The Confidence Revolution: Shapewear & Self-Love

Speaker 1: [Music] it's also about not trying to be something you're not and really radical acceptance of what you are today and what you look like today and feeling your best now instead of oh if I just lose this or if I just have this no it's about today and being in the moment and being like this is me right now and wearing the garments when you start wearing hiny you really feel it right away you're like I feel better I feel just good and you're ready to go out the door hi I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the shilp podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech and a I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the she built it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings s Joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the shelti podcast thank you for joining us Michelle you are the CEO of piny shapewear tell us about piny and what do you like the most about being a part of the brand it's an interesting story I exited Monroe a year ago I sold my half of the company to my partner and I left apparel and I with no intention of going back especially not taking off like a year and letting the DK settle cuz I had Monroe I started at 17 years ago so I was laying low and I met the founder of piny because somebody else that I work with who's one of my partners now has a digital media analytics company and they were looking at piny and she contacted me the founder Rachel I started to consult for her to start the wholesale component of her business selling her product to retailers because she was only direct to Consumer so as I started working with the business and familiarizing myself with the product I started to get more and more interested because coming from a place where I was selling sweats and t-shirts and just really women's better contemporary they call it for the past 17 years the landscape changed so much the space got so crowded and everything changed price point quality what brands were getting the most attention how much what you had to do to even get your brand to keep banging your drum because of how overcrowded it was and her story was so different from what anything I was used to it was technical apparel and it was shapewear and her story really caught my attention because there was a real purpose to it and that's how I started Monroe as well there was not a lot of like lowkey sweat suits out there that you if you want to go get a coffee you bedazzled or wearing like bubblegum pink and you wanted to be more lowkey and look put together but in a sophisticated way but that was in 2006 so that didn't exist and then now cut two I start working with Rachel and she has the shapewear product that I wasn't really familiar with shapewear set for spanks where it holds you in it provides compression but it was shapewear that's meant to be seen so you don't have to wear it under your clothes and her story was that she was fat shamed when she was young around 9 years old in a culture according to her like fat shaming was very common and she would go into her mother's drawers and take her shapewear and put it on so when she went to parties her aunts and cousins and uncles wouldn't comment on her body and she would feel more secure so as she got older she realized she wanted to still wear the shapewear but she wanted to look cute in it so she started constructing these lace bras and safety pinning them to highwaisted underwear to feel cute in this quote unquote shapewear that didn't exist she was in Amazon for 10 years and then she decided to finally take the jump and create bodysuits and shaping garments that really are cute and you can throw a Blazer on put them on with jeans and you don't have to worry about what you're wearing over it it's just one and done you put it on and you're wearing a shaping t-shirt you're wearing a shaping tank bodysuit or she added lace components she launched the brand and then her second year in business she experienced 400% growth which really in itself is incredible that she kept up with that cuz that's very challenging as a business owner but then it was really spoke to the market there was a need for what she created and there was a thirst for it and she was quenching that thirst to provide shaping garments that women and girls really feel good in and look cute and don't have to hide their physique and they can feel proud of who they are and it's all about self love and body acceptance we all look different and we all should be grateful for what we have and how we are and embracing the reality of what we look like and loving it instead of hiding it and we all want to feel good when we walk out the door and and when when when you first reached out to me I thought shapewear but when I looked at it it's so beautiful it's something you'd throw a sweater over or a jacket over and I'm sure you walk out of the house was just feeling good how is piny supporting body positivity it is all about body positivity Rachel's story speaks to that but it's also about not trying to be something you're not and really radical acceptance of what you are today and what you look like today and feeling your best now instead of oh if I just lose this or if I just have this no it's about today and being in the moment and being like this is me right now and wearing the garments honestly your posture feels better you feel more supportive it has these compression components to the Garment that from a wellness perspective it helps blood flow compression is a huge thing in the wellness industry now I just had surgery last year and that's the first thing they tell you to have faster healing is wearing compression garments and when you start wearing piny you really feel it right away you're like I feel better I feel just good and you're ready to go out the door I love that reminder of feeling good how we are right now and that reminder of every time you put it on to love yourself as you are today absolutely it's like this Push Pull we're going in that direction but there's always this negative selft talk of oh if I just do this or do this skin treatment what if you just didn't and again like I said radical acceptance of loving and embracing every aspect of who you are and not to sound cliche but you are good enough you're enough you really are not to just say it to believe it you built Monroe an incredible company and now as