And then Steph called.

And she made me an offer to jump departments to the people team, hopscotch from Chicago and back to California and start to dream and create my own role at the company. The biggest question she asked me was during salary negotiations and she said to me: ‘how much do you need to make to live your whole life?’. And I will never forget that question and I took three days to answer it and when I presented her with a number, she said yes and we (Chris moved to California with me) turned a whole new page, hell, a new life chapter.

The question she posed and our friendship have stayed with me.

Meet Steph:

What inspired you to start your business?

Truthfully, this time around, I thought I wanted to be an employee again. After applying to way too many jobs all around the world, I heard more No’s than Yes’s. Internally, I heard a gong that said: you must start again. And with that, a new consulting practice was born: the tendr way. So I suppose you could say I was inspired from a place of rejection.

How do you define ‘success’?

I think the greatest measure of success is: how quickly you can fall asleep at night, how swiftly you can rise in the morning and who is with you to celebrate the moments that matter in life? I wish those metrics hit more performance reviews for human health where ever you define “work” to be.

What’s one major decision that changed the trajectory of your work?

Most recently, being promoted to Aunty Steph made me wildly committed to crafting my work-life around the opportunity to visit my incredible nephew who lives in the UK (and his Dads!). Children have a way of making the clock tick faster and I feel the race to make the moments matter. With that clear distinction, it became imperative that my work could support global love!

What core values guide how you run your business?

I have been completely *unable* to separate my own values from those of my work. Perhaps it is (one of) my greatest downfall or my secret sauce. My Core Values as a compass are:

WILD ADVENTURE

TOTALLY POSSIBLE

ABUNDANCE ALWAYS

ENORMOUS LOVE

I know you don’t 9-5, so tell us what does a day in the life look like?

My preference is to rise before the sun and sweat to start the day. After that, I’ll quite literally do whatever the calendar calls for! However, my naughty sidekick named Bernie will always jump at exactly 5PM looking for a walk and his dinner. So there is an undeniable pause in every day for him. Admittedly, I feel less constricted by a calendar and more committed to doing the most important things for health and vitality. If that means walking on the treadmill in the middle of the day - I’ll do it. And if that means very early morning calls with Europe - I’ll happily do that too. Less boundaries, more bounty is the current era.

What’s something people don’t see about being a founder?

There is no off switch. Ever. Ever. Ever. It’s the background music and the foreground headlight. Everything is an opportunity; everything is a possibility. Some may see it as a constant buzz. When I changed my perspective to the buzz being a beating drum of purpose, it completely changed how I see the privilege of being “on”.

What is your vision for the future, be it in your business or beyond?

A few years ago I had some health challenges that put the preciousness of life into perspective. It’s so cliche, yet when it hits, it really hits. I quickly committed that I would honour health as my greatest wealth. I would be of conscious contribution to all relationships and energetic exchanges (ie. work!). I would promise to spend my days asking: how good are you willing to feel? With that, I’m here to explore the future -- really, in a state of awe. (And in the current state of of the world, finding awe sometimes makes me feel like an astronaut!)

What advice would you give someone building something of their own?

“Their own” is powerful in so many ways, yet I really believe in “together” being even more powerful. Find the crew, the tribe, the advisors, the support team - paid or unpaid, that is not what it is about. It’s the support in an otherwise pretty wild (and sometimes lonely) version of life. Beyond my personal Board of Directors, I think goals matter - micro and macro - direction and focus are a currency. And of course, joy or hobbies of inspirational pursuit. Be it Writing Club with you, Jacki, my garden or trail adventures, having things to pull me away from an online space into offline reality is imperative -- I think it is for everyone to build the castle of their dreams.

If I were starting a secret society of support, what would you ask for?

I really wouldn’t mind air travel that was easeful, reliable wifi in the sky and a cure for jet lag.

Keep up with Steph:

Steph over on LinkedIN

Steph’s writing here on Substack

The Tendr Way

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Today, meet Kelly Ferraro of Side Hustle. I cannot even deal with how creative this mini truck idea is and how Kelly has literally launched the coolest business(es) with her family in Austin, TX. Think a mobile bookstore on a mini truck, morning coffee truck, lemonade stand on wheels, pizza night and more! And have you ever heard of a smart growth neighborhood, well now you have and Kelly lives in one!

Of course, now, I want one! The truck and the hood!

Meet Kelly Ferraro:

1. What inspired you to start your business?

My latest business is Side Hustle, a 1988 Subaru Sambar Japanese kei (pronounced like the letter “K”) truck.

Here is the backstory, I’ve always wanted a cute little coffee truck. I was inspired by a Piaggio Ape (pronounced “ah-pay”) that a hotel in Key West had converted into a champagne cart. My brain exploded, and instead of relaxing on vacation, I spent my time writing a coffee truck business plan and researching mobile food vendor permits in Austin, Texas.

Around the same time, I noticed my kids always wanted to sell stuff. You could walk by our porch on any given weekday and they’d be hocking lemonade, lovies, and used books. My son would even go door-to-door looking for customers.

We live in a smart-growth neighborhood (learn more here) across from a walking trail and a public golf course. Every time I step outside, I see this space where I think a coffee truck should exist.

Then my husband “needed” to rent a kei truck for an SXSW activation, and something ignited inside me.

“Why don’t we just buy it?” I said. “What if we treat it as a test-and-learn project and just try different things, partner with other collaborators, and see what jives with the community?”

We said yes, and Side Hustle was born.

In the weeks since we bought it, Side Hustle has become a vehicle for community and collaboration - an iced coffee pop-up for my track team, a mobile arcade, a pizza-party pop-up, a lemonade stand, a swim team snack bar, a vintage car show participant, and a Father’s Day espresso and matcha bar... and these are just the activations I can remember!

And we are just getting started…

2. How do you define success?

It sounds trite, but success to me is being happy.

Nobody is going to remember how much money you made or whether you built the rare business that broke a million dollars. Nobody really cares whether you raised venture capital.

You can make all the money, raise all the funding, and still build yourself a prison—showing up every day with a sour face. I’ve witnessed that firsthand.

My teacher, Susanne, often said, “You are responsible for the energy you bring into the room.”

I’m always doing this little calibration of my soul: Is my soul happy? Am I bringing good energy into the room?

That’s success to me.

3. What’s one major decision that changed the trajectory of your work?

I had a lot of corporate jobs with fancy titles at fancy places, even a literal corner office.

My parents were public school teachers, and we lived near the beach, so I had the best summers growing up. I’d get summer jobs at the beach just so I could get paid to be a beach bum.

As an adult, I’ve always hated working through the summer. I’d sit in my office daydreaming about the beach, forcing myself to concentrate on corporate tasks. To me, summer is the sweet, slow season meant for relaxing, being outside, and spending time in the water with my kids.

Last summer, I finally said, “F-ck it. I don’t want to be in an office all summer. I want to be with my kids.”

I put in my notice, took my kids surfing in Costa Rica, and let go of the idea that my life had to look like a traditional 9-to-5, 365 days a year.

4. What core values guide how you run your business?

The main one is community. I know we share that value, Jacki, and that’s probably why I’m popping up on your Substack!

This is also about family and teaching our kids about entrepreneurship. I spend so much of my time advocating for public education, but I’m also married to a serial entrepreneur. I want to pass this value of entrepreneurship on to my kids.

And finally, this has to be fun. Because if we aren’t having fun, what’s the point? Owning any business, even a side hustle, is a lot of work.

Fun is the reward.

5. I know you don’t 9-to-5, so what does a day in the life look like?

I wake up and caffeinate. I’m a total espresso addict, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.

I read before my kids wake up. I just finished Yesteryear, and holy heck, did that mess with my head a little. Right now, I’m tackling Master of the Senate because it struck me that I’ve been a Texan for more than a decade and know so little about local history and public figures.

One of us makes breakfast and packs lunches before I drop the kids off at camp or school.

Then I exercise: run, lift, or go to a yoga or Pilates class. Movement is a non-negotiable.

Some days are busy - trying local coffee spots, learning about coffee, meeting with suppliers, and making sure we have everything we need for upcoming events. Or I might be working on building my “main hustle”: writing coaching content, taking one-on-one calls, or debating whether I should get a job with good benefits and a pension… ha!

Other days, I’m just trying to get our house in order.

In the afternoon, I pick up the kids from school or camp and make dinner. Some weeknights are jam-packed with activities: swim practice, basketball at the Y, PTA meetings. There is no shortage of opportunities to hang out with our neighbors—swimming at the community pool, watching the World Cup, or heading to trivia night at the local pizza shop.

And if there isn’t anything on the calendar, we’ll go for a family walk and check out the wildflowers.

I wind down by reading to my kids and then reading to myself, unless I’m binge-watching a show, like the final season of The Bear.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

6. What’s something people don’t see about being a founder?

I think it can get really lonely some days, and I can get in my own head.

I’m constantly ping-ponging between the parts of me that are fast and slow.

The “go fast” part wants to be successful by traditional standards and says, “Let’s knock this business out of the park and make a million dollars!”

Then the slow part kicks in and reminds me to recommit to my why, my core values, and remember that this season is about my family.

Slow always wins.

7. What is your vision for the future, in your business or beyond?

I’ve been half-joking that I just want to sell it all and move to the beach, maybe Costa Rica.

My happy place is ocean waves, sand, tacos and margaritas.

People pretty much always want an iced coffee at the beach, and I can provide that for them.

If my kids don’t want a traditional life, they can join us and sell coffee and surf. If they “fail to launch”, they will always have a landing pad with me. I’ll take snuggle forever.

8. What advice would you give someone building something of their own?

I actually do give advice in the form of coaching!

I was lonely as an entrepreneur and armed with all this marketing expertise from my corporate career, so I built what I wanted: a collective for women entrepreneurs called Rise & Build Collective.

I don’t give advice as much as I connect women who can support each other through generous listening, experience-sharing, and open-ended questions.

Oh, and laughter. Laughter is the most important part.

Is this answer a cop-out?

Okay, if I had to give one piece of advice, it would be this: find the sweet spot between aliveness and need.

1. What makes you feel alive?

2. What do people need?

Now, go do that.

9. If I were starting a secret society of support, what would you ask for?

I have always admired your ability to be true to yourself. You are an original, Jacki Carr.

I would want to know how you really tune into your authentic path and tune out all the noise.

There is so much societal messaging about what women should be, and social media creates endless opportunities for self-judgment and needless comparison.

I am so guilty of doom scrolling and shaming myself for not living up to these invisible expectations.

How do you tune it all out and confidently create a unique path?

That’s what I would ask for.

___

Keeping tabs on Kelly:

Follow @ sidehustleatx on instagram!

Check out Kelly’s coaching and growth strategies here.

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I am excited to introduce you to my first interviewee, Anna Kujacznski, she is a mentor + mystic and writer. I met Anna when she became a client of mine what could be deemed a few lifetimes ago for both of us - I am still honored that I got to read some of her incredible writing way back when she was drafting a book and work with her on reckoning her incredible voice and honing her own business. She is a potent force speaking to capacity and decision portals. Anna is also a Substack writer, you can find her works here on .

Meet Anna Kujacznski:

What inspired you to start your business?

Defiance, ha. The first iteration of my business was hanging my shingle fresh out of grad school. But truthfully, I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. After a certain point the idea of working for someone else became antithetical to the life I wanted for myself. My approach to owning my business has evolved massively alongside me, shifting from the chaos of a hope and a prayer to a much more rooted ownership of being a founder and a leader and showing up as someone that I have respect for in both the work and the way the work is held. I believe having skin in the game is a necessary layer of further proof that it is the framework I am meant to serve within, because it is mine, and it gets to breathe and morph with me.

How do you define ‘success’?

Success has many facets, but the most important for me I believe is a sense of coherence. Not just a feeling of alignment, but a state of clarity that the ways I move, execute, think, speak, embody, and dream are all congruent. There isn’t this cache of ‘realness’ tucked away, that it’s out front and center. That my multifaceted multitudes no longer read as inconsistency, but as fractals of the Truth of who I am. I have felt the ‘success’ of a six figure therapy business that was built so haphazardly, and was built purely from survival and codependency and my own need to be needed. And I hold compassion for that version of both myself and my business because it taught me very viscerally the true cost of that. So in some ways, success to me has really transformed into the feeling of building something that is alive, that is evolving and changing always, and that allows me to do the same within it. I think the most liberating gift entrepreneurship has given me, regardless of how long it took me to receive it, is that you really truly can do what you want. If it is alive in me, I trust that I can find a way to incorporate it into my brand and my offerings. The ideal that I need to lob off parts of myself to remain conceivable is a mindset that I no longer wish to inherit from capitalism. I landed into my definition of success when I built a business that holds all of me. In jest I have said that my niche market is me, I am my target audience. I am my own muse. I mentor from what I have lived through, I write about what inspires me, I move toward what expands me, and I trust fully that those efforts transmute into a vocation that has no choice but to bend to my desire for purpose and provision.

What’s one major decision that changed the trajectory of your work?

It’s almost laughable to think of the trajectory timeline now, but last spring I rebranded my business to include the titles of coach and writer along with therapist. I see the ways this was me, at the time, feeling brave and expansive. And, as it often does, that expansion gave me new perspective, new access, and new desires. Somewhere in there, I was thrust into a season of spiritual shedding and sloughing, stripped of many of my identities and stories and beliefs about myself, my role, and my work. I was invited into a fierce audit of how I was showing up in my life, and with great humility was shown the ways these stabs at additional titles were still me asking for permission. I was still surveying the consensus of what was allowed. How big was I allowed to be? How conceivable did I need to remain? How many boxes did I need to section myself into to stave off the hunger I felt around my magnitude? I submitted to this alchemy fully, and it completely changed my internal experience of myself, bringing me into a state of remembrance. There was no ‘becoming,’ it was a return to the Truth that was always there; my sovereign wholeness and divine power, and it set everything untrue in my life on fire, and I let it burn. Skip to this gorgeous morning where I am writing to you now, I have fully abandoned the limitations of a therapist, and denoting myself as a writer now feels almost like calling myself a breather. The monikers themselves feel less relevant than the presence I am now holding in my work, but for now mentor and mystic fit the bill. The one major decision that remains as the underpinning of this trajectory shift is that I decided to unfurl. I decided to submit to the conditions that Truth was asking of me, and I allowed my life to reorganize around that Truth. And this is the precise threshold I midwife women through in The Decision Portal; it is one decision, but you will be asked to make it many times.

What core values guide how you run your business?

I have built in the clouds before. I have built on a hope and a prayer. And on the front end it’s nice because it’s significantly less work, but it does not bring me peace and trust. Integrating the concepts of masculine energy into my business has been an absolute game changer for me. Learning to build something that holds ME while I show up and do the work of holding others. If I want to play and flow in the resources of my creativity, my vitality, my erotic yes, my intuitive directives, I must honor those resources by being a good and faithful steward of them. Implementing structure, systems, boundaries, and discipline as devotion to the craft allows those resources to flourish more freely, because I trust they are being shepherded by the architecture I have built to hold them. My team is all women; coach, back-end, accountant etc, and that will remain true moving forward. It has become increasingly important to me whose hands the money generated from this work passes through, and I believe there is a sacredness to that.

I know you don’t stick to the old 9-5 model, so tell us what does a day in the life of Anna look like?

I’m a morning girl, and I usually wake up naturally around 5am, (I know, I know…). This can lead to juicy and spacious morning pages, coffee, and staring at the wall in a soul trance. OR, three days a week I dive in for practice with the local masters swim team and log a few miles. Right now, I am client-facing just two days a week, which allows me to be so full and present with the souls in front of me; witnessing these women alchemizing into their bravest expressions is far from a puritanical concept of ‘work,’ it is service, it is mission work, and it fuels me. Outside of client facing hours, I’m finding a regular cadence of writing and output, professional development, and ample time to sit and receive counsel from the divine. I never, ever miss a long walk in the woods with my pup, sometimes two. No headphones. No music. No podcast. Just me and the trees and my prayers. I deeply value good food, slow evenings, and am grateful to be living back near family.

What’s something people don’t see about being a founder?

It’s terrifying! You will feel alive and liberated and fulfilled in many ways, and you realize the safety net truly is you. I joke that entrepreneurialism is just creative living + shadow work dressed up in a trench coat posing as business, and I find that incredibly accurate. Any aspect of your work as a self-led woman will ask you to examine yourself more deeply, should you choose to answer. Low reach? Your fear of visibility is running. Capped income? You’ve associated success with burdensome responsibility. Undercharging? Claiming your worth feels audacious and dangerous. Softening your message? You are still apologizing for your presence and asking for permission to be at the table. Again and again, when I run into snags in my work, they are always a brutal and stunning mirror inviting me into deeper intimacy with myself, which never fails to call me into deeper intimacy with what I create. Being a founder is choosing to live a creative life, and a creative life will ask you to build your home on the precipice of all that is coming. You will consistently feel like you are ‘about to launch,’ because there are no guideposts or milestones you can numbly plod along toward. But what I am learning to offer myself is that despite how frequently I feel like I am gearing up to “go for it,” to remind myself I have been going for it, that I have much under my belt thus far, and that the feeling of uncertainty and precariousness is the underpinning of an authentic life. What many people call safety and stability, in my opinion, is more an amnesiac reliance on the illusion of safety. A 9-5 is not “more stable,” than being self-employed, because out here on my own, I know without falter that I am in my own corner, and therefore I cannot fail.

What is your vision for the future, be it in your business or beyond?

*cracks knuckles* My vision of the future is connective, verdant, and wild, filled with places and spaces of sanctuary and expansion. I’ve got a few plans up my sleeve I’m keeping consecrated, but I’ll share that specifically in the last five years I have been held and hosted in ways that recalibrated me on a cellular level, and I am eager to continue offering that same resonant charge back to the women in my orbit in both deeper and larger ways.

What advice would you give someone building something of their own?

Begin. Begin begin begin. I heard a quote recently that said “If your first try is perfect, you waited too long.” Ha! And I think there is so much truth in that. There is nothing that will teach you like experience will, but even more than that, experience is what carves out the version of you who can hold what you are building. When you say “yes!” to The Big Thing, you must remember that you will first be initiated into the version of you that can actually *hold* The Big Thing. I’ve had a sticky note on my laptop for the last year of a Yeshua channeling, and it states “Your vibration must be higher than what you are called to create or else you cannot manage it.” I view trying and failing not just as whittling down systems and directions, but as capacity building, which is so much of what occurs in The Decision Portal. Yes, you made one choice, the big one, but it will relentlessly demand that you make it again and again as everything that is incongruent or incoherent or in opposition to the Truth in your life will come up for audit. Much would be calmed within you at the beginning of the build to recognize that as with any true art, in your creation of it, you yourself are being created, too.

If I were starting a secret society of support, what would you ask for?

I love this question. In a world where women have been scrutinized and shrunk into the maladaptive coping of competing with one another, there is nothing more powerful than a group of women who become a chorus of “hell yeah’s” in my mind. Being in connection with women who are living so fully and bravely themselves that if I were to even consider softening or reducing my work and my Truth I can picture the disappointment on their faces. That’s what I crave; women in my corner who are not only not intimidated by my expansion, but that would be disappointed in any shrewd couching or tiptoeing I did. I think we need more of that; a sense of healthy disappointment. Kind of like that feeling you’d get when you describe to an 87 year old woman how ‘smart and reasonable’ a decision was and she just looks at you, leather skin and a thousand mistakes under her finger nails, deflated that you somehow decided your illusion of safety was more important than letting your feral moxy catapult you into a life so delicious it drips off your chin.

Ways to work with Anna:

Return To Truth Event - 7/22 - Virtual - $55
An educational and experiential workshop around the energetic practices and rituals that dissolve what stands between who you are moving as right now,, and the version of yourself you came here to be. We confront contracts, stories, identities, and beliefs that feel cellularly engrained in their believability, and we dismantle them. Participants will walk away with a clear understanding of the limitations they have been allowing in their lives, an agentic perspective on how to shift their internal experience that will then shift their external world, and practical application and tools specific to them. This is the fourth time I am hosting this workshop and it truly just keeps getting juicier.

The Decision Portal - 3 month intensive - $12k
Gloves are off and the heat is on high.
Three months | Seven 1:1 sessions | Telegram access for boots-on-the-ground shifts.
This is a ruthless, soul-level audit of your life.
It is the threshold of your decision to stop negotiating with your power. To no longer hem and haw around if you’ve got it in you. You know you do, you’re just so accustomed to leaking it everywhere trying to prove you’re allowed to be here. Through identity work, consciousness expansion, energetics, and an unflinching dance with Truth, this portal plops you into your highest timeline, and from there the invitation is yours to build a life that reflects your magnitude.

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Meet Anna