Episode 62: Turning Friendship into a Branding Powerhouse | Harper Carnes & Gracie Krajesky | Girl Creative Co.
Harper Carnes and Gracie Krajesky are the energetic, optimistic, and talented co-founders of Girl Creative Co., a design, branding, visual merchandising, and website creation company. From in-store installations to content creation, they help businesses visually tell their story. Their partnership began years ago when Harper was Gracie’s youth pastor, later evolving as Gracie became her babysitter — and ultimately her business partner. They share how their creative paths merged, the lessons they’ve learned about brand bullying, and how collaboration can change everything for your business and your confidence. This conversation is a reminder to seek out your people, make the introduction, and see what you can build together.
“Don’t put being an entrepreneur on the backburner. If you’re a hard worker and know what you want to do, do it.”
“I taught myself Photoshop. I taught myself Illustrator. I knew the work was in me. I just had to start.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
00:00 Meet Harper & Gracie of Girl Creative Co.
04:15 How Their Unlikely Partnership Began
08:35 The Winding Road to Finding a Career Home
12:50 From Youth Pastor and Babysitter to Business Partners
17:25 Building a Full-Service Design and Branding Agency
21:40 The Challenges and Rewards of Collaboration
26:15 Brand Bullying and Standing Your Ground
30:55 Creating Visual Identities for Clients
35:20 Using StrengthsFinder and Personality Tools in Business
39:45 Lessons from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Lisa Frank, and More
44:15 Why Women Supporting Women Changes Everything
48:05 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
And when you compare yourself so much to what other people that you think you're supposed to be like are, then any originality that you could bring to the table is squashed 'cause you think they're not doing it, you are looking at other people and trying to copy it or fit yourself into what someone else's passion is that you're gonna miss it.
That's Harper and Gracie of Girl Creative Co. And this is The Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something. And the extraordinary to come and share their story. I hope that you'll be left, entertained, inspired, and moved to take action towards living your most powerful life.
Harper and Gracie are the energetic, optimistic, and talented co-founders of Girl Creative Co. A design, branding, visual merchandising, and website creation company based in Georgia. Essentially, anything you need to do visually to tell your story they can help you with. When I stumbled upon their Instagram and then their website, I immediately knew I wanted to get to know these women.
On this episode, we talk about how finding your career home can be super fast or take a winding road. We discussed the sad truths of brand bullying and how coming together as a collaborating team or as a group of powerful women can change everything for you, your business and the world, all that, and so much more coming up.
But first. If you're interested in discovering what possibilities and businesses are available for you to create and to live your most fulfilling life, please visit the powerful ladies.com/coaching and sign up for a free coaching consultation with me. There is no reason to wait another day to not be living your best life when you instead could be running at full speed towards your wildest dreams today.
Thank you guys so much for being a yes to the Powerful Ladies podcast. We are pumped. We're so excited. I would love to start by, let's introduce who you guys are and what you're up to everyone listening. Okay. So I'm Harper. I'm one half of the Grow Creative team, and I have been doing graphic design and a bunch of different things that fall under the creative umbrella for about 10 years now.
And I started Girl Creative with Gracie, my biz partner in July of last year. And we hit the ground running for real. And we have huge dreams and big ideas and a lot of I would just say spunk and charisma for what's going on in the creative community right now. And like I said, we hit the ground running and ev every day is different and every day we're growing and we're just trying to keep up with everything and we're pumped about our growth.
We are. And now I'm Gracie, I'm the other half of girl creative. The taller half, she makes you look over munchkin. No, but just going off what Harper said, we started this back in July and I am 10 years younger than Harper, so I have way less experience. But also I think the biggest thing is.
We've known each other for a long time, like our lives have been intertwined through so many stages of life. And so it was just kinda, it wasn't an easy decision to start girl creative, but it was just why would we not? And we really have been like just, I don't know, we're still figuring out every single day, but we, the work's floating.
Yeah, it's been great. But what's written really crazy is that Gracie and I actually used to work at a church and I was Gracie's youth leader way back in the day. And we just always, even though she like us, like she was saying, was 10 years younger than me, we just always had this really cool chemistry and just I would be so excited to see her.
And then she was my kid's babysitter and we just always had a super similar design aesthetic and just been similar people. And Gracie went to school for marketing and I was in a place with my current job that I was ready to break free and have a little more freedom and more companionship with what I was doing.
And Gracie. Looking for something that was more in line with what she was passionate about. And it just, and I threw it out there. I'm like, Tracy, we should do this business together. And it it just all felt super right. And within about two to three weeks of the first conversation, we made our Instagram name, we made our logo, and we're just like, let's do it, let's go.
And for everyone who's now curious, what does Girl creative do?
So we were really intentional with our name. Girl Creative, because Gracie and I both just have a passion for creating things and for colors and for encouraging and for happiness and for anything that kind of falls under that marketing umbrella. And we didn't wanna. Pigeonhole ourselves into something that was just marketing or just pr.
So we kept it clear with girl creative. We kept it open, I guess you should say. And then we've primarily do branding and identity. We do a lot of content creation for Instagrams. We do installations in people's storefronts. We do marketing collateral, whether it's stationary or posters and then we do websites as well.
And I would say the thing that kind of makes us different is that we hone in a lot to what our client wants, and then we look at 'em and we don't just say, we don't sell everyone a website, we don't sell everyone on Instagram. We look at them and we say, this is what's gonna help your business grow.
And then we give them a specialized custom. Idea. Idea of what they need. And so it's been really fun 'cause we get to be creative even with the packages we offer, even with the services and our approach. So that is what Girl Creative does. And some clients need every single thing we offer and some just need one.
And that's kept our day to day really versatile and different and creative and we've loved it. Do you work with only female clients or do you have a mix? No, we have a mix and I think that's what we've figured out over the past, I guess what has July been eight months? Yeah. I don't even know.
I can't believe we're in March, early 2020. A lot of months. A lot feels like it. It really does. But I think that's the biggest thing is we're so diverse. We are in a smaller town. We're in North Georgia. And so I think for the beginning we're like, all right, we're gonna hold into this local market and we're gonna figure out, 'cause we have.
We like to say we're a big small town. Like we have a lot of entrepreneurs and we have a lot of people that have really cool stuff going on in Dalton. And so we've leaned into a lot of that and, but also we've spread through other markets and that's the biggest thing is like we work with super like structured business, like law firm type to super creative to restaurants, to authors super cool things.
And I think that's the biggest thing is every day is different 'cause all of our clients are so diverse. And I think that's one of the factors that what we love so much about co-creative. And what's been really cool too is that we are in a smaller town. We have clients in New York, we have clients in California, like we've got a lot of clients in different places.
But what's been neat is that Gracie and I decided to home to really lean into the fact that it was. We were gonna do this together and that we're not ashamed of being not, yes, we would say we are professional, but we're also excitable and we're passionate and we're fun and we like to really get to know our clients.
And I think that just coming outta the gate, being girl creative we knew that some people might have pushback, just that we weren't gonna be as, professional as your normal, marketing creative firm. But we really loved that and we thought that maybe that would help our clients.
Or prospective clients know who we were. And I think that's been a really cool thing to see so many people lean into that with us, rather than be afraid that we're saying, we're two girls who love this. We love color, we love happiness, we love figuring out who you are and who your brand is. We wanna figure this out together.
And so that was definitely, that was a risk putting that name out there, but it's, it seemed to have a pretty good reward so far. What do you say, like, when we hire a boy one day, we'll be like we'll figure that out when we get that.
I now think that your website is the gold standard for what I think all websites should allude from an energy perspective. You know what? There's so many clients that I work with on the business coaching side that really struggle with being themselves in what they're creating. And it is so clear to me on your website who you guys are, what matters to you, the energy level that you're gonna bring to a project.
And we're currently redoing my coaching website and I'm like, guys, like it needs to feel like this and I'm pointing at your website. So I just love it. Like even the colors that you guys have chosen, like the pictures on the stairs, like that color palette is my color palette. I'm like, look, they figured it out.
That's the palette. And I have a piece of art like that I have kept photographing to put into my brand brief, and it's those exact same colors. Oh, that's awesome. The cool thing there is that I think Gracie and I both really kind of gravitate towards people and projects that are authentic.
And you people are perceptive and people have a lot of, what's the word I always say? You have Gracie. Discernment. And I'm the one out of the two of us that I jump in head first and I just go for it. And I'm like, yes. Bring the passion. Gracie has more of the, yes, it's awesome, but let's figure it out first.
And so we're, we have a really good team mentality, but I do know one of our main points when we started Girl Creative was that we wanted to be authentically ourselves. And if it was a business, we were gonna start together and it was just the two of us, then why would we do it any other way? And let's have fun with it. And this is gonna be what we do in our day job. And we wanna be able to walk into our office, the space that we create and the space that we meet, client set in the space that's supposed to reflect what we do to be colorful and exciting and happy and energetic. 'cause those were values that Gracie and I both have personally, and we wanted our business to reflect that as well.
So it makes us so happy when we hear that somebody goes to our website and gives those vibes because that's definitely what went into creating it. Yeah, definitely. Did you guys always think that you would be entrepreneurs? I don't know. No. I come from a family, I'll I'll talk, I'll start with this and I'll let Harper finish it.
Of entrepreneurs like my dad's, he's somebody I look up to in a sense, and he had so many jobs throughout heart. I'm like, I can't believe someone, random jobs, even from like multi-level to like playing countertops and selling water filters. So I've always been in that like entrepreneur and then he finally started his own business basically.
So I've always, like I grew up in that realm of starting your own business. Yeah, there's benefits, but I also saw the struggles of, like my dad was, he traveled throughout the week and so I saw that my mom took care of three young girls by herself and I don't have kids, but moms, they're the real MVPs, like Harper.
Like she is a badass working mom. Excuse my language, but she is, and it is hard. And even my si my older sister Taylor, she paints on the side and so she's got a side hustle along with a full-time job. And now I have a middle sister who is a photographer. She does it full-time. She's a wedding photographer.
She's an entrepreneur. And then me, I went to school at a local community college and was I don't know what I wanna do with my life, but I'll figure it out. And I always knew that like hard work was instilled in me, and I knew I wanted to do something business-minded. And I guess I just didn't really realize that I had creativity in me, until you have things in your life that like bring it out. And I think I did a website for a buddy and I was like, I'm pretty, it looks pretty good. Or he liked it at least. Yeah. That affirmation of okay, maybe this is something I can harp on. And so I think that's just where we landed. And I never thought on this day, 20 20th of March, like that I'd be owning my own business. Like a year ago. I probably didn't think that, honestly, a year ago. Okay. I was actually working a little backstory. I was working for Harper's husband Caleb, he's an accountant, he's also an entrepreneur.
So we're just we're an entrepreneur circle over here. But I was working for him at an accounting firm and he taught me a lot of good things, but it was nothing Gracie does her bookkeeping. It was nothing that lines up with my personal passion. And we took the leap together.
We did. I had that realization, the moment of okay, it's time to figure out what I wanna do with my life. You know what I mean? You don't need to be just doing like nothing that fuels your purpose. And that's where Harper was like, all right. She was the one with the, she's a seven and people are Enneagrams, but she Enneagram seven.
So she called me one day and was like let's start our own business. And I was like. I feel like I was probably very skeptical about it. She was. And I, knowing Gracie, I knew that she wouldn't be the other person that's oh my gosh, hey. But also as a, I don't, I didn't wanna go into business with another seven.
I wanted, I needed the person that was going to be the realist and the one that was gonna be able to look at it from a business perspective as well. So it ended up just being a perfect collab. But I, as far as the entrepreneurship aspect, I am one girl. I have three brothers. I'm the only girl in my family and both my parents.
My mom is a painter. My dad just has appreciated design. As long as I can remember when I was like a, teeny bopper, my dad would not let me read like Tiger Beat and all of those magazines. He would give me w and Architectural Digest. He would say, read these. If you're gonna read a magazine, these are the ones worth reading.
And so forever. I feel like I, I've had I've been re rearranging my room and making collages since my earliest memory. So I feel like it was in me. However, with, without I mean my, I think my parents were just, inundated with children and everything else. But I don't think anyone looked at me early on and said, you have a design eye and this is something that makes you happy and this is what you're good at.
So I went out of state to college and met with my advisor and I've always had a love of words and quotes. So we kind ended up after a few other majors, actually a few, I say nine other majors. 'cause I couldn't exactly put my finger on what I wanted to do and what I was good at. And I think that's probably the story of a lot of creatives.
Like they think they have to put themselves in a box or they have to be. Let me figure out a major that's gonna work in the real world and someone's gonna hire me. And so I, played that game for a few years in college and went from just generic marketing to pr, to English, to to art, and a billion other directions, just trying to figure out exactly what was gonna serve me and my gifts the best.
And so I think I then, I worked at a church for a few years, and one day the, my immediate boss was like, we need someone to create graphics. I just said, okay, I'll do it. And I had no idea what Photoshop was. I had no idea what Illustrator was, and just decided that since it was something that I knew that I would love to do, and I actually bought Photoshop for Dummies. The book, this is Aging Me a little bit, but this is before Skillshare. This is before all of those. And I bought the book and just like completely inhaled it and taught myself Photoshop, taught myself, illustrator, and started doing graphics. Fast forward a couple years, I had my little girl and I took a step back from working in an office for a little bit.
And about a year into being a mom, I knew that like the, that work was something that was just in me and that I wanted to create, loved my little girl to death, but just knew that being at home all day, I couldn't do it. And I knew that I loved energy, I loved design, I loved creativity. And so I just randomly started an event planning business.
Because I knew there was energy there and I, what I've realized about myself is I'm di directly, like I'm super attracted to energy and to people that feel excited and, events. Yeah that's pretty much the place where there's energy. If nothing else, a wedding's gonna have some energy.
So I started an event planning business and what I learned from that two years of doing that is that my all time favorite moment of the entire event was that I was also doing their invitation design is when I would go to the print shop and pick up the invites and look at 'em and feel 'em, and be so excited that the emblem on that invitation or what their cozy even looked like was my favorite part of the whole process.
Yeah. And so I started realizing that graphics and how an emblem, or a look or a design can really translate. So many things about what's happening and the unspoken, that's when I realized, okay, like this type of design is where my heart really is at. And so I started in my own business right after that, just called kis Kismet Designs.
And I loved it and it was so fun. But like I said, I'm like a super energy person working by yourself. The ups and downs can drain you and you don't have someone there having your back and saying, we did, we've got it. We're gonna try again. We'll do it again. We'll do it better. You're just, you and you can start to look inward a little too much.
Yes. And get down on yourself. So I'd run that course for about seven years and I just felt like I was at I just wasn't filled up anymore and I felt like my creativity was being zapped by a lot of like policy and bureaucracy and things like that. And so I was, I I took about a six month hiatus and then.
Gracie was pulling away 'cause she wanted to do something creative. So that's like what Gracie said. I called her up one day and then we just decided to, and things come full circle when you, like they're supposed to happen and they're supposed to happen the right way. And that's absolutely how girl creative was formed.
We didn't rush anything. Everything was like, it fell like in line, like in a way that it was supposed to fall in line. And we've basically been hustling since. So that's a, that's it. It's just having a business partner for us. It works, is the best thing in the world. Yeah. And knowing that you don't need to do it by yourself, like I think hearing both of your stories, there's two things that really stand out to me.
One of them is that, yeah. You're like, a journey is never a straight line. Like it really does meander and pivot and you try this and I love Harper that you mentioned, like just following what brought you energy. We just recorded earlier today the recap for our February meetup, which is how to find your purpose in your path.
And one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give someone is just go do what's fun. Like we think we have to do things that like work shouldn't equal fun, it should equal work. And I'm like, Nope. Like it can be so much fun. Like you could be amazed that someone's paying you to do your favorite thing in the whole world.
And until you start trying in those areas, you really don't know. And then similarly, like the other part is that people think they have to do it by themselves. Whether they can't trust people or especially people, their friends or family with. And I also say to that if you, all that matters with whoever you have on your team is that you have the communication level where.
You could say what's on your mind. You're not afraid to hold back. You know that they're a big and powerful person. So you'll say things that are uncomfortable because you know it's better to be said than to push it under the rug. And I love that you guys have this long term relationship that kept building to a point where you're like, okay, it's now.
And like you're, all of your skill sets, all of your paths are coming together to really find something that like sings to you guys in a way that together you're so much more powerful than on your own. Absolutely. And that's been actually really interesting to see. For me that was on my own for a few years.
I think that there, what is it, there's power in numbers. I actually have felt that with Gracie, just that I feel more confident going into a meeting, going into a presentation knowing that I've got someone that's got my back and cheers to all the people out there doing it by themselves, because it really is it's hard and you've gotta be the one that's picking yourself up.
And it's something that I wouldn't, I love that I did it on my own for a few years because I feel like I learned a lot of lessons, but I get to take a little breather now, having someone that's in it with me and is in presentations with me and bouncing ideas off each other. And Gracie and I also, like we said, we've had a relationship for a long time, so we can also look at each other and in love and in honesty, be like, that's cool, but that's not it yet.
When we're doing the logo, when we're doing a graphic. And so I think that it's key for anyone looking for a partnership. Make sure your values align, is what I would say first. Your gifts can be completely opposite, but I think your values and what you want out of the business and out of the company need to really align, because what motivates you is what's gonna keep you in sync. I. I think a lot of people go into partnerships and they think that they respect that person, but then they get in one that just doesn't really work. And I think that's the biggest thing is we have so much respect. Yeah, we're great friends. We are but we like also just truly respect each other so much, at the end of the day, I'm always gonna have her back and vice versa. Absolutely. How has being two women in business together changed your perspective outside of just your business and your lives? So I think what's been interesting there is that I'm thankful we're doing this in the, and the day that we are doing it because I do feel like there's a lot of really awesome stuff happening just around the world in our society about, empowering women and that that two women together can, they can compete with a, an industry run by complete like men is everyone.
Everything seems a little more equal. However just to be real and not just to sound like everything you know, is sugarcoated, we've, we haven't had any pushback really from men or pushback has been from some women, and that's been hard for us a little bit because if you follow us on Instagram or you looked at anything we do, we're probably half and half between empowering people and design.
And because that's a really important thing for us. And when there's you've got trolls and you've got people wanting to throw negativity in the world, it's really important to both of us just to, from, again, the energy standpoint, just to push out good energy and happy vibes. And if someone's scrolling their Instagram and they see a billion things they wish they could be or wanna be, that they would come across ours and think and just feel something happy and positive about themselves.
So that's been really important to us as we build our brand. And I think, we've, again, not to get too deep or too sad, but we've had a recently an Instagram created that was intentionally negative about our company specifically. And I think the thing that it did was actually make people rally around us a little more and make people lean into us and say, we love what y'all are doing, keep doing your thing.
And so I think in the end, happiness and positivity wins. I do think it's a real thing though and bullying and people being negative when you're doing something good. I think it's something that people do need to talk about. We're obviously we got through it. It was something that was really shocking and it does hurt.
You just, you feel like you're in third grade again when somebody just throws something that mean at you. But I do think that kind of made us just really stay grounded and rooted in what our values as the business are. And it made us realize that. It's not only about just putting out the designs and the new logo we've done, but also putting things out there that can make people even just smile or feel good for a second because there is a lot of crap and a lot of people that wanna be negative.
I think the biggest thing is we're both really very intentional people. Like we're genuine and everything we do every aspect of life. And so I think that's why we've gotten some like negative hate within the past, I don't know, six weeks. And it's been personal. And so I think that's the biggest thing is it's like, what coveted this?
Like what did we do to get this to happen to us? But I think the biggest thing is it's made us, people have rallied around us, but it's also made us like, okay, we're gonna just keep working our booties off and like doing what we're doing. 'cause you know what, at the end of the day, this is we love what we do so much, but it's also like it is our job.
Yeah. And I think that's the biggest thing is it's like we want to please our clients and Yeah. You know what? If we have a little bit of fun on Instagram and we're creative and we're happy about it. Why should anybody wanna crush that? Absolutely. You'd be surprised. But this is actually I'm gonna share this quote because Yeah.
Gracie and I love Adam Kurtz, who is just a creative and he has some awesome books out there and he gives everything in little snippets, which Gracie and I love, and this is so applicable to right now. And it says, everyone's aware of that quote that says, love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life.
Well, Adam turned it out. He said, love what you do and you'll work super hard all the time with no separation or any boundaries. And also take everything extremely personally and I laughed out loud when I read it, but it's so true because we're doing what it is not just our day job. We love creating, we love uplifting people, we love design and it's part of our makeup.
It's part of who we are. Yeah. And so we do take it personally and we try, we try to encourage each other and not to take it. The nose and the bad things too, personally. But I also think that's what makes people like the passion that people have behind their job. I think that's what makes them great.
So we won't apologize for it. And we feel like Adam Kurts had it right. Just, it's not that you won't, you'll never go to work a day in your life, but that you will pour every last bit Yeah. Of energy you have into what you're creating because it means so much to you. And that's definitely where Gracie and I are right now.
It breaks my, I, there are so many things that motivate me in this world that are, because my heart breaks for someone else and I'm like, no, that is there's this social justice warrior in me that comes out when I don't always want it to. And when I hear that somebody was a bully to you guys, which I'm like, why?
Like why would you want to waste your time and why are you trying to like. It just, it tells, it breaks my heart for you guys having to experience that. But then it breaks my heart more, even more for them knowing that where their life must be if they have the time, the need, the interest, or the desire to even create like this ripple effect that they have.
And that's where we were with it. Of course initially when you wake up and you have all these text messages from people saying, is this account, what is this account? Is this, you guys, are y'all trying to be like, is funny or what is going on? So you have initial shock and. Like I said, it brings you back to your, like third grade self when you're just when everything, what's that?
What's that? Expression. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may hurt me. And I always laugh at that because I'm like, that's so untrue. Hurt so bad. And Gracie and I think spent an hour and a half on the phone that morning just trying to figure out and navigate through it because they they just said some hurtful things.
But at the end of the day we had, it was a week before we hosted a big women's International Women's Day event. And I just told Gracie, I said, this adds con so much context to our event. Yeah. And that our desire and what we're doing is to empower people. And you're never if you're doing anything that's recognizable people, you're gonna have somebody be mean about it.
It just is the way it is. And we decided to look at it from an angle of maybe what we're doing is making a difference, and maybe the positivity we're putting out there is actually having an effect on some people and people are noticing it. And that's really what we want. So if somebody took the time to create something that was specifically targeted at us then maybe what we're doing is making some positive ripples.
Yeah. And we just decided to let it go and and just, and yeah. And just give mercy to that person. Yeah. Because they're obviously struggling and so it didn't mean that it hurt less, it just means that what we let it do to our persona Yeah. And what we think about ourselves.
We just decided to let it go. But it is also like what you said, like who has like. The time. That was the biggest thing I think is what we parked on. But no, I think it, if anything it's just it makes you wanna work harder and I think we have makes you wanna be, we have a lot of like girl creators and entrepreneurs that we follow on Instagram.
And what's been really cool is to see that a lot of 'em deal with this kind of stuff. Or not even just negativity, but plagiarism. And the coolest thing is if you see something, you wanna give 'em credit for it, give 'em a shout out. Say this was awesome. I think there is negativity absolutely involved when you put yourself out there.
And I think that's just, part of it. But it has been nice for us to see other people that we follow and inspire us Yeah. Deal with the same things. And we're like, you know what, it's just part of it. You gotta roll with the punches and keep moving and keep doing your thing. And that's when, back to what we said earlier authenticity is really key.
Everything we've said, everything we've done is completely true to who we are. So if somebody, if we'd done something we didn't feel completely proud of, or we felt like we were impersonating or doing something and someone comes up with negativity, then you wouldn't really know what foot you had to stand on and you would feel like, eh, that wasn't really us anyways.
But every single thing we've done, we've, we stand behind and we feel proud of. And all we wanna do is make, spread positivity and help people really connect with other people. It's been an interesting experience for sure and one that we, if we could choose, we would say we wish it didn't happen.
Yeah. But absolutely was a growth moment for us, for sure. Absolutely. And it puts things into perspective. It makes us both think about 'cause like we're all guilty of saying things we shouldn't say about someone. Or maybe I, harping on something that shouldn't have been harped on and like it, I think that week we were like, okay, this makes me think twice about what's gonna come outta my mouth because any form of hate, regardless of what it is not, it's not cool.
I mean like that thing. And so that was like it was, and it was right in great timing with our event and like getting around a lot of women who do the same thing as me and Harper do and who do or to do things that line up with us and just you know what, you need this like circle, you need a circle of support in a field like this.
Any field, like everybody needs a support group. Everybody needs somebody they can call at the end of the day and be like, listen to this, what this person did to me today. You know what I mean? So that it was just, it was a interesting week when it was. And I think we're realizing that the more you put yourself out there the more you're gonna get great stuff and bad stuff.
Yeah. You can't really filter it. And it's made us stronger and I think that we're we'll keep doing it and if we get another hater account, we'll just we'll just chalk it up to the fact that we're making ripples. Yes. So you guys are obviously very busy running your new business.
Harper, you have kids you both have families, you've got plenty of things going on. What inspired you to also create an event to celebrate International Women's Day with the women around you? If we're being honest, we, I was on, I don't know what I was on, maybe it was like Twitter or something, and I saw, okay, international Women's Day is March 8th.
And so I sent Harper a screenshot and she was like, okay, we're doing something. Because we, in our mind, since we started our business back in July, we were like, okay, we really wanna have an event. We have this park in Dalton, it's called Bear Park. And we wanna have an event centered here about supporting moving entrepreneurs.
And it was one of those things where it was like, we'll plan it, we'll plan it one day. We literally have an Evernote that says, when we get time. Yes. Which is funny because it just keeps growing. The list just keeps growing, but we have it a lot of time for 'em. And one of the things on there was help support women entrepreneurs in our area.
Yeah. You keep going. And so Gracie and I, when we started to grow creative, we decided that would be so cool to do a festival where the booths were only about women run businesses around our area. And that was just something that we really felt passionate about because we think it's so cool that.
We've seen the hurdles and just, emotionally, financially that it takes to really pour yourself into a new business. So we thought it'd be a cool thing to start a festival that was a yearly thing that just really highlighted women entrepreneurs in our area. And so that, and like I said, it went on our Evernote of when we had time, and it was one of those things that Gracie and I talked about, like once a week at least, we'd be like, oh, we should do that for this event.
We should do it. And then Gracie texted me about six weeks ago and was like, you guys a graphic or something I sent you? Yeah. It was like, Hey, international Women's Day is March 8th. We should do something. I'm like, oh my gosh. That's our event. There we go. It doesn't have to be a festival. It doesn't have to be something that's totally coordinated.
But let's just, at our office throw like just a fun event where it's just for women and there's communication and collaboration and people encouraging each other and we actually. Had a banner made that said, when women got there, it said, these are the goals for the night and these are your challenges for the night.
And one of our challenges was, for every nice thing you think about someone there, you need to tell it to their face. And so it was again, just a fun event that felt like it was about positivity and just encouraging and hoping that people can make new connections and tell each other about the struggles and whether you're a mom and you're, doing a side hustle all the time, or you're bored in your job and you feel like you have a passion and you wanna pursue it.
And just talking through that. It was a great event. It was something really fun and hopefully we captured so many email addresses and so many contacts and so we're gonna push for a big festival in early fall where those women that are there that are, making jewelry or doing.
Marketing or whether they're doing makeup, whatever it is, we're gonna do a big festival. That, that really highlights all the women entrepreneurs in our area. Amazing. I'm gonna self invite myself to that 'cause that sounds awesome. We love it. We would love for you. No there's another thing that I'm always trying to get people to understand and do is that just reach out to the people that you are inspired and lit up about.
Like, when I kept seeing, I don't even know how I found your website. I don't even remember whether it was through Instagram or someone sent it to me, like something happened where we, I, you guys crossed my path and I kept being like, no, there's something about this group that I'm like yes to.
And then I just emailed you guys and said, whether it's powerful ladies or my clients, like we have to connect. There's something there. We had a great phone call the first time we connected and sure enough, like I've connected you to a client of mine and now you're on the podcast. Be brave and reaching out to the people that you wanna hang out with because there's so much amazing collaboration and support and community that can come from it.
So it's like, why not just pick up the phone? You never know who's going to be a yes. You never know. That's that's another big aspect because, so Gracie and I follow so many people on Instagram that just inspire us and we think are doing great things. And like we follow, create, and cultivate.
Yeah. And the, and we literally would salivate over these accounts and be like, oh my gosh, look at that event with all these women that are creative and doing their own thing and just wanna be there. Whether they just wanna be there to support or they wanna be there to network. And so that was something that we would like daily look at and talk about.
And we were just like, you know what, we don't live in la we don't live in New York, we don't live in Chicago. We don't live in any of these big cities. So let's start something where we are for the women that are in our area. And we were thinking maybe 12 women Yeah. Would respond. And we had over 150 people.
Yeah. Amazing. So it was a really cool thing. And it was just one of those things where, like you said, be brave and be bold about it and just throw it out there. And the support we've had was, it was humbling and it was awesome. And it was event one of so many more to come. Absolutely. And it was such a eclectic group.
Like we did have people from Atlanta and Chattanooga is like a market that's close to us, but it also is a bigger city. And so people just like randomly showed up from there and it was like, how'd you hear about girl creative? And, or like, how'd you hear about this event? And they just, it was really cool to see.
And it was just like cool to see the people like. They want they want this, they want a, that fosters this. And that's the biggest thing is that gets us excited for having a festival type event in Dalton and being the hub of that. Yep. I'm. I'm so excited that we're in a time right now where people are leaning in on what it means to be an entrepreneur and doing it.
And I love that the conversation's changing from entrepreneur means like huge startup y Combinator to no, like you're an entrepreneur if you're doing eyebrows, let alone if you're doing a huge corporation. And the fact that it doesn't matter where you are to have your entrepreneur spirit come together.
Like they have all these cities that are like taught for entrepreneurs. And I'm like, no. If you pay attention, it's happening everywhere right now. And for you guys to be doing this festival in Northern Georgia, which most people aren't thinking is like a hotbed for entrepreneurship, right?
And you have 150 women show up, imagine what's happening everywhere else, like everywhere else. What do you think are other myths about. Entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship and innovation in the south in your region that like just isn't true based on what on the ground? I think it would definitely be something that, like I said earlier in the podcast that I struggled with going into like a field of learning in college and I thought that it needed to be something that fit within a box.
And something that if I fail, like you think if I fail, at least I'll have a job if I have this degree. And I think that we need to turn that thinking on its head and what's gonna make you fulfilled and what, like whenever, what are you gonna go into that if you failed a billion times in it, you're still happy because it's what your heart.
Is like after and what you're pursuing. So I think the really cool thing there is like leaning into who you really are and asking if you don't know what your passions are, look to your friends, look to your parents, look to your siblings, people that are close to you and care for you and say, what do you see me get excited about?
What do you think I'm good at? And I think that's a really cool thing too, because another thing that's happening in our like just world right now is Enneagram and Myers-Briggs and people wanting to know more about who they are. And so I think another big aspect of that is what makes you happy?
What, when you're, whether it's, clothing and helping your friends pick out an outfit that looks good on 'em, or that you rearrange your living room 17 times a week because you like seeing it in different angles. Or if it's making dinner for your family that a dinner that's healthy and they all enjoy.
Or accounting and helping people get their finances in order. Whatever it is that makes you feel purposeful, I think you have to hardcore lean into that. And so I think probably, what we deal with in the south, thankfully we're in an age where there's just, across the board in the United States, there's way less bad association with it being a woman run business.
I think the thing that we're dealing with now is the beauty of social media is also something that can be limiting to people. 'cause they'll see someone else doing it and think, oh God, she looks like this, or she does this way, or she does it that good. And then it inhibits what they think they're good at.
And I think you've gotta look at it the other way. Look at people leaning into who they are and empowering what makes them happy. And I think that you should look at it in ways that all these people are successful with it. And if this is what my passion is and this is what I'm truly being. Like called to then you just lean in and you do it.
And also platforms like Instagram and Wix, and there's so many places out there now that for really small investment, you can try out what you wanna do. Yeah. And push it out there. And so many people are so pro collaboration right now that reaching out to people that you think are in a similar field and might give you a shout out and what can we work together to do this with?
I would just hope that people feel that empowered to lean into what they're passionate about and be able to start something because you never know until you try and you would, what's that quote rather you'd rather try and fail than fail to try. Yeah. And I, we totally feel that.
At the end of the day if something doesn't work, at least we tried. Yeah. And not putting on the back burner. I think that was like personally, just speaking from personal experiences, like I was like, I'll do this in 10 years. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm only 23 years old. Like I, I'll start my own business.
Like when I'm more, Harper's age well off. No, but just off in society and I don't have any debt and all this stuff. You know what I mean? And so I think that's the biggest thing is it's if you're a hard worker and you know what you wanna do, do it. And that's the biggest thing.
And yeah, our field of like business is we didn't take a lot of risks on we didn't, like we didn't, we're not starting a restaurant. We didn't have to build out, a kitchen, take on like a loan or anything. So I think that's the biggest thing is just be smart about what you're doing.
And if you're a hard worker, it'll come it'll fall into place, but if it is food, that's your passion. Yeah. If it is cooking, that's your passion. Start in your kitchen. Yeah, absolutely. Instagram's free. Just push it out there and just keep going with it. Because the cool thing is if you're truly passionate about it and it's really part of who you are, that energy we were talking about earlier and part of the vibes you push out there, people recognize that.
Yeah. And people are attracted to it. And if you're not doing it just to become, Instagram fame or something, if you're doing it because it's truly part of who you are, then there's an authenticity that pushes through and people are attracted to it. Yeah, it, there's we're working on a course right now that's gonna help people like find what makes them their own unicorn.
And like unicorns are thing that followed me before they were a thing. I have a tattoo. I, you guys can see it so I can do this, right? But it's I really believe it. There's this unique combination that's you. So even if you see all these people on social media or Instagram that are also cooking, and they're all about food.
There's a space for you because your skills, your experience, your unique culture, your take on it, even just your voice is gonna be something that someone's waiting for. And I'm such a firm believer that if you're not doing what you know, you are either called to do or you're not using up all of you to do something.
Like the world's missing out. Not just you, but like the whole world. So how can we get everyone feeling. Safe to be brave and go play in those spaces that keep calling to you because there's something there. And like you said, there's no pressure to make it this huge investment or this significant thing.
Like just start, try it out, see what happens. Like show to a few friends, like you can keep building up and in the one course I do called going from creative to entrepreneur, I tell people like, don't worry about the business plan, don't worry about knowing how it's gonna work. Like just start and just see what shows up.
Like it's part of the reason why I love listening to how I built it. Like I'll never forget from Jenny's splendid ice creams when she's talking about how much she didn't know even know about making ice cream, but she just wanted to do it anyway. And I think that sometimes it's such a benefit to know nothing about what you're starting because then you don't know what you should know.
So there's no, there's like less barriers to getting into it. And the last comparison in comparison is it's the killer of Indi Individuality. And when you compare yourself so much to what other people that you think you're supposed to be like are, then any originality that you could bring to the table is squashed 'cause you think they're not doing it.
And so I think that was a big part when Gracie and I started Girl Creative is we wanted to do something fun and different. And that's, we play a lot with mixed media and just have fun with it. And Yeah. And it's not just we're all about a good shot of someone drinking a beautiful latte with like foam art.
We're all about it. We love it. I want, I love foam art, but we just wanted to do something that's not a little more true and original to who we were. And had so much fun with it. And I think that if you are looking at other people and trying to copy it or fit yourself into what someone else's passion is, that you're gonna miss it.
Yeah, definitely. So I'm very curious about where the inspiration for what girl creative is from a creative perspective is. 'cause like, when I look at your stuff, I see some of my favorite inspirations, which are like Gem and the Holograms and Sassy Magazine from like the mix of eighties and nineties, throw it all together girl rock and roll. Where did that, what's that? We may have the fact that I'm an eighties baby and Gracie's is a nineties baby. Yeah. Louis. We have that. And honestly, I've been I'll again age myself. I'm huge. Lisa Frank fan, like Yes. Yes. This is why we're friends forever.
Like any, give me everything you're at, send everything holographic, show me all the pinks, all the purples colors together. And what is so interesting is that Gracie is my tone OnOne friend. Yes. She is my the one that's so perfectly uses mustard, yellows, and golds and knows how to perfectly put those together.
And but she has personality that is like spunk out of this world. So we've really buried our two styles together a lot in that. And they've been so complimentary, but we definitely like to put something out there, like we said, that if you're just scrolling on Instagram Yeah. You would see it and you would smile.
Absolutely. And that's been our inspiration behind it. And Gracie's sister is like a phenomenal photographer. Yes. And so what's been so fun too is 'cause we've definitely needed photographs because when we were building our whole website, we were building our entire brand. We decided we didn't wanna just be walking down a really cute street laughing as our pictures.
We wanted to do something a little more fun and a little different that and so we said we just need really, like high quality photos that we can change the background of and we can put fun things behind it. And so Gracie's sister was like, I'm game. I'll do it. And so we've been lucky enough to have a photographer that.
We work with that we work with that only charges us a bottle of wine. Those are my favorite employees. Absolutely. Absolutely. She tells when you're okay. That face doesn't look good. You need to make a difference. Yeah. And she's thank goodness, right? Biggest tho in our biggest critic when we're doing photos.
Shoot. But I think, again, back to just what we've said the whole time, our Instagram really I think if you hung out with the two of us Yeah. You would feel like we were Instagram, which was what we wanted. We didn't want it to look like crazy polished and perfect. And like very structured.
We want it to be fun and uplifting and exciting and kinda and just play on things that we love. Yeah. Which are colors and happiness and content creation. We offer that, we do that and so it's yeah, we can do content creation. Yeah. And we're creative with it, and whether that fits, your, if you're a more like businesslike business or if you're a fun business, like we can, there's a balance between the two. Yeah. I'll ask Jordan to make a note so we can cut this out. But I have to show you the colors of my current, like clearly I'm also eighties. Like what?
Yeah, no we see that our girl creative color harper me, my, we're iridescent. Yes. Usually right now. Quick green. Okay. Wait. Here, I'm gonna have to send you an email of this brand that I just found called Kurt Geiger. Do you? Oh, no. Do you know who that is? Yes. Some of my favorite shoes. Cool. Yes. Oh yes.
I found 'em recently and I ordered like MAs with stuff with all the rainbows on 'em. Yeah. But one of the colors that's like we say is our girl creative color is this neon yellow green. And it's because it's so vibrant and so happy and it actually, it's 3, 3 8. Yeah.
Love it so much. But because the cool thing is I feel like that pant represents where Gracie and I meet. Yeah. Because it's vibrant. But it's also a green. Yes. Yeah. So we've got a neutral, we have a neutral part of it, and also a vibrancy part of it. And that's been just such a color that it, it's Harper and Grace's color.
It's our color that we go to when all else fails. That's our baby. No, and the biggest struggle we're having with the brand identity for minute coaching website is that I'm like, how do I mix the fact that I love the sparkles and the iridescence and the off the wall, like pizazz of things.
But I also come from a background of working in very serious corporate things and like skateboarding. I'm like, how can I marry Lisa Franken skateboarding and still look like a professional? Yeah. There's a way that, you know what? That we wanna help you there because we've I feel like that it's such an interesting thing 'cause our clients come to us and, we have clients that are realtors and law firms, churches and churches. Yeah. Things that can't be as poppy as the colors we wanna use are, but the fun thing about it is that. If you look the meaning of colors and why people are attracted to 'em, it's the feel of 'em, right? Yes. It's not like it's what that color brings, like when your brain processes the color, what does that mean?
So it's a fun thing. We can start decoding and breaking down the meanings of colors and why they're there, and then you go from that base, which also is another thing that Grace and I are super passionate about, which is color theory and what they mean. And we have a lot of favorite graphic designers we follow and people that we look up to that we've just we've learned from and we listen to a billion podcasts and read so many books because we're just trying to like hone in on our craft a lot.
And we do wanna be true to what we are offering our clients and make sure that even though this is a passion, that there, there is an art to it and we wanna make sure that we're we're delivering what we promise. And so we're really passionate about reading everything we can, listening to all the podcasts and we follow.
So many blogs and so many sites and are just looking at all the ways that like digital marketing and logos and brand identity through huge corporations are changing. And we like to stay current too. Yeah. So one of my I'm a big passion, passionate person about StrengthFinder. I dunno if you guys have taken those tests, but my number one strength is learning and I realized that I had to make sure that I included in my, official work hours, the ability to follow blogs and learn and read the books.
And I'm a total book nerd. So how do you guys build in your capacity to stay current and do that research and learn within everything else you have on a regular, like to-do list with your business? So what we've realized is that actually is something that when you're being creative, you're giving so much of your soul and who you are into every project.
And there's also this demand, like it's hard to be creative. On a timeline. And so what we've realized is that we really do have to create a window in our schedule that is just for us to breathe and to pour into the things that we love, and to read the books and listen to the podcast and search the blogs because you, it's almost like that love bank people have talked about, like it can get empty.
And so that's been something that's been, that as we grow, we've, it's been a challenge and we're at the point now where we're like, you know what? We've probably gotta hire someone because we don't wanna just be like putting things out there and getting things done immediately and checking off to-do list.
We wanna be really proud of what we've done, and we wanna feel like what we don't want we're tread or like treading water. We don't wanna feel that way. Yeah. We're we're pumped about the growth and we're so excited, but we also wanna make sure that we're really proud of all the designs we put out there.
And that part of that is just, as a creative person, you need you, A lot of the times you can look inward for things, but you've gotta look outward too. Yeah. And so we need to, we wanna have our finger around the pulse of what's happening in design and with typography and with colors. And so I think time management is a struggle of ours right now.
Just trying to figure it out as two people that are gaining a, I feel like our heads are down constantly and working. Not that it's a bad thing, it's a great thing. Like we truly. Are loving every single second of it. But yeah, there's a time where you gotta lean into okay, I've had a moment to feel like I'm creative and I'm being like uplifted.
And there's so much that we can bounce off of each other, but there's also a point of where you have to be in your own head space about it. And I think that's the biggest thing is and you know this if you don't grow with your growth, then there is no growth. I don't know if that's even put correctly, but that's absolutely true.
You know what I mean? You have to grow in the right direction with what's going on or like it's not gonna succeed. And I think that's what we're, doing right now. And and the crazy thing is we're those weird nerves that are really passionate about curing and what's going on in typography.
We were like we're micromanage. Little bit. We love so much everything about the current trends and like we're recently learning about DESE and how it's a new font trend. And we're, we love stuff like that. We geek out of it. We send each other a billion Instagrams and we're not with each other about what's happening in design.
Which actually just farther lets us know that what we're doing is what we're supposed to be doing because it's not it's not something that, it is a job we get so excited about learning about the fuel we're in. Yeah. And it is it's just real really nice. And to realize that what you're doing is what you are meant to be doing.
Yes. Yeah. It's, it makes all the other stress that comes with being an entrepreneur, settle down. If the only stress that we have is, the financial stress of making it all work, there's this peace of mind that comes with not doing someone else's to-do list, not having to do work that seems silly or redundant and like just being able to know, like everything I'm doing is aligned with what matters to me and what I'm committed to.
It's a different level of peace of mind that like, I just want everyone to feel. Because when you're in that space you realize oh, it's all possible. All of it is. Absolutely. When you guys hear the word power or words powerful, ladies, what does it mean to you? What does it make you think of and does powerful ladies combined mean something different to you than those words on their own?
I think that. I feel like I harped on this a lot, this podcast, but I really think authenticity and not being afraid of who you are is the thing for me that that resonates the most with powerful ladies because I think there's so many things that a woman's supposed to be, and we're, we're supposed to look like and the role we're supposed to take, you, we've all seen those things that's, joke about that you're supposed to be skinny but also make this perfect meal and like the Pinterest mom and this, and there's a billion things that we're supposed to be.
And I think for me, a powerful lady would be someone that's authentically them and whatever that means to them. And the cool thing is I thought about this just in my personal life. Whereas like I'm, I might not, mesh well with someone and they might not be a best friend of mine, but I can respect them because they're authentically them.
Yeah. And I feel like that's something that's need that just people need to be, just be you. Yeah. And then everything else will fall into place because at least you're true to who you are and you're not having to edit and change based on social stereotypes or what someone expects of you.
And I can remember seeing on like the front of Cosmo and stuff when I was little that in your thirties or the be the happiest years of your life and things like that. And I feel a little bit like, wow, I'm, I must be super stereotypical because I feel that so much that I'm finally leaning into who I really am and I'm doing what I love and I'm unapologetic unapologetically myself.
And that, that's a really cool place to be. And I feel like I honed in on what my gifts are and what I love to do. And I think that's also why it feels so important to me to. Push other people to love themselves and to be authentically them because you waste so much time. Yeah. Trying to be what other people think you're supposed to be or what you think you're supposed to be.
And back to our Instagram, that's what we really try to put out there is just happiness and leaning into you and tips that you help people where they're at and not make people feel like they have to be something that they're not. Yeah. I think like she that so well and Harper as herself too.
She is one of those people that you meet her and you are like, okay, this, she's real, she's authentic and she wants the best for whatever I'm doing in life. And I think that's the biggest thing is I come from a family of four women. Granted, including my mom. And so it was like we, I was surrounded by a lot of estrogen and hormones growing up, so I know what a part, and that's the biggest thing is women are like. By, what's the word? Like by nature. They're just a little more, more dramatic. And like they lean into things we're intense. We love intensely, we feel intense. And there's parts of me that I'm like my sister and Harper, because you're just trying to play this cool.
You're off your back. I'm like, but no, and I think that's the biggest thing is it's lean into who you are and like be real and like whatever that is about you. And I think that is what makes a powerful woman. And people notice that. People know, I don't care who you are. When you meet someone that's authentic.
And so I think thing like going back to what you've said you've said this a few times and I think you're living, you, I know you are living like what you're preaching and that's like fuel your passion. And I think that's like our biggest, like that is like feeling people's passion.
And I think you can, it's very obvious when someone is themselves. Yeah. And it's attractive. And the cool thing is that we're all made differently. And so we don't need to try to be someone else. Be yourself. Yeah. And that's such a cool, unique thing to you. And that makes you have worth and you have identity because you're you.
And so I have a, I have an 8-year-old daughter and that's all I want for her is just for her to lean into who she is. And to follow what makes her happy. And I just, I hope for our world that we continue in this trend of leaning into yourself and being proud of who you are because it's like, it is, like I said, I hope it doesn't, it, I hope it doesn't take Penelope till she's 30 something to realize self-confidence could be a hard, or not even that saying, me and Harper even have nailed down self-confidence because I think we all, I think that's a struggle that all women deal with always is self-confidence.
But I think it is a thing that like if you are doing something that you're proud of, you have to like. You have to know some of that to like, to continue to do it every single day. You know what I mean? And so yeah, there's struggles we both have daily where we like at just being a woman, like we are really I think I would never criticize another woman, but like I'm the harshest critic of myself. You know what I mean? What I said to myself, I would never say, we're even getting into a completely different conversation now, but I would never say about another woman, the things I say about myself.
And so it's like why would you not be the biggest fan? And you have people in your life like my husband and like people in my corner, my, my family, like you, they're like, you know what I mean? You need those people that let you out. But I'm just saying if being a woman is, why are we so hard on ourselves?
I don't know. Yeah. Even Gwyneth Pra, I listened to something, I was watching her Goop thing on Netflix, and she said that about herself and it's Gwynneth. She said something about being like a harsh critic of herself, and I'm like, what the hell? Gwyneth? Yeah. Why you, yourself out? So it's every single woman in the world deals with this.
Yes. Oprah, Beyonce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Withers, keep going on the list. Dolly Parton. It's yes. I know. I got, I'm a pre trial person, so I kind off on a completely different rant. But No, that was great. It was a good ran. With all that you guys have going on, what are you doing to take care of yourselves and keep, not just sane, but happy and have the energy you need to bring to your clients and to your work?
We are practicing. I think the biggest thing is Harper got on this earlier, like time management. We're figuring that out. That's the biggest thing is we are like, we have a lot of work on our plate right now and we're loving every second of it. So like we're trying to figure out, or we are not trying to figure out we are time managing, but also there's a point of mental health's a real thing.
Like you have to have time, you can't work. You can't work till nine o'clock every night. You can't work on Saturdays every night. And there's gonna be some eye rolls from like our husbands and stuff 'cause we are constantly working. Yeah. It's the thing and it's but we love it. But I think just the biggest thing is like we both, we like, I like an outlet.
I like, we both use the gym as an outlet. We both she, Harper is a podcast, like any podcast in the world, she can tell you about it. I think that's one of her outlets. A hundred percent. I put my AirPods in and I just can hone out like completely everything. Everything goes away and I'll just fold laundry or something, but it feels like a moment for me.
Self care. But what was funny is when we were actually, we looked at the questions that you gave for this podcast and it said, what are your hobbies outside of your hustle? And we laughed. We were like, you know what's funny? We don't have any, because our right now, we're so in an early phase that even we send each other stuff all weekend long. We're like, oh my gosh, what about this? Like this will be great for this client. And the thing is, what's cool, back to just our passion is that. While we do need to probably unplug a little bit more, but we're just still in the early days that our husbands and our families know that's what we're loving and they're helpful with it.
Like my husband will even send me things, it's oh harp, I think you'd like this. Or, look how cool this was. And Gracie's husband does it too. Yeah, he was like, earlier, he was like, you want me to give you this cup or like a Yeti cup? He's it'll help y'all sound quality for the podcast. Oh.
So he's a little bit of nerd. But they're invested. And I think that's the biggest thing. And I think too, we're, again, it's back to how we were saying how we got to know each other. We've know we've known each other out of business for so long that we can tell if the other one, if one of us walks in and is off, the other one knows it.
We're like, what's up? What's going on? What's happening? And we'll remove ourselves from work and just, have an hour long chat at the office and try to figure it out and help each other just be people. Yeah. And then Gracie's also super flexible, which is wonderful for me because as a working mom, I'll be like, okay, one of my kids is sick.
They have a stuffy nose, they can't go to school, come to my house and Gracie will. So it's just, it's been a great partnership. It has. We definitely are looking more towards trying to figure out these boundaries because as we grow, we know that there are gonna be things that. This in this season, our working that won't work as we grow.
So I think we're I mean we're looking to hire someone. We're looking to Gracie always says to me, work smarter, not harder. Which is like such her business mind. She has that I do not, I'm back to that. No, she has a business. The strength test you had, I have all empathy. It was zero, it was 10% mercy and empathy and there was nothing else.
The person that did my strength test when I worked at a church and they came and did it, and we're like, we've never seen anything like this. You have all mercy, you don't have anything else. And everyone sucks. Now I, so Gracie is my perfect counterpart in, in that, that she is, she helps me be reminded that there, there is a shutting off point.
There is, we both push boundaries for each other. I think that's the biggest thing is like. I'm not an eight. I don't even know the any, I don't even know what I am on an of Gracie's. A Gracie is a med. She's a med. But I do have of I will respect you like, and everything, but there is there's a balance of figuring out yes and no.
And I think that's the biggest thing is like we Harper's such a yes man. I know. And people will take advantage of that. And I'm like, har, so you gotta be another man. We just, when we look back on our journey and knowing each other, we realize that there was definitely like, we're like Christians and we really feel like the guide orchestrated all of that.
Oh, absolutely. And put us in each other's lives for so many different seasons of life. And that this was just, it was kismet. I dunno if you know what that means, but that was purpose for business name. That was my first business name was Kismet Designs, because I love, I, I'm an etymology nerd and I love everything with words.
And even though Kismet was my past business, this business is truly, it's actually worked out really well. I love that we ask everybody on the Powerful Lady scale, so like each of you to answer individually where you put yourself on the scale zero being average everyday human, and 10 being super powerful lady, how do you feel today and how do you feel on average?
Oh, gosh. It's like we're both speechless on this just because it's a hard thing to answer about yourself, I think every day, like we're, I'm trying to be more of a powerful lady every single day, i'm not a 10, there might be a day where I feel like a zero, but I think as a whole girl, creative is doing pretty freaking good.
And so I You have to answer. Wait, you have to answer just for you individually? Just for me. I dunno. Do you like one of legit monetary number? Yes. I'm seven. Maybe trying to just I'm not, I like it is like a neutral number, but we are like, absolutely, every day I'm like, I wake up and I'm like, I cannot believe I'm 24 years old and we are doing like, and not even just like success is not monetary.
Yeah. And that's the biggest thing is it's like we are just successful in what we're doing because we're honing into it. And so I think that's the biggest thing is but there's also growth there. And I feel like I can't wait to see where a girl creative and Gracie Ky is in a year from now.
So maybe a year from now I'll be a 10, but like right now, I'm, I don't know what that says about myself. Just giving myself a seven. Whatcha gonna say? I'm really eager to say I feel like I honestly, and if you knew me personally, you would know that I have moments of one to 10 every day. Yeah, me too. I feel some moments like being on this podcast, I'm, hell yeah.
I'm a 10. I feel really proud and it makes me feel proud of what Gracie and I have accomplished and everything that my entire career journey, like you said, there's upstairs down, there's a billion things, but. I feel like I've landed in a place that I'm proud of and a in a company that Grace and I are building that I'm really proud of.
However in my day-to-day life, I have moments where I'm a total one because I miss a kids' conference because I forgot that Gracie and I had a meeting, and then at the same time, we'd get a bomb email from a client that was upset with something we did. And an hour later we get an email from a client that's pumped about something we did.
So I feel like. Legitimately, I'm such a feeler. So in every single day I have a one moment and I have a 10 moment. Yeah. And I thank you for providing a 10 moment for me today, because this was such a fun podcast to do. I agree. And I'm like, like Gracie, I'm the biggest fan of podcasts ever, so this is my first one to actually be a guest on, and I'm really excited about it.
I am honored. Totally honored. As we're wrapping up, is there anything else that you would, like the women and men listening to know about you, what you're up to or just what you think is a good message that they need to hear today? I think just, I'll say something and Harper can harp off a bit. I feel like we said the word harp a lot too.
It's okay. I feel like you're using my name as a verb. The biggest thing is like you keep doing, you, I know that might sound like millennial of you, but lean into the good and I think that like our whole world needs to hear that right now. And, that's my words of wisdom for the Sunday afternoon.
But I think I'm gonna, I'll just capitalize on what Gracie's saying is what we've said a hundred times is just be authentic. And I so much in my life didn't really lean into who I was. I was trying to do something that I felt was expected of me or what I what was gonna be the best monetary wise and just what was going to be socially acceptable.
Or that, and then when I would think, Ooh, I wanna be this creative, I'm like, I'm not that creative. I'm not that good. Yeah. I can't do it. I'm not, I wasn't classically trained. I wasn't this or that. And I think my biggest advice would be that you have the gifts that are in you because of a.
Because that's you and I think you lean into what you feel passionate about because whether you're classically trained at, a great art institute or you doodled your whole life and put collages all over your wall, like that is something that brought you joy and you into what brings you joy because that's what you're gonna be good at.
I love it. Thank you guys so much for being a yes to the Power Plays podcast. Thank you for all that you are and your energy and passion and your diligence to not just your business, but to the people in your community and making sure that everyone gets to rise together. So thank you for all of that. Of course.
Thanks, Kara.
How fun are these ladies? This is another example to go out and find your people, and when you do, go introduce yourself. You never know what can come of it. I am so proud of them and their business and how they're approaching their game of entrepreneurship, let alone what they're doing for their own local community and fellow entrepreneurs.
To connect, support, follow, or hire Harper, Gracie, and Girl Creative, you can find them on Instagram at underscore girl Creative. Visit their website, girl creative.co, and we have options for their Facebook, their emails, and everything else in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com slash podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this new episode of The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
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Without her, this wouldn't be possible. You can follow her on Instagram at Jordan K. Duffy. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love. This episode of The Powerful Ladies is Made Possible by our Patreon subscribers.
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Instagram: @_girl_creative
Website: https://www.girlcreative.co/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/girl.creative.co
Website: girlcreative.co
Email: harper@girlcreative.co
Email: gracie@girlcreative.co
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
