Speaker 1: Dad was there and he saw me and he came
Speaker 1: up to me and he said, you're better than this.
Speaker 1: He didn't mean to come across as judgmental, but he
Speaker 1: just knew that the talents that he saw in me
Speaker 1: and how I am, he just was like, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this. And that was hard. It was hard
Speaker 1: to hear. There was definitely a hit to the ego,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Hello guys, and welcome back to Stepping Up.
Speaker 1: I'm recording this actually at home. I set up a
Speaker 1: little I know, if you guys remember, so the first
Speaker 1: season of Stepping Up, I recorded everything from home, and
Speaker 1: then obviously now we're with Nova, which is super exciting
Speaker 1: but which I will talk about a bit in this episode.
Speaker 1: But life gets busy, you know, life just gets so chaotic.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know what, and I love
Speaker 1: going to Nova. I love the vibe. I love being
Speaker 1: on to record there. But it's been a bit of
Speaker 1: a season over here at the Pace House with you
Speaker 1: kids and work and all the things. You know, we're
Speaker 1: doing our planners for twenty twenty seven, which is crazy,
Speaker 1: and it's funny with that. I'm always like thinking it's
Speaker 1: a year ahead than what It is just because in
Speaker 1: my brain, I've been living in twenty twenty seven for
Speaker 1: a while now. We start our plannings in January, so
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of insight into that, but you're
Speaker 1: going to get a lot more insight into what it
Speaker 1: happens behind the scenes at you know, running a stationary
Speaker 1: brand at e COMM brand that started from my garage.
Speaker 1: And this isn't going to be an episode just for
Speaker 1: people who are interested in business or business owners. This
Speaker 1: is for literally everybody on doing it scared because none
Speaker 1: of us are ever ready and you will know that
Speaker 1: very much by the end of this episode. There's so
Speaker 1: much in this episode I you know, haven't shared anywhere
Speaker 1: else except my book. I shared a fair bit of
Speaker 1: that in my book. But there's so many fuck ups
Speaker 1: I've done in my business. It's insane, And in this
Speaker 1: episode you were going to look and in this episode
Speaker 1: you're going to see the transformation and like, just how
Speaker 1: ironic it is that me from where I came from
Speaker 1: and how my brain works and how chaotic I was
Speaker 1: as a kid and as a teenager and still am.
Speaker 1: It's so insanely ironic that I run a stationary brand.
Speaker 1: It's insane. But back to the house, so over here, Like,
Speaker 1: as you guys know, we moved into his house a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago now, which is insane, but
Speaker 1: we've had a little bit of progress. We want to
Speaker 1: give a bit of a life update first, but we finally
Speaker 1: the laundry is going in. We've had we've got like taps,
Speaker 1: which is really helpful. Like who would have thought having
Speaker 1: running water in your house would be helpful? Now, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, we have had taps for a while,
Speaker 1: but now it's like we've got them in all the
Speaker 1: bathrooms and the laundry and stuff we have. Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: had a bit of progress lately, which is good. You'll
Speaker 1: definitely get some more pace house updates on like Instagram
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And if you guys knew here,
Speaker 1: my husband and I Ryan, he's a builder. We just
Speaker 1: moved into our dream home. It's unfinished because life happens,
Speaker 1: you know, and shit's expensive, which is fine. So I'm
Speaker 1: turning our unfinished house into a home, which is an eventure.
Speaker 1: But I do love it because, you know, because the
Speaker 1: girls have also seen our two kids, they've seen what
Speaker 1: it takes like, they've seen me behind the scenes. With
Speaker 1: my business. They've seen Ryan build it. They see what
Speaker 1: goes into it, and like the hard work that goes into,
Speaker 1: you know, bloody creating a home. I remember the day
Speaker 1: we've got door handles on the doors. The girls were
Speaker 1: just like, Mum, I've got a door handle and I
Speaker 1: was like, go you good thing. It's just the little
Speaker 1: things you know in life. But yes, so I'm literally
Speaker 1: just really focusing on getting ourselves set up here. And
Speaker 1: I know that does sound silly because it has been
Speaker 1: a year and a half, but as you guys know,
Speaker 1: I wrote my book which is Mastering My Messy Your Life,
Speaker 1: which is I'm just love seeing all your feedback and
Speaker 1: how many of you guys are reading it that you
Speaker 1: relate to it so well. It means a lot to me,
Speaker 1: so thank you. And yeah, like we just you got
Speaker 1: to take things by the budget. You got to take
Speaker 1: things by the balls, by the budget. So we're just
Speaker 1: doing things in phases, which is fine. But before you
Speaker 1: roll your eyes and you're like, oh, here we go,
Speaker 1: Steph's doing a bloody business episode. As I said, this
Speaker 1: episode is incredibly important for everyone. You know, by the
Speaker 1: end of this episode, you're going to truly know and
Speaker 1: see and understand that you know, nobody knows what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and especially the people you look up to. Most they
Speaker 1: did not know what they're doing, and they likely still
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing. Because, as I say, new level,
Speaker 1: new devil, no matter if it's business, if it's you know, hobbies,
Speaker 1: if it's at work, anything, whenever you hit a new level,
Speaker 1: there's going to be new hardships and new hurdles to cross,
Speaker 1: and usually they're bigger. They always are bigger. So I
Speaker 1: always say, new level, new devil. And I still don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. You know, I started this like Instagram, blog, whatever,
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and you know my business steph Face Planners,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, tools for messy minds of the world.
Speaker 1: I started that like six years ago, and I still
Speaker 1: don't I know what I'm doing. So then you hire
Speaker 1: people that do know what they're doing in certain areas,
Speaker 1: which is very helpful, but you know, no one knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing, not like not the people you follow,
Speaker 1: not the founder you look up to, not not like
Speaker 1: even people in your own lives that you think like,
Speaker 1: you look at them and they just have such confidence
Speaker 1: and you think they just know their shit, but I
Speaker 1: trust you that when they started and even now they're
Speaker 1: winging it in every sense of the word. And the
Speaker 1: thing is that's not bad news. That's very much good
Speaker 1: news to show you guys that, like, the people who
Speaker 1: do the thing aren't the ones that figured it out first.
Speaker 1: You achieve things by doing, not by planning. What you
Speaker 1: can learn by actually doing will always trump you over planning.
Speaker 1: And again I'm a planner, brand founder, whatever. They're just
Speaker 1: the ones that started before they figured it out yet,
Speaker 1: and you figure it out along the way. Just like motherhood,
Speaker 1: I know them. Any of the mom's listening right now,
Speaker 1: like you could not read. Look, I remember before I
Speaker 1: got pregnant with Harper, I read every baby book. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to be so ready for this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to like kill this. And you cannot learn
Speaker 1: by planning. You have to learn by doing, and that's
Speaker 1: how we grow unfortunately at times. So and this is
Speaker 1: good again. This is going to apply to anything you
Speaker 1: do in life, whether you want to apply for a
Speaker 1: new job or start a new hobby or maybe like
Speaker 1: go to a new book club or something. It's always
Speaker 1: just doing it scared now in order for you to
Speaker 1: understand the transformation here, but also the lesson in this,
Speaker 1: you need to understand where I came from. Now, I
Speaker 1: was always the messy kid. I was so bad that
Speaker 1: my mother. I got home from school one day and
Speaker 1: I came home to a plastic blue and white shower
Speaker 1: curtain that had dolphins frolicking across it, and it was
Speaker 1: hung across my bookshelves, and in my bookshelves were like
Speaker 1: toys and books and just little things that I used
Speaker 1: to collect. And it was absolute. It was an absolute mess,
Speaker 1: and my mother couldn't deal with looking at it anymore,
Speaker 1: so she hung a shower curtain. And it's also a
Speaker 1: metaphor for how we handled things in our family back then,
Speaker 1: is that we used We used to hide the mess
Speaker 1: behind the curtain and pretend it wasn't there. Unfortunately, we're
Speaker 1: doing that if you continue to let the mess accumulate.
Speaker 1: There's only so long that the mess is going to
Speaker 1: be able to hide behind a curtain before it becomes
Speaker 1: bursting out and falls all over the floor. Now, I
Speaker 1: remember I was always just off with the fairies. I
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with add at age six, and for a
Speaker 1: girl in the nineties, that was you know, pretty rare.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't have anything I wasn't interested in, I
Speaker 1: could not focus on. I was always reactive, you know,
Speaker 1: as I got older, I was never organized. I was
Speaker 1: very very reactive, and I was just an absolute mess.
Speaker 1: I you know, I always just felt like everyone's brains
Speaker 1: must have just been so nice and quiet, and mine
Speaker 1: just had twenty million conversations going on at once. And
Speaker 1: you know, I remember sitting in the classroom in primary
Speaker 1: school and just constantly zoning out the window because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bird out the window. And then I could hear,
Speaker 1: you know, the pencils scraping against the paper, and like
Speaker 1: feet tapping on the floor and then the chalkboard, and
Speaker 1: it was just the world has just always been so
Speaker 1: loud for me. And so I find that I disassociate
Speaker 1: or I numb out by zoning out. And that got
Speaker 1: me into a lot of trouble as a kid and
Speaker 1: as an adult as well. And I do see that
Speaker 1: a lot in my kids now. So she one of
Speaker 1: the girls, she says, my teacher says this, and I'm
Speaker 1: like yes, and I'm like, you know what I get
Speaker 1: that I do? And you know, I always felt like
Speaker 1: I just my brain was always off in a million
Speaker 1: different directions, and that very much showed up later. I
Speaker 1: remember sitting in high school and everyone was saying what
Speaker 1: they wanted to be when they grow up, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, my friend Evan wanted to be an engineer,
Speaker 1: and then my friend Ash was going to be a teacher,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know what I want
Speaker 1: to be, you know, I always wanted to just do
Speaker 1: all of it. I remember being seventy years old and
Speaker 1: I would get these old sheets we had. We had
Speaker 1: a bunch of old sheets in our house, and I
Speaker 1: would draw Pokemon onto them with text and then like
Speaker 1: cut them out and i'd have the front layer, which
Speaker 1: was the drawing in the back, and then I would
Speaker 1: sew them up and then stuff them with more sheets
Speaker 1: and make them into like Pokemon toys, and I'd sell
Speaker 1: them on the street to the kids. So I've always
Speaker 1: just had this like entrepreneurial streak to me. And then
Speaker 1: when I wasn't selling Pokemon toys, you know, I did
Speaker 1: a really killer nine Tales. I remember selling that for
Speaker 1: like three bucks, So I was a bargain in my opinion.
Speaker 1: I was inside and I was running my own newspaper
Speaker 1: called The Dolphin Daily, very on trend. It's all about
Speaker 1: the aquatic mammals. Okay, the publication for that, and I
Speaker 1: would interview my name and dad on like their favorite
Speaker 1: breakfast food and you know, what their favorite color was,
Speaker 1: because the people needed to know the truth. So I
Speaker 1: had this bustling newspaper as a kid as well, and
Speaker 1: I felt like that throughout, you know, my teenage years.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do fashion, I wanted to do interior design,
Speaker 1: but I also wanted to be a journalist because I
Speaker 1: loved writing, and I remember writing was always my outlet,
Speaker 1: you know, when I felt like I didn't have a
Speaker 1: voice growing up at home. You know, again, definitely if
Speaker 1: you interested in this story and like how I turned,
Speaker 1: like mastered my messy mind and things like that and
Speaker 1: my messy life, definitely like read it because I go
Speaker 1: into it a lot more. But my childhood was pretty chaotic,
Speaker 1: and it was it was pretty rough, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's always going to be people out there that have
Speaker 1: it worse. But it's when I felt like I didn't
Speaker 1: have a say or anywhere to really go to. When
Speaker 1: my nan wasn't home, I would just write and I
Speaker 1: would just escape into these worlds. So I would write
Speaker 1: and read and that's why Harry Potter became my biggest
Speaker 1: like my friends, which sounds so lame, but I was
Speaker 1: just always lost in books or lost in worries. So
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to do journalism and all these things.
Speaker 1: And then I was in high school and everyone just
Speaker 1: knew their one thing, like I'm like, I just don't
Speaker 1: know what my one thing is. Like I didn't want
Speaker 1: one path. And you know, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I thought me having all these hobbies in interest was
Speaker 1: a positive thing. But as I got older, I realized
Speaker 1: the world just wants to put you into a box.
Speaker 1: They want you to follow the path that they all
Speaker 1: know is safe and what works, because that's what society
Speaker 1: tells us to do. And I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: And you know, my friends would call me crunchy and
Speaker 1: with you guys don't know this millennial reference, it means,
Speaker 1: you know, I had like I had actually dark blonde
Speaker 1: hair on the outside, but it's like brown hair, brown
Speaker 1: on the outside and blonde on the inside. And I
Speaker 1: got caught that because I was just always off thinking
Speaker 1: of cool ideas I can do, and all these different things.
Speaker 1: And I just remember sitting in the library in year
Speaker 1: ten and our teacher was hammering home how important the
Speaker 1: HC is. Like if you don't do well in this,
Speaker 1: like you're done for basically, like you need to do this,
Speaker 1: go to UNI, get the job, work nine to five
Speaker 1: until you're like eighty years old, and then retire, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I remember sitting there and
Speaker 1: they're telling me like I had to pick what my
Speaker 1: thing was, and I remember thinking, like, dude, I just
Speaker 1: like my boobs just came in, and now you want
Speaker 1: me to pick what uniform I need to shove them into,
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know how to operate them yet.
Speaker 1: Like it was just wild to me. And I just
Speaker 1: always said like I felt like I just felt like
Speaker 1: everyone got a map and mine was from TEMU and
Speaker 1: it smells funny. I just did not understand everyone knew
Speaker 1: what exactly they wanted to do. And from there, as
Speaker 1: you could clearly tell, I became known as the jack
Speaker 1: of all trades. I just remember so many times that
Speaker 1: you know, I was in between career choices or what
Speaker 1: I was doing, you know, After high school, I went
Speaker 1: to UNI. I did journalism, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: have to write about politics and board guys in suits,
Speaker 1: like that's boring, so I reluctant. I did finish my degree,
Speaker 1: but it was painful. And from there I wanted to
Speaker 1: do makeup because I wanted to make people feel beautiful
Speaker 1: and bring out their inner beauty. So I went and
Speaker 1: did makeup school, I went, traveled to Sydney. I did that,
Speaker 1: you know, full time, and then I also worked multiple jobs,
Speaker 1: and you know, it wasn't like I was sitting on
Speaker 1: my ass, like I was working really hard. And by then,
Speaker 1: you know, I had met my then boyfriend Ryan, who's
Speaker 1: my husband now, and we were working towards these goals together,
Speaker 1: and I was making decent income from all the things.
Speaker 1: But I just remember always seeing, you know, maybe catching
Speaker 1: up with friends from school or seeing our friends from
Speaker 1: that time, OK, at parties and things, and they're like,
Speaker 1: or Steph, what are you doing? And then I would
Speaker 1: probably be doing the next thing and the next thing,
Speaker 1: and they'd always say, oh, step here, just a jack
Speaker 1: of all trades, and I always would wait for them
Speaker 1: to say master of none. But it was just you know,
Speaker 1: and I did. I'd see my friends they had gone
Speaker 1: to UNI and then they'd gone and got the job
Speaker 1: that they were technically meant to get from UNI, and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Like I obviously didn't believe in the whole sunk costs fallacy,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, people sticking things out just because
Speaker 1: of the time they've already put into it. I just
Speaker 1: didn't believe that. And I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: came from my nan, Like she was always very much like,
Speaker 1: you go and do what you're passionate about, and she'd
Speaker 1: always tell me, like, you're going to go on to
Speaker 1: do such great things. And I just didn't see that
Speaker 1: for myself, especially when the world had already gotten to
Speaker 1: me by then that you know, my passion and my
Speaker 1: burning desire to do all these things they had reduced
Speaker 1: to like a little flickering flame. And it was rough,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't have a whole lot of self confidence.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of weld to think what I do now,
Speaker 1: like having the podcast and talking on live TV. And
Speaker 1: I've told you guys this before, but you know, before
Speaker 1: I do speeches at UNI, I had to go skull
Speaker 1: beer because I just had no confidence in myself. So
Speaker 1: I had to reach for the liquid confidence. And then
Speaker 1: after makeup school, I decided, you know what I really
Speaker 1: like fitness. I got really into fitness because I had
Speaker 1: put on twenty five kilos in a year and then
Speaker 1: I lost it and I just really felt passionate about it.
Speaker 1: So I went and worked at a gym too, and
Speaker 1: then I did makeup on the weekends. So I was just,
Speaker 1: you know, seemingly it looked like I was all over
Speaker 1: the place and I could not stick to something. But
Speaker 1: to me, I was just trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: my one thing was and I wanted to try things
Speaker 1: on for sites. I still remember this time, and I
Speaker 1: was handing out flies outside of Woolworths when I was
Speaker 1: working at the gym. So I would work at the
Speaker 1: gym during the week full time, and then on the
Speaker 1: weekends I had my own makeup business, which was actually
Speaker 1: like very successful. I was booked out for two years
Speaker 1: in advance. Then on the weekend I would do weddings
Speaker 1: and you know, Ryan and I at that time, we
Speaker 1: were saving for our wedding and it was great money.
Speaker 1: And I just remember this like Dad. Dad was there
Speaker 1: and he saw me and he came up to me
Speaker 1: and he said you're better than this. And I know,
Speaker 1: like my dad meant well and he didn't mean to
Speaker 1: come across as judgmental, but he just knew that the
Speaker 1: talents and I guess the talents that he saw in
Speaker 1: me and how I am. He just was like, you, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing this. And that was hard. It was
Speaker 1: hard to hear. It was definitely a hit to the ego,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. But back then I didn't realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just such a different time. Like
Speaker 1: a key example is when teachers would say to us,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to learn math because you're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to walk around with a calculator
Speaker 1: in your pocket, and we literally do everything. Is just
Speaker 1: such a different time, and you're finding now that the
Speaker 1: people that the multi passionate messes of the world, they're
Speaker 1: the ones that are coming out on top. Now. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got our online We've got you know, the online
Speaker 1: world where you can literally make money from what you're
Speaker 1: passionate about. And I had no idea like that was
Speaker 1: even going to be a thing one day now, my
Speaker 1: love for planners, You're probably wondering, like, Okay, Stephan, where
Speaker 1: does this come in? Well, It was all sparked by
Speaker 1: a two thousandth movie called New York Minute with Mary
Speaker 1: Kate and Ashley the Awsome Twins. And I remember watching
Speaker 1: this movie and there was Mary Kate who played Riley.
Speaker 1: I think her name was Riley in it. I can't
Speaker 1: remember anyway, Jane and know what was her name? Anyway,
Speaker 1: Mary Kate played like the messy, chaotic twin in the movie,
Speaker 1: so she was very much me. She had the band
Speaker 1: T shirt. She was just an absolute mess, like couldn't
Speaker 1: get herself out of bed. And then there was Jane Ryan. Now,
Speaker 1: Jane Ryan became my icon. She was so well put together.
Speaker 1: She was super organized, Like I remember in the opening scene,
Speaker 1: like she wakes up and she opens her planner, and
Speaker 1: when I laid my eyes on this planner, it was
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful. I'd always loved the start of a new
Speaker 1: school year when you'd get your new stationary and it
Speaker 1: would just feel like, you know, a reset, like you know,
Speaker 1: new year, knew me kind of thing. It's like you
Speaker 1: know when you'd rearrange your bedroom as a kid and
Speaker 1: you'd be like, yeah, like I'm a new person. Fuck. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was like that. But when I saw her and
Speaker 1: that planner. I was just obsessed ever since. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was essentially the planner itself, but it
Speaker 1: was a symbol of everything that I wasn't and everything
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be. I wanted to be proactive,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be organized. I wanted to have a
Speaker 1: memory that actually worked. I didn't want to be all
Speaker 1: over the place all the time. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be such a mess. So that actually stuck with me
Speaker 1: for a long time. And hey, look, I had tried
Speaker 1: so many planners and I'd always only ever last two
Speaker 1: weeks because for so many reasons. The way it was
Speaker 1: set up was boring as dog shit. It was always
Speaker 1: black and white inside. It was very boring. But also
Speaker 1: they didn't have like the little constant reminders things that, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe to everyone else comes naturally, but not to me,
Speaker 1: So you know, for example, like writing out birthdays or
Speaker 1: writing out homework, like when things are you because otherwise
Speaker 1: I just look at a blank page. Sometimes I'm like,
Speaker 1: what am I even writing? Now? This is kind of
Speaker 1: like the story of the Chicken and the egg, like
Speaker 1: which one came first? Now, for me, the thing that
Speaker 1: came first was just another mummy blog. Now if you
Speaker 1: follow me back then you would remember them just another
Speaker 1: mummy blog era and the stepfing era. Now before you
Speaker 1: know this big blog and you know the TV interviews
Speaker 1: and all these things and like the podcast and staff
Speaker 1: pace planners. This all started from a mum who just
Speaker 1: had her first baby, who were sitting in the lound
Speaker 1: room with postnatal depression. I just had my first daughter, Harper,
Speaker 1: and for the first time I was still as a jack.
Speaker 1: I always kept myself super busy. I was doing all
Speaker 1: my hobbies and all the things and all the careers.
Speaker 1: And then of course once you have a baby, you
Speaker 1: are forced to stop and sometimes it can make you,
Speaker 1: you know, reflect and realize a lot of things. And
Speaker 1: for me, it took me about probably two weeks pro
Speaker 1: two to four weeks where I was like, my brain
Speaker 1: needs help, like I need connection, I need something. And
Speaker 1: I was going through the trenches of post natal depression.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever had it before, you'd understand how
Speaker 1: horrific it feels. You know, I've had anxiety obviously in
Speaker 1: ADHD my whole life, but I truly didn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared for that. And you know, before I became a parent,
Speaker 1: I was the perfect parent. I read all the books.
Speaker 1: I was like, yes, I want to do a natural birth.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this all organic food. And then
Speaker 1: I actually had a child and was like, oh fuck, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: And it was pretty tough because, you know, especially when
Speaker 1: you were like I wanted it, Ryan and I wanted
Speaker 1: the children like we wanted her, and we tried for
Speaker 1: her and we were so grateful. But then I was like,
Speaker 1: why am I feeling like this. I didn't understand that,
Speaker 1: you know, personal depression doesn't work like that. Just because
Speaker 1: you want something doesn't mean it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's a whole other ballgame. So at the time I
Speaker 1: was twenty five years old, I had no mum friends, Like,
Speaker 1: none of my friends had kids yet. So I was,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting at home, covered in breast milk and
Speaker 1: formula and all those types of things, feeling like an
Speaker 1: absolute failure and just wanting to connect with other mums.
