How Loving Unconditionally and Being Loved Yields Confidence - Tracy Hazzard : 106 - BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A STORY "BEHAS"

Episode Transcript
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Daniela SM (00:00):
Hi, I'm Daniela.
Welcome to my podcast, becauseeveryone has a story, the place
to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and
preserved.
Our stories become the languageof connections.

(00:21):
Let's enjoy it, connect andrelate, because everyone has a
story.
Welcome, I am thrilled tointroduce you to Tracy Hasseur,
an amazing person who knows howto tackle life challenges with
love and creativity.
A while back, I came across aninterview she did with Alexan

(00:45):
Filippo from Podmatch.
I couldn't resist leaving acomment.
We ended up connecting andhaving a magical conversation.
Her positive energy, insightfulfeedback and inspiring words
captivated me, so I invited herto my podcast and she invited me
to hers, so it was a mutualinvitation and I had so much fun

(01:07):
being at her show.
She is such a grateful hostessand elevated me in such a way I
felt like a star, a way thatonly Tracy can.
I wanted Tracy to share herstory because, like me, she had
a pretty good life so far and Itruly believe that everyone has
a unique and interesting storyto tell, not just those who have

(01:30):
faith adversity.
In this episode, she is sharingnot only her story and her
fascinating work experiences.
She also shares how creativityand personal life comes together
and the interesting dynamic ofworking with her husband and
balancing their schedule forquality time.
So let's dive in and hear whatTracy has to say.

(01:53):
Welcome, tracy, to the show.
I am very excited that you'rehere today.

Tracy Hazzard (01:59):
I'm so excited to be here.
I've had so many wonderfulconversations with you.
I was like, haven't we done ourinterview already?
Because we've already gotten toknow each other, and that's my
favorite part about doing this.
That's true.

Daniela SM (02:09):
Since I met you, you have always been so helpful and
so caring, and I am verygrateful that you're here,
because I want to know moreabout you and your story.

Well, I think that's fascinating thing.
Like I don't always think of itlike a story, because to me a
story has like a beginning,middle and end, and I don't
think there is an end, Likethat's the kind of thing, Like
it's a continual thing for me,and so I always look at it as
like the never ending story.
Have you ever seen that moviewhen?
you were a kid, right, it's thisnever ending story.
That's what our lives should belike, and so I always think

(02:40):
about that and so when I thinkabout when you were talking to
me about the idea of telling mystory, I was like where do I
start?
Because to me it's been, in away, very continuous since the
beginning.
I feel like the most blessedperson on earth all the time
because I have been loved fromthe day I was born.
My father tells a story aboutbasically insisting that he and

(03:04):
my mom have kids and like beingvery pushy about it and wanting
to have kids.
So I knew I was wanted evenbefore I was conceived and
that's a beautiful place to be.
But my mom and my dad and bothof them, I love them absolutely,
like they just are just amazingpeople.
The day they dropped me off atcollege and I went to Rhode
Island School of Design and youdrive up this big hill and

(03:27):
trying to unload on a hill withall your stuff is quite, you
know quite something.
The day that I left college, mydad cries as he's leaving town
and says goodbye to me, and youknow like you can't get feel
more special on earth than whenyour parents just get all
teary-eyed because they'releaving you and they feel sad.
You're excited for youropportunities and you don't shed
a single tear, but they feelsad about it and as a parent now

(03:49):
I understand what that feelslike.
Right, but they do that.
And then that same hour that myfather leaves, I met my husband
in a dorm room meeting.
Now, he did insult me.
He called me a Valley Girlwhich, coming from California,
that's like a huge insult in the80s to call somebody a Valley
Girl.
But he did it and he didcapture my attention.

(04:11):
And a couple of days later Imet him in a dorm room with a
mutual friend and he was playingguitar and we became really
good friends.
And so the reality is is that Iwent from my parents' house and
being completely loved toreally meeting my husband and
being loved.
Now, 31 years of marriage,we've known each other 35.

Daniela SM (04:30):
Wonderful.
So I want to go back to thefact that, yes, the stories as a
beginning and middle and an end, this one could be part one for
your life and then part twolater on.
Yes, and then being loved, andexactly that's.
I remember when we spoke thefirst time.
We're talking about all thesestories that everybody have
trauma or some kind ofdifficulties, and then, when we

(04:52):
have everything going well forus, that we feel like, oh, maybe
we don't have a story becausewe don't have anything dramatic
to share.
And that's why I rememberinviting you over to share,
because you are an optimistic, apositive, and things go well
for most of us too, and we stillhave stories.
So that's that's the reason whyyou want to tell your story

(05:13):
today.

Yeah you know, this is what I think.
I think that we have to sufferto learn, and I don't think that
that's all that there is right.
Look, if we looked at all thethings that go wrong as speed
bumps along the way, theneverything seems surmountable.
They seem like, oh, we can getover.
We can get over a speed bump.
You might need to just, youknow, put a little more gas on

(05:35):
and and bump yourself over it.
Right, those things are, areable to be overcome a hurdle,
like if you're, if you'rerunning and you want to do
hurdles right, they're a littlehigher and you got to get a
little more skill to jump overthem, but you can still make it
over them.
They are still something thatyou can overcome.
But when we look at something asthis mountain that we cannot

(05:56):
overcome it, we can't imaginehow it happens.
That's when we hear this storyin our head about all these, all
these things that are wrong,all these things that are
obstacles, all these things thatare in our way, and we have to
rally something down deep.
But what if you had that rallyall the time?
What if you always had theability to look at something and

(06:19):
go?
I see how I can get over that.
Let me make a try Now.
You may not make it the firsttime, you might fall halfway
down, but because you look atsomething as an opportunity
instead of as an obstacle, itchanges your whole outlook on
what's possible in the world andand I believe that it comes
from being loved.
But I also believe that it comesfrom being a designer, because

(06:40):
I went to art school, becauseI'm a designer by trade, because
I have this view that I am acreator.
It means that there's always anopportunity for creating
something.
There's always a way, there'salways a creative method,
there's always something aroundthis.
There's always the possibilityof that where someone who isn't
a creator they don't necessarilyhave a path and maybe they do

(07:03):
in their field, like, maybethey're extremely a creative
writer or something like that,and they know they can write
their way out of anything.
They can write great copy, theycan make great emails, they can
do all of that but maybe theydon't see outside of that how
they do that in their business,how they do that financially,
how they do that in other areas.
My particular view of the worldis that everything has the

(07:24):
ability to be createddifferently, to be created in a
different way than it existstoday.
We make improvements.
When we do that, we don't gobackwards, like the whole
opportunity of creativity isthat we're moving it forward.

Daniela SM (07:36):
Right, if there's something wrong with it, let's
fix it.
I do believe that just havinglove was very helpful, but I
feel like you also came withthat to this world, to that kind
of power and way of thinking.
Do you have any siblings?
I do.

I have a younger sister, and is she like you?
No, she's very different.

Daniela SM (07:53):
Yeah, that's what I think, that, yes, you study
design, but I also feel likeit's some kind of your soul that
you came with that, that itmakes it be the way you are
thinking.

You know what.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, I think there's certainthings that I think there's
God-given talents, if you wantto call it that, whatever it is
that you believe in that.
But I feel like there are thosethings that we come into the
world with Now.
Sometimes we don't recognizethem and we don't take advantage
of them, and it takes us anextremely long time to tap into
that, or something reallyhappens to us that is a catalyst

(08:26):
to making that happen.
I was lucky in that I discoveredit in a sense early on.
I have what you call highpattern recognition, which means
that when I look at something,I see the pattern that is
happening.
It's what makes me a greatdesigner, specifically a textile
designer.
Right, because I createpatterns, but I see it in
something.
So if I look at a carpet andsomething's not right, like

(08:47):
somebody made a mistake in it orthe repeat isn't proper, I
immediately key into where thatpoint.
It's called dissonance.
Where it's not continuous, it'snot doing the proper thing,
it's a point of something beingwrong or out of rhythm is
basically its definition.
And so if it's out of rhythm,that's an opportunity for us to

(09:07):
understand why something's notworking.
And so when I was really little, my mom learned how to weave.
We lived in South Africa for acouple of years when my dad was
on a project and a jobassignment.
It was in the height ofapartheid, so it was a really
interesting time in South Africaand he was on the job all the
time.
So lots of the stay at homemoms would bring us along after

(09:29):
school and other things and theywould learn how to do different
things and weaving was one ofthem.
And she had a loom and I wouldsit below it and read it.
I was a really big reader, likeI would read just about
anything.
Still to this day I'm a hugereader.
And I'm sitting below her loomand she says I can't make this
work and she's getting allfrustrated and I look up and I
say, well, that's because youmissed a heddle, which is where

(09:50):
you put the thread through andit creates the pattern.
And I said you missed one.
And she said what?
And I was like, yeah, see,here's the pattern.
And I'm underneath the machinelooking up at it and I can see
that.
And that's what my parentsalways tell the story, that
that's the sign that I had thisability to recognize the rhythm

(10:11):
of something, the pattern ofsomething, really quickly and
easily, and I can tell youpeople are astounded by it.
Sometimes I'll do stuff like oh, did you mean for those not to
match?
And they'd be like what theydon't match, like people don't
even realize it.
But that's something that isjust readily apparent to me.
And when you have high patternrecognition, what you realize is
that there is a pattern toeverything.

(10:32):
And when you understand thepattern, there's actually a
comfort level to it.
And when you understand what'snot in rhythm, what's not in
pattern, you either know whatyou can fix or you know what to
avoid, because something doesn'tfeel right, doesn't look right,
isn't going to go right,because it's something's missing
.

Daniela SM (10:51):
I like what you said the God-giving talent.
So you did have this one, butnot everybody have you met a lot
of people that have thispattern recognition talent?

I've met some and over time, but what they do is
that it's something that youhave to tap into and use and if
you don't use it, you don'tlearn it and it's not.
I think any kind of thing isthat way.
No one becomes an Olympicathlete without practice.
It just doesn't work like that.

(11:19):
You can have longer arms, likeI've heard of swimmers who have
longer arms, longer legs.
They have the actual physicalpower to be better at a sport
than others, but if they don'tpractice it's never going to
happen.
So you have to take yourGod-given talent and not just
trust that it's going to allwork out for you.
You have to practice.

Daniela SM (11:39):
So what happened when your mom discovered that?
What did they do to developyour talent?

First off, my mom .
Let me take the class.
She was like, oh, come join.
And so I was always takingclasses, always trying things,
always doing things with herBecame something like that.
I felt better when I was usingit.
I asked for opportunities touse it, opportunities to paint,
opportunities to create things.
Who's just sort of came out ofit.
But luckily I also came from areally creative mom.

(12:05):
She's an abstract artist inLaguna Beach, california.
She's just amazing and her workis beautiful and it has decades
upon decades of work that sheput into her art.
That shows, because anyone whoputs work into it, it has a
different depth to it, and sothat's what I really took away
from this is that she was agreat artist from the moment I

(12:26):
met her, and she's even greaternow because she never stops
putting in the work and whatother things do you notice that,
as you're growing up, that yourpattern recognition was helping
you with?
I was a good student becausewhen you have pattern
recognition, you read stuffyou're like oh, what are they
trying to tell me?
What's the answer to thequestion?
So, like you can easily discernthese things, pull it out.

(12:47):
I think this is the key.
Look, we're moving into anartificial intelligence world
right now, and in an artificialintelligence world, the machine
does the pattern recognition forus.
And when we don't start to putthose pieces together in our
brain, we don't make the humanleaps, we don't make the human
innovations, we don't connectdisparate things, because a

(13:08):
computer will only connect theobvious things.
They're only going to see thepattern from things that are
like 80% of the people selectthis.
So that must be the answer.
They're making those choicesfor us.
But what about that 4%?
What about those interestingthings that only humans can put
together in their mind and say Ithink this is what we should

(13:31):
try.
I think this is where innovationhappens.
Those things can only come ifwe're doing our jobs in that
model of things.
So I think that in the future,this is the area that human
interaction is going to be greatat, and all those little
pattern recognition things thatshould be a standard part of

(13:52):
figuring stuff out.
Let the computer do it.
It's going to give my brain,your brain, everyone's minds,
the opportunity to be moreinnovative, expansive, creative
thinking, putting all of theseinteresting things together and
coming up with new ideas andsolutions that no one's ever
heard before.
Because you have more time.
You have more time tocontemplate those things now,
more time to develop that skillwithin yourself.

