How Does She Do It?

Ep 112: Heather Barber - Building Wealth Through Resilience

• Kara Flowers • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Join us on this episode of "How Does She Do It?" as Kara Flowers interviews Heather Barber, the entrepreneurial powerhouse behind Queen of Wraps. Heather shares her inspiring journey from starting her first business at 23 to owning five successful companies. Learn how she navigated economic downturns, balanced motherhood, and discovered the keys to building wealth and resilience. Tune in for valuable insights and practical tips from the Queen of Wraps herself.

How to Reach Heather Barber:

LinkedIn: Heather Barber - www.linkedin.com/in/heathergriffithbarber


Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of How Does She Do It? We hope you found inspiration and insight in this conversation. Go ahead and subscribe for more stories that uplift and empower.

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Remember, each episode is a step towards a more empowered you. Keep pushing boundaries and challenging norms. Until next time, stay inspired!

Kara:

Welcome to the, how does she do it podcast? I'm joined today by Heather Barber, Heather. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. And for our listeners who haven't had the pleasure to get to know you just yet, tell us a little bit about you and what you do.

Heather:

Okay. So I'm in Salt Lake City and I'm literally the queen of wraps. Like if you drive down I 15, I am just an institution right there on I 15 in downtown Salt Lake. And I started the company when I was 23. I'm now 42. I have five companies. And I know a million ways not to do things.

Kara:

I bet you do, my goodness. So, for anyone who's listening and thinking, Queen of wraps, is she a musician? Is this hair rap right? Is she going to break it down? Yeah. Explain to us, uh, for the listener. What does that mean? Okay, so,

Heather:

wraps, like vehicle wraps. Like if you see a bus, or a plumber's truck, or it's just like a huge giant sticker that goes on a vehicle and that's a front end business. Uh, but. I own four more that support that up. Yeah,

Kara:

that's incredible. So if we're gonna roll it into a nice package, you're also the queen of marketing and not online marketing, but like real life in person experience based marketing,

Heather:

ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yep. You got

Kara:

it. Okay. I love it. So tell us a little bit about. The 23 year old you, where was she in life and what was she thinking when she chose queen

Heather:

of wwraps? Oh my. So I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. Like I was literally the only eight year old with a job. And so I, and my dad was the kind of guy we grew up on the country club, Willow Creek country club. And my dad was the kind of guy that was like, He said, dad, can I borrow a dollar? And he'd say, when are you going to pay me back? Okay. So I was under the impression we were living like hand to mouth, you know, type of thing. And, and so I had to go to work, got to go to work. So I've always been very, very goal oriented. And so I started college at the university of Utah when I was 15 and I graduated from the university of Utah when I was 18. Started my master's when I was 19. And of course I knew everything at that point fricking genius. And so,

Kara:

but also kind of, so you, you graduated early, you got a master's degree early.

Heather:

Yeah, but like booksmart is completely different from like real world. The other thing is, is like ignorance is bliss. So we started I didn't know anyone, you know, because I'm 22, 23 years old. So my brothers and I started the business together and it started, it's literally the craziest story you've ever heard. So one of the family businesses we had was an inflatable company. I'm talking about like giant gorillas. On car locks and did you do the woo these things? Oh, yeah, you got it. You got it. Yeah. What are they called wave? Oh my gosh. Wacky wavy dudes. Wacky wavy

Kara:

dudes. Yeah. Okay. Classy.

Heather:

Classy. So it started with that my younger brother was running that business so he was 21, and he was running it with him and a guy that didn't speak English. And my brother's just an absolute genius. I mean, unbelievable. So in the first year, he took that business from a hundred thousand to a million. Wow. And yeah, he's, he's literally incredible. So that business was up and going and we were, you know, Mainly car dealers were our customers. And in Utah, there are two main car dealers, Ken Garf and Laird Schmiller. So it wasn't exactly, you know, we were hitting up 24 different brands. We were hitting up two main brands that had 24 different locations. So it's a pretty. You know, pretty easy stuff. So once you're in with these guys, they don't want to be making any other calls. So they would ask my brother, Hey, can this gorilla hold up a banner that says 0 percent financing? Keep in mind, like the businesses run out of a storage shed with all these giant inflatables. And my brother says, yes, of course you do that. Of course. Right. Why not? So he enlists the help of my older brother Nate, and he's a real technophile and he figured out, okay, we need to get this printer. We need to do this. We need to do that. And so he was working in, in the family business with Matt and then the car dealers asked. Hey, can you do vehicle wwraps? And of course, Matt again said yes, never heard of a vehicle wrap, never had seen a vehicle wrap, had no idea how you get a vehicle wrap. Just like me, I had to Google, I had to look up your website. What is this queen

Kara:

of wwraps?

Heather:

What is going on? Oh, yeah. Okay. So this was this, keep in mind, this is like 2006. So this is like revolutionary technology here. And And so my younger brother said, Hey, I think we have something here. There's a huge hole in the market in the bigger cities, New York, LA. There's a lot of this advertising, but in Salt Lake, there's a complete void. And so being young and dumb and stupid and 23. So my older brother's 24, I'm 23 and my younger brother's 21. And we're like, Go for it. I love that. Why not? We have nothing tying us down. We have no nothing, literally nothing. So, excuse me, let me go get a drink really quick. Sorry, it's so dry when it snows here. It takes all of the moisture out of the air. Yeah, absolutely. Take, that's all right. Good. I love a mug, a good mug. All right, there we go. Okay, so older brother 24, me 23. Younger Brothers 21, Ignorance is Bliss. We just said, let's go for it. So no bank would touch us. Literally no one, because why would you give you know, 20 somethings? Mon startup money. So we went to the Bank of Dad and we said, Hey, I'm sorry, the Bank of Dad? Yeah, bank of Dad. And keep in mind that this was like, when interest rates were like 5%, he decided we should pay 8%, which is a subject of contention because the, the loan was for 15 years and we paid 8% for 15 years. On that money, you,

Kara:

you actually went to the bank of Dad? This was not like dad, give me some money. See you later. No, you paid 3 percent above what the interest rate was. And you had a 15 year term on the loan.

Heather:

Yeah. And keep in mind that. 2006, the, the loans were 5%. They went down to 2%. I was paying 6 percent above market, and he would not let us refinance because we had made a deal at 8%, and he was reinvesting that money. You know, he's like, I gotta get my return. You guys are a total cwrapshoot. I gotta get my return. That's my dad. Don't you worry. That's my dad. It's like not gonna happen.

Kara:

So yeah, 15 years. He's been, I have to say, he's doing something right for the three of you to be crushing it in that way. I can't really fault the guy.

Heather:

I mean, we learned something, but man alive, that check was hard to write every month. And we're like, we would beg him, dad, can we please refinance? He's like, nope, you made a commitment. Nope. You made a commitment. Okay. Whatever. But anyway. So yeah, we went to the bank of dad and he gave us our first loan, a whopping, you know, 50 grand and we literally paid it for 15 years. And now I have five companies and I've stepped back from the day to day business. So when I was 30, I had my first daughter and she It was difficult to say the least. And so I wasn't planning on being a stay at home mom. I just kind of fell into the role. And now I've been a stay at home mom for 12 years and my youngest just went to kindergarten. And so I'm ready to get back in it.

Kara:

Yeah, you said so much. I need to know what happened with, so what happened with Queen of wraps? You guys got this offer to do the wraps, but like, how did that go? You guys got the loan from dad, you figured out the tech and you had your first client with one of these car companies. And then like, tell me in the short version, what happened over the last 20 years. She's 20 years.

Heather:

Okay. So a couple of big things happened. Number one, the recession. And again, we were too dumb and stupid and ignorance is bliss. So we started the company in 2006 relatively little competition. As soon as people, you know, saw a new product in the market, we started getting competitors. Meanwhile, You know, Utah has a very, very, very strong economy. So we didn't really feel it until 2009, 2010. So our business was humming along and we also had, had a diversified business where we had the giant inflatables we had. Banner printing that type of thing. Large format printing and then the wrap. So we had three product lines, I guess is what you would say at that point. Three streams of income coming in there and when The recession really hit in Utah. None of the other companies had diversified. They were focusing solely on vehicle wwraps, which there is a razor thin margin in vehicle wwraps. And so they all went out of business. So we were able to survive that literally just by holding on and having other products. And not only did we hold on during the recession, like, uh, I think 2009. Is when we got the 17, 000 square foot building on I 15. Wow. Yeah. So we went from a storage shed, like, you know, I'm talking like to get into the building, you had to lift up a garage door to go into the building. And then to this building on I 15. And we knew we needed advertising. When the recession happens, The pie gets smaller and smart companies need a bigger piece of that pie. And we didn't understand what we were doing at the time, because again, we were too young, no real world experience, but we were able to expand our reach and get a bigger piece of that pie. Whereas our competitors were just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and eventually going away. We were able to expand our market through this recession. And then only years later, when I was actually like a business professor, did I realize what we had done in. You know, getting a bigger piece of a smaller pie. So yeah, that's, that's basically it. The other thing that really helped us as we, uh, Larry Miller, which is a Utah based huge company, it's national. They have an extremely harmonious relationship with Toyota nationwide. And they were able to hook us up with Saatchi and Saatchi, who is their ad at Toyota nationwide. Ad agency. And so we on a whim presented a deal to them and said, we will make all of the printing, like the commercial printing in every Toyota dealership in the Northeast, the Southeast, Texas Intermountain West markets. And we really, it was like throwing spaghetti against the wall. We didn't think we were going to get the deal. And we did. And so that's been humming along for, oh, I don't know, 10, 12 years, something like that of these huge orders from Toyota nationwide to the point where we had to form another company.

Kara:

Wow. And this all was running while you stepped away to focus on your family.

Heather:

Yeah. So important lessons that I learned there literally my face is on the side of the building, like queen of wwraps. Like I'm going to send you a picture to insert right here because my face is on the side of the building. And up until that point, I just thought, you know, you have a baby and you just move on with your life. You just keep

Kara:

what you're doing first time. Mom things. Tell me about it.

Heather:

I completely get it. Why not? Right? Like I can work on this. This is how old I am. Just do my Blackberry and I'll be fine. And my older daughter came out. She was early and she never breastfed, never took a bottle. She ended up in the hospital pretty much the entire first year of her life. And she had a surgically implanted feeding tube for four years. So life was a little rough. So I became a stay at home mom very quickly. Yeah,

Kara:

that is unimaginable. That's unimaginable. Uh, and I'm curious from a personal perspective to go from crushing it as an entrepreneur to being a full time mom, assuming like we all do,

Heather:

excuse me.

Kara:

You can, if you need to cough, you can either just mute the mic or give me a finger and I'll pause. Okay. All right. Thank you. So going from crushing it as an entrepreneur and having that same mentality is the first time mom, which all high achieving first time moms were like, we're going to crush this birth. We're going to crush breastfeeding. We're going to crush it. We're just going to crush this. And of course it never goes the way that we want it to, but we end up learning things we would not have learned otherwise. What did you learn in this time?

Heather:

Oh my goodness. Way too many things and too many things. I didn't want to learn. I'd like to bring that up Like these are just lessons that oh my goodness. So Here's one example I just figured kids ate like they just like baby z right and I'm, like what the heck's wrong with this kid, you know, not eating i'm taking her to therapy. We're in the hospital We're doing all these things and I am I felt like You I was swimming upstream. Like I was one of those salmon that was, you know, trying to get over a waterfall or whatever. I thought I was going to muscle my way through these problems that, Oh, give me a couple of weeks, this kid will be on the schedule, we're going to do baby wise, we're going to do baby signing tech. We're going to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And. That's not what happened. That is not what happened. So I don't know three or four months of trying to muscle through this. Oh, just to make life even more fun. My daughter only slept 45 minutes at a time, 24 hours a day. Oh, that was probably six months. Oh, honey, 45 minutes at a time because she wasn't getting the nutrients that her body needed. And so she would just wake up and wake up and cry. It was horrific, but I. I was under the impression I could do it all. I was under the impression like, I graduated from college when I was 18. I started this business. There is no way motherhood is going to defeat me. You know, I am going to muscle my way through this thing. And I, you are laughing and

Kara:

you

Heather:

know, naivety. Like I was just

Kara:

so naive. But you know what? You're saying naive now. I And while I think that is a true perspective, the reality is life showed you, as it does a lot of us, that you can control more things than the average person believes they can. That's why you're successful quicker. You can, you can collapse time, you can perform higher, you can be more efficient, you have something about you that makes you see things others don't see, and that's why you succeed. So why wouldn't we think that about motherhood? Of course I don't think that

Heather:

I don't. Yeah. So I, I went in with that exact same attitude and I literally tried to swim upstream for months. I tried to muscle it. I tried to do it all my own. I just thought, okay, this is what the deal is. And so we're Mormon. We live in Salt Lake. We're Mormon, not unusual. But a woman who I didn't even know, like I vaguely knew her from church. I like knew her name or nothing. We weren't BFF, nothing, absolutely nothing. She came over to my house a couple times and I could see her because I was sitting there holding this kid that wouldn't eat and I could see out my window. My window and she'd knock and then she'd leave and then she'd knock and leave. Third time she came over, I said, Zach, I don't want to talk to her. I do not want to talk to Christina. I don't want anyone to see me like this. I haven't slept in two months. I literally am just in tears. I've got this kid that won't eat. Like at that point, she had a feeding tube in her nose and was in a full body brace because she had hip dysplasia, which is another issue that we were dealing with. And I just said, I can't, I can't do anything right now. And she just sat on the porch. She's like, okay, that's fine. But I'm not leaving without talking to Heather. And my husband came back in and he said, Christina's not leaving. I said, what does she want? What does this woman want? I mean, seriously, like, of course, I'm thinking she's going to ask me for something because You know, I'm like super woman, like, why not ask? And anyway, finally I go to the door and doing up my bra, you know, my, my nursing bra and like, Clipping it back. Yeah. Yep. Clip it up. Okay. What do you want, lady? You know? And she said, I just have this feeling that you need some help and I took the liberty of making this sign up sheet and all the women in the ward, all the women in the congregation were just hawing over this sheet. And I made for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you are going to have someone like a seasoned mother come for two hours so you can sleep. Because everyone had heard that my baby would only sleep for 45 minutes at a time. So three days a week, I had these women come in, totally took the initiative. And so what I learned from that is number one, she knew what I needed before I needed it because she had been there at number two. I learned I'd always been like the person providing the help. I had always been the superstar. I had never been on the other side of the coin. I learned to receive because by not receiving, I was denying others the opportunity to serve. Wow. And they needed that. And I needed that. And that is a symbiotic relationship that I've had to learn that lesson many, many, many times. But that was the first time that I learned that.

Kara:

And see, this is the thing about motherhood for high performing women. It's almost a sanctification process that teaches you how to be closer to God. It teaches you how to really walk in the fullness of who you're created to be, because you can't muscle through it. And You know, think your daughter, she's how old? She's 12. She's 12, right? She's doing great. You survived that time. And it's because you had to learn to be open to receive. And my God, can we just talk about the value? Of new moms having other moms around you, isn't it, it's just so chaotic from, in your case, all of these physical complications that you had no idea were coming your way. For me, when our children came out, both of them were kind of like twisted up. So we had to have chiropractor, lactation consultants. My son had a tongue tie, lip tie, cheek tie. So we had to get that corrected. Like all of these things, you don't know what's going to happen, but having. Another mom reach out to you and say like, Hey, how are you doing? Right? Our midwife, we had had two home births. Our midwife came to us after our first daughter was born four days later and said, So, did you guys have a breakdown yet? And I was like, Yes. Because even though it's unpredictable, especially being a first time mom, it's predictably chaotic. Agreed.

Heather:

And In, in the past, even 50 years ago or 40 years ago, I'm 42 women had other women supporting them. So like my grandma literally drove to my mother's house. for weeks, every single day to help her with my siblings, to help her with the baby, where we went off track here, where it used to be a community event. They showed you how to breastfeed. They showed you how to, Oh, we'll try this. Try that your sister in law's your sisters, your, if you couldn't nurse. Someone else in the area could help. I don't know where we got this idea that we are, you know, a solo show here and millions of years mothers have been helping each other. Why do we think we can do it all? Why are we superwoman all of a sudden? Why, why is that even an option? You know, it's

Kara:

a great, it's a great question. It's a topic I'm so passionate about in general is just educating women, even on pregnancy, on child birthing options. Like you don't have to do any of the things, the way you see it being portrayed in mass media. You can, you can, you have more choice. However, because we are so disconnected. We don't know that we have choices, we don't know, especially as strong women, how to ask another woman to support us when we are literally the most broken and vulnerable we have ever been because we just grew a life, and we became a portal for life, we gave everything that we had. I don't know about you, but My experience of birthing, it was completely magical. The moment that I could feel my daughter coming down the birth canal, I could, I could cry just thinking about how magical it was. And then pushing for me was so hard. I had given everything that I had. I had a 24 hour long labor. It was very, very long. And I was exhausted and this baby had to come out. And I remember that moment of surrender with my midwife, my doula, my midwife's assistant, and my husband there. I remember thinking to myself, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And I felt a contraction come on and everybody was like, okay, push. And they'd coach me through it. And it was like, God went, Oh, and somehow I found the energy to push out this little human. It's those moments and experiences. that aren't new. My story isn't a new story, but it's the first time I'd ever heard it. Because of what you're saying, we are not connecting. We're not sharing. Not only our birthing stories, but But what it's like postpartum what it's like walking away from a very successful career for 12 years to care for your family. And that's why you're here, Heather.

Heather:

Get the word out. Well, so I want to go back to something that you said. So you said there was a moment where you just felt inspired and just felt, you know, did you feel like you were going upstream, and as soon as you surrendered. Yeah. Everything fell into place. A hundred percent. That is something that I learned. I don't know if I could have learned it any other way. I don't know if I would have been receptive to that concept or like really grasp it. I mean, You're like, Oh yeah, I get that. I get that. But until you are in that situation and you have the, like, come to Jesus moment, like this kid's got to come out, he's going to be cut out or it's going to go out. You know, the birth there are only two choices, you know, this kid isn't going to stay in here forever. It gives you a new, it just changes your paradigm. It just, it, the only way I can describe it is going upstream to going downstream and just letting those things fall into place. Because like you said. People have done this before. People have, have made it through these things. There is a natural process. There is a way to do these things. There is a harmonious energy to hit. But if you're going against it, actively going against that, it's going to be a tough, you know,

Kara:

Yeah. Upstream battle. You can't white knuckle your way upstream. You can't force it, no matter how hard you kick. There is something about surrender to the way things need to be, and not only, not even from just a spiritual perspective or a conceptual perspective, but in life, there is a way things There's a way that things work and I think motherhood is a perfect example of it because seven billion people on the planet. Listen, people will survive. The one thing we gonna do, we gonna survive. Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. Sometimes you got to let go of, well, I'm going to do it this way and I'm going to do that way. And this is how it's going to be. And when you let go of that. It's, I think what we're discovering here, which is certainly true for me, is the ability to surrender and allow things to go in the way that they should for me. I say it's God's plan. God has a divine way that he knows is best. When we're able to surrender to that and know, hey, we're good. You can graduate at 18. You can do all these things. You can build a multi million dollar business. You can do all these things. And you're still not as good as God. Well, yeah, agree. Yes. Yes. Yes. And that's that sort of moment that unfolding in that moment, I think is an opportunity for motherhood to really change us as entrepreneurs.

Heather:

And changes for the better. I would have never thought that being a mother would make me a better businesswoman. Preach. Please. It has. It's, it's so, it's so different. It's so, so different. And it's, so I have two daughters. I have a 12 year old and I have a five year old. And it is, it's made me a better leader. It's made me a better more. Have more emotional fluency where I don't have to be, you know, that hard ass all the time. I don't have, I can be vulnerable. I can be authentic. I don't have, gosh, man, I am stumbling on my, over my thoughts and words here. It's motherhood has made me a better business woman. It's made me number one, more patient way more pay. I remember thinking we had, we had one employee and I'm like, Why can't he just do the work that I have given him in the amount of time that I have set forth? And then this is a true story. Like this is full on true story. The other day you know, my daughter, my five year old got ready for church, put on a dress, put on the shoes. Go there. On the way home, I realized she doesn't have underwear on. And I said, did you not have underwear the whole time? And she said, and I quote, you never told me to put it on. I said, that's number one. Oh wait, stop. It broke up. You got to go back and say, she told me and I quote, say that again. So she told me, and I quote, you never told me to put it on. So that's number one, you wake up in the morning and you put on underwear. First thing, first, first thing, let's just make a general statement from now on. The underwear is always. You know, Warren. And so I had that experience 20 years after I, I was working with this employee. And now I realized, you know what, perhaps I should have started with the basics with this guy, you know, let's be a little bit more patient. Let's be a little bit more loving. Let's be a little bit more understanding. Motherhood's also helped me be more vulnerable. In Salt Lake, I'm, I'm a unicorn. So I'm. Female founder and Mormon. So I've got, you know, like three strikes against me pretty much. Like I, when I go into a room, it's 75 men and me, and I've always. cultivated that more I don't want to use the word aggressive, but more masculine energy. And after being a stay at home mom for 12 years, that vulnerability and that, that feminine energy actually serves me better.

Kara:

Yeah.

Heather:

And I wish I could go back into the, some of those rooms where I thought I was commanding the troops. And I thought, you know, this is what the deal is. And this is what I wish I could have learned that lesson earlier in life. I would have been a much better leader and a much better boss, but you know, let's talk about it.

Kara:

Let's talk about it where you are now and where it's taken you. I agree. Motherhood broke me of my tendency. To force things into being, and not in a unethical or ill mannered way, but because I could, I did. And that's how I achieved so quickly and so much. When you become a mom, and so much is out of your control, you learn surrender, you learn patience. I agree with all of that. So here you are, having five businesses, uh, making multi million dollars with these businesses. You take 12 years out to be a mom. You learn all of these lessons and what now Heather?

Heather:

So take it over the world again. So I learned a very distinct lesson that if I don't put my first things first, they're just not going to get done. Which I wish I had, Oh, I do. I have my phone by me. I don't know if you guys can see this. I'll send you a picture, but these are my top five things. Okay, so these are my rocks. And what I have learned is, you know, the old analogy you put the big rocks in first and then you put the smaller rocks and then the pebbles and the grain and then, you know, eventually you'll be able to fit all the stuff in, but you don't put the big rocks in first. It's not going to happen. So right now I have a second career because I'm not going to go back to my businesses that are humming, you know, they're all doing well, they're doing great checks coming on the first, if they're not there on the second, I'm down at the office, like, Hey, where's my money, you know,

Kara:

still above. Don't check me, I'm still a bus. I'm

Heather:

gonna need those checks and I'm gonna need them immediately. So those businesses are all going well. I have, I put people in positions to succeed and they have far surpassed anything I could have done. I would literally just mess the thing up at this point. So, that's going well. I have this insatiable urge, I mean, just like I have a fire lit underneath me to download what's up here. Into the next generation share this information. I feel like I'm Hamilton. Like why do you write like you're running out of time? I mean, that's literally my life. I'm writing a book. I give keynote speeches all over the place. I do, you know, podcasts constantly. I just feel that urgency to help download this information. So people don't have to make 20 years, making the mistakes that I did, you know, that they can be successful earlier and understand these lessons. Earlier, and one of the big things that I. Center, all of my talks, center all, you know, the topic that I work on is your five rocks first. So my five are, I'll show you my family, my religion.'cause Mormonism is not a passive religion. I mean, it is like a full-time job being born, you know, so working out, eating well. And then this middle one is my 500 keynotes, so I wanna give 500 keynotes in my lifetime. I don't know if that's possible. I don't know if I'm going to do it. I'm a number 18 right now, but that's what I want to go for. That's, those are my five things. So, if those are truly the most important things to me, family being number one, religion being number two, You know, physical body number three, eating and keynotes in that exact order. When my youngest went to kindergarten, my husband and I sat down and said, okay, well, you know, now I've got all this time and, and I want to do this and I want to do that. And he brought up, well, why don't we get a nanny from three to seven just to run the kids around, get dinner going, get the kids going to bed, you know, that type of thing. And we kind of fleshed out that idea a little bit. And we both came to the realization if family is our number one priority, then I need to be available for those kids. So I am running the carpool. I am, you know, going to cheerleading. I am watching my little one at cheerleading. I'm week to week. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you're doing your handstand now. Oh, we're so excited. And actually following up and being interested in being engaged in these kids lives. And I'm voting with my time. You know, I, I could be out giving speeches all day, every day. That's very doable. Cause like I said, I'm a unicorn in salt Lake. Like I'm a unicorn in Utah. I get a lot of requests to sleep, sleep, speak at evening events. And I just have to say. No, that's not going, you know, to work for our family. What I get in return, I swear, those kids, like they sit at the dinner table. How was school? How was, you know, how's. Susie. Fine. You know, just nothing. But in the car, it's like I give them truth serum or something. I mean, it's just whores out of these girls. And I hear about this and that and, you know, all the minutiae of their lives, but that's important to them. So it needs to be important to me. And so. Yeah. I become part of that narrative. I become, you know, involved in the friends. I become, you know, the decision making, the, the fleshing those ideas out. And I'm literally voting with my time. I am, I am saying, okay, that's my number one thing.

Kara:

And you get to stay involved in the thing that's most important to you because you have made that the priority. And it's clear to you, it's clear to your husband and it's clear to your kids that they are the priority. I love that. Absolutely.

Heather:

And my little one. So let's sorry, let me interrupt you for one second. So like my little one says So and so is going to Disney world so and so is going on. Uh, disney cruise and my answer to that is I'm driving you around at three in the afternoon. So that's your fun. We're not going on a Disney cruise because your mom is spending half the day driving you around. I am the Disney cruise. Let's put on Spotify. Yeah, literally. Yeah. You know, we're voting with our time. That's what, if that's, what's the most important, then, you know, we're not taking 40, 000 cruises. That's it doesn't exist in our lives.

Kara:

One of my mantras when I started my business was given to me by a mentor. At the time, I did not recognize how vitally important it would be to anchor myself to this statement. The motto was this, I will build my business around my life. I will not build my life around my business. And it didn't become important to me when I was single, living in LA, living my best life. Right. With my brand new luxury car and my beautifully decorated apartment. And I had all this time and I could do whatever I wanted. I stayed up late. I went to fancy dinners. I went to the beach traveled. It did not occur to me that my business had become my life until I got married. Yeah. And then when we had kids. That time in my life was really chaotic. I talk about this in some of the other episodes, but essentially I got married, sold everything to travel the world with my husband within weeks. I found out my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had three, three months, 12 months to live. And then we got married very quickly and then I got pregnant. And my dad died and we were homeless in essence and then moved across the country to be closer to family to have a baby. And that was literally two and a half years ago for me.

Heather:

Oh my gosh.

Kara:

Right. Post

Heather:

COVID.

Kara:

Wow. Yeah. It was 2021 is when everything really broke down. And the thing about the thing about it is my business only survived because of that mantra that my business has to support my life. My life cannot support my business. So I did. I did lose clients when I was in Kansas where I'm from. We didn't travel the world. Obviously we went to Croatia for like two months. We went to Mexico City. We went to other places and then we came back. And I did have to tell a client, look, you're not my priority. I'm so sorry. It took me two days to respond to you, but I'm in Kansas with my dad, taking him to chemo. And that person wasn't very gracious about it. And I was okay with it. It in the moment, it hurt. But at the end of the day, my big rock was my family as well. And the thing about being an entrepreneur, I think you'll agree with this. Is you find a way to survive through it. If that's what you're meant to do, your business should support you. And if it doesn't support you, great thing about being skilled as an entrepreneur is you will find a way to, to change that business. It will have to change. And if it doesn't,

Heather:

that's okay. No, that's the other thing is it's okay. If, if it doesn't fit your lifestyle anymore, move on, you know, do something else. You now have all these tools, all these newly learned skills. I think people are afraid of making, you know, the wrong mistakes so many times. They're like, well, you know, I put this much time and effort into doing this, you know, might as well keep going. Interesting. Thing that you just said about about the client that You parted ways with. My business has changed in that like attracts like. So I am getting speaking engagements from 9 a. m. to 3 in the afternoon. Okay. Do you know who can come at 9am to 3 in the afternoon? You got like, and young people. That's who you have. That's literally who you have. So I am able to hit these target audiences. So downloading this information, it, Here and, and working with students. I absolutely love working. We have tons of colleges around here. The university of Utah, BYU, Utah Valley University Utah state. I mean, we have so many colleges just right here and I'm working with so many students because that's, who's available at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday. And so it kind of just. You know, again, that upstream downstream thing, if I want to download what's in my head, the person who wants to listen to that information is probably not the 35 year old tech bro, you know, who's like on his fourth startup. That's not my audience. You know, that's not, that's not who I want on the flip side. So funny. I have been like fine tuning my skills with old people because one of the things I wanted to do with my speaking is to travel the world and I am like. The AARP crowd is like my biggest fan. Oh, of course they are. Oh yeah. I'm sure.

Kara:

I mean, I love you. I could imagine if I was older, if I was elderly and heard your story, I'd be like, go sister, go. They

Heather:

love it. And so recently, I just got a speaking gig with Viking Cruises. So I'm going to go all around the Mediterranean. Yeah. And giving lectures on business and that type of stuff. And so,

Kara:

yes, Heather, that

Heather:

was, I love what I wanted to do.

Kara:

Such a great testament to the whole conversation we're having around setting really boundaries for yourself based upon what you know is valuable for you. And instead of fighting upstream surrendering to the way that it's going and knowing that it's going to find a way to work in your favor. Incredibly. Yeah, like

Heather:

attracts like, you know, it's whoever needs you and whatever you need will eventually, if you just let it Let it go.

Kara:

You know, do the work, right. Make sure like this is coming from the, the, the marketing queen over here. We can't leave those pieces out

Heather:

and no. Create, create your own luck. Create your own life. Design your life. Design your destiny. What do you want this to look like? Okay, now how do we make that happen? Yeah, you've got to, you gotta put the vibe out there. Go let it go. You got it. Go You got it. Easier said than done though. Oh yeah. From like a total type A

Kara:

like, easier said than done girl. You, me and our listeners, we get it. Uh, so I would love to know, who would you like to hear from? If our, if our audience members are listening and they're like, man, I really wanna reach out to this Heather woman, who would be the perfect person to reach out for these amazing downloads.

Heather:

So my ideal person is someone who can get me in front of a crowd, someone who can connect me to a crowd that wants to hear my message. So whether that's your five rocks prioritizing or my wild ride of entrepreneurship, or just let we, a theme of this. podcast. I'm now going to name this podcast, you know, upstream to downstream, you know, those are, those are the type of people that I want to connect with. I find myself I, I feed, you know, when something's right for you, when you feed off of the energy in the room and what I feed off of is a large group and speaking to them and just that exchange of energy, that exchange of ideas, that exchange of mindset. I do okay like on a podcast, but man alive, do I ever, Oh,

Kara:

I think you do really good on a podcast. Let us be the judge. So tell me, so tell me this, how, if someone wants to reach out to you and they want to book you for a speaking engagement how would they find you?

Heather:

So my LinkedIn's the easiest way to get ahold of me and I'll give that to you for the show notes. And yeah, just DM me through there, just slide on in. And I, you know, I got a lot to say, I'm writing a book right now. So I post pretty much every day and just downloading what's up here. So

Kara:

it's all there. Incredible. Wow. Thank you for sharing, uh, all of your journey. And the last question I need to ask you is look, you've had this big life. You've been a part of building multimillion dollar businesses. You were able to be a stay at home mom for 12 years while you collected your checks every first of the month. You learned the power of surrender and that made you a better business person. And now as you're going to this next venture of your life, which we know you're going to do well. My question for you, how do you do it?

Heather:

Number one, accepting a lot of help, like a lot. I, I cannot do this alone and nor would I want to do this alone. So you know, even things like housekeepers and, and that type of thing. Yes, it's extremely helpful, but oh, if I could turn my camera around right now, it looks like a bomb went off in my house. There's ramen noodle right here on my dining room table. For people that,

Kara:

for people that don't have the visual, I just want to confirm her house looks amazing. Absolutely beautiful and we're talking about a small pile of things out of place behind her.

Heather:

It's a ramen noodles and a keyboard and wrapping paper and you know what that's probably been there for two weeks, and it's probably going to be there for another two weeks. You just have to be okay with that. Set your expectations very low. You know, if I think I'm going to have this amazing, you know, picture, perfect Instagram every single day. If I think my kid's going to wear underwear to church, like lower that bar, just lower that thing right away. Just don't expect too much and then to be pleasantly surprised when it actually, you know, works out. But notice on my top five things, there's nothing about a clean house in my top five things. So, you know, I got ramen noodle on the, the dining room table and I'm okay with that.

Kara:

Amazing. That's a really good piece of advice. Heather, I just want to check before we close out. Is there anything that we didn't cover today that you want to make sure we talk about?

Heather:

Let's see. So do you feel like I made a cohesive point? So like, my book is on the five rocks, which I hit. Do you think that I

Kara:

Now I'm going to give you a platform for this. Okay. So I'm going to do a thing. Most podcasts, I'm going to do it here. So, okay. I'm going to queue you up. Okay. So I find often high performing women who achieve a lot. We don't always toot our own horns and we don't always get a chance to give our acceptance speech. Without guilt, without shame and to unapologetically name the things we've done. So on this podcast, I want to give you and other women that opportunity to do just that. So if you would like, I will invite you to the stage and I would ask you to list off everything that you have done. I don't want a disclaimer. I will stop you and we'll do it again. No disclaimer and no shame. List everything that you have done and list what you are working on. Madame, the stage is yours. Yours.

Heather:

Wow. So my proudest accomplishment is snagging the man of my dreams. I've been married for 17 years, so we're doing something right. He's just amazing. And my two kids, of course, my two little daughters, little 12 and five. So those are my biggest accomplishments. Right now I'm working on a book and, uh, it's going to be amazing. I'm not going to lie to you. And it's called, that's a wrap. And it's a picture of me in a queen costume on the cover. And the subtitle is How I became the queen of an industry and it's going to be uh, just what we had talked about how I Was a type a high achieving You know woman businesswoman and how I did it and all the things that I did wrong So everyone could learn from the mistakes that that I made And a couple things that I did right and so you can replicate those in your own lives I am just so Passionate about sharing this information and getting the word out, you know, what, how to design these lives that you want.

Kara:

Beautiful. And give us just a word about what you have accomplished in business from that same stage. I want you to say it unapologetically without disclaimer.

Heather:

Okay. So like, You want specific, like, I'm not going to share numbers, but it's up to you. I

Kara:

don't, but this is, but, but this is the interesting, but here's the interesting point. Here's the interesting point. I have had guests on my show who make an extraordinary amount of money. And don't ever want to talk about it. I've had guests on my show when huge awards and only be comfortable talking about the most recent one. And for me, the challenge with that is if you're not going to say it on a platform that is made for women by women to talk about success, then when in life do you ever get to say it?

Heather:

That's true. Okay.

Kara:

So what would I

Heather:

even say?

Kara:

So here's what I say here. Here's what I'm going to say to you. You have the stage, you're accepting the award for what you have accomplished in business, and you've already accepted it for what you've accomplished in life. You just told us, right? This is your Barbie movie moment where you've got to just say you won the award for being an incredible entrepreneur because you've accomplished one through five. And you could just say, yes, I did accomplish one through five. Thank you.

Heather:

So I guess we talked about like graduated from college when I was 18 started my master's when I was 19. You know what, I, I feel, I don't know why I've never like talked about this before on a podcast, but I feel inspired to say this which I, I don't talk about openly ever, is that I I'm actually a domestic abuse survivor from my first husband. And I got married when I was 18 and divorced when I was 21. And I was under the impression that he eventually died of a heroin overdose. And when I was 21, I was so beaten down and just, just at like my lowest point, just, oh my goodness, you know, talk about like the scarlet letter. I'm Mormon. I'm 21 and I'm divorced. I mean, ultimate, you know. Black mark on you. And I learned the value of hope in post traumatic growth. In that, I had a glimmer of what my life could be. I just spent all of these years accomplishing all of these things, and one man made me feel like I was worth nothing. And every day, like, I used to lock myself in my room at night and be shocked that I was awake the next morning. Like, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm alive, wow. This is unbelievable. And I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell my friends, I didn't tell my family, nothing. I just separated myself from them. I would fold his laundry wrong and he would go punch out car windows. I mean, just, just rage, just anger. And it was traumatic. It was very, very traumatic. And I had always considered myself to have high self worth. But I think my proudest achievement would be number one. Leaving that relationship realizing that there's no possible way I could have kids with that man, even though he fit the exact profile. He was Mormon from a nice family, you know, went to a good school football player, you know, all this stuff. It didn't on paper. It looks really good. But it wasn't. And I had enough courage and enough confidence in myself to number one, leave that relationship and not only leave it to just blossom and flourish in that post traumatic growth phase. So, I was 21 when I did that, and I was 23 when I opened my business. So very tight timeline, but I was able to, I just had an inkling of hope and I was able to hold onto that and grow from that experience. And I've learned that lesson time after time, after time, after time, again, with my daughter when I was 30 and again, you know, at 42, when I'm looking at my life, like, what am I going to do now? I've been a mom for 12 years. Like what do I have to offer? What, what could I possibly offer? I anyone around me, but it's that little inkling of hope that little spark that. Okay. I can do this. And not only can I do this, I'm going to kick ass doing

Kara:

this. That's incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that very vulnerable and quite frankly, shocking experience. I don't think a lot of people would have listened to this show or Googled you and known that you came from such a living hell. Yeah. It was rough.

Heather:

And

Kara:

I was so young.

Heather:

Oh, I was so young.

Kara:

Oh, so much for sharing and and you know you took the stage, and, uh, an incredibly vulnerable way, and that's not what I had anticipated, but I love what you shared so much. So I, I accept that is your greatest accomplishment. I think anybody listening would agree with you. Yeah. Thank you so, so much for everything. I mean, truly it's been a pleasure and I really hope that your story can continue to inspire women. Just like you to keep going, to avoid the pitfalls, to learn boundaries, to know when to say no, and you know, to know when to swim upstream and when to let the current take you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Heather. Thank you for having me.

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Kara Flowers

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