I am for others: Choosing where to invest my time and resources

Tiffany: I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder. And this is Scared Confident. This is a Q and a with me, Tiffany. And today I'm in the room with a really special person. She's going to die that I'm saying that Rachel Dani, she is the producer of the show. But also we're business partners. She runs share your genius. And last summer, 2021, my husband and I came in as investors and partners with Rachel.

And our relationship has evolved where I was the product she was helping curate. And that's been really fun to help take the things I've learned in the last 20. Uh, growing an agency at element three, feeling that change our family's life, the Jr and Tiffany Souder family, and to be able to step in and help Rachel and her husband support their family and just grow a company that she's really proud of. It's just really exciting.

So Rachel and I had been working together for a while and then. I know what it feels like to be a mom of a bunch of young kids and also be a leader. And so I think at the end of one of our calls, I said, Hey, if I can ever be helpful, not as a client, but like as a mentor, I've been through enough crap in my own business.

You don't need to act like it's perfect. Like I know you can be successful and things are gross, gross. So if I can ever be helpful in that capacity, just as like a sounding board as another leader, somebody who's built an services business. Let me know. So we started meeting on Fridays cause we were both fat from having babies.

Can I say that? I mean, not like, I mean,

Rachel: I'm still like working it out, but

Tiffany: it's fine. You know what I mean? Like I was like, let's walk because mama needs to watch. We

Rachel: we're being, we we're multitasking.

Tiffany: We're being efficient. Yes, I am not. Yes. Thank you. That was better. But it was like, if we're going to talk, we should be moving our bodies.

So yeah, we were multitasking on Friday afternoon. We would meet before we needed to get kids from like daycare and school and all the things. And so that's how it started. And we got to know each other as people. And you were like tossing these things to me. I'm wondering about this and what about this?

And I think I started to experience that I could be helpful and that's satisfying for me. And I started to get to know you as a person and your character. You don't know what you're revealing about yourself. Sort of way, but I was like really rooting for you. Okay. That gets us to this day.

Rachel: So one of the days we had one of our walks scheduled and I had just been wrestling with like how to grow the business, honestly, cause I have had a lot of ideas and things that I wanted to pursue.

And so I had come prepared to that conversation with sharing the ideas. And one of the questions you had asked me, it was something along the lines of what do you ultimately want to have happen? And what's so fascinating to me is that. In January of that same year, and this was what July, June, or July. At this point I had written in my journal, what would happen if I had got like a different partner in, or acquired or whatever the right words are.

But I had written that down as a question for myself to be contemplating. And anyways, in that moment you had asked that question and I said, well, you know, I think it'd be cool to get acquired or to get a different partner in to help me grow this thing and pursue the vision that I.

Tiffany: So we're kind of towards the end of our walk and you say this and, and I had asked you, I said, well, what kind of a partner are you looking for?

And you had said, I don't think it's a tech company. I think it's somebody who understands services and doesn't want to try to turn it into a tech company. Cause that's very popular from an investor perspective to try to create a new city streams. And then you also said, I think it's somebody who has to understand story and brand.

This is the way I understand it. Have. Understanding that that's not a luxury item of what you're trying to do. It's like core. I remember like biting my teeth, like smiling. We were like walking beside each other. So it's not like you could see me. And I was like, oh man, that's like me. I w I wish it was like, well, I did the math quickly in my head, and I knew I could, it wasn't like that at all.

I just sort of felt my body be like, Maybe it should be me. So I said it at the end of the walk, I was like, well, what if it was me? And you were like, are you serious? And I was like, yeah, I think so. I mean, it has to make sense for both of us, but I think it's worth exploring. And I just felt like that was the right thing to say and, and had confidence and trust that the right outcome would have whether it was supposed to happen or it wasn't.

I at least I felt like understood the spirit of what you were trying to do. And if I wasn't the person that bought it, I felt like I could probably find you somebody that was going to be a good part. So

Rachel: fast forward, we worked through the details of that. But the thing that was just so affirming to me in that moment is I essentially was like looking for somebody who had been down this path before and not just been a successful business person, but has a successful marriage has children that they're raising and can understand what the duality it takes to be both a mom, a wife, and.

Uh, business leader that has like a vision for something bigger than themselves. And so to me, it was kind of like a very lightning strike moment and I don't really believe in a ton of accidents anyway. And so I just think that's special. And I think it's really cool that we've come together in this way.