Daniela SM (14:14):
And also going back to you, what challenges do you
have with that challenge?

The challenge for me is focusing it, because I
see it everywhere.
It's too easy to not try to fixeverything or try to adjust
things or try to suggest things.
It's really hard to focus thatand make it.
I'm going to do this one thingright now, but at the same time
it's also how do I get enoughinput?
So every day I read about sixdifferent journals.

(14:42):
So I don't read them from coverto cover, I do skim them.
I have them all preselected,even if I'm able to just do it
on my phone and not do it inperson, because I do like to
flip through a book and flipthrough a magazine on occasion.
But because you get different,you stop at different places
when you're doing somethingphysical than when you're
scrolling.
But I do that every single day.
I try to consume six differentjournals and each one of them is

(15:05):
different.
They're just different.
Some are science, some aredigital, seo, search and
optimization.
Some are geeky, techy stuff.
Some of them are about finance,some of them are about world
economies, different things likethat, because all those
different ideas start to cometogether into something and my
brain will start to build thepatterns from that and say this

(15:27):
is what's going on in theeconomy.
This is what's going on in thedigital world.
How do I make connection tomake sure that my business is
going to be able to go forward,that my clients will have all
the skills and all the thingsthat they don't need that are
pricing structure I mean sillythings like that but our pricing
structure is in line with wherethe economy is going.
All those things go through mymind.

(15:48):
So trying to think about whichone should I fix today, that's
the biggest challenge for me,right?
Which one should I work on atthis point in time?
I once interviewed a guy who hasmore than a triple digit IQ
amazing guy and I said to himwhat's the biggest problem in
the world where people fail?
And he said it's timing, makingthat now is the time for

(16:09):
something versus something else.
Making that decision and makingthat selection is key to
success.
Sometimes you're ahead of thetime and you're too soon and you
fail because you're too soon,and sometimes you're behind the
times and you miss the bossright?
And so he said that's thebiggest thing.
Determining that for myself isa really hard thing, because how

(16:32):
progressive is the thoughtthat's going on in my mind and
mainstream is it.
Is it time for it, or is it toosoon?

Daniela SM (16:39):
Well, thank you, that's a very insightful comment
.
So, tracey, let's go back touniversity.
You met this wonderful man andnow is your husband.
And what happened then?

Tom and I quickly learned that we could be great
collaborators together.
I have the habit of he calls ithitting him over the head with
a brick.
So we were one day sitting inwhat they call the pit at RISD
it's this basically hamburgergreasy pit of a burger joint in
the basement of a building.
We were sitting there and hewas discussing what was going on

(17:10):
in his industrial design.
So he's a product designer, anindustrial designer, and I was
studying textile design.
So they go hand in hand.
Think about furniture coveredin fabrics, right, we easily had
collaboration, or in the earlydays, and and or I was great at
color design.
That that's one of my expertiseareas is picking colors.
What product doesn't need color?
So there was great synergybetween our thought processes

(17:33):
and we like to talk about ourprojects with each other.
And so one day I say to himsomething and he's like oh my
God, I never thought of thatbefore.
It was like you just hit meover the head with a brick and
now I'm awake Not unconsciousawake, you know like it just
really hit me.
He is so absolutely creativewhen he's focused, when he gets
that strike of an idea, thatthing that he needed to hear, to

(17:56):
shift where he's going.
He's so amazingly productive.
He and I together have over 40patents.
The best part about him is wedon't just have a bunch of
patents.
Those patents made money for usor for our client.
That's a hard thing for a lotof people to say.
A lot of people file them andthen they don't do anything.
They're a bunch on a shelf.
Ours actually make money forpeople because they were ideas

(18:17):
that were worthy of taking totaking a market and patenting
and all of those things.
And that only comes when youreally make something very
useful and Tom is amazing atthat.
And so all throughout our liveswhat we do is we have this
ability to run things off ofeach other and say various
things that kick off an idea,that get us going.

(18:38):
But we don't have to start fromthe beginning and that's the
beautiful part.
We have absolute trust betweeneach other.
That no idea is a bad idea.
That no one's going to scoff atanything.
That you have a hidden agendaright, because we trust each
other.
We're also on the same path inlife, right.
We want the same outcome.
We want to have a happy life.
We want our children to grow upand be happy, and we're on that

(19:01):
same path together.
So there's an inherent amountof trust to everything that we
say and do with each other.
So, when we may have theseconversations, you're not
listening to them with all yourguards up.
Think about it like that howmany times do people have
collaborative conversations withyou?
They might be partners, theymight be people who are
mentoring you, but you stillhave your guard up.

(19:22):
Are they asking me for moremoney or are they really
sincerely have my best interestat heart?
We don't have any of that whichallows the flow of things back
and forth to be really simple,really easy to absorb, easy to
think about, and we also don'thave this judgment that happens,

(19:43):
which we've developed over timeand that didn't happen in the
early days of like I told youwhat you should do and you
didn't do it.
Like that doesn't happenanymore because we know that are
.
I know that my idea alone, ormy, is input for him to take to
the next stage.
It is not a final.
He sometimes can't do what Isuggest.

(20:04):
It's not physically possiblethe laws of physics to work like
that, products can't bemanufactured like that.
But he hears it, he takes it inand he develops it into
something absolutely beautiful,amazing.
It comes back through me and Imarket it and I do what I need
to do with it, and but we havethis, this opportunity between
the two of us to be greatertogether.

Daniela SM (20:25):
Yeah, what amazing story.
And I feel like very unusual,because not many people go to
university and meet the futurehusband right away, or the hat,
that connection, that is likeyou were perfect person together
.
You know, it is incredible.

Yeah, you know.
Look, it's not like we thoughtit was gonna work out like that.
It just did, and it's not likeit's not work.
You have to put the work in allthe time.
You have to make them feelloved.
You have to understand theirlove language our love languages
are not the same and so, likeyou have to get that and you
have to provide that.
You can't be selfish about it.
It has to truly be apartnership and something that

(21:04):
you work at actively, everysingle day together.
That's something that werespect each other.
We value each other's skills.
We also let each other be ourown person.
So, you know, I never feel LikeI can't go and speak on stages
and I'm taking something awayfrom him.
He doesn't feel like I'm takingsomething away from him either.