Speaker 1: And I was just you know, we're living in our
Speaker 1: one bedroom unit. So at the time, I was like
Speaker 1: nesting like a crazy person. Still, I was trying to
Speaker 1: like maximize this the very little space that we didn't have,
Speaker 1: so I was using hacks and things like that. I
Speaker 1: was trying to control my external environment because inside was
Speaker 1: just chaos. Like I was feeling a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: And you know, as they say, if you can't change
Speaker 1: the big thing, you changed the little thing, because that
Speaker 1: all helps. And that's also where I got into my
Speaker 1: first morning routine and everything like that, which I talk
Speaker 1: about in my book as well. Now I found myself
Speaker 1: wanting to turn to writing again. You know, I wrote
Speaker 1: all through my teenage years. I had a diary, which
Speaker 1: sadly my mom found and it was a whole thing
Speaker 1: and try to shoot me off the boarding school. That
Speaker 1: was fun, but I really wanted to return to my
Speaker 1: writing because it just again was an outlet. But I
Speaker 1: also wanted to connect to other mums. So I remember
Speaker 1: saying to Ryan a few times, like what if I
Speaker 1: started a blog? But back then it was like not
Speaker 1: really a thing, and I felt like it was a
Speaker 1: bit wanky, and I didn't want people to think that
Speaker 1: I was like maybe up myself or something, so I
Speaker 1: put it off for a few weeks, and then I
Speaker 1: got to the point where I was just so lonely
Speaker 1: and just craving that connection where Ryan was like just
Speaker 1: do it, just do it, and I did, and I
Speaker 1: remember sitting there, I wanted to come up with a stupid,
Speaker 1: funny name like so that's why I literally it just
Speaker 1: another mummy blog, which sadly I got stuck with for
Speaker 1: a long time because I got that tick on Instagram,
Speaker 1: like the verification before you could pay for it, and
Speaker 1: then I couldn't change my name for years and I
Speaker 1: was stuck with it, and I was like, I hate
Speaker 1: this anyway, so it's just another mummy blog. But it
Speaker 1: was anything but that. I wasn't trying to be an influencer.
Speaker 1: There wasn't even a term for that yet, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even think. I didn't even know. I guess
Speaker 1: like people would get gifted things from brands like I
Speaker 1: think that was. It was like very much at the
Speaker 1: start of that whole era, and I remember posting published
Speaker 1: on my first blog and just feeling like so nervous.
Speaker 1: But then after the months went on and I was
Speaker 1: very consistent. The thing is with me, I can be
Speaker 1: very much all over the place, but if I am
Speaker 1: really passionate about something like I will, you know, see
Speaker 1: that through, and I will be consistent. I wish that
Speaker 1: could be for everything, but only the thing that gives
Speaker 1: me the dopamine. So, you know, every week I would
Speaker 1: post a blog. I would post literally, i'd post twice
Speaker 1: a day on Instagram because you know, I was breastfeeding
Speaker 1: in that so I was just like take a photo
Speaker 1: of like sometimes it was the breastfeeding, but it was
Speaker 1: of anything, and I'd write about my thoughts and like
Speaker 1: in a dialogue and everything that was going on. And
Speaker 1: for the first time, I feel like ever, I started
Speaker 1: realizing I wasn't the only one with the way I
Speaker 1: felt about my messy mind and you know, with my
Speaker 1: anxiety and things like that, because women started commenting saying
Speaker 1: me too. And within a couple of years, I started
Speaker 1: sharing like my planning templates and things that just worked
Speaker 1: for my brain and my processes and my frameworks that
Speaker 1: I was just playing like I literally was just winging
Speaker 1: it and they were working for me, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to share that with everybody. So I would start, you know,
Speaker 1: giving people free templates and downloads, and I remember my
Speaker 1: cleaning schedule template that got downloaded over one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: times in over like fifty something countries, which was insane
Speaker 1: to me. And before long, like this became my full
Speaker 1: time job, which is wild. You know. I went back
Speaker 1: to makeup for a little bit, my makeup business, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be away from Harper and I'm
Speaker 1: for the whole weekend, like with weddings, you'd have to
Speaker 1: get up at usually it's three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and you've gone like most days on the weekend. But
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, this could be a thing.
Speaker 1: I remember my first free thing that I was someone
Speaker 1: tried to send me was like a dog subscription box,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god. Ryan, I was
Speaker 1: obviously just excited. It was like shiny object syndrome. And
Speaker 1: Ryan's like, you're not accepting that. It's like we have Lily,
Speaker 1: but you're not doing that. But it just became a thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was working with these amazing brands,
Speaker 1: like huge brands I never would even thought of, and
Speaker 1: connecting with a huge community where we're all just so similar,
Speaker 1: and they'll like I was sharing my organization hacks and
Speaker 1: I was just being really honest and people. Then they
Speaker 1: started calling it Stephie and it became this term and
Speaker 1: it was wild. But this is where it leads us
Speaker 1: to one fateful night on Christmas Eve. It was two
Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen, No. Twenty eighteen, Christmas Eve, and I
Speaker 1: was sitting by the you know, the Christmas tree, and
Speaker 1: my cousin Laurie was there. And by this point we
Speaker 1: had we lived in our family homes. We had moved
Speaker 1: out of the unit family home, and I now had
Speaker 1: two kids, and I remember, you know, obviously my planning
Speaker 1: templates were popping off. I was sharing all my stephing hacks,
Speaker 1: and I remember turning to Laurie thinking about New York
Speaker 1: minute again. And I turned to Laurie and said to her,
Speaker 1: what do you think if I made a planner? Do
Speaker 1: you think people would like it? And Laurie's turned to
Speaker 1: me and said, people would eat that shit up. And
Speaker 1: that's gen z f Yes, do it, And so I did.
Speaker 1: And that's where steph Pace planners all started. In a
Speaker 1: word document. Yep. I literally the next day I opened
Speaker 1: up my laptop and instead of writing a blog, I
Speaker 1: opened up a word doc and started brain dumping everything
Speaker 1: that I ever needed in a planner that didn't exist yet,
Speaker 1: including having beautiful internals with color and challenges so I
Speaker 1: can do my I did clutter challenges that I created
Speaker 1: for everybody else, but have it in a planner so
Speaker 1: I could do meal planning, so I could have my
Speaker 1: cleaning planner in there, so I can have all these
Speaker 1: reminders weekly and monthly of actually what things I need
Speaker 1: to be writing in here, because you know, our brain
Speaker 1: isn't a Google drive, and we need to have these
Speaker 1: external visual cues to help our brain. And I had
Speaker 1: no idea what I was doing, and I even thought, like,
Speaker 1: no one's ever going to buy this thing, you know,
Speaker 1: And then you know, it took me about a year
Speaker 1: to make it, and I found a mom, Good's Steph,
Speaker 1: who lived in another state, and she was pregnant at
Speaker 1: the time with her first baby, and we joined forces
Speaker 1: and I would draw these like terrible doodles and sketches
Speaker 1: and she'd have to like work them out into an
Speaker 1: actual design. And it was a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 1: And I wrote everything in this planner word for word,
Speaker 1: in this word document, and then I had this finish
Speaker 1: file and then I had to I spent the whole
Speaker 1: year finding manufacturers. So there's like Ali Barber, but again,
Speaker 1: like this was manufacturing. Like I had no idea what
Speaker 1: I was doing, and I'm dealing with it like with
Speaker 1: other people from other countries, and I was scared. I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I going to lose our money? Because I had
Speaker 1: saved a fair bit, like as much as I could.
Speaker 1: So I had saved the stuff I worked with brands,
Speaker 1: and I obviously saved from us saving up over the years,
Speaker 1: but I saved a certain amount. I'm like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm not allowed to put towards this thing,
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to like be the reason now
Speaker 1: for my family lose lost money. That you know, we worked,
Speaker 1: like I worked so hard for Rhyme, works so hard
Speaker 1: for so everything I like, you know, made from brands.
Speaker 1: I would just keep putting towards that, which was a
Speaker 1: great income as well. So I would only put parts
Speaker 1: of it. And I remember it came to paying the deposit,
Speaker 1: so sorry, no, that's light. I actually paid. So when
Speaker 1: you're making a product, you talk to the manufacturers and
Speaker 1: then they make you a sample. Now a sample is
Speaker 1: literally a one off, and they can be bloody expensive,
Speaker 1: like I'm talking four hundred and fifty dollars US and
Speaker 1: that's for a sample. So I had been talking to
Speaker 1: a couple of manufacturers like for months and months, and
Speaker 1: I got a couple of samples sent which even that alone,
Speaker 1: that's like big money. It's a lot of money. It's
Speaker 1: like eight hundred bucks. And one of the samples wasn't
Speaker 1: what I even thought like it was. It is not.
Speaker 1: It didn't do it justice. Like, I was happy to
Speaker 1: spend more on the product because I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be top tier, Like I didn't want it to be
Speaker 1: a dodgy, crappy planner with the really thin paper that
Speaker 1: think like the ink bleeds through and stuff. I wanted
Speaker 1: it to feel like to me, planners are a keepsake.
Speaker 1: Like I know, we have our journals and we keep them.
Speaker 1: But if you ever want to see a real, true
Speaker 1: snapshot of your life from a time back, then you
Speaker 1: open your planner, your old planner, and you can see
Speaker 1: what what did your life look like day to day?
Speaker 1: What things did you do every day? What were your habits,
Speaker 1: what were your goals? That's in your planner. So I
Speaker 1: wanted it to feel like a keepsake. And that's why
Speaker 1: I also made the box look the way it does.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen my staff based planners packaging and boxes,
Speaker 1: the planners, it looks like it keeps and it is
Speaker 1: for that too, and I remember getting another sample, and
Speaker 1: I remember I was upstairs and Ryan yelled at there's
Speaker 1: another there's a sample at the door. Because you can
Speaker 1: tell all the way they like they tape it, they
Speaker 1: take the shit out of it. You can just tell
Speaker 1: it looks really bad on the outside, but it's got
Speaker 1: the good stuff on the inside. And I opened it
Speaker 1: up and I was just like tearing up and I
Speaker 1: was like, she's perfect. And even Ryan goes, I didn't
Speaker 1: know a planet could look that good. And yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that was how the product came to be. And then
Speaker 1: I remember announcing it to my community. I was so nervous.
Speaker 1: I started an Instagram page called stuff Pace Coming Soon,
Speaker 1: and there was like thousands and thousands of followers just
Speaker 1: following this account. They didn't even know what I was launching. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my community was already backing me. And that's the amazing
Speaker 1: thing is because I had the community there that was
Speaker 1: like the customers were there. But I just still didn't
Speaker 1: believe it. I was like nap, I honestly thought, because
Speaker 1: so you have a minimum order quantity, so when you're
Speaker 1: manufacturing any product, the manufacturers say for us to make
Speaker 1: this product, especially at this price. You have to have
Speaker 1: a minimum order of this amount, so it could be
Speaker 1: a couple hundred, it could be one thousand. So for
Speaker 1: the planner, because again I use the best materials. I
Speaker 1: use the FSC paper, which is like a forest friendly
Speaker 1: kind of paper anyway, it's a good paper, better paper
Speaker 1: for the environment and stuff like that. And because of that,
Speaker 1: it was going to cost a fair bit and I
Speaker 1: was willing to pay it. But I was also like,
Speaker 1: am I going to be stuck with a billion planners
Speaker 1: and have to make a planner copyhouse for the kids?
Speaker 1: I was terrified. So the way it was set up
Speaker 1: was I've saved up a lot of money and I
Speaker 1: paid the deposit, but you have to do two installments.
Speaker 1: You pay the deposit and then you have to pay
Speaker 1: the remaining amount before they ship the stock over to Australia.
Speaker 1: And even trying to find the whole freight thing, like
Speaker 1: my freight forwarding people like that was all so scary
Speaker 1: for me, and there's so many times I would cry
Speaker 1: and be like I want to like again, I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to lose money, and like I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to mess things up. But Ryan, he was behind
Speaker 1: me every step of the way. And with Ryan, I
Speaker 1: think also the fact that he's not adverse to risk either.
Speaker 1: You know, he has his own business, and that really
Speaker 1: did help me. Like having even just one person in
Speaker 1: your corner that actually believes in you when you can't
Speaker 1: believe in yourself does help a lot. And I and again,
Speaker 1: if you can't have that, this is where you need
Speaker 1: to back yourself one hundred percent, even if it's scary,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, you don't want
Speaker 1: to get to be eight years old and be like,
Speaker 1: what if what if I had done that thing? Where
Speaker 1: would I be now? Because I tell you guys, if
Speaker 1: I didn't go back and hit publish on my first
Speaker 1: blog post, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have this
Speaker 1: incredible community. I wouldn't have this podcast, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: Stepfa's planners. I wouldn't have any of that. And it's
Speaker 1: just sad that there's so many women out there that
Speaker 1: because they don't. Sadly not everyone has one person backing
Speaker 1: them in their corner. So you need to do that
Speaker 1: for yourself. Anyways, it was time for me to put,
Speaker 1: you know, the planners out into the world and do
Speaker 1: my first like the launch of it and the way
Speaker 1: I set it up. Because I didn't have enough money
Speaker 1: to pay the rest of the remaining amount to my manufacturer,
Speaker 1: I did pre sale and that's why a lot of
Speaker 1: businesses they do pre sell so then they can get
Speaker 1: the funds behind them. And it also helps you. It
Speaker 1: gives you like a good indicator of how popular things are,
Speaker 1: so you can do another order on top of it
Speaker 1: before it even comes. So it's a really good way
Speaker 1: to do that, which I didn't realize at the time.
Speaker 1: I just kind of end up doing it because I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know what else to do. But
Speaker 1: it's a thing, so there you go again. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was doing and it was working. So
Speaker 1: it was the night for me to go live, and
Speaker 1: I remember hitting live on the website and holy shit,
Speaker 1: we broke the internet. Like the internet that's actually a thing.
Speaker 1: We broke the internet a few times. When I say
Speaker 1: where it was me myself and I and I was
Speaker 1: just sitting in the landroom watching my computer and we
Speaker 1: had sold out multiple times. I had to reorder my planner,
Speaker 1: my plan is multiple times. You know. My biggest dream
Speaker 1: was to be able to sell maybe a thousand planners
Speaker 1: with it like a couple of years, so like I thought,
Speaker 1: I'd have a lot left over. I thought maybe i'd
Speaker 1: sell two hundred macs of these planners. Sold ten thousand,
Speaker 1: ten thousand planners, and that's amazing. But guess who has
Speaker 1: to pack the more? Yours truly with a baby and
Speaker 1: a toddler in tow all on a camp table in
Speaker 1: my driveway, and my garage was packed to the rim
Speaker 1: of boxes. I couldn't even fit the more. We actually
Speaker 1: had a shed as well, which was lucky because we
Speaker 1: put the rest in there, and I spent months and
Speaker 1: months getting up at three o'clock in the morning printing
Speaker 1: out these bloody planner stickers for the boxes that honestly,
Speaker 1: back then I didn't know how to batch print, so
Speaker 1: it would take me. I would have to print each
Speaker 1: shipping label off one by one, and to print off
Speaker 1: one hundred it would take me an hour, so I'd
Speaker 1: have to get up at three to be able to
Speaker 1: print enough to get me through to lunch and print
Speaker 1: again and then do it again. And then during this
Speaker 1: time I was also trying to get back to customers
Speaker 1: because you'd be surprised how many people put in the
Speaker 1: wrong the wrong email address and the wrong address, and
Speaker 1: how many people need to move house when they order things.
Speaker 1: I was absolutely like beside myself with just like happiness, excitement, shocked.
Speaker 1: But I also was in over my freakin' head. I
Speaker 1: had no idea what I was doing. And I am
Speaker 1: a soft hearted person too, so I remember that even
Speaker 1: the customer service, like I was a people pleaser, I
Speaker 1: would just be like, here's free staff, Like you know
Speaker 1: that you don't run a business like that. And I
Speaker 1: had to learn that the hard way. So I ended
Speaker 1: up hiring a mum friend of mine who lived around
Speaker 1: the corner, and she would come in every day and
Speaker 1: it actually it was really nice. It gave us both
Speaker 1: some purpose as well. But I also had my influence
Speaker 1: of business on the side. Genuinely, I look back and
Speaker 1: I'm like, look, I'm busy now, but holy shit, I
Speaker 1: don't know how I did that. And the company I
Speaker 1: didn't use a straight posts then I was using another
Speaker 1: one which I won't say, but they didn't have people
Speaker 1: to talk to, so then parcels were getting lost. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to call people, I'm getting all these emails I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to post. It was actually wild. Actually it
Speaker 1: was a crazy time, you know, and you know, fast
Speaker 1: forward to now I'm you know, I I outgrew all
Speaker 1: these warehouses, I mean my third warehouse. Now I've got
Speaker 1: this amazing team. We've got like over sixteen people, and
Speaker 1: it's like it just truly, I just really hope that
Speaker 1: you can hear this story and hear that even for me,
Speaker 1: like I am a mess. I don't know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: even when it came down to the financial stuff in business,
Speaker 1: like I've never been good at math, and I always thought,
Speaker 1: you know, with the makeup business, I did the basic
Speaker 1: bookkeeping and the basic accounting. But for business this size,
Speaker 1: that was really intimidating to me. But I didn't let
Speaker 1: the narrative. I told myself stop me, because I did
Speaker 1: do well. I figured it out. My motto literally is
Speaker 1: fuck around and find out, because if you don't do
Speaker 1: the first part, you're never going to find out, you know.
Speaker 1: And along the way it has not been easy whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I always say my business was built backwards. You know.
Speaker 1: Usually a business they start out, they acquire customers along
Speaker 1: the way, and as that goes and as they grow,
Speaker 1: they make processes and then they hire the team but
Speaker 1: I started backwards I which was great in theory. You know,
Speaker 1: I already had the customers, which was my community, but
Speaker 1: I had no staff, no processes, no frickin' idea. So
Speaker 1: with that came a lot of mistakes. You know, I
Speaker 1: lost a like I got ripped off by a manufacturer
Speaker 1: at one point, and I lost so much money they
Speaker 1: ripped me off, and then I had sadly a staff
Speaker 1: member still money from me at one point that I
Speaker 1: like treated like family, and it was devastating to me.
Speaker 1: I've had so many mess ups and mistakes, but I
Speaker 1: do not regret a single one. And at the time, look,
Speaker 1: I was a mess, Like I was crying. There's so
Speaker 1: many times I wanted to throw in the tower and
Speaker 1: stop SPP and even stop my Instagram. There was trolls.
Speaker 1: There were so many things along the way that really
Speaker 1: we're so hard and devastating. But I don't regret a
Speaker 1: single one because now I know what I want, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, I know what I don't want. That is
Speaker 1: in terms of anything, whether I'm hiring something, whether it's
Speaker 1: comes in terms of like, in terms of like how
Speaker 1: I want my days to look and my life to look,
Speaker 1: sadly we do. You know, diamonds are made under pressure,
Speaker 1: and god, I I've been under some pressure. And you know,
Speaker 1: even just throwing that in with like mum life and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm not. And this goes for all of us,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to run a huge company or
Speaker 1: a brand to feel the pressure of everyday life. Like
Speaker 1: we wear so many hats as women, you know, all
Speaker 1: of us do, and we've got the pressures of you know,
Speaker 1: like the constant comms, you know, with email, and then
Speaker 1: there's text, and there's slack, Like there's so many things,
Speaker 1: and then there's social media, and there's like the pressure
Speaker 1: that we see and that that we feel comes from that,
Speaker 1: like seeing all of these strangers on the internet who
Speaker 1: looks like they know what they're doing and they had
Speaker 1: their map all along, and we're just like, what am
Speaker 1: I doing? You know, the comparison. But then there's the
Speaker 1: stuff that nobody sees, like for me, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I there was one time I lost over one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand pens because the warehouse, my manufacturer's warehouse flooded. You know,
Speaker 1: I did indeed cry over spilt ink that day, you know,
Speaker 1: And there's the things like the stuff that no one sees.
Speaker 1: Where it's three o'clock in the morning, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: fix a shop of fire error. You know, Willow's not sleeping,
Speaker 1: I'm getting emails and there's just like it just feels
Speaker 1: like a pressure cooker. But the thing is, I would
Speaker 1: rather burn out from what I'm passionate about than have
Speaker 1: no spark at all, you know, I think and it
Speaker 1: is important for us to be able to switch off
Speaker 1: and look after ourselves. I do believe that. But I
Speaker 1: would rather be a multi passionate mess that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe gets a bit overwhelmed from time to time, then
Speaker 1: be working in a job I hate and I don't love.
Speaker 1: And I want my girls to see that. And you know,
Speaker 1: they've been with me through every step of the way.
Speaker 1: They've you know, when I go to the way House still,
Speaker 1: they'll help the girls packing orders down there. They'll like
Speaker 1: literally right like pack from Harper and Willow. And it's
Speaker 1: just beautiful for them to see that, you know, just
Speaker 1: because the world will try and shove you into a
Speaker 1: box doesn't mean you have to get in there. And
Speaker 1: they'll see that their mum had no clue she you know,
Speaker 1: I was there was a lot of times that you know,
Speaker 1: I not only doubted myself, but other people doubted me too.
Speaker 1: I remember when I started the blog and my friends
Speaker 1: were like, what are you doing? And they did they
Speaker 1: would have thought that it was cringe. And I've even
Speaker 1: had I even had friends that wouldn't even follow my
Speaker 1: Instagram and like, even just show that little bit of support,
Speaker 1: which you know you don't have to, but it's just
Speaker 1: like you need to kind of find your why and
Speaker 1: be able to clap for yourself when no one else will.
Speaker 1: And it's a good way for you to figure out
Speaker 1: if you your goals are truly yours. Because I want
Speaker 1: you to ask yourself, if no one was watching and
Speaker 1: no one was cheering me on on the sidelines, would
Speaker 1: I still want this thing? Would I still be going
Speaker 1: for this title of this job promotional, making this life change?
Speaker 1: What do I want? One thing I will say is
Speaker 1: always a lesson, never a failure. Just think about it.
Speaker 1: The reason why people older than us usually have such
Speaker 1: great advice is because they've done the things. They've messed
Speaker 1: up so many times and come back from that. And
Speaker 1: that's what like failure and mistakes are. It's they're lessons.
Speaker 1: That's all they are, and unfortunately, sometimes clarity comes from
Speaker 1: discomfort and dickheads. Now, look, did I have a picture this? No?
Speaker 1: Did I ever think in my wildest dreams, I'd be
Speaker 1: here with my business and doing all the things. Hell no,
Speaker 1: Like little girl Steph, I was a mute. I barely spoke.
Speaker 1: I was so shy. I never used my voice. I
Speaker 1: never had any confidence. But the thing is money and
Speaker 1: told me that I would do some cool things one day.
Speaker 1: And it turns out I did. And the only reas
Speaker 1: and it worked is because I stopped hiding the mess.
Speaker 1: I stopped trying to cover it up. You know, when
Speaker 1: people come over to our house, we all try and
Speaker 1: hide our mess and pretend like no one lives here.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, we all have mess, and maybe
Speaker 1: if we all started sharing it a little bit more,
Speaker 1: we'd have other people to relate to and other people
Speaker 1: to connect to, and that's where really cool things happen.
Speaker 1: And all along, I was so ashamed of my mess,
Speaker 1: but in reality, it was my map. Now this was
Speaker 1: only scraping the surface. As I said. I've written a
Speaker 1: whole book called Mastering My Messy Life, which was published
Speaker 1: with Penguin last year, which is crazy again. Little girl's
Speaker 1: step writing in a diary would have actually lost her shit.
Speaker 1: So I would love if you guys, when purchased my book,
Speaker 1: you can also listen to the audiobook, and obviously you
Speaker 1: guys are podcast people, so I do also narrate my
Speaker 1: own book, so I'll give you guys a link to
Speaker 1: that as well. But please, if there's anything you take
Speaker 1: from this, it is start before you're ready and back
Speaker 1: yourself one hundred percent because you do have this. Love
Speaker 1: you guys. Bye,