Renew Trust And Enrich Relationships With Summer Mulder

TTD 45 | Renew Trust

 

A business can only succeed when you put in hard work and dedication. And there is no sweeter success than one celebrated with loved ones. But that, they say, only happens in a perfect world. In the real world, one can only put so much time and effort into the business without compromising relationships. But some are blessed more than others. And if you are someone wanting that shift in your life, make sure to tune in as Summer Mulder (@summerfelixmulder), Director of Marketing and Sales and the founder and CEO of The Draw Shop, shares how she was able to weather the storms of entrepreneurship while balancing personal life as a wife, a mom, a stepmom, and a furmom. She talks about how having an entrepreneur husband who can relate to the challenges and pressures of owning a business plays into her support system and her motivation to succeed. She also stresses the advantage of having a team that is empowered and invested in the business in helping her sustain the success of The Draw Shop even after transitioning from a solid partnership to sole ownership. So listen in and renew your trust that you can come out of a bad experience and still be able to enrich significant relationships when you communicate clearly and learn from your experience.

Listen to the podcast here

 

How to MASTER Your Relationships As An Entrepreneur with Summer Mulder

I have a woman close to my heart because she does it all. Before we go any further since I know you will be going to love this show, make sure you like, comment, share, and most importantly, subscribe to the show. I have a woman whose name even suggests that she is a breath of fresh air. Several years ago, she started a company called The Draw Shop. Don’t Google it. She’ll tell you all about it so stay tuned here.

She started it because she was helping companies share what they do and their mission. Since then, she has become the go-to video production agency. This woman and her company have done videos for companies that are world-renowned, and I will let you tell her about it in one moment. Buckle up because Summer Felix-Mulder is about to take us for a ride.

Welcome, Summer.

Thank you so much. That’s such a confidence boost when you hear somebody introing you. I love it.

People say, “Can I take you on the road?” I truly feel that your name says it all, Summer. I don’t know anyone that hates summer. It happens to be my favorite season. You are in San Diego, so it’s all day every day. Give us a sense of who you are because you have so many stories. Start with Summer, the woman.

I feel like I have 8,000 hats that I wear only. I’m trying to whittle them down. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m also the Director of Marketing and Sales. I’m also the Founder, CEO, and all the different hats in the business, then I’m a wife, a stepmom, a mom, and a puppy owner.

You are a dear friend to many.

I have amazing friends. I do attract the right people in my life. I will say that. I’m obsessed with storytelling, marketing, and messaging. I love working with people who bring tremendous value to the world and I love helping them express that in a way that gets people totally hooked and understanding what it is that they do.

That’s where I geek out. I like to do that for my own business. I like to create offers and things that can help other companies do that. That’s pretty much me. I try to find my Zen every day. I always think to myself I must be pretty amusing to watch. I know I am to my husband because I’m cleaning the dishes while listening to some personal development podcast. At the same time, tripping and falling because I’m very clumsy, and take demands from my kids of things that they need last minute because they ask for ten different things every day for all their activities.

Answering Slack and emails. It’s all these things all at once. I’m the person that’s like, “You should organize your time. Focus on one thing at a time.” I know that works so well, and yet somehow, I find myself every now and then, getting into multitasking. Even though I know the value of not doing that.

I will tell you a very brief funny story. When you do yoga and they tell you clear your mind. I do my best thinking then. I’m supposed to have my mind clear. I leave when the class is over and I write down all the wonderful ideas that I have because I cleared my mind but I can’t think of nothing. You need to be like a thirteenth-level Buddhist monk to do that.  The Lord knows I’m not even on the first one for that stuff.

It’s funny because I grew up learning meditation. My mom is a teacher of transcendental meditation. She’s all about quieting the mind. She’s a genius at it. She does it twice a day. She taught it. It’s like, “I can do it,” but it takes a lot of practice. It’s a gift to be able to do it, but I hear you. It’s almost like my meditation and my therapy are when I work out. I have to work out every day and be active. That is what quiets down all the jibber jabber because now I’m focused on this one activity.

Another reason why I feel so connected to you is because it’s the same for me. Back in the day, I’m a little bit more mature than you, I was the first girl on my block to wear sneakers and it was a scandal. I was a tomboy, which I’m sure is totally politically incorrect now. I always loved working out. I didn’t know it at that time, but what I felt was rejuvenated, restored, and my head was clear. I could take on or tackle a problem. It makes you feel good, and now we know all the neuroscience behind it. Before you became The Draw Shop queen, what were you doing? What were you up to? What was your career like?

Working with people who bring tremendous value to the world.

I had always been in love with writing. I was writing my first book at thirteen years old. I wanted to write because I love storytelling which is why I fell in love with marketing because marketing is storytelling. It’s telling the story of someone. It’s getting hooked. I started getting fascinated by how people get brands. How do brands get people this loyal following? I was always intrigued by it. That doesn’t mean that I was good at it right from the beginning, but I was very intrigued.

It’s less than 0.00001% of the population that’s good at anything that they try the first time.

You have to be bad at it in order to become good. At least that’s what I think. You have to learn what’s not working and that’s how you get the best lessons. Before The Draw Shop during those young years, I got married around 25 years old. That was my first marriage. I said earlier I’m a stepmom. I’m married to my amazing husband now, and we each have two kids. He’s an entrepreneur as well.

In my first marriage, we started an internet marketing company. It was the idea of my husband at that time, and because of that, I learned so much about online marketing. This was right when online marketing became a thing and it was like, “You can sell information online.” We rode that wave and it was successful. I learned a lot about copywriting, advertising, how quickly it moves and shifts, and doing Google ads at that time. It was all fascinating. We ended up selling that company when we split up and I was freelancing. I was like, “What am I going to do now? We have sold this company.”

How many years were you married to your first husband?

We were together for 8 years, married for 4. We split up at the time that I was pregnant with our daughter. I had a two-year-old son. They are literally exactly two years apart. I was at this point where my daughter then was born, we sold our company, and I had a toddler and a baby girl. They were so young, so it was mostly, they were with me most of the time. Breastfeeding doing all the young moms of young kids things, and I wanted to do something where I could be at home. At that time, freelance things started popping up online. There was Elance, it’s now Upwork. There were different sites where you could put out your resume or apply for freelance jobs.

I was like, “I’m good at copywriting. I’m going to do that.” I started getting some writing gigs. Through that, I started to meet other people and I was like, “I know you.” As we were in the internet marketing world, I was lucky to know a lot of people. They would start saying, “I need this. I need that.” I started doing that because I was like, “This is perfect. I can do this from home. I can be with my kids.”

That turned into ghostwriting for New York Times best sellers. Ghostwriting for people that I used to be like, “I watch you on stage and now I’m writing your book.” It was pretty insane. I kept saying yes to things even though there was that whole imposter syndrome thing going on like, “Who am I to write this person’s book?” I’m going to do it because this person referred me and I’m going to put together this proposal.

It got to the point where I was writing four books at a time for these authors. It was an amazing experience because I got to be on such a personal level with these. It was a lot of business coaches or personal development speakers, motivational speakers, and people that I’d been following so much because of my journey going through a divorce. Learning like, “I’m not just a mom and I’m not just to this. I’m this woman. I’m empowered.” It was a cool thing. I was like, “It’s hard but it’s awesome.” I was stepping out of my shell and starting to do the things that had always been so uncomfortable for me.

That’s the crux of personal development. You don’t have to do what you are not comfortable with.

I started saying yes to all these uncomfortable situations and putting myself out there. It led to another relationship with led to another relationship, and all of a sudden, I have these relationships with phenomenal people that I get to work and collaborate with. Somehow, one of those relationships ends up making a good friend who would be my future business partner. His name is Eric and he’s who I founded The Draw Shop with. We were both working with a mutual client.

TTD 45 | Renew Trust
Renew Trust: Marketing is storytelling. It’s telling the story of someone; it’s about getting hooked.

 

He was the VP of another company and I came in as a writer. I was going to write for one of their clients. I was also writing all the copy for the infomercial and all this fun stuff. As our friendship developed over a couple of years, he sends me this video which is a whiteboard animation video. The way that it was done, I was like, “This is incredible. This would do amazing as a video sales letter.”

We are like, “Let’s try it.” I’m like, “I have a client that I’m working with that this would do well.” We did it and it was phenomenal. They were like, “You doubled the conversions that we were getting before.” We then had somebody else say, “I want one of those.” Then somebody else said, “I want one of those.”

The next thing you know that I’m speeding it up, but it did happen pretty quickly. We were like, “We got to incorporate.” He was like, “I remember the phone call.” I remember standing in my bedroom and him saying to me, “I don’t know about you, but I want to go all in. I know you still have some books you are writing, but I’m ready to go all in. I’m ready to resign from my position and take this off.” I was like, “Let’s do it.” That was it. I finished up some projects and we went all in on The Draw Shop. He’s still one of my near and dear friends. We worked at it together for a long time, and then about a few years ago he was ready to retire.

He’s a little bit more mature than me. I remember a year before, he had asked, “What do you think about taking it over or buying me out?” I was like, “No. You are one of my best friends and my business partner. I can’t do this without you.” As time went on, I could see he was ready to do some other things. He was ready to retire and be in a different space in life. He’s like, “You are so much more passionate about it.” I was like, “Okay.” The timing was right and I took it over.

How many years were you been in business with Eric?

It was about nine years that we were in business together.

You are the sole owner.

I’m the sole owner. Yes.

That feels good, right? The way you said it.

It feels good. It was scary at first. It’s scary when you are facing certain challenges. We would always have each other. We would do this checking call every single day, and then that was gone. There were things like we problem solved together. He was so much more skilled in certain areas than I was. I was more skilled in other areas than he was. We complimented each other so well and we were there for each other. If things were hard or I’m like, “I don’t want to have to let this one person go on our team.” He’s like, “I got this. I have no problem.” It was things like that. It’s nice to have that support.

Having somebody who gets it and is on the same page as you. It was scary because now it was all on me. Everything was 100% on me. If a team member wasn’t happy, something didn’t go as well, or we didn’t have as great of a month as we thought we would have. It’s like, “It’s on me. It was my fault.” It’s like, “I had to take full responsibility.”

Learn what’s not working, and that’s how you get the best lessons.

It was on your watch. I will tell you some of it. I’m so struck by what you are saying because part of the work that I do is that I work with co-founders, partners, and companies. They don’t do what you just did, they don’t do it so well, and they don’t have complementary skills. It is great to hear that, and then to hear the trepidation when he says, “You got this. I’m out.”

My husband has always pretty much been the sole owner of his businesses. He would always say to me, “You are so lucky that you have Eric and someone that you are doing it together.” I always was like, “I’m so lucky.” When that was gone it was shocking. The thing is that even though I am the sole owner, I have my team members that are so invested. They are incentivized as well, but they are invested and they have been with us for pretty much the whole time. They have at least been with us for ten years. I do have that with them.

In terms of entrepreneurial support, I have that with my husband because he gets it. He gets what being an entrepreneur is like owning your own business and the ebbs and flows of all of it. You start to realize if you don’t have that, you find a way to get it back and it might not be because I have another business partner. The funny thing is that when I sold it, I had at least five people that asked, “Can I come in? Do you want to sell part of your business to me? Could I be a partner? Could I this?” I would consider it. I thought, “This might be a good thing,” but it was like, “It’s empowering that I’m the one now.”

I love what you are saying because on the one hand, it’s like, “I’m not ready.” Push-pull. On the other hand, “I got this.” It sounds like Michael played a huge role in that. Let’s talk about the entrepreneurial relationship. I haven’t seen the Facebook highlights. I have seen you guys in action. I have watched the way you will touch each other, which is in nonverbal body language or nonverbal communication.

If the readers ever get a chance to be at an event to be at dinner together with Summer and Michael, do yourself a favor and watch how entrepreneurs do it right. Tell us about this journey. I work with couples that are entrepreneurs as well, and most of them don’t do it the way you do it. Share that journey of how he’s your support and I’m sure you are his support because I know the readers here need to learn. We all need to learn. How did you meet? Start with how you met.

It’s so funny because we always have a funny story that we share. I went to the Pepperdine University of Malibu. He’s two years older than me. He was there but he was transferring out the year that I came in. We missed each other, and then we took different paths.

I have to know where he went to school or where he transferred.

He ended up going to USC.

The university of spoiled children.

Exactly. We met when Chloe, my daughter, was a baby. We met online on Match.com. I could tell this big and fun story.

Is it before Pepperdine?

TTD 45 | Renew Trust
Renew Trust: It’s nice to have support and have somebody who gets it and is really on the same page as you.

 

After we were both divorced. We both had two young kids and that was how we met. We never knew each other at Pepperdine but we always go out. We literally just like, “You were going out. I was coming in. We never met.” He’ll say all the time, “Minus the fact that we wouldn’t have the kids that we have now, I wish we would have met at Pepperdine.” He’s always like, “We wouldn’t have gotten divorced. We wouldn’t have this.” You never know what would happen.

In his mind it’s like, “You wouldn’t have had the drama of divorce. We wouldn’t have had the back and forth of kids,” and all that stuff, and it’s so nice to think about that. In my mind, I think to myself, “We probably would have liked each other then, too. We are not much different outside of growing as people. We are not much different in terms of values and all that stuff, but we met.”

I’m going to jump in with the coaching moment. Not necessarily for you, but for what you said. Many times, you will hear people say, “I wished I had met you sooner. I wished I started the business sooner. What if I took that job?” I very much believe that all the hour of growth comes through pain, trials, and tribulations had you not had those experiences.

First of all, if you took that other job, you are assuming that would have worked out swimmingly. If you started the business sooner, you are assuming you’d be that much further ahead. That’s where you learned how to make your mistakes better. It’s an exercise and fertility to do that. A lot of people will say, “I wouldn’t want everything that happened to me to get me to who I am, where I am now, and I wouldn’t want to change it.” I know you know that and I know Michael knows that. What he’s saying is, “I wished we didn’t have to go through so much baptism by fire to get here.”

I think that going through that is what made us so good to each other and value each other even more. We value marriage, relationships, connection, and all that much more because of the things that we have gone through. Going through those types of things makes it very clear what you want which is awesome when you have that clarity.

He’ll end up agreeing, but he’ll come back to that a lot and go, “I wish this and  that.” He’ll say, “I don’t wish that.” Even though I think, “We probably would have, but we would have gone through a different set of challenges. We still would have because we had to go through those hard growing pains, whether it was together or before we met each other and we are going through growing pains. We always will.”

He was an entrepreneur when I met him as was I. It’s cool to have your spouse as an entrepreneur who gets the rollercoaster of life and it’s fun. It’s also knowing that you wouldn’t want it any other way. We are still very different. He’s more of a risk taker than I am. He’s not a rule follower. I am the one that if somebody has rules, I will follow those rules out of respect and this and that. He’s like, “It’s okay. We can bend.”

Yellow means speed up and go through the light.

Exactly. It’s like you walk into a restaurant, and they are like, “Sorry. We are not seating over there.” He’ll be the type that’s like, “Go ahead and sit over there.” I’m like, “No. They don’t want you sitting there.” He’s like, “Let me talk to the waitress.” Those are the things that have helped. It’s not like he’s being disrespectful but he is like, “Let’s ask and see if we can do it.”

You are only back to where you started from.

That’s what he’ll always say. “What’s the worst that happens? They say, no. They tell you to leave.” I’m like, “You are right.” He’s not afraid of confrontation and takes something head-on. He’s very supportive and he gets it. If I was going through a challenging time, he’d always say, “I’m your sword. You’ve got me. If you’ve got a sword behind your back, that’s me. Meaning I have always got you protected. I’m always there for you.”

Step out of your shell and do the things that have always been uncomfortable for you. 

It’s such a good feeling. I still believe we have got to be there for ourselves, but it’s a very beautiful feeling to have that and know that we support each other. Know that if you are having a hard day or you were stressed out, but I didn’t. I can be strong for you and vice versa. We have that in being part of a blended family, ups and downs, teenagers. It can be the most amazing two weeks. Everybody is getting along, and then one person gets their heart broken, and now that person is in a bad mood and now everybody is in the mood. It implodes.

Especially when it comes to the kids, you are only as happy as your least happy kid. All relationships, business, marriage, and friendships, go through the rollercoaster ride of life. In entrepreneurial relationships, by our very nature, the highs seem so much higher. We have seen so much lower. Being with someone that when you are high, you can ground each other in a way. How long have you been together? How old were the kids and then take us through the entrepreneurial blended family journey?

We have been together this October 2022. We’ll make it fourteen years from when we first met and started dating. We had our five-year wedding anniversary. We took a long time in the beginning, especially with kids and play dates, and they caught on sooner. They are not done. Even if we weren’t holding hands or anything, they were like, “We know you like each other.” They were super young. My youngest was over a year old when we started like, “We are going to date or we are going to go out.”

Did you have shared custody with your ex?

Yes, we did. We would try to arrange that so it was, “I don’t have the kids this night.” “Neither do I.” “Great. We can have a date night.” We took our time and then we got engaged and it was another two years. We planned the wedding and we got married.

I think slow and steady wins the race. However, I can’t help but wonder, was there any hesitation or trepidation like, “Do I want to do this again going on?” In the guy’s eye, the kids aren’t ready.

It was funny because they were ready and talking about it before we were. It was never a question of, do we want to be together? We were like, “Is it necessary to get married because we did it before? We already know this is how we feel about each other. Is it something that we have to do?” At the same time, we both valued marriage so much.

Why?

There was something about this commitment and it’s not so much about the paper. It’s more about committing to each other and knowing that you’ll be there when things get hard. It’s not always going to be sunshine, flowers, and rainbows. There will be hard things and we know that it’s better for us to do it together.

For us, it was also the example that we could give our kids. You might not have seen what a successful marriage looked like. I hate to use the word but you might not have seen the way that it could be. We’d like to show you how it could be in a healthy way where we can still have disagreements, but we can communicate well with each other and resolve those things.

From what I understand, and correct me if I’m wrong, I have a sense that both you and Michael have given your children the gift of how to have a healthy divorce. How to divorce where it’s the poster child for this is how you do it. You clearly don’t love each other anymore, but I don’t think anybody’s calling the cops. I’m not saying it’s Nirvana. I get the sense that if it’s a struggle at times, it’s a struggle coming from a good place.

TTD 45 | Renew Trust
Renew Trust: It’s really cool to have your spouse as an entrepreneur who gets it and gets the rollercoaster of life.

 

I think that we were very mindful, at least on our side what we could control in our own household. We can’t control what goes on in other households or anything like that, but we were very mindful of doing it. I don’t know if there’s a right way of doing it but it’s the best, most calm way that we could. Being conscious of what was our stuff to deal with and was not their burden to bear. If we are not getting along with our ex, that has nothing and should have nothing to do with them. It’s not to say that didn’t happen, but we did our very best to make sure that didn’t happen. We are not going to badmouth the other parents.

We are going to do our best to make sure there’s equal time. We are going to get along as best as we can. Keep things very business-like if there’s a tendency to not get along and things get heated. That’s something that I feel proud of the way that we have handled barring other things that were out of our control. Sometimes, there are other ways that people might handle things that are out of your control. You can’t do anything about that, but I feel proud of the way that we did handle things. There are always things that you are like, “Maybe I would have done that a little bit differently.”

Early on going through it, my biggest fear going through a divorce was I don’t want this to impact the kids. My parents are still married for 57 years and I have always felt this unconditional and incredible love from them, and I didn’t want any of our kids to feel any different. I want them to feel loved and that comes from their parents. If you are badmouthing each other or saying negative things, then it’s going to affect everybody.

That’s like if you think about it in business too. You might not be getting along with your business partner or something like that, but you’ve got a team that’s looking up to both of you. If you are bad-mouthing your partner, then there’s trust. It’s not good. You got to deal with that yourselves and not bring it down.

It goes against the core values of your team. It’s not the yellow brick road all day every day. I think people know that. Even if you are describing your parents, they must have been married young. I’m assuming. They are hopefully still blessed with good health which is amazing.  Jen says this all the time, “How would love show up?” Can you hear Jen say that?

Yes.

I love that COVID has normalized that we are working from home. I love the normalization. I know this term is overused, but we bring our whole selves to work. You are here as an incredibly successful entrepreneur and incredible woman have happens to be a wife, mother, and stepmother. We can celebrate that on this call.

I don’t want to be with someone that can’t acknowledge that part of me. Let’s be respectful. I’m not going to have my kids who were little in the background running around in their underwear, although they would have loved to have literally banging a drum, that’s disrespectful. There’s a noise. I’m like, “That’s 1 of my 4 kids. If you don’t like it. I’m sorry.”

People like real stuff too these days. It’s all about like, “I want to see the real stuff that’s going on.”

I tell people too because when I work with business people, most of them are in relationships and I’m like, “You do the best you can. Even if you and your ex are struggling, you can struggle from a place of empathy and love. I’m sorry. Your dad and I got our lives crossed. We are supposed to take a vacation.” Be honest with them while having a boundary and not spilling just like you were saying in business, which is saying the same thing. What’s been the biggest surprise for you being married to another entrepreneur that you’re like, “I didn’t see that coming?”