(21:24):
That's an amazing human being,right?
Someone who makes you better,let's you be who you are and
supports you and all of that,but doesn't feel any resentment
that took something from them.
That's never how we feel abouteach other, and that I mean
that's a beautiful human being.

Daniela SM (21:42):
Yes, and you probably learn also the loving
and the communication from yourparents, as you said that they
were so loving.

Yeah, you know, this is the thing is like.
My husband comes from divorcefamily, but he also had
grandparents who were together,so he had role models and what
he saw was that loyalty, thatlove.
That's what I'm looking for,that partnership, that's what I
want.
But he also, at the same time,saw a really independent,

(22:09):
amazing mother who went to MITand did all these amazing things
at a time period where womendidn't do a lot of that.
So he saw the value of anindependent woman and so he also
valued that in me and Igrateful for her to have led
that have been that role modelfor him as well, because now we
have the best of both.
Yes, that's awesome.

Daniela SM (22:30):
And Tracy, you wanted to study textile.
What was your goal when youstarted?

so when I went into textiles I thought it was
going to go to New York and wasgoing to design fabrics that
were on Fat in fashion or on apoultry.
And really quickly though, Iinterviewed for a few jobs in
New York, but I really quicklygot interviewed for a job in
South Carolina for companycalled Millican, which is one of
the largest textilemanufacturers in the world, and

(22:57):
they had this great opportunityautomotive upholstery which is
unusual, like it's a reallyindustrial type of upholstery.
But their department wasgrowing, they were getting
computer aided design machines,and so that was going to be
something that I didn't reallythink I was going to love it all
my life and I wasn't a big cargirl at the time but I am now.
I do love cars from thatexperience, but I thought I was

(23:21):
going to learn a lot from thatorganization and then realizing
that there were so manydifferent people, realizing that
there were so many departmentsthere that you could transfer to
, and so I actually really didquickly transfer into the office
furniture upholstery departmentand we moved up to western
Michigan and I worked withHerman Miller and steel case and
Noel and all of these greatnames and big brands, and then
eventually, I left the textilecompany to work on the other

(23:43):
side and worked for HermanMiller.
So it was just one of thesethings where I found my calling
in office furniture, because theconnection between the patterns
around you and yourproductivity actually is really
high.
Like you know, when you work ina beautiful space, you feel
better.
Yes, definitely, that's.
What I wanted to work towardswas to creating that sort of

(24:04):
externalized idea that makes youmore productive, more
comfortable, more Collaborative,like the environment actually
does that with you.
So it came textiles and thenthe furniture itself, and so
I've done.
The majority of the design workthat I've done in my life has
been in furniture.

Daniela SM (24:22):
Okay, wow.
And then what happened when youmove to somewhere else?

Life happens, you have babies and you know life.
Life moves on and you try somedifferent things and companies
don't always work out and you goon and you move things.
But Tom and I found out prettyearly on we enjoyed building a
company together.
So we Built a company in the inthe late 90s, early 2000s,
around technology, around styluspens for handheld computers and

(24:46):
at that time is the palm pilots, and we learned a lot about
building a company, havingpeople work for you.
That actually was reallydifficult for us because you had
to focus all your innovation ononly one type of product and we
really wanted to do something alittle bit more expansive.
And so eventually we ended upconsulting again and so we could
design many different types ofprojects for different types of

(25:09):
clients to kind of it fed us ina little bit more creative way,
and so eventually that's wherewe ended up but you know a lot
of that along the way is thisidea of I'm going to accept the
challenge that's in front of me.
I'm gonna try this new thing.
Maybe it will take off, maybeit won't, but not being risk
averse is was something that wejust kind of both had.

(25:30):
We were big risk takers.
So building a company andworrying about whether or not we
could afford or mortgage reallydidn't occur to us.
We were just going to build acompany and of course it's going
to be successful in some way,shape or form and we'll make our
mortgage right.
And you know that doesn'talways happen.
The economy happens.
Nine eleven happened in themiddle of our business.
You know, things occur thatcause a hiccup along the way,

(25:53):
but when you look at it like ahiccup, when you look at it like
a speed bump, it's notinsurmountable.
And so for us nine eleven couldhave been a gigantic failure
point.
Luckily we had diversified ourbusiness prior to that, so we
were in multiple channels ofbusiness.
While we had a couple ofchannels that contracted, one
kept going and so we were ableto pay our bills and keep going,

(26:14):
came through that into a betterplace.
We sold our company.
We made back five X for ourinvestors, so they were really
happy with that and we moved on.
But we did get out of itbecause the stress of that
business was a little too highat that point.
We spent all this time buildingup.
Nine eleven happens and then wehave to rebuild it again, and
that seemed like I'm not a bigfan of doing something again.

(26:36):
I really want the new challenge, and so it's just kind of a
part of my personality that Ireally like a continuation of
the challenges.
Perfectly good, but to have toredo things is just not in my
nature.
So when we had an opportunityto sell it, we both agreed that
was the right thing for us to do, because we're gonna have to
rebuild it all again post nineeleven.

Daniela SM (26:55):
Wow, that's interesting, and so you have a
lot of business.
You have been a consultant.
You work for companies as well.
Now decided to still have a newcompany, or what have you?

Yeah, so we've been consulting, for we I don't
know.
We were consulting for maybefive years yeah, about five
years when we decided to start apodcast because we were looking
at the next iteration of ourbusiness.
We were looking at what itschallenge was gonna grow.
And one of the things cominginto the world and Tom and I are
big tech adopters like wealways like to address new

(27:28):
technology anything that wedesign either might need to use
that technology or might need toaccommodate it right in some
way, shape or form.
So if it's like we're gonnahave all this equipment on our
desks I got a design a desk thatworks with that.
If I were now live streaming,and we have to design something
to handle that.
So I'll always thinking andlooking at that, and so one of

(27:49):
the things that we saw, andsomething that we had been using
in our business behind thescenes, was 3d printing, and so
3d printing fascinated us.
Tom was really fascinated bythe idea of 3d printers being
like on the edge of everyone'sdesk and you being able to just
pop out your own products at theend of the day.
But what we knew as productdesigners was that there was no

(28:10):
way that was happening withoutassistance.
It's really hard to designproducts that don't like, fall
apart, that don't cause damage,that you can't get hurt from.
They have to be engineered anddesigned and so they're also
beautiful.
I'm not gonna be interested inprinting it if it's not
beautiful to begin with.
So all of those things neededto go hand in hand.
We said this is great, butthey're gonna need product help.