a CEO of piny what do you think is the most important element of leadership when scaling a business and growing a company the morale when you break anything down in the world and what life is it's everything's energy bringing a certain kind of energy making people feel supported in all aspects and letting go of ego it's not about that but showing up wholeheartedly and if everybody does that it just everything flows so much better it's so true someone said to me recently on a recording I look for energy and of course you look for a team member that can do the work but also the energy is so important what kind of energy are we all bringing and we all feed off of each other and we all feed off of our energy so as a CEO just being very self-aware and having that self-awareness growth is not without its challenges and the apparel industry is not an easy one share with us one of your most memorable challenges and how are you able to work through it in apparel the most memorable is always it's pretty much always the same it's always production issues inventory when something goes wrong being a really quick flexible Problem Solver other challenge in running a business is always moving through cash flow issues because that's always going to happen it's going to be Yin yangang you're always going to be working with trying to scale and then it's this fine balance with inventory and you mentioned 400% growth with piny that's challenging so she didn't have partners then like she does now with the people who've come in at that point it's an amazing thing it's a blessing and a curse you're the CEO of her founding the company it's about keeping your head above water there spread so thin the biggest takeaway from that kind of growth and just business in general it's all about endurance and when I first met Rachel I felt her energy and I felt her being spread so thin you have to get into athlete mode and treat yourself like an athlete business owners entrepreneurs are no different than athletes you have to be able to have an endurance that most people don't have and training your mind and your body to have that kind of endurance to level up and you're giving the best advice and you are the best person to give it because you have twins let's talk about your family life for a minute and two other kids so you have four kids I have twinss and I thought that was busy and you built Monroe which is this incredible company and now as the CEO of your new Venture which is so exciting you've taught yourself how to do this so you're so good at being able to train others because what you sustain you run a marathon every day with your multifaceted lifestyle so that's such good advice and it's good advice for anyone listening because recently I thought I'm not getting enough done in a day so what do I need to do so I started doing 5 minute meditations in the morning and now I'm doing the meditations at night I'm writing out my list how can you get more of that athlete mentality in the day and what can you do to better yourself so I think doing a meditation I know it sounds like for so many people they're like oh my God that's what everybody says to do but it really does work I think that five minutes is like gold I told myself I've got five minutes to do anything and when I I don't do it in the morning I notice yeah you're changing the neuroplasticity in your brain so it all starts there right you're changing your whole thought process and you're teaching your brain how to live in the moment and be fully conscious and when you're fully conscious and you're living in the moment you really can do anything that's why meditation so valuable so if you are in the moment and you're tackling whatever you're doing in the moment you're not thinking ahead you're not thinking of the past you're in a true state of being and also having four kids close together taught me there's so many lessons in that but I the biggest lesson I always tell people like my bar is below the floor my expectations are non-existent anymore and I really do believe as you start having all these expectations it really is the thief of Joy it's like I'm so much easier on myself start with meditation if I don't meditate in the morning for 5 10 minutes like I'm not going to beat myself up and like I'll figure it out I'm like okay I'll just do it at this time it didn't work out I'm not so hard on myself anymore I used to be much harder on myself but I realized with four kids you just got to be able to just put one foot in front of the other and that's it just living in the moment that's such good advice because sometimes that perfectionism to any degree can hinder success can hold you back from things so it's such good advice I to Otis art school and I have my bachelor in fashion design Fine Arts that is what they teach you in design school because it's so intense and it's so competitive and stressful they don't teach you how to design they teach you the technicalities of it but really they teach you how to finish a project I just need to get this done I don't need to focus on how perfect it needs to be all the time because really that's most of the battles executing cuz nothing's ever perfect and then I guess that leads into the workplace who's executing that's really those are the kind of people you really essentially want to work with not people that are like getting so caught up in the details of everything you'll never get anything done so true magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy I asked this at the end of every podcast episode how do you make sure to find and live your joy trying to live in the moment brings me the most Joy because there's so much joy and the natural wonders of life to be in the moment really makes you aware of the beauty in just your surroundings and it makes you appreciate everything you have and approach everything with a gratitude you're seeking less and you're just enjoying what is radical acceptance really makes me feel peaceful which is joyful to me I love that radical acceptance and who doesn't want that yeah it's the way I love it thank you for joining us today and telling us all about piny I went and looked at the website I want to buy some and be able to wear it around please tell us how and where we can find you piny is available on wear pin.com our e-commerce platform and Bloomingdales and amazon.com thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave