Create Your Aligned Life

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the shiled experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in Tiffany Paul is a former corporate employee who spent 10 years with Proctor and gamle before leaving her sixf figure salary and making her Leap to become a full-time entrepreneur she is the host of The Dream Life podcast and also a founder and CEO of slept a sleeping accessory collection whose products have been featured in Vogue Allure pop sugar and are in distribution with Urban Outfitters Tiffany lives in Southern California with her husband and their two children thank you so much for

Speaker 2: joining us today Tiffany thank you so much for having me I'm so excited to chat we'd love to know more about who you are and about your early career experiences leading to becoming the founder of slept I was like first time a human soul having Human Experience right I am a former unfulfilled corporate employee I spent 10 years in corporate I'm from Minnesota originally and really from a young age thought the big dream would be to work for the big Corporation and I did I always dreamed of moving to Los Angeles and I really thought that was going to be like my big dream my dream life I had my site set on becoming like a CEO of a big company I remember reading a statistic as a child that only 2% of Fortune 500 companies had female CEOs and I thought well that doesn't seem right we need more women at the top why not me and that was my first big dream but then about halfway through my decade long career I just started feeling that I wasn't quite where I belonged it wasn't what I imagined and as somebody who really braces breaking down barriers and living outside the box being in a corporate environment very much felt like I was in a box very much constricted as far as like how I could act show up speak and I quickly realized I needed something else so halfway through I started my first business which was a side hustle at the time in the travel space I invented it's actually a twoin one scarf and neck pillow I travel a lot for work and I hated the bulky neck pillows and I was like let's do something fun I created a scarf with like a pocket where an inflatable neck pillow could be transported and you blow it up in flight and it's a blanket and scarf it's called the sleeper scarf it's a patented trademarked invention I created that and it was just like a fun thing that fulfilled a passion of mind that I wasn't able to get in corporate from there I kept it on the side for 5 years

Speaker 1: until at that 10e Mark I was ready to take the leap and be a full-time entrepreneur into my current business which is called slept which is a curated sleep Marketplace which is all my favorite things for better sleep online

Speaker 2: nice I love the idea of the scarf because when you travel recently when I've been on planes it gets so cold yes and so you need that added warmth and then if you want to take a nap and you you're trying to pack so compact so that everything F underneath the seat especially when you're traveling for work it's like you want like just a carryon like you don't want to wait for

Speaker 1: the check bag and all the things I loved hearing that people were sleeping better in flight because they they did have the warm wrap around them while they were sleeping and so that made it an easy

Speaker 2: transition into being a founder of a sleep company entirely so tell us more about slept and I know you are a mother of two young children and I am a mother of twins and I'm sure we never realized

Speaker 1: how much we appreciated sleep until our children were born yes I really started tapping into this Collective exhaustion long before the pandemic we're now even more exhausted and burnt out but everywhere I looked as a mom of 2002 as somebody who at the time had a corporate job in a side hustle I was also in entrepreneurial space no matter where you looked whether it was corporate entrepreneurialism or in motherhood even the stay-at home moms everybody was exhausted it wasn't like one of the camps were rested everybody was exhausted so I think that seed was planted for a while until I actually was forced to go all in because of the pandemic I also think it's interesting how life and timing works at the time when I had the idea I just left my corporate job I can't start a new company entirely but when looking at where I should go next it was clearly sleep because it felt like a way I could truly make an impact on the lives of the people in my life because as any mom or sleep deprived person knows when you're not sleeping well it literally impacts every element of your life from your mood to your concentration your ability to be creative to show up as your best self and I just became obsessed with all the research out there that showed us the importance of sleep and the fact that so many people were not getting the recommended sleep that we needed and look at the market for it everyone sleeps every day yes and I think that during the pandemic it became less of an issue of not getting enough sleep but disrupted sleep my early research it was like I don't have time to sleep right there's so much to do after you put the kids to bed then it's the laundry and the dishes and then I'm on Netflix because otherwise I have no time to myself and teaching during the day if you have kids in school and the stress of it all yeah it was primarily initially conversation of just like I don't have the time but then as things really heated up in the pandemic people became really stressed out and anxious because of everything and it was also moving into issues of quality of sleep meaning waking up in the middle of the night not feeling like they fully were rested or having trouble falling asleep and so that really sparked my first idea within the slept umbrella which was again a curated Marketplace of all my favorite products but we didn't have our own products at the time and so as I heard all my friends struggling to stay asleep I started to look into how we could help improve the quality of sleep and so weighted blankets were one of the number one sleep aids and then I stumbled upon weighted eye masks I tested a few out and I I did find relaxing benefits from them but I found there was a few things I would change about them for example they I really wanted like a cooling fabric because the number one thing that keeps me awake if I'm too hot research says it's supposed to be 67 to 69 most of us sleep way too warm like we need to make our our houses like ice boxes to get the best sleep but having a satin like a cooling fabric like that was something I really wanted and machine washable because it was on your eyes and face you wanted like Silk is high maintenance and then I wanted more pressure like on the side of my head to cocoon my face in weighted comfort so I created a strapless eye mask with weight that wraps around the side of your head and I just slept so much better I was able to take those middle of the day power naps and I thought okay we need to go to market with our own products and since then we have been featured in Vogue and alure picked up by Urban Outfitters we'll be going into saxs Smith Avenue soon so it's really been just listening to the customer and the community and tapping into the Sleep needs of so many I love that and it's so much fun and good for you for listening to yourself when you were in the corporate world thinking I need to do something different I can do

Speaker 2: so much more so speaking of that you mentioned how the old definition of living the dream is hurting us why do

Speaker 1: you think that is when I was in corporate the biggest struggle I fac when deciding should I leave should I stay it was really tied and wrapped up into this societal definition of success which said if you had the certain salary the certain house the certain job title all the things that I had then I should be happy I did struggle with INF but eventually I had a boy and a girl I had a happy healthy marriage I had the house I'd made it to California I had the six figure salary I could travel I had enough extra income to support my side hustle and so on paper I was like I should be happy why I am so passionate about talking about this conversation that society's definition of success is hurting us is because it really did keep me in that box for much longer than I probably needed because I was trying to convince myself that I should be happy and I think so many of us look at our lives at certain points and we say I should be happy but I'm not and we feel really guilty about it and even when I left my corporate job and then I was my own boss I still felt like something was missing because I really missed the community of having a workplace I missed connecting with people and I found I was working remotely my team was not here with me I was dealing with product all day and less with people full and it was monotonous and it was stressful because I'm a founder and everything's on your shoulders and the money and I'm like well this doesn't really feel like living the dream either and they say that being your own boss and doing the whole thing this is supposed to make me happy and I was like well something wrong with me again like that didn't make me happy now I took the leap fortune favors the Bold right this isn't like the dream either so I really had to dig deep and figure out what was going on and Beyond just like your typical self-limiting beliefs of I'm not enough or I'm not smart enough or strong enough to overcome just the regular stuff that entrepreneurs face I I really had this deep rooted belief that success looked like a certain salary a certain level of success in your business and a certain life and the game Cher for me was when I finally gave myself permission to redefine success for me versus what Society had placed on me and it was a journey it wasn't like overnight I was like okay cool none of that matters and I still find myself like I'm so happy but like my bank account is not quite where I want it yet and no I'm living the dream I'm living the dream because I'm releasing that and trusting that it's all going to come to me in perfect timing but I moved initially from money and titles and material things as my measure of success to impact I was like well that's a more noble definition of success how can I make an impact but then I realized I was still relying on external validation to support this version of success I was still relying on someone to tell me you help me sleep better you made a difference in my life and when I didn't hear that because who takes the time to write a right to actually tell you even though you're doing it even if I was I was like well am I making an impact I'm relying on other people again to make me feel like I'm enough feel like I'm a success so then I shifted from that to realizing you know if I can just show up each and every day as my authentic self because in Corporate America I was not my authentic self I really had to dim down my light I always felt like I was too much so I can be myself each and every day if I can live as much of my life in alignment with work that feels good being around people that feel good in environments that feel good that will be a success and to me that's where I landed and what I love most about it is you can achieve it each and every day it's not like relying on one final outcome it's like did I show up as me today and did I do work be around people that feel good we are so aligned and alike in this way because what we talk about a lot in this podcast too is are you doing what brings you Joy and you can say sure I'm doing what brings me joy but if you ask yourself that question and really dive in deep maybe