The interesting thing is that, as an entrepreneur, you think no other entrepreneurs could possibly like, “Do they go through what I go through? Do they have this pressure or stress? Are they thinking as much with a ton of ideas and all these things all the time?” Being with an entrepreneur, you see that that is normal. You have tons of ideas all the time. You do as much as you try to have your team help. There are times when your plate is built. It keeps building. You have so many ideas, you are trying to execute so many things at the same time you get overwhelmed. I always figured like, “Other people are doing it better than me. They have it figured out and I can’t.”

It’s not always going to be sunshine, flowers, and rainbows. There will be hard things. And we know that we want to face it together. It’s better for us to do it together.

We are entrepreneurs. We are always overwhelmed.

It’s like it’s okay. Even when you do have those moments where you are like, “I have got all these people.” As soon as you clean off the plate and have people helping you, as entrepreneurs, you somehow figure out how to load it back up again.

That’s because we are a little bit of a control freak. I’m with you. I start to do stuff. I’m looking at the invoice and I’m like, “What am I doing?” That is not my unique gift. I have maybe two unique gifts. That’s it. There’s so much other crap involved with running a business. I was telling you before we came on, I need to get a new person to help me with it. I can’t even describe the help I need from the person behind the scene doing my website or loading my course.

I don’t know. You might as well speak to me. I have no clue. Here’s where the other variable comes in. Trust. You cannot be successful however you want to define successful in any area of your life without trust. How do you develop trust? You develop trust because you have to trust yourself and then allow yourself to be vulnerable so that others will trust you. With two kids of your own, two step-children, a business that is exploding, and another entrepreneur, how do you negotiate all that?

It’s funny that you bring this up because I was thinking about this. I was thinking how important it is to have agreements. I’m not talking about The Four Agreements. I do love that book, but agreements and understanding. If you can have an agreement that, “During this time, we are not talking about work. We are going to be with each other,” or an agreement like, “For the next week, I’m going to be super busy. I’m going to need extra help with this, this, and that.” Talking about it ahead of time and having some type of agreement or an understanding of what to expect, when things get a little out of whack, it’s not so jolting or upsetting because it’s not out of the blue.

It’s like preparation. I don’t know what the right word is, but I kept thinking of the word agreement because you can easily get into that place where it’s like, “We haven’t had a date in two weeks. Now I’m feeling upset so I’m going to give you the cold shoulder or whatever it is.” That type of tension develops. Whereas if you have this agreement of like, “In the next two weeks we are going to be super busy. Can we plan something out in the future?” This way, there’s no need to get feelings hurt. it doesn’t mean you don’t miss each other or you are not craving that time together. It’s like, “We have this agreement. We know this and it’s nothing to be taken personally.”

I will tell you the word that’s coming to mind that you speak. Communication. It’s all communication. When I wrote both of my books, I can remember saying to my husband and my kids, and I did it at night after they would go to bed. I told them that I would need some time on the weekend. I would let them know and then we would work around it. My husband and kids would be supportive. It was that understanding that my work at this moment in time is taking more time than you. It’s more important. It doesn’t mean it’s a priority, but at this moment in time, it needs more of my time. We will get back to it.

The communication must be crystal clear, and the agreement is based upon the clarity of the communication. Sometimes you communicate and it’s misinterpreted and then hand in hand with that are the boundary issues. I would work on a Saturday from 9:00 to 12:00 and friends would be like, “I’m trying to call you.” I’m like, “I told you. 9:00 to 12:00 on Saturdays I’m writing my book.” “I knew you were there. Couldn’t you pick up?” “No. My phone is off. It’s in the car. It’s not with me.” That type of thing, and then you are reminding and they are like, “Can’t you just.” When you have somebody that you trust and trust each other, you trust that the priority will shift back. I think that’s what’s going to be, but the good thing is you are missing the time together.

It’s so funny because we’ll always say like, “If there’s ever grumpiness or whatever it is, it’s always because of lack of connection and time together.” One person is mad at the other for not making it a priority to spend time together. It’s not about a thing. It’s usually that’s what it is.

I tell people all the time especially with work, “There’s not a time management issue. It’s a priority management issue.” My husband will tell you, “I am the queen of that. I have time for what I want to get done. If I don’t want to get it done, I don’t have the time.” Believe me. You know that there are so many other things that can fit. “I got fifteen minutes. I got that email. I got to touch base with that person I haven’t spoken to in 27 years. Let me clean out that drawer that I haven’t opened in ten years.” All of a sudden, it’s a priority. Give us a little glimpse into your day.

My days have changed a lot in this past because we are doing so many new things within the business. My days have changed and are a little bit more hectic than I would like. On a typical day, I’m probably up at least by 6:00 AM. I’m taking the dog out. I do a little potty break, feed the dog, make my coffee, and probably within the hour, everybody else is getting up.

TTD 45 | Renew Trust
Renew Trust: The agreement is based upon the clarity of the communication because sometimes, you communicate and it’s misinterpreted.

 

Sometimes Mike gets up with me right after, but usually, I’m the first one up. I always got to have my coffee. I will listen to something positive that gets me in a good mindset. Pretty much, I’m straight to work. I’m doing all tasks and little things that I have to get done, which usually take half an hour to an hour, making sure the day is organized. What do I have? A quick glance at what am I in store for the day.

My day is doing a show like this. I might be doing some type of leadership meeting with my team, and then a lot of my days are working on marketing stuff. It’s working with my marketing team on offers, looking at emails, and working with my copywriters. What are we working on right now? What needs to get done? I have a list each day of the things that would make it a super productive day if these items were done.

Sometimes, I’m jumping in between different things. As much as I’m like, “I should have this on. Do not disturb and focus on this one task.” The ADD in me is like, “There’s my Slack. There’s this. There’s that.” I’m going all over the place, and then I have to center myself again. If I haven’t done it in the morning at some point in the day, whenever I can get it and I usually don’t let a day go by without a workout. I have got to get my workout in.

Don’t you have a set time?

I will try to get it done first thing in the morning, but sometimes there are things that are scheduled or with kids that have come up, and so it will end up being in the afternoon. My afternoons are running kids around doing dance and martial arts. All that stuff. It’s finally checking with the husband during the day, “What are we going to do tonight? Is there a plan or are we going to make dinner?” Something to get excited about. He’s very big on wanting to know what we are going to do so that he can look forward to it and be excited, whether that’s like, “I’m going to barbecue. I’m going to cook dinner or let’s go somewhere.” Something that makes you feel like, “At the end of the day, we are going to wind down and spend time together.” That’s what days have been like as of late. It’s been pretty busy.

I could talk to you all day. Summer and I met in Phoenix at Joe Polish’s Genius Network annual event. She and Jen Hudye who I mentioned earlier on this show set up an incredible dinner at Oaken Ash. It was delicious, and the best hostess in the world. One more question. What’s the last book that you re-read and why?

The last book that I re-read is Faster Than Normal by Peter Shankman. It’s all about the ADD mind.

That’s why you can relate.

Somebody from Genius Network told me to read it. I read it and then I ended up saying, “There are some things in there that I want to go back that I want to listen to,” and so I listened to it again on Audible.

I lied. I have one more question. What is the one song you can’t live without?

It is Dancing in the Moonlight by King Harvest.

Listen to something positive that gets you in a good mindset.

You can’t live without it because?

It’s been my go-to for years. Some songs put you in that state of free, amazing, and good vibration feeling.

I guess you can dance naked to it. I have to tell you.

I’m sure. I have many times. It’s the best.

I’m going to ask you to dance to it when I see you next.

I will. No problem at all.

If people want to find out more about you, where would you like them to go to learn more about The Draw Shop you or your fantastic conference?

The Draw Shop is TheDrawShop.com. For me, you can go to Summer Felix-Mulder on social media. All the social channels. I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and all the places. My husband and I also do a podcast on blended families. It’s called Everything Always, which you were a guest on, and then I also have a podcast Video Marketing Secrets. We have got some cool guests all about video marketing and how to implement it into your business.

Thank you. This was so much fun. I could have talked to you forever.

I can’t wait to see you.

Thank you so much. That concludes the episode of the show. Restoring trust and enriching significant relationships. As promised, Summer took you for a ride. Make sure you like, comment, share, and subscribe to the show. Until next time, be well.

 

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About Summer Felix-Mulder

I’m an entrepreneur, mom, step mom and pretty darn good wife. I’m also an author, podcast host, coffee lover by day and wine lover by night (and sometimes day).

I listen to podcasts and books on audible all the time! I’m constantly gathering information and I am obsessed with being better at everything I do. I want to get better at being