15: Steph's Diary: Operating in Abundance

This year I'm operating on abundance, and as we wrap up the first month of the year I'm sharing what that means to me. 

Sometimes it can be scary to have big dreams and put yourself out there. But for me, what's the worst that can happen if I continue to push through, doing something that I love and enjoy?

Topics Covered:

• Recognize the Power of Your Thoughts
• Surround Yourself with People with an Abundance Mentality
• Create Win-Win Situations
• Incorporate Gratitude in Your Life
• Recognize Opportunities Around You

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie (00:01):
I am Stephanie Evans and this is Diaries of a Modern
Trailblazer.
Take note of the journey and beinspired to forge your own
amazing path.
As the first month of the yearcomes to a close, I wanna talk

(00:21):
about abundance because thisyear I'm operating in abundance.
And I say that because I wasn'tin a place of abundance the
entire year last year.
It honestly took some therapy,being in a space to myself to
get there, and I have to saythat it's truly rewarding, so I

(00:44):
want to share what that means tome.
A scarcity mentality is whatkeeps many of us from achieving
our goals.
An abundance mindset refers tothe paradigm that there is
plenty out there for everybody,and believe me, there is plenty

(01:05):
out there.
No room for envy, but muchrespect and appreciation for
what others are doing.
A scarcity mentality seeslimitations instead of
opportunities and quite frankly,I've had to catch myself from
falling into the scarcitymentality trap because at the
end of the day, the question is,why not?

(01:30):
One of the big goals for me thismonth was doing outreach to
luxury boutiques, introducingPamoja and letting them know
about the brand and the amazingcollection that's going to be
available this fall.
Essentially pitching them topick up our product because
these bags are amazing.

(01:52):
Um, and I'm, I'm just like soexcited about how it's coming to
life and the lookbook and linesheets and everything.
Like, I'm really, really excitedabout introducing this
collection, and it's been alabor of love, with positive
feedback across the board.

(02:13):
There were times where Iquestioned whether or not Pamoja
was good enough for theseboutiques.
Luxury boutiques carryingBottega, Proenza Schuller,
Marni, and other establishedluxury brands that have some
really great bags.
But at the end of the day, I'mpushing for it because I am
worthy.

(02:34):
Pamoja is worthy.
We're worthy to have these bagsbelong on those shelves.
And I had to quickly turn thosethoughts around.
I know at the end of the day,not everyone is going to say
yes.
and take a chance to invest inan emerging brand they never
heard of.

(02:55):
But what I also know is thatthere is a void in the market in
offering elevated functionalbags that are of luxury quality
at a moderate price point.
My price point is 300 to 900 forthis collection, and that can be

(03:15):
pricey to some, but I'm notcreating for everybody.
It's important to carve out myniche and focus on the needs of
that customer.
We may have different prioritiesin life, stepping into new
seasons of our lives, facing newchallenges.

(03:37):
But what I'm getting at is it'simportant to own it, to have the
mindset of abundance positivelypouring into yourself.
I came across an article writtena few years ago in Forbes that
mentioned a few ways we can putthis into practice.

(03:58):
So, I'll share them and expandupon how I apply these to my
life.
The first one is recognize thepower of your thoughts.
You need to focus on what youhave already achieved and what
you already have.
My previous podcast guest,Jovanna, um, in our discussion,

(04:24):
we had a conversation aroundgoals, and this kind of ties
into it because we talked abouthow, you know, it's great to set
goals for yourself, um,directionally in terms of what
you're focused on, but it's alsoimportant to realize that you're

(04:44):
not necessarily going tocomplete all of those goals to
the fullest.
But what is important is thatyou recognize that you started,
you started to work towardsthose goals.
And if you need to continue, ifyou need to tweak it, that's
okay, but recognize that you atleast approached it and you're

(05:10):
moving forward.
You hold so much power with yourthoughts and it's important to
recognize that.
The second item is surroundyourself with people with an
abundance mentality.
The quality of a person's life.

(05:31):
Is most often a directreflection of the expectations
of their peer group.
I recently joined Sidebar andit's a virtual community focused
around acceleratingprofessionally.
What they do is curate yourprofessional board of directors
in a small group thatessentially becomes a bi weekly

(05:53):
group coaching setting that hasa professional facilitator.
In my group, we're allentrepreneurs.
And generally speaking, we havea product based business.
I had my second meetingyesterday and I left energized
and inspired to hear some of theproblems others were facing, the

(06:16):
wheels were turning.
We were giving each otherfeedback in the form of a
question.
For example, one of thequestions I posed was, Have you
considered doing pop up shops orwholesale distribution to
mitigate the risk associatedwith making a large upfront
investment in a physical retailstore to better understand where

(06:37):
your customer is?
That's something that I'vedefinitely thought about because
it's a goal of mine to have aphysical retail store.
Am I ready for that today?
No, not necessarily.
But, I'm testing the waters nowas I look to expand my

(07:00):
collection and go intowholesale, so it's super
exciting to be there and justhearing how others are thinking
about it as well.
I loved it and I'm lucky I haveover 20 of these meetings over
the course of the year.
But enough about that.
The third item was create winwin situations.

(07:28):
The way in which I'm movingPamoja forward requires
partnerships and at the core ofit, that's what it always has
been.
I mean, Pamoja is a Swahili wordfor togetherness.
If I win, you win, we win.
Wholesale is a partnershipbetween the retailer and Pamoja.

(07:52):
If we don't see an opportunitythat fits us both, it's not
going to work.
Showroom discovery room.
And, I mean, I know you heard metalk about showrooms—it's still
a goal in 2024.
Didn't necessarily hit it in2023, but working towards it for
September.
So, definitely.

(08:14):
It's a partnership between theshowroom and Pamoja.
If we don't see an opportunitythat fits us both, it's not
going to work.
The list of opportunities isendless.
In all of these partnershipopportunities, we will both win
at the end of the day.

(08:38):
Never hesitate to make thatcall, or send that email, or set
up that meeting for win winopportunities in both your
personal and professionalrelationships.
If they never know about it, howis it going to come to fruition?
Let me repeat that.

(09:01):
If they never know about it, howis it going to come to fruition?
Don't hold yourself back.
And this is a big one for me.
This is going to be the biggestthing that I work on this year.

(09:22):
The fourth item is incorporategratitude into your daily life.
Uh, towards the end of the year,last year, I started to write
down what I'm grateful for on aweekly basis.
And I can share what I wrotedown from the previous week, uh,

(09:47):
which is a week of January 14th.
For me, I'm in Houston, and thatweek we had really cold weather
where it got as low as 18degrees.
So I'm really grateful that Idid not have any issues, did not

(10:11):
incur any damage to my home withthe freezing weather.
The heat was running.
I got to use my fireplace forthe first time, which was really
cool.
And I'm grateful for that.
I had a one on one meeting with,um, one of my peers in the
sidebar group that I mentioned.

(10:33):
And what I took from thatconversation was that, you know,
we, we came into sidebar at ourown accord because we want that
growth for ourselves and we'regoing to help each other make
it.
And after that conversation, oneof the things that I mentioned

(10:57):
that I'm working on is— I needto amp my marketing strategy and
I kind of, I kind of hold myselfback and he immediately said,
you know, I'm going to share mymarketing strategy deck that I
paid, um, a agency to puttogether for me.

(11:23):
So I have that template and it'swonderful and I have one too,
but it's really cool to kind ofcompare notes and and see what
else I can add to my strategy,so that was awesome.
I did research and emails aroundthe luxury boutiques.
I continue to add to that list.

(11:45):
I wrote my draft emails, youknow, to make sure that it was
tailored to who I was doing theoutreach to.
It wasn't necessarily generic.
So that was a big accomplishmentfor me last week.
And then I had a superproductive Saturday where I did
laundry, I worked out, showered,before catching up with a friend

(12:07):
at brunch.
At noon.
So I got a lot of stuff donebefore noon on a Saturday.
I watched the divisional NFLplayoffs, the Texans versus the
Ravens.
Unfortunately, our Texans didn'twin, but they made it that far.
And, um, I'm excited to seewhat's to come in the next

(12:31):
seasons.
And then I finished reading ThePsychology of Money.
So, that was my gratitude fromthe previous week, and it's
really cool to have it writtendown, you know, just focusing on
nothing but the great thingsthat happened over the week.
Not the negative, but thepositive, and it was so much

(12:54):
there.
The fifth thing, fifth and lastitem here is, Recognize
opportunities around you, andfor me, ultimately, by having a
mindset of abundance, I am ableto see more for myself, more for

(13:17):
Pamoja, and I'm going tocontinue to push as long as this
is what I'm called to do.
If I had all of the time and themoney in the world and I knew I
could not fail, this is exactlywhat I would be doing, and for
that, I am truly grateful.

(13:41):
And that's a wrap.
So own it and make moves.
One day, I want to share yourjourney on this podcast.