Speaker 2: you're not and I completely understand being in a corporate role I worked for the LA Dodgers and Marriott hotels and AT&T where you know you can do so much more for the company and the corporation but you're in that little box and they don't necessarily want you to so it seems you made the right leap for you to go run your business and launch your podcast and now you can take all of those things to whatever level you want to and you're not stuck feeling that stifled feeling

Speaker 1: yeah they really do keep you in boxes in ways they have to right they have to have these systems and structures and I don't mean that negatively but when you're sitting somewhere and you just want more

Speaker 2: I think it's that want more feeling exactly it's like you know there's something more for you and so yeah you mentioned the podcast where as an entrepreneur I need to connect with people and I actually I don't think I'm using the best methodology to make the impact I because I still desired impact even though I wasn't using that as my definition of success I really want to speak and use my voice and it was calling to me but for the longest time that's a waste of my time because it doesn't pay it's not going to benefit the business I don't want to talk about sleep all day I want to talk about life I push it down I push it down and like you said I didn't give myself permission to do what lit me up because I didn't see the ROI and we're so conditioned to think your dreams need to make logical sense and it's linear and go all in on one thing and don't like play like we have this innate desire to play and do M multiple things we don't give ourselves

Speaker 1: permission so true and I think as moms too and I don't know if you went through this but I had two babies at once and I went from supporting myself in La since I was 19 years old and building a corporate career and then launching she built it to sitting in the the nursery by myself with two babies that didn't talk back to me and so I found myself consuming so much content and then you think I need to connect and I miss Business Development and coming up with

Speaker 2: an idea and making that happen it sounds like you might have gone through similar experiences from wanting that connection

Speaker 1: yeah for me I never loved the baby stage so I didn't have twins but I had them very close together 15 months not necessarily like on purpose because my first one took me three years to conceive and basically I had him in like six months I was like we better try again because it could take another three years and then the universe is like haha you're pregnant right away which was a blessing and amazing but I had them really close together I am not a mom that loves the baby Sage I was fortunate enough to to have like a beautiful maternity leave program with my corporate job which is another reason I did stay longer cuz they pay for my fertility treatments I have beautiful benefits but I ended up hiring a nanny a couple months in I need something more I think when you have kids that close together too you have to have help I'm very independent but I having two babies at once I had to learn to ask for help and I had to learn that that's okay you know and when you're an independent person and you're used to having your career and you kind of know what everything's predictable somewhat and then all of a sudden your life is not predictable at all you think I have to

Speaker 2: be okay asking for help yes I think that self- prioritization is really the most important thing because we talk a lot about self-care and I actually think that a better conversation is about putting yourself first because in those moments it's really not self-care that you need you don't need a massage and like a even or something you don't need that you actually need it's like a whole mind set of putting yourself first because as women we've taken on this identity that we are Martyrs and we have to give to everybody else and so I think sometimes we have this natural tendency to be caregivers but we confuse that with giving everything of ourselves and so getting into this mindset of putting yourself first I think is one of the best things that I have cultivated through life but it comes from unfortunately growing up in a chaotic childhood where I was not in the best environment where I had to learn early on I had to take care of me because I couldn't rely on my parents necessarily to be the caregivers and the stable support system that I needed I was also the oldest of three and so it was almost a skill set born out of trauma but it has also served me so many times in my life where you feel those moments of chaos and you can get wrapped away in them or you can stop and say wait no one's coming to save me but me so I need to ask for help right here and now and that can play out so many times whether it's you're going through a fertility Challenge and you're just feeling so out of control so it's like centering back to what do I need right here and right now in your business as a mom just in life you if you keep coming back to putting yourself first in those chaotic situations because it's going to continue to be chaotic our whole lives look at the world we want to save the world so badly I feel like right all of us like I'm talking to you I can tell you have a beautiful heart we want to save the world but I really think it really starts with saving ourselves

Speaker 1: first yes and you bring up such a good point putting yourself first what do I need and you know we're we're also kind of conditioned to think oh what I need is a spa day or what I need is a day at the beach or something but maybe that's not really what you need so it's like taking that moment to think about okay if I had time to myself what would really fulfill me what would really

Speaker 2: bring me that Joy yeah the first thing we probably all need is a little more space and time to figure out what we need right it's not always like I know the answer it's like actually first thing I need to create the space to even know what I want figure it out yes which

Speaker 1: is a fair request but again that's not self-care I mean maybe it is you actually kind of have to calendar that in I am going to calendar this in to figure out what it is I actually need and with busy moms and busy people running careers and lives it's so important to do that otherwise we get lost in the the shuffle and especially with social media it's just taken us all to this level of busy which in some ways is amazing but in other ways we got to force ourselves to slow down a little I know and it's a pandemic is such an interesting time in our lives where we we all got to experience that Stillness yet so much more got put in our plate so I can't figure out if we we really were able to cultivate it or not because our nervous systems are just shot from everything going on too so it's even harder to figure out what we need but because our nervous systems are so overloaded it is even more important that we take the space and time to let it calm down they always say like there's a saying that says the solution cannot be created from the same energy that the problem was created if you're feeling chaotic like the first step is getting to an energy that's not chaotic and overwhelmed and then from that space you can typically get a little bit better handle on what you actually need

Speaker 2: yeah more clarity and you can just think so much clearer when you step away from that moment what is one of the most memorable experiences that you have had

Speaker 1: while building your business I've never expected my business to be such a school in myself like learning so much about me I feel like my journey as an entrepreneur I've hit so many beautiful Milestones as far as like revenue or certain press opportunities that I desired or Partnerships but when you do put yourself out there you put yourself through a journey that is almost like it's like unlike anything I've experienced before I took that leap and you learn so much about yourself and it's an amazing opportunity to heal so much these self-limiting beliefs that come up the self-doubt and it's a really it's been a great training ground to really learn more about myself and I already felt like I knew myself the shadow sides the good side the bad side like the insecure they never expected my business to teach me so much about my myself and to serve as such a healing opportunity for myself as well so it's

Speaker 2: more about what's been going on internally than externally you're so right because you wake up some days and you feel great and other days you feel tired and other days you feel like oh this person is or this other business is so much farther than me and then you're also running the business and growing your teams and so you have to learn how to juggle and deal with all of those things so many things comparison setting boundaries managing your emotions it's just an endless list of things that you're working on in in addition to like the actual business and if you're starting something from nothing that also takes it to a whole another level because you have to figure out what it

Speaker 1: is and and explain that and again get the marketing and PR around it and drive the excitement and that is a lot in itself as well yeah it's been the biggest investigation of my life but it's fun when you start to put the pieces of the puzzle together but I've also the biggest learning is just that there is no one way to build a business and so I invite any body listening to release that if they're feeling I got to find all the answers I got to find the right marketing person to build my funnel or leave my corporate job or go all in there's no one way you can find success in so many different paths and so many different stories and what worked for one person is not necessarily going to work for you I mean if I gave you the road map to build Amazon right now it wouldn't work because Amazon already exists that point in time has already passed you are not that founder you don't have the same connection or money no one journey is the same and so going back to your point of comparison too that's the thing I've learned because I so often would look at other businesses and then as a a podcast host myself who's now interviewed so many Founders you realize a lot of these Founders I was comparing myself to they have money and connections I'm a self-funded corporate employee that didn't know anybody who even started a business and I'm comparing myself to somebody who their whole career has been in startups who raised millions of dollars I didn't know that unless I had actually done the research to understand how they got to that level so much faster than me and so now that I've had more of these conversations you realize you can't see from a picture the connections the money the life situation and so I just try my best to just let go

Speaker 2: of any sort of comparison so true and I had that realization one time when someone said to me but Melanie I bought an existing business I just have been so in my head about building my business the way I want to but I wasn't even thinking about how someone else who buys an existing business it's already there all you have to make sure you maintain it and grow it from what it is and that may be a better path too and that's the thing I think sometimes people think that entrepreneurialism is the one-size fits-all path to Freedom you're not happy with your corporate job go start a business it's not it's actually miserable in so many ways it has to really be your thing to actually be your path to freedom and fulfillment because especially a lot of us entrepreneurs we set out on this path to not Be Your Own Boss which you get right away but to be financially free and one in three businesses fail it takes a lot of money to usually scale and create a business which is most of them aren't profitable until you're three or four and so it takes time to actually build that Financial Freedom and it's not guaranteed with the high rates of risk that are involved and so buying an existing business maybe a franchise maybe it's multi-level marketing for you maybe it is staying in corporate and

Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur like there's so many path to finding your own version of freedom I assure you not everybody needs to be an entrepreneur we need so many people to to actually we talked about this before we hit record I'm so passionate about so many people staying in Corporate America even though I left there is change that needs to occur to help employees feel more free in a corporate environment and we need the leaders that are in those spaces to remain my best friend's a lawyer she's a partner at a law firm and I tell her every day I'm like you are there to help change the way they just burn out their employees and it's frowned upon to take their vacation just because they're a lawyer just because they make so much money that's ridiculous everybody deserves a quality of life everybody is multi-dimensional beings that have passions outside of work and families and friends and lives and so if you are in a corporate job and you're feeling I'm not quite feeling free maybe I should start a business maybe there's a way you can impact the company you're working in and existing in right here now or maybe it's getting another job where you're going to feel more free have more autonomy to make that impact that you that you crave one of the things I say a lot is that the beautiful thing is we all like to do different things yes and maybe we start the same business at the same time but we're not going to grow it in the same way and maybe you are someone who thrives in a corporate environment who thrives working with a number of people in an office and that's what brings you Joy and to your point that's okay every should follow what they love to do and find a way to financially follow that Joy yeah and like that was really the impetus for starting my podcast dream life because it's all about what is your dream life the answer needs to come from you and I think the more we start questioning what society's definition of success is what other people tell you will make you happy what other people tell you you should do and you just actually get honest with yourself even if it's ridiculous even if it's not going to make you any money and it's just going to make you happy that is dream life you do enough of what you love suddenly you love your life I have

Speaker 2: so loved our conversation and I asked this question at the end of every podcast and I truly believe it magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your

Speaker 1: joy it is giving yourself permission to move slowly I think that when you get to create with more ease and joy suddenly you're loving the life you're living you're loving the creation versus putting so much pressure on yourself to go fast and make the money I'm a huge advocate of go get a side hustle go get a serving job go get a Consulting Gig if money is the reason you're pushing yourself to go so fast because allowing yourself to go slowly and at your own pace and find peace at the end of the day that you did your best that's where I find the most fulfillment and joy in my business throughout my career I've thought I'm going to take this meantime job and I always called it a meantime job because I knew I had to pay my bills had to support myself I was in LA alone and I would think I'm going to take this job for the meantime while I find and search for what I truly want to do so

Speaker 2: you're so so right thank you so much for joining us today this conversation has been so much fun I'm so excited for you with your business and your podcast you're inspiring so many people so thank you can you share with our listeners how

Speaker 1: and where they can you this has been so fun and yes my podcast is dream life with Tiffany Paul and then my online shop is the slept life.com and then if you're on Instagram you can find me at Tiffany Nicole

Speaker 2: Paul if you are new to she built it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our she built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer Sheil it business Consulting and the Sheil it blog thank you to everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that We crave [Music]