's secret weapon. This is a candid conversation about reinvention, retail math, and creating the kind of business and life you actually want. Whether you're a product-based entrepreneur, thinking about opening a shop, or craving more peace and clarity in your leadership journey, this episode is for you.
Shop Common Threads today and get 20% off with code POWERFUL at checkout.
“We live and breathe our values. We discuss our values in hiring, in promoting, in training. We’re upfront from the beginning to attract the right people to ensure the values carry through to our customers.”
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Entrepreneur & Owner Shop Common Threads
Shop Common Threads today and receive 20% off everything using code ‘powerful’ at checkout. -
Chapters:
(00:00:00) Finding Her Purpose: From Broadcast Journalism to Retail Entrepreneurship(00:04:00) Opening Shop Common Threads at 25 and Learning on the Job
(00:07:00) Why Values and Culture Are Non-Negotiable in Team Building
(00:11:45) Retail Rollercoaster: Managing Cash Flow, Anxiety, and Growth
(00:14:00) The Power of Community Support in Business
(00:22:03) How a Coach Helped Her Embrace Change and Keep Evolving
(00:25:03) From Scarcity to Creativity: Rewiring Her Entrepreneur Mindset
(00:38:11) Building a Business While Raising a Family
(00:42:30) Choosing Peace, Clarity, and Slowing Down in 2024
Follow along using the Transcript
I think that I was young and thought I wanted to be on tv. Truthfully, and I didn't love what I was learning. I was thinking, that's not what I want to do. And I was watching Oprah and she said, you should do something that you love. And I switched my major to retail.
That's Stephanie Klier. I'm Kara Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Let's jump right in and tell everyone who you are, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
Okay. Amazing. I am Stephanie Klier. I am located basically a neighbor of yours in Newport Beach, California. And what I am up to as far as your probably listeners want to know about other powerful ladies is I am an entrepreneur and I run a women's clothing brand and store called Shop Common Thread.
Where did the idea come from to have your own shop? So many people think oh, that'd be so fun to have my own store. It's also a really big endeavor. So how did you get to having the store that you have today?
Okay. It started as thinking it was really just a fun idea, and this is an embarrassing story.
I was sitting in my dorm room in college and I was a major because I, my major was broadcasting. I think that I was young and thought I wanted to be on tv. Truthfully. And I didn't love what I was learning. I was thinking, that's not what I want to do. And I was watching Oprah because I'm 43 and that is what we did back then.
And she said, you should do something that you love. And I switched my major to retail. It was so simple, so silly. It could have not worked out at all. But that is honestly where it all began. And then I worked at boutiques in college. I truly thought, I'm going to open a teeny tiny store and it's going to be a great way to work and have, I was, again, young, balance that silly word.
Who even knows what it means, but I honestly thought, I wanna be a mom, but not a hundred percent a mom, and I wanna have this little store that was as simple as simple and as big as I could think in that moment.
And did you open the store as soon as you left outta school? Did you like, was it a big winding journey to get to here today?
It
wasn't. It wasn't a long wind. Yes, it was a very long winding journey to get to here. But to get to opening my first store, it truly wasn't. I was 25 years old when I opened, so I graduated college. I moved from Arizona to Dallas, Texas. I worked in public relations at Neiman Marcus. I worked all the time.
I got a ton of fun experience and when I moved to California, I took a job in escrow sales and I like to say I worked half as much for twice as much, and it was the first time I understood what the Sunday blues were. I really just did not like my job. I didn't get excited. I don't think I ever felt great at it.
It was just that first experience, which I think most of us go through at some point. Although I did talk to a woman the other day and she said, I never felt that. And I thought, wow, that's so cool. But for those who understand, I did, I lived for Fridays. I started like that feeling in your body on Sundays.
And so I would write a business plan at night after work, and I just at that time thought I am going. I couldn't think of another job as I was interviewing that I wanted to really do. So I kept going on these interviews because I wasn't happy at my job thinking, oh, I'm just going to trade this in for kind of the same thing.
And so that, that little bit of fear of doing that is, was. Gave me the courage. I wrote a business plan. I got a business loan. I started a teeny tiny store at 25 years old.
One of the things that I find so impressive about your store, and we opened this up by me telling you that I go there often, it's my go-to place for.
Hostess gifts for birthday parties. There's always something I'm finding. I go in before Christmas, I'm actually wearing some bracelets from your store today. Oh, yay. But there's, it doesn't feel like every other shop, especially in the area, everyone is so nice. There's such high level of customer service.
There is a really simple accessory that they didn't have in the color I wanted, and I got a text two days later, Hey, we found the color. Do you want me to hold it for you?
Oh, that's nice.
No, I'm not expecting that level of customer service in a, an independent boutique, let alone one where there's always people in it.
There's always people being busy. How has customer service been integrated into how you run your business and how has it evolved over time?
Oh gosh. It's evolved greatly. The bus, as when you own a business, just anything in life, we're always evolving. We're always getting better.
But a few years ago, I intentionally created a culture versus just, I think we were always a positive place to work. I'd like to think that we had nice customer service, but I was small enough that I was there, 90% of the time in the beginning. So maybe it didn't feel as important to translate.
The feeling of the store. But as we started to grow, I started to see a need to really control the environment. And by control it, I don't mean me, I couldn't be it if I, and that, that was after I got the bug to one oh. Connect with more people, have more business. It was an opportunity if we can have more people come in the doors, we can connect with more women and we can really serve our mission.
So it went with evolving our mission and creating a set of values that we were really going to operate by. Not like the values that you hang on the wall because they look pretty and they sound good. And I think that's it. And so it's attracted the right kind of women to work there. It's not like a woman comes to work there and we say, Ooh, that's not how we do it, or That's not how we talk to people, or This is how you're kind.
Instead, it just attracted the kind of people who inherently they wanna do a really good job. They probably felt really excited when they found that bracelet and they feel the same about a small, maybe not. Expensive item as they do about something huge that somebody has wanted. It's just that like excitement to hopefully it makes your day a little brighter.
You get to have what you really wanted and then that feels good.
Yeah. So many of my clients regularly asking about how to. Translate those values to your employees. How to find the people who share those values from the beginning. I do think that learning to interview and hire well is something that some people are just more innate at than others, and it also changes over time.
From your experience, how have you made sure that those values, the really important ones are showing up consistently even when you're not around?
You do have to live them. Number one, top down. And then what I've learned is things just, they dilute as they go down, right? So I live them.
I hire an executive team or really always try to promote from within that lives those values. But we talk about our values in hiring process. We talk about our values as we promote, we talk about our values. If there's something to work on, it's never just don't do it that way. We have. At the end of the year, we were give rewards around our values, so we integrate them in everything versus just mentioning them, in your hiring packet.
It's, they're truly, I meant them, I mean them they probably were, originated as the values that I have as a human being. And I think that sometimes we're afraid to infuse that into our company, but that is what makes our company unique. And I think that we have to go, these aren't going to be for everybody.
And it's a lot easier to be upfront about that in the beginning. Look, we've still hired. That's just part of the process. But it does help. It, I've had women go, this is. They're appalled. I don't like how you refer to each other. I actually had a woman quit and say, stop calling each other family.
It's a turnoff. And while I take all feedback, I thought, that's good to note. I need to make sure that women who come to work for us realize how we do work together. And then I have another woman who. Recently. Recently took significantly less money than she was making because she said, I've never worked anywhere with values like this.
I've never worked anywhere. That embodies a growth mindset that talks about reading, that gives us access to coaches. So if you're upfront from the beginning, you find the people. It's a turnoff to some, and it's a huge benefit for others. Yeah.
You said something that I think is so important, which is about infusing who you are as the entrepreneur into your business.
I'm constantly coaching people to. Be really selfish in how the business is set up and make it work for you first and everyone else. Second, how have you stepped into choosing yourself more and more as you've expanded as an entrepreneur?
Oh, gosh, that's a great question. I honestly think part of that is just age and maturity and being okay.
I don't worry anymore if the team thinks my idea is crazy or if. That sounds a little, when you implement values and you haven't had them, there is a part of you that goes, does this sound a little cliche or a little cheesy, or a little Pollyanna, or, you start to these stories creep up and you just, thankfully, I, thankfully, and not thankfully, honestly, I wish I had values and culture.
Intentional culture much earlier because there were situations that could have been avoided. However, the positive is by the time I was doing this, I was in my late thirties and I was a lot more self secure. And I think you have to just sometimes go, I can't, you're not going to make everybody happy.
You can't worry about every little opinion. We just can't do that as a leader.
Yeah. I spent 20 years working in fashion, footwear and apparel before doing this whole time, I read that. Yeah. And whenever I look at a retail store, instantly go into. All the challenges with inventory and on time arrivals and what happens when things aren't selling at the speed you wanted them to.
Running a retail business is so much math and spreadsheets that I don't think most people think about when they think of oh, it'd be so fun to have a boutique. And you're like, do you like spreadsheets? Because that's gonna be so much of this business, what has surprised you about having the store and.
What have been some of the big challenges that you've had to tackle and gain expertise in to not make, honestly, like the cash flow work consistently, let alone just the planning for the business, like it's so far in advance that you're having to make purchases sometimes, and of course it's been getting shorter as lead times.
Are changing, at least from when I first started is two years out for things. But like where have you really had to focus and dial down to be like, I have to make this work, otherwise the business just will not happen.
That's the hardest part for me because I love people and retail isn't a linear, growth.
So it's really fun when you're hiring and you're investing into people. But at the end of the day, I always remind my team, my job is to make sure during hard times that we still have a company when the hard time, everything is cyclical. So you will get, and I think this isn't any business, right?
People have referred to it as seasons. You get a winter, you get a spring, you get a I. It doesn't matter how you refer. It is true in every business. There are times when you just feel like you've made it and it's abundant and it is so fun. And there are times where you really have to buckle down and that's those numbers and those spreadsheets are what?
Help my decision making process. However, I'll share a story. I recently went through a time where I was getting a little too into the numbers and I was feeling a lot of anxiety and a lot of it was like my energy level was so far down and it was actually my coach who we both know who said to me, what can you control?
What are you doing right now that's adding to this anxiety and what can you control? And it's not. You're in retail and you cannot control necessarily what's already in store. That's not selling to a degree. You can, there's so much social media and there's marketing and things like that but on the other hand you cannot.
And but I could control how much I was looking at numbers. So it's such a delicate game of yes, those numbers matter so much, but then the relationships matter and the connections matter and the marketing. It's just, and I think that's the thing as an entrepreneur is you don't get to wear one hat.
But I have gotten really good at recognizing who's better than me at things around me. So I delegate those. But at the end of the day, yeah, our job is, as any business owner is to make sure we make it through the hard times, and that does become a cash flow and a numbers game, and it makes some really hard, you have to make some really hard decisions.
Yeah I it's definitely not lunar, as you said, it's such a rollercoaster and. I know how you even feel emotionally can be different hour by hour as an entrepreneur. Like one great phone call, one great sale, you're up something. The next phone call, you're down. You're like, come on. Can we make it through the day?
It's
so true. It's so true.
So how have you know women in your life, other powerful ladies? How has the community around you gotten you through the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship and supported you in both the hard and the good times professionally and personally?
Okay, so from a big community standpoint versus naming one person, 2020 was the time I realized that this community that we've built literally right here is, we owe them everything and I realized how much.
We pour into them, they poured into us so that it's like I will never forget that I will never open another store in another space and ever take for granted that community and how much it means. And the loyalty is huge. Then from a closer standpoint I have one woman who has worked with me almost entirely.
She did take off about two years When she graduated college, I, she was 18 and I was 25. And she is still there. I call her my work wife, my left hand, my right hand. But she just has such a wonderful mindset and we've grown up together and talk about a powerful lady. She was the one recently.
We are opening our second store and it kept getting delayed and as you've said, you've bought all the stuff and it's going to get old. It's not like you can keep it, nobody cares about that stuff in a year. And she she's the one who, when I said there's nothing we can do.
And she was like, find a space, open a space, do it. You need those people in your corner who don't let you say, there's just nothing else I could do. It's like that tough love where it's go somewhere else, get out of the office, get quiet. This is your job if you don't figure this out, or, and I, and you need people like that around you.
So I have her. And then, my mom is like the ultimate powerful lady that I know, and she still gives me business advice every day.
If you go back to 8-year-old, you would she have imagined that you are living in Orange County and running the store and having this life.
This is a complicated answer for me because yes and no.
I honestly think that I always thought. I could do whatever I wanted and I can't pinpoint exactly why I felt that way or where that came from. At the same time, and I'm sure most people can relate to this, sometimes when you take a pause and you go, I can't believe this is my life. This is so awesome. The blessings are beyond, so it, yes, she could, but also I think she'd be surprised at how great it really is.
We're about the same age, and somebody asked me once who my mentors were like, who inspired me? And. I was shocked when I listed the Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew Gem and the Holograms. I was like, wait, they're all fictional. What? What is going on? And I feel really lucky to have grown up in a period where the narrative was that you could do whatever you wanted.
And even if they were fictional, there were examples of women coming together to make things that. Should not have been happening at their specific ages, like via reality. But I didn't realize how few other sources there were for me to say what made me think I could do it besides my great parents?
But it was shocking for me. So when you think back to again, eight or another time period when you were younger, was there something, someone that you saw, someone that you were looking to, that you said. That's, that sounds fun. I like what they're up to.
So what my mom does not sound fun to me.
However, she never put herself in a position where she couldn't. Take care of herself or be in control. And she was a secretary. She went to secretarial sec, secretarial school. She was raised at a time when that's what you do. When she thought she'd have five children and she ended up with just me and she retired as a chief financial officer with like top security, government clearance things, right?
So I. I didn't have to look at fictional and she didn't have to say anything to me. I just watched it naturally in my life, and I wasn't that in tune with what was going on. It's later in life that I can go, wow. She showed me just every single day that it's not always about the obvious path or the way that people say it's supposed to go.
So I just think that there's so much to be said for what's going on around us. We're soaking that in even as adults don't. And it's why now we get to be so intentional, I think, with what we fill our minds with. And again, that's totally different than, you were looking at fictional characters because there weren't real women all over the place on podcasts and on TV shows and on Netflix series.
For you to, that didn't exist.
It was Oprah, as you said earlier. That was who, if you were listening, who badass women were, you're like Oprah and then maybe some politician that's out there and. Or a celebrity, which isn't really doing what I wanna do. It was really minimal and not that women weren't doing great things at that time.
It just wasn't getting to your point, the media attention that women do now. There's, we just got, came through the, entire Barbie, Beyonce, Taylor Swift year it's just. It's such a different shift than narrative that was around us. But I don't, I never was told I couldn't necessarily do something.
Of course, there were a few scenarios I remember, but it was that unique transition. And I even thought in corporate life, I started off seeing women who were trying to be like. Like men leaders, which wasn't always using their power to their full capacity. And then I slowly started seeing women leaders who were just being themselves.
Yeah. And I like, I just got to see that more as I was stepping into my own leadership spaces. But it was like part of why I created this, 'cause I had so many men in my life that I looked up to also from the categories I was working in. That I wanted and we're craving who were other women rising alongside because I know they're out there.
I know that there's women doing incredible things that no one's hearing their story. When you think of the words powerful, and ladies, what do those words mean to you? And do their definitions change when they're next to each other?
I don't know if their definitions change. Powerful is, powerful in itself is such a powerful word, right?
I think of it as the ability to ignite change, whether in ourselves, in our communities, to to just create our own story. I think power and creation go together so much for me, and so when you add that to a lady, it almost, honestly, I start to think like unstoppable and it's so cheesy, but. I don't know, because I'm not a man, so I'm not putting a man down by any means.
But I do know that when a woman has an idea and if she wants to create change, it's happening. And to me, that is so powerful. And whether it's on, a level at her home, in her children's school, in her business at the state, you can take it. Is tiny or is huge, but the ripple effects can be, so big from some of those small changes.
And I just think it powerful lady, when you put it together, it sounds really hopeful.
My coach is Angie, which is how I found out about you, and she has a note in here to make sure I ask you about pivoting and how pivoting has been such a big part of your entrepreneurial journey.
You know what's great about having a coach in general, I think, and obviously you know this because you are a coach and you have a coach.
Sometimes, especially when our confidence might wane in harder times, it takes a coach or somebody who knows you really well to see what you are good at and something, Angie will always remind me when I'll say, this just isn't working, or that's not working, or I'm worried about this or that. And she said, so pivot, that's what you do.
That's what you've done since the day I've known you. And I really think, I have had a retail store for 18 years. We started half the size as a maternity store with a different name. I've rebranded, we've grown, we've. That didn't work out quite how we felt. So we do this, we do that. It's, at the end of the day, just being open to change.
And I remember when she said that, I said, I hate the word pivot. 2020 made everybody say the word pivot. I hate the word pivot and, but there isn't a better word. I am just, I think that it is very important in life. I think as a leader it is crucial to find what other people are great at. And then I think when you're a leader, sometimes you need someone in your life to remind you what you are great at.
And change doesn't bother me. It never has, so I have to run with that.
And it's, it just means that you're keeping your eyes open, it's heartbreaking, I think, to see businesses that have found a groove and they stop paying attention and they're not looking at. Industry trends, fashion trends, like consumer buying habits, like they're not in a change mindset or a flexibility, even mindset.
'Cause sometimes pivot is so terrifying because it sounds like you're making a 180 shift, but sometimes it's a 10 degrees shift that gives you access to everything. So yeah, like I agree with you. That word is it's just not inspiring. That's a word anymore, but it's No, because it was so overused and it was like, okay yeah.
It's okay, we, but it's happening all the time. I think great entrepreneurs, great leaders, they're constantly paying attention and shifting. It's guiding a boat down a river more than it is. I think anything else. And sometimes you hit the side and you're like, oh, okay, we're not gonna do that again.
But it's constant navigating to, so you said, like I hear in your share, like how committed you are to making sure that your employees that you love get to keep loving their job, that they get to keep coming to work. As the business has grown, as your team has grown, how have you not gotten consumed by the pressure?
Being responsible for other people's happiness futures, financial stability.
That's constant work. I will tell you again I think that, so for my story, my baseline and before I really went through a self-improvement process was to be a very, like a low energy scarcity, anxious. Like that, that was in me and I had to work really hard, and I almost think it's like going to the gym, right?
If you stop going, your muscles get smaller. If I am not intentional and conscious and working on myself, that pressure is almost like I cannot breathe. But if I do that, then I paralyze myself and then I will, it would be like a self-fulfilling prophecy because I just, all I'm thinking about. So that's where it went back to the basics for me.
Stop sitting in the hard stop, sitting in the numbers. You have to know enough to run your business, and then you have to leave enough space and enough quiet to create. How do I do that? I mostly let them feed into me as much as I feed into them. The women around me are incredible. The women at my company, when.
When I need them to show up and just say that right thing, they really do. So I think my biggest advice to myself on a daily basis is just be quiet a little bit more.
Yeah. There's been so much conversation about the listening component. And it can be. Hard to remember to pause and listen when we're going at a million miles a minute.
I've been working with Angie a lot about really carving out more and more space for myself and the more of the soul filling components. 'cause it's so easy to look at the schedule that. I built all my faults, right? And be like, wait, what's my week look like? I'm already tired and it's Monday morning.
And I have to keep coming back to remembering I created this, and in that I can control it and I can change it if I need to. But that listening component when. We have so much work to get done. I know that my personal and I tell my team this, so there are warns well in advance that I will jump into a meeting and start getting all the things done.
And then when we're done, be like, oh, and how are you guys? And I'm like, maybe I should start that way. Maybe that's
guilty. Guilty. Or you have a quick call and the person is so nice and they're asking you all about your weekend and you wanna say, yeah, this is so sweet, but let's go. I'm guilty, I get it.
Sometimes we're moving fast. It just, yeah. But also for me, getting quiet is as simple as, simple but hard to do. Not falling into just the distractions, right? When I am stressed and I am spinning, it sounds really nice to just scroll. It sounds really nice to just knock out 10 emails that are, they don't really take any brain power.
So for me, the listening is also just being quiet enough to hear yourself. That part's hard for me because I think that I'm supposed to fill all my minutes, right? I programmed myself, and I don't know if you feel this way, with a busy schedule to never waste any minutes, and I had to reframe that.
It's not wasting, but that's a, it's a reframe for me.
Even making sure that we put like research into our day, like that needs to be blocked out like anything else. 'cause you have to be doing research about. Trends and new brands, there's so much constant knowledge to be consuming, to stay not just relevant, but ahead of the curve that we all want to be on.
Like I had to block out time for additional like education, what are new marketing things that are happening? What are new platforms? How is, my MBA is from a long time ago, so there's been so much change happening that I have to stay on top of, but that shouldn't be my weekends. That needs to be built into my Monday through Friday 'cause it's work.
But I agree with you like that continuing, knowing that it's not selfish to have daydreaming, open brainstorming time or journal, like whatever I need to do to get to that self listening, it changes everything and. I know Angie's always on my case 'cause I'm not a daily journaler and I know that her journal can be found at your store.
I am a daily journaler because of her journal though. It's the prompt, like you just open a blank page for me and that feels it's almost like when would it end, so you just don't start.
Yeah. This is gonna be an hour journaling session versus five minutes. Yeah.
I don't know.
I think that's something I wish I would've known at a younger age. And maybe we share a personality trait in that of just because we feel this need to achieve and to do that, we forgot that it's okay. I honestly, if I'm really honest, and this is when I was not a great leader, it was like I judged people who were okay, not.
Working all the time, not being on all the time, not want it was, which is a really, vulnerable thing to admit because who wants to hang out with or be around somebody like that. But it was like, I thought it was a badge of honor.
Yeah.
And that's a pretty sad and exhausting way to live.
And I think it, it's like that fine balance of like.
Want craving to be around people who are at your speed, but also respecting the people who are on a completely different speed. Even like one of my sisters and I are on completely different. Like time continuums, right? We were the classic example of sharing a room growing up and there's a clear line.
Mine was tidy, hers was messy. Like she shows up late. I show up early. Like it's just that space, right? It, I think it is interesting. How do we leave room for everyone who's different from us and choosing their own past, but then how can we be attracting the people who are. Have similar intentions, even if they're not on the same productivity scale, but that growth mindset, the how do we make an impact?
Like I have to, I'm having a procedure and I have to be on bedrest for three days. And that's giving me anxiety. Like how do I lay down for three days?
And like, how do you enjoy it? Because when else will you get this? Like how I want you to enjoy it. Exactly.
Exactly. So I wanna ask
hard for you.
I can already tell we don't know each other now. Yet I can already. I'm like, Ooh, that's gonna be hard.
I wanna ask some fun questions about having a store, so people who are daydreaming about opening their own retail shop, their own boutique, what is the fun part? And like most people, it's like the buying, the shopping. Like how are you finding new brands? How are you finding product? And how much fun is that for you?
Okay, so I am like buying is what I love. When we talk about passing off what you're not as great at, visuals. I did them when I had to. Systems. I created them when I had to, but those were like the first things that I gave away. Buying was the last thing I was willing and able to share because I love it.
But I will tell you that every person who has come to work for me as a buyer is shocked that you go to market, once every month or two we do a buy. And all the other days are what? Just what you said, it is running numbers. It is running spreadsheets. What's selling, what's not selling? How does this tie into this store, to this marketing?
You're recalling. Most of it isn't glamorous, but the days you get to go are really fun and really interesting and connecting with people is. Is my favorite part of the job. And when sales are clicking, like you're seeing it all work. Everything you've done. That is so much fun.
I love the component as well that when you are the retailer, you get to see the connection and the excitement that whoever designed that piece usually doesn't get to see because they're too, yeah.
They're removed from the customer. How often are you sending feedback? To where like the brands you bought from the artisans you might have bought from to let them know like how excited people are about their products.
You'd be surprised at how rarely people ask. I have certain brands and they're honestly normally the strongest that will say, and they'll, the best brands will say what are, let's say it's a denim brand.
The best ones will say, what's selling from other people? What are other people creating for you that were not, A lot of brands don't ask, but the ones who do always tell me, oh, it's such great information, because we don't get to hear direct from the consumer. And I think that all of our best ideas have come from our clients.
And every week when we meet, we talk about what are people asking for that we don't have, what do we have that nobody's touching? What trends are they ready for? We do a lot of surveys on email and online, because your clients will tell you, the hard part is listening to them because let's be honest, you've made this buy, you have all this stuff, and they're like, I hate it.
They don't say it quite like that, but they're showing you that with their checkbook every day. Sometimes it's hard to listen because it's not the answer you wanted.
I know like just I spent so many years of my life looking at sell-through reports and nothing's more frustrating than knowing something should work and not, and being like, why isn't this working?
Everything we've done, all the data, all the research, it should be working. Like, where is that missing piece? 'cause it, it often is one thing that's missing. It's priced a little too off or it's not merchandise with other things that make it stand out or it's so frustrating to figure out what that one variable is of like, why is it working in Austin, but not in Newport Beach?
And it can be fun, but it can also just be so frustrating when you believed in it so much.
Oh yeah. There's. There are as many hard days as there are great days, and I think that, people always ask What keeps you going? And I honestly, for me it was there was no plan B, there's still no plan B.
Because sometimes if there was a plan B, I would jump ship and I would go on to plan B, to be quite honest. Other days I wouldn't. But certainly some days I'm like, what did I do? Yeah. It's hard. It really is. And not just retail, I think it's. To your point, so many of the questions you ask tie into the same thing, right?
You're looking at the numbers, you're worrying about your employees, you're figuring out the customer you're keeping up with ever changing, trends in how people are spending their money and what they're wanting to look for. And it's just a lot of things that you, and you don't get to let one slide
No.
Or you feel it. If you do, it comes back pretty quickly.
Yeah, you do.
So we've been asking everyone where they put themselves in the powerful lady scale. If zero is average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you rank yourself today and on an average day?
I'm not doing so bad.
I'd say I'm an eight. I think I've gone from like a six to an eight in probably the last five years, and hopefully I'll go from an eight to a nine in the next few
years. What for you are non-negotiables to have a great day or a great week.
My morning routine a hundred percent is non-negotiable.
And for me, that includes time to pray, to journal, to work out, and I just, I set my day. I have a pretty long quiet morning routine and it's because from the time I wake my children up at six 30 until they go to bed, I am with people really. And a lot of other outside things can take control of my day.
When you're running a company that happens. So those are. That morning time to do those things is non-negotiable for me.
I work with a lot of women about creating maternity plans when they are the business owners. It, I have a lot of women between 25 and 40, and it's either their first or their second or their first running their own business.
There's so many. Gross stereotypes about what women can and can't do while they're pregnant and when they're mothers, and we're so worried about Will this entire business we've created fall apart because we're now a mom. How has being a mom changed how you think about your business, and how has it expanded your ability to step into just leadership in general?
Oh gosh. So I grew up as a mom while growing the business. I had the business first, but on such a tiny scale, and then it was like I kept it small and I had my children, and I think it could have gone one or two ways. Having those children could have made me appreciate the small, the less pressure.
But I also. Set me up for wanting more financial freedom in order to give them the lives that I pictured being able to provide and also to make it make sense that I was gone. So much. So I really feel that it could have gone either way for me, having children made me really tap into what do I want if I'm leaving you for this many hours a day, what do I wanna build and what do I want to do?
And that had to be more than just financial freedom, right? That had to be for far more. And I really. I had to get serious about what I wanted to create. I think I just, because of how I grew up, I am very aware that our children are watching and learning from what we do. That is so 100% apparent to me.
So I just think that it's. Running my business has really helped me relate. Like things are hard for them and they know I'm not joking when I'm like, I know it's hard. If we're pushing and if we're learning and if we're growing, so am I. And I just, I think that's important and we don't get to a point that we stop doing the things that we're asking our children to do.
And there's such a, an extended community and village component. Like I think it just reminds you that we can't run a business by ourself. Oh my gosh. Can't be great parents by ourself. We can't it requires so many people to make our best life happen. And
I wish more women said that, I was on, I don't go to many mom's nights for my kids' school.
Social life is something that I was willing to sacrifice mostly right now for in order to, have what I want in business. And I did. And the sweetest mom who I know, but not well. And she was like, I just don't understand. I don't understand how you do what you do. And I was like, you have to remember, I have great help and we don't really have traditional roles in our home because of my hours that I work.
I have a babysitter who's still, I said, I don't pack lunches. And her eyes got so bad. I'm like, we have to tell people that there had to be things. These are things I'm not going to do. These are things I'm going to pay somebody to do. So that then when my children are home, I'm actually with them.
And I feel like we used to, and I'm so glad I think this time is over, but when I was early in business and first had my kids, it was still that like superhero mentality. I was again, so proud that I had my son on Friday and I had to go to work on Monday. It was like this disgusting badge of honor, and at the same time, acting like I was doing everything else.
It was like you just couldn't ask for help, and I think it created so much craziness in our minds and left zero time for ourselves, zero time to grow as a human being. And thankfully, we're not in that anymore. I think we're all being honest about. About what we do and don't do
well. And I think also, I've always been really impressed with the French Way, or even just the bigger European way of, yeah, raising families where it's just more relaxed in the sense of they don't need to be in 500 activities.
We don't need to be making the best cupcakes at school. In fact, I don't know who's bringing cupcakes anywhere at school in France, but the it's just like kids fit into your life versus, oh. Everything now being realigned or like it's the kids and nothing else. I'm glad to see shifts happening where we're talking to your point of the whole village and no, we're not gonna play these crazy games.
We're not going to follow this culture. 'cause you said it earlier about how you have to make choices for yourself and you can't be following the path that somebody else's to have. What is going to work for you? And I just think that fits in all components of. Our ability to have an authentic life to ourselves.
Like we can't live our neighbors, our sisters, our best friend's, dream life, because it wouldn't fit ours. Like it wouldn't work the same way.
And it's so much more interesting that there's so many ways to do it right? If we all had the same schedule and the everything, it's just not interesting. I find it.
I find my friends, and I remember saying this to a woman who came to work for us after raising, she left her career to raise her three children and she came to work for us. And she said one day I just, I can't do this yet, quite like you do. She was comparing, her story to my story and I looked at her and said, but I don't really know how to run a full household for a week with my children by myself.
Silly as that sounds like the thought of doing all the things and all the scheduling and all the crafts that all the cooking and I could see the relief it brought her because she was forgetting, like she could do that with her eyes closed. She could run circles around me because that was what they did as a family unit.
And so to your point, it made it really, and so it was like I can learn from her and she can learn from me. And there's no judgment in either choice. We're all doing what worked for our own homes and our own.
If we're not sitting in that judgment, then we really could learn some cool things.
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I really want us to change the phrase homemaker to like house CEO, because that's really what it is.
Yeah. It is. And instead of, mine's just in, I'm sure yours, mine's just a shared role.
Yeah. It's, every, everything is right. Like I really co, CE, oing, co-creating. There's so many partners in every step of the process. I can't even have, like the number of people I need to have my dog have a functioning life is like alone one thing. So it's, we need to remember that if they're, if we're missing the community, if we're missing the village, we're missing our ability to go to just the next level in general, let alone our sanity and peace of mind.
So true. As we are in January of 2024, what are you excited about this year and what are you looking forward to?
Oh, so I really committed to creating a more peaceful lifestyle this year, and that is really opposite of where I've been at for the past few years, where I've held that achievement as a badge of honor.
I'm just looking forward to a lot more peace in my home. Just a little more empathy in my leadership style. And a little more grace for what's going on in myself.
Yeah, I relate to that. Yes. Pieces
would very much too. Maybe it's our age. I don't know. I'm just because you said we're similar in age. I'm like, wow. I never, three years ago I would've been like, what?
When I just, I think I've also just been paying attention that when I relax into something. It's happened. There's been silly examples already. This year I had to run, I think we even have similar nail color.
Mine's pink. It's looking red. But I had to go get my nails done urgently. 'cause like I seriously broke a nail and I was like, this is not gonna, I can't make it through the day like this. And I went in, it was packed. There were only two people working. I'm like, there's no way I can have this done and get to dinner on time.
But I just sat down anyway and I was like we'll just see what happens and relaxed. Everyone left the salon. Even people who like still needed a service done, they're like, you know what? I have to run. I'll come back tomorrow to get my toes done. And I just watched the entire place empty and then have two people working on me.
I was like, what just happened? And then happened again the next day of not, I'm like, not gonna be stressed out about this. Let's just see what happens. And to see the seas parting as I just sit in. That's really
cool. That's
really impactful. It's gonna work. I, yeah, it's been. It's been really interesting to just sit in, let's see if it works.
'cause I'm so good at using the Get Shit Done Masculine Energy and I'm like, Nope, we're gonna be Feminine Energy this year. We're gonna it. It always works out. So why do I keep trying to force it to. I don't know, but that's really inspiring
for me. I like it. Thank you.
You're welcome. For everybody who wants to find you, follow you, come shop, meet you, where can they do all of those things?
So we have, our website is shop common thread.com. And then we are, I'm on Instagram as shop girl staff, but if you wanna see more of the store and style there, it's shop Common thread, oc I'm like, why did I have to think about that? It's like knowing people's phone numbers, knowing your handle.
Yeah. You forget.
Yeah. Especially when you have more than one. You're like, I don't, the team touches it. I don't remember anymore. Let me ask them. I know. Thank you so much for your time today. I know how busy you are and that you are very important in all the, teams and family and everyone else that you're a part of.
So thank you for your time in sharing your story today, and hopefully we'll get to hang out in person soon.
I hope so too, Kara. Thank you. Have a great
day.
All the links to connect with Stephanie to shop at Common Threads and to score a discount code are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. Join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies and connect directly with at karaduffy.com or at Kara underscore Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: @shopgirlsteph, @shopcommonthreadoc, @shopfridayfeelin
Website: www.shopcommonthread.com
Email: steph@shopcommonthread.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