(28:33):
How can we put a part of thismovement that helps these 3d
printers, who might be techgeeks in their garage, learn
about the design side of things,learn more here?
How can we participate in theprocess?
And one of those things was Ihad been listening to a lot of
podcasts.
It was another new input method, so I read a lot, but I was
starting to listen to a lot andI said let's start a podcast.

(28:54):
And Tom said well, how aboutvideo?
Because you know it's visual.
And I said you have a video, socostly, so time-consuming I got
to have my hair done like itwas just like an ordeal right,
and at that time live streamingdidn't exist.
So Video wasn't as casual as itis today, and that was a
difference for us.
We said, okay, we'll dopodcasts, but we'll occasionally

(29:14):
do like a time-lapse video orsome kind of product video and
demo things, and we'll We'll addthat to our channel.
So we started this podcastcalled WTF, ff, and FFF is fuse
filament fabrication, which isthe geeky term for 3d printing.
In about five months, we had ahundred thousand listeners a
month Wow.
And everyone in podcasting waslike, what are you doing?

(29:38):
Like, as you know how hard itis to start a podcast, now it
was easier.
This is almost now nine yearsago Well, just over nine years
ago actually that we started thepodcast.
Everyone was looking at that,going, what were you doing?
Like, can you help me learn howto do this?
So I would tell them what wedid and they would be that's a
lot of work because, remember,you got to put the work in right

(29:59):
, you got to figure out what'sworking and we were podcasting
five days a week.
We were doing a produce show,we were having it edited, we
were planning all of the topicsout.
We were, we were spending quitea bit of time on the show and
other people were like I don'twant to do that much work.
Here's my credit card.
Would you do it for me?
And so, because we had aconsulting business and because

(30:20):
I had developed this system anda team as a To keep producing
our podcast, I said we have alittle capacity, we can take a
few people.
Before you know it, we had tenclients and we said that's it.
We can't take more than ten orwe have to grow it.
I need to, I need to set asystem in place to handle these
ten clients.
We built a portal to take intheir episodes.
We, like had to build systemsto be able to handle more than

(30:43):
ten because they were chompingat the bit to refer us.
So, about a year and a halfafter we took those first ten in
, we had a hundred clients andwe spun our business off into
its own entity and we have whatbecame potatized.
We had that back then and so in2017 mid-year that's when we
started actually may the rightnow, while we're recording.
So we're at our sixth year.

(31:03):
That happened because of peoplewho were just like I have a
need.
Can you feel it?
After we started that in 2017and made it its own entity, one
year later, we shut down ourconsulting and design business
because we were too busy.
So we kept them both open andthe the consulting business, the
design business.
Our royalties Funded the startof our potatize.

(31:24):
So we were able to self fund itwithout any investors, without
any push To to be a certain wayto do it a certain way.
We could do it our way and wedid that because we could fund
it, because we had theseroyalties.
We had commissions essentiallyfrom the products we designed.

Daniela SM (31:39):
Yeah, a clever couple for sure.
When you were podcasting, youwere not making any money.

We didn't make money off the traditional sense.
We did make money off our show,like we would take in
advertisers, and we would.
We would recoup our costs.
So we were personally doingthat, but that wasn't
necessarily the focus.
What we realized is we mademore money off of the clients
that came from listening to ourshow.
We made more money from theguests that we had on our show
who would then hire us toconsult with their business.

(32:06):
So we made more money off ofall of these other methods.
And so when people would come tous and they would say and
here's a pattern recognition, amodel, as they would come to me
and they would say, hey, I'vegot this business and I've been
thinking about starting apodcast, but I don't know how I
should structure it, what kindof podcast should I do?
And I'd be like here's themodel out of these 25 or so that

(32:28):
I have seen, heard, found, thatwill this one, I think, will
work for you.
Let's try it.
And we built in these layers ofreturn on investment from the
shows that had nothing to dowith Advertising, because most
shows will either never qualifyfor advertising or should never
take ads Because it competesagainst what they have to sell

(32:51):
themselves.

Daniela SM (32:52):
Wow, that's fascinating.
So you have these podcasts andyou started to have clients, but
you also decided to haveanother podcast.

Yeah, one of the things that we decided was that
each year as we startedpodcasting, the industry changed
.
So when we started podcastingnine years ago, it was a really
different ecosystem.
There was less competition.
There was less of all these,less tools than you have today.
Things worked differently thanthey do now, and so we decided
that if we were going to be thebest counselors to our clients,

(33:22):
we were going to have to start abrand new podcast every single
year.
So each year we would start oneand we would try out the model
of it and see how it would workand and do something.
And, of course, we wanted thepodcast to have a life, because
if I'm not excited about it orinterested in it, it's going to
be hard to keep podcasting.
After the 3d print one, becausewe were closing down our

(33:44):
consulting business, I had a lotof contacts, I had a lot of
methods that we used to designproducts and I wanted to share
it with the world.
So we created I think it's aalmost 200 episode series.
So we did it for a couple ofyears and it's called product
launch hazards Big hot hazardfor our last name and we
basically shared all of ourpartners, shared all of our

(34:06):
methodologies for designing,shared our thinking about our
philosophy around what we did,and we just put it out there.
And so today, people stillreach out to me every single
week asking for something fromthat web podcast and I just
refer them to someone.
I say go listen to this episodeand you're gonna have the best
copyright attorney you couldever find.
Or go listen to this episodeand you're gonna understand why

(34:29):
you probably shouldn't patentthat.
I just send them to one ofthose episodes and or send them
to an expert that I interviewedand send that Interview so that
they can build trust quickly.
Because they trust me, becausethey listen to my show, they can
now build trust quickly withthat.
I created this rich referralnetwork by doing that and it was
a give back and now I don'tfeel so bad about walking away

(34:50):
from my design.
I still serving my community,so that's like one of them we
did.
Another one was on.
I was very curious andinterested in blockchain and
cryptocurrency and and web 3 andwanted to understand it.
I met someone who was afraid tostart a podcast by herself.
She had the perfect last nameProfit with 2f's and 2ts and,
I'm hazard with 2z's.

(35:10):
So we did a profit and hazardand we called it the new trust
economy, and it was aninteresting model in starting a
new podcast, but starting with aco-host who I didn't know well
we were just became friends.
How does that work?
What did I learn from it?
And I put out some episodes andsome other things about how to
break up with your co-host,because it doesn't always work
out.
You have different models,different missions, and so I

(35:33):
learned a lot from doing thosetypes of shows, and so we do
that.
But the two shows that I keepdoing all the time are the binge
factor, which is where Iinterviewed you on, because I
like to interview amazingpodcasters doing different types
of shows so that I can continueTo see the patterns of what's
working and what's not working,what they're doing and what
they're not doing.
Sometimes I share those as tips.

(35:55):
And we do a Another show calledfeed your brand, which is a
tactical Tactical ways to growyour show, to market it, to
build a website that goes alongwith it.
Like we cover all kinds ofthings, and Tom and I do that
show together.
So it's the one thing that weget to do together each week and
we have it in a model wherewe're coaching our clients and
doing our Podcast at the sameexact time, so we get to do two

(36:16):
things at once.
So we show up every week, wekeep recording and we get to at
least spend one hour a weektogether On our in our business,
which we don't always dobecause our businesses are so
busy right now.

Daniela SM (36:27):
So so then you have a guest and then the two of you
go horde.

No, we don't have any guests on feed your brand,
we only cover topics, the bingefactor.
We have guests and that's whereI only do those interviews.
Tom doesn't.

Daniela SM (36:38):
Yes, Well, that sounds interesting and feel like
you are so adaptable and soneed of change all the time and
creating Something constantlythat you always gonna be young
and always going to be busy.

I Like the always young part.
You know.
I think that that's the thingis that we get, we feel old fast
, when we feel no longerrelevant.
That's really what it is at theend of the day.
When my grandfather couldn'tdrive anymore, that was the
decline for him.
I clearly saw it.

(37:10):
It was necessary we needed totake his car keys away.
He couldn't see as well anymore.
This wasn't a good thing, buthe lost the freedom and
socialness that he had, where hecould just go wherever he wants
.
We could pick up a buddy on theway, they could go have coffee
together and he felt isolatedand no longer relevant.
And that's what I think.
If we don't keep trying newthings, experiencing things,

(37:34):
getting new inputs, new ideas,then we're not going to be
relevant.
We're going to feel irrelevantquickly, and I do think that's
the key to feeling young.

Daniela SM (37:44):
Yeah, especially with all the technology as well.
I have the same feeling.
I can't know about technologywhat is new.
I don't want to always be ableto use it and always learn and
practice.

Right, and here's the thing you have a mindset to
go out there and experiment andtry things.
You're not going to adopteverything, but you're going to
know enough to know wow, thatwas a lot harder than I thought
it was, or that really fits me.
I could keep doing this.
This is good for me, right?
But we wouldn't do that if wedidn't experiment.

Daniela SM (38:10):
Exactly For me.
I love change.

Most people don't .
This is amazing aha aboutyourself.
You are comfortable in change.
In fact, you seek it, you wantit, and I feel the same way.
My family moved a lot when Iwas younger.
As I mentioned, I lived inother countries.
I lived in South Africa sobecause of that, I was
comfortable with the idea that Igot to be the new girl at
school.
It didn't scare me.
And so when you're comfortablewith change and you love to

(38:36):
travel I know that because I'vehad you on my show and we've
talked about that right, thattravels always about change,
right, you're always in a newplace.
You got to navigate somethingnew.
It feeds something in you to beable to do that.
It feels accomplished, but italso feels like it's input.
It's experiences that we needthat are really important, and
I'm one of those people too.

(38:56):
I need a lot of change in mylife because I need to mix it up
, because it stimulates me, andwhen we are stimulated, we
become the best we can be, andit's interesting that you
mentioned about school.

Daniela SM (39:08):
I only went into several different schools
between kindergarten andpreschool.
When I hear stories about oh myGod, I have to change schools
and I was always a new kid Evenin movies, it's always shown as
a negative thing.
But now that you said it's true, it's actually cool.
You're going to be thedifferent one, the new person.

It's an opportunity, right.

Daniela SM (39:28):
Yes, exactly, exactly.

Yeah, but kids have a hard time seeing that
like that.
In all fairness to them, itfeels traumatic.

Daniela SM (39:35):
Yes, I feel like it could be hard.
That's true, it depends on theage, and so you don't sleep
because you're always thinkingabout things and what will be
the next thing.

Well, no, I actually do.
I had trouble sleeping.
Most of my life Felt like I wasan insomniac.
I have said it to many peopleI've troubled shutting my mind
off.
I had this aha at some pointthat I could meditate, and in
meditation I shut my brain offLike it was was practicing
transcendental meditation and itworked really well for me that

(40:05):
I could do that whole 20 minutesand I feel my brain would feel
refreshed.
Afterwards I didn't feel likeit was so busy in there that I
you know, I couldn't hear.
I couldn't hear my own thoughts, I could hear my mantra.
So like I felt like it wasworking for me and I thought, if
I can do this, I can fallasleep.
There's a connection point here.
This is not it's not physicallyimpossible for me to fall

(40:27):
asleep.
I thought, okay, but I need todo this like a design of
experiment, because that's who Iam right.
So when my husband and the kidswent away and I stayed home to
run the business for a week overa winter break, they were going
to go skiing and it's I'm not,it's not my favorite thing to do
, and so I thought I'm going tostay home and I'm going to
figure out how to sleep thisweek.

(40:49):
I'm going to go to bed early.
I'm going to make sure that Igo to sleep.
I'm going to figure this outand over the course of that week
it was like every night went tobed, was able to fall asleep,
was able to make it happen,because my mindset was in this
place, this, this isn'timpossible.
This is possible.
I know I can do it.

(41:09):
It's not a fundamental flaw inmy brain.
Now, it took me a while tofigure out how to do that once
my husband came home and wassnoring in bed with me, but I
was able to keep that going, andso now I have a.
I have a process.
I kind of create downtime yourenvironment.
I have this really hard crunchypillow.
That's whatever my kids call it, the crunchy pillow.
It has buckwheat seeds in itand it works perfectly for me

(41:32):
because it keeps that likeuncomfortableness of things
shifting and moving too much forme.
It's perfect for me.
I love it and nobody gets tooclose to me.
That's just like I have myspace.
Nobody wants to lie on it.
It's like, you know, the dogdoesn't want to come up here.
I was able to figure out aprocess for myself to make that
work and it's been like heavenin this later part of my life.

(41:53):
I'm sleeping.

Daniela SM (41:54):
Wow, all these years you couldn't sleep until then
like no longer go then.

Yeah, it's like almost 50 by the time I figured
it out.

Daniela SM (42:02):
Wow.
And what else have you managedto relearn?
Or learn to yourself that youthought it was difficult, or
that other people think that itis difficult?

You know, there really isn't anything that I
don't look at as I'm a how togirl.
A how to is not difficult.
There's always a method.
So if you understand it, it'sno longer a mystery.
It's not going to be difficult.
The question is is are youwilling to pay the cost?
Because there's always a costin your time, energy, money.
Whatever you want to look at it, there's always a cost to doing

(42:32):
something.
So that's, I think, the biggestdecision point it's this worth
it to me to learn?
Exercise has been one of thosethings for me is like I'm
willing to go walk my dog aspart of why we have her right.
I'm willing to go walk my dog,take that time out.
I'm willing to walk to theschool.
Am I willing to like go to anaerobics class?
No, like I'm not willing tojump around.
Am I willing to jog and run?

(42:54):
My body said no.
They said it didn't like it.
In the first few months I triedthat.
I thought, oh, this will belike a moving meditation.
But it got to be too much on myknees and my ankle and I was
like, okay, that's not it for me.
I don't want to put physicalstress on me because that stress
I don't need.
I didn't have that before.
So I'll take it a little easier.
The finding something that I'mwilling to pay the cost of the

(43:16):
time, energy, money for, andfiguring out what that is for me
, hasn't been always great.
So I instead tackled my dietand that's how I got healthier.
So I said the exercise justwasn't a great fit to my
lifestyle beyond walking.
But I can handle my diet, andso I improved I ate more
vegetables, changed up my diet.
That's the trade-off you make.
The reason I don't ski as I goto go back to that story is

(43:39):
because I wasn't willing to putthe enough time in it to be good
at it, which means that myfamily, who's way better, my
husband and all his siblings,and everyone started out on skis
at like, out of diapers on onskis, so they've had their whole
lives to be great at it.
I was going to have to devote atremendous amount of energy to
being good enough to ski withthem.

(44:00):
Otherwise I was going to be onthe bunny slope by myself or in
a class by myself, and thatwasn't worth it.
If it wasn't going to be thisfamily social thing for me, then
I didn't care to do it.
It didn't excite me enough, andso that's why I don't ski.

Daniela SM (44:12):
But then for you it's easy to learn anything
because you just figure out apattern and so, okay, you
figured out, okay, this is apattern, this is the time that
could take, how willing I am todo it.
And then you decide is thatmore or less your, your
technique?

Yeah, decide.
But here's the thing that a lotof other people do.
A lot of other people think,because I'm highly capable, that
I'm going to do it all myself.
Now there's an aspect of thatlike I wanna, I'm not going to
spend money on an expert, on acoach, on a system, on a process
somebody else's thing UnlessI'm sure I want to do it.
So I will experiment by myselftill I figure out it's worth

(44:49):
doing what's I'm there.
I think one of the biggestmistakes many people is that
they don't get a teacher, theydon't get an expert, they don't
get someone into support thatAzure learning something.
You don't have the possibilityof seeing things that are gonna
come at you.
You don't.
You are going to see all thoseroad blocks, all those speed
bumps, all of those other things.

(45:09):
That's why you hire someone.
You hire a great coach, youhire great mentor.
You hire someone who's going toteach you some of those things
with the understanding that it'sgonna help you avoid that, so
you can keep going forward yetyou can keep finding what you're
looking for, so then you canbring yourself into it faster.
So I look at it as I decide ifI wanna do something, if I'm

(45:30):
worth paying the price for, andthen at some point in that
process I will get an expert butfor example, with the sleeping
you didn't need an expert butyou found, like, the proper
pillow.

Daniela SM (45:39):
You spend money on stuff that will help.

Well, I did.
Yeah, I spend money on stuff,yeah, exactly.
But I did hire an expertbecause I it just happened in a
different path, because I paidfor and trained in
transcendental meditation, whichtaught me the thing that I
needed.
So it gave me the tool that mybrain can work like this right,
so game that.
But I did also in this caselike I read a couple of books

(46:03):
that on sleep and tried some ofthose techniques and they worked
.
If they had not worked Iprobably would have gone to the
next level because it wasimportant to me.
I was at that point inrealization that I was burning
the candles at both ends if Ididn't get more sleep, that that
was going to degrade my healthTo the point it was gonna harm
my longevity with my family.

(46:23):
So it was important to me.
But luckily, those first set oftactics- work.

Daniela SM (46:28):
Yes, wonderful, wonderful, and I know question I
have is of which your husband.
So you said okay, you meet oncea week for the podcast About
what about you also perhaps havemeetings because you have to
meet all the time to share theideas that you have.
So do you have like Monthlymeetings, weekly meetings?
How hard does it work?

so we do it in a casual way.
So now there's a lot of peoplewho work together as a couple
and they say we don't discussanything after six pm.
Once we hit dinner we don'ttalk about work.
The creative process doesn'twork like that and tom and I
learned that early on.
Sometimes it happens on sundayat midnight at like an idea
strikes and we need to have aconversation about it.

(47:07):
Now tom is no good after nine pm.
If I try to have a conversationwith them after nine pm it will
be a half a conversation.
I will be talking and he willbe sleeping like he cannot stay
awake and function at that hour.
If he tries to talk to mebefore eight am, I am not at my
best.
So you learn those things abouteach other and you try to work
it in.

(47:27):
So his thing is that a lot oftimes he'll bring me a tea in
the morning.
I'll be getting ready and doingmy hair and my makeup and things
like that and I'll sit and wewill have a conversation about
our day, about some of thethings we want to try out.
This morning we spent an hourdoing that because neither one
of us had early phone calls andthis morning we spent an hour

(47:48):
mapping out our plan forincorporating artificial
intelligence into our platform.
It's not like I haven't beenthinking about it and he hasn't
been thinking about itseparately for weeks apart.
I was traveling, and so thiswas our first chance to get
together to talk about it.
We just laid out the wholeentire plan this morning in an
hour together, so it was reallysuper efficient time that we

(48:09):
spent together.
I got my tea and I got alreadyfor our interview, so I get
worked out right.

Daniela SM (48:14):
It was a really great use of time and this is
what you were getting ready tonot like.
You sat on a table.
Take a paper.
Computers no.

We don't really do that.
I mean, we will do that next.
Like the next level is, we'regonna get out the white board
and, like, draw it all out andthen take some photos and send
it to our coding team.
So like will do stuff like thatat the next stage and we will
plan those and have a meetingfor that.
When we're just bouncing ideasoff of each other and really
saying is this what we want todo?
And making a decision aboutwhether or not we're gonna move
for sword with something.

(48:42):
Sometimes we like to do it inthat casual environment because
it creates the collaborationnecessary.
It's not overly serious anddistracting.
We're having this conversationand then do we take it more
serious as we move forward.
That's how we make decisions.
You know the decision levelcomes in there.
So Fantastic, yeah, but we dohave downtime and personal time.
I do want to make sureeverybody is really clear on

(49:04):
that.
We have a lot of personal time.
We have a lot of fun together.
We enjoy being together.
We love watching movies.
That's one of our favoritethings to do together is to
watch movies.
We like geeky sci-fi stuff.
You know we have similar tasteand things like that.
Yeah, we have a pool and wehang out there and we enjoy each
other's company, yes, wonderful.

Daniela SM (49:24):
So your best friends make for anything.
So that's what is the mostimportant thing.
And Tracy, how is it, tracy, asa mom?
And having this god giventalent that you have, how are
you as a mom?

so I have three daughters twenty eight, fourteen
and nine and all of them wereborn at the inception of a
different business.
So my oldest was born and westarted our our business for
stylus pens for handheldcomputers right after she was
born.
So she grew up in it like shewould total around and assemble

(49:55):
pens and do some things.
Everybody knew she was part ofthe business.
And then our middle one we hadour consulting business got
kicked off as Literally while Iwas on the table delivering her
and we had our first client justas soon as I came home from the
hospital and the podcaststarted right before Vanessa, my
youngest, was born.
So like we have had like allkinds of creative flow from

(50:18):
having children, but they arecomfortable with the way that
our lives run like this.
And one of the stories that Itell is my, my middle daughter.
When she was like five yearsold, there was a staples office
supply store that was closing.
It was like the store wascompletely closing and we went
in there and we were gonna buy afew supplies and I said this is

(50:38):
the last time we're gonna beable to go here, the stores
closing.
And she looks at me and shesays where will they sleep?
Because we sleep where we workand she didn't.
I never even thought of the ideathat you would live somewhere
else and go to work, realizedher worldview is different and I
think that's the key to.

(50:58):
My daughter is like beingbrilliantly amazing, and my
oldest is.
She's just absolutely nothingshe feels Is out of bounds for
her to figure out.
Everything is able to befigured out, so whatever gets
thrown at her at her work, shecan Figure out how to do it.
I'm proud that that's what shetook away from all those years

(51:20):
being around the business.
Every viewpoint that thisshifted because of that Creates
opportunity.
But the youngest, yeah, is me.
She is exactly me, probablymore technologically advanced
early on, so I don't know whatthat's gonna do to her Like.
So I always joke that our solejob as parents is to keep her

(51:41):
focused on making sure that allof those skills and energy and
everything she has is puttowards good.
That is our only job is to makesure she puts it for me doing
good in the world, like we don'thave to do any other guidance,
just that.

Daniela SM (51:56):
Wonderful.
Yes, and I'm glad you say that,because I also think it is
important we don't To teach them.
The things that we want is justsee what their talents are and
make them polish those.
Yes.

Yeah, she's just really highly capable and
whatever sparks her, she'scompetitive, which is an okay
thing to be like.
I'm competitive, I like.
I like the competitive.
It gives you energy, it givesyou a reason to go do something
right and it doesn't have to benasty competitive, but like good
competitive, like it healthy.

Daniela SM (52:27):
It makes me feel energized when I'm competing at
a high level with Other peopleand also you have shared the
love that you got from yourparents and you have also share
that with your kids, rightthat's right.

yeah, exactly, we share this idea that doesn't
matter who you are, doesn'tmatter how you change, I'm
always gonna love you.
That's a really big thing, andI think that's hard for us to
trust is human beings, becausethere's so much in our lives
that takes Love away.
But when you have someone whosays I'm never gonna take that
away, nothing Could take thataway.
That's power, because you livein a place when that can't be

(53:03):
withdrawn, so you have the powerto be who you are yes,
wonderful.

Daniela SM (53:07):
So full circle.
We started with love and we endwith love.
And I am so grateful, tracy,that you share your story,
because we all have stories.
We don't have to have badthings happening to us to have a
wonderful story in a wonderfullife.
That you do, thank you thankyou, it's so true.

I'm so glad you are doing this podcast.
It is just amazing becauseeveryone does have a story.
Thanks.

Daniela SM (53:30):
I hope you enjoyed it.
Today's episode I am Danielaand you were listening to,
because everyone has a story.
Please take five seconds rightnow and think of somebody in
your life that may enjoy whatyou just heard, or someone that
has a story to be shared andpreserved.
When you think of that person,shoot them a text with the link
of his podcast.

(53:50):
This would allow the ordinarymagic to go further.
Join me next time for anotherstory conversation.
Thank you for listening.

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How Loving Unconditionally and Being Loved Yields Confidence - Tracy Hazzard : 106

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How Loving Unconditionally and Being Loved Yields Confidence - Tracy Hazzard : 106