Tiffany: It also expanded my vision for the impact that I feel like I'm being asked to have. And part of my project of scare confident is I, I can't. Possibly own 80 businesses, but I can help a bunch of business owners, but in helping to mentor you, I think it helps me even unearth what I've learned. And so that helps me remember, and I said this on another episode of scare, confident where I really believe real change happens in the micro.

And if I wished I'd had a wing man or a woman. And I can create slightly less loneliness for you on your journey. Like that is meaningful for me. And if you feel slightly less, you will be able to replicate that for one other one, too. And if we all do it for one other one, it really starts to change things materially.

And so that also was very meaningful for me to expand my vision of my time and the experiences that I've been able to have. I've often asked why did my journey as a leader start at 25. Why did life happen? Such that I had this 20 years of experiences from 23 to 43 instead of 43 to 63. Cause now I have 20 years to use those lessons where if it had started decades later, you have less time.

And so this part of me redeeming my own story too, is finding people that you're so teachable. You're so hungry. You're so creative. You're so humble in the sense of not needing to see yourself in a certain way, but like being open to what. People reflecting like, oh, you want to grow so badly. And so that's really, it's exciting to feel that, and I'm grateful to be on the journey with you.

So I've given you my kind of window into my experience of you and what I was observing as we were getting to know each other. Ping pong that back.

Rachel: First of all, I have to say the way that we even started working together was so uncertain. All of a sudden, I get an email from you and it said, I want to start a podcast.

I want to work with you. How do we move forward? And I was like, what? Who is this person? We've talked like negative times. So that was unexpected. And then I remember we got together, we crafted the show. We had both had a child very recently. So you would come to our meetings like sweaty because you had just been running

Tiffany: probably.

Rachel: And I remember it being much more nervous for those meals. When I was sweaty. Yeah. You would show up sweaty and I would show up very, like I made sure I was not sweaty. You know what I mean? Like the opposite of that. And I remember it being disarming in a good way, because I knew you as somebody from the public eye of somebody who was very successful, very put together, very polished, very smart, like all of the things that like you quote unquote achieve to be.

And so for you to show up. And that way was very positive because it allowed me to actually be able to do what I do best, which is like show up in the creative, in the present instead of being like, what is Tiffany thinking about me right now? And then the second experience that I remember just being like, I have royally screwed up this relationship.

Cause you always play the internal things in your head. What was your first recording for your fear journey? And I'm not typically the person who goes on set till set up the stuff, because I'm not great at it. But in this scenario, I knew it needed to be me because it was you going into this fear journey that was going to be very vulnerable.

And you had already shared stuff with me. I was like, I can't have somebody else come into this. And so I remember that day and I, for some reason, forgot how long it took to get places. and I got in the car, drove down underestimated. How long it would take me to get there.

Got lost. Could not find where I was going. and I remember the minute I walked into the room, this is the first time we'd ever met in person. And you said, oh, I've never seen your legs before. And I was like, not much to see, like it's not my best feature. It's fine. You just have the innate ability to disarm the scenario.

And it was, again, it was like I'm over here, frantically lost. So now I'm actually sweaty because I'm running around downtown with equipment. And I had the night before, the night before I had bought Mike. For that session because it wasn't like equipment that I just like, so I was carrying these stupid things around.

I'm like stressed out and then the minute I walk in the room, you're like, I've never seen your legs before. Okay, cool. So that was our first time actually meeting in person. Other than me having been in the crowd, seeing you speak at like an event. And so that. Special, I think in a very random way, but then you did the fear journey and the thing that's fascinating to me on that is that journey actually became the prologue to what is now what you're doing, whiskered confident, but then also like with what we're doing together.

Cause from that fear journey, your statement became, I am for others. And I just find that a beautiful story.

Tiffany: Yeah, I agree with you a thousand percent. I wouldn't have been able to believe that this could have been an aunt I could have added into my life. That's why I talk about passionately living a life of ant.

It's been so satisfying, but I had to break through these mental barriers boundaries that I had in my head about like, you have, you have enough, people are saying that with their eyes to you. And again, maybe they aren't, but it's what I was like, interpreting. And so. I've never been an owner before in that way where I'm just an owner and my active in the business.

And so learning how to play that role, it's like, Can I add that? And, and so here we go. Here's the answer. My mission for scare confident is to help women confidently pursue a life of, and, and I want to be available to you. I'm passionate about vulnerably, stepping into my stories so that it can help women.

This is about creating. I wish I had as I was going through this journey. So if you have questions, comments, or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Text me at 3 1 7 3 5 0 8 9 2 1.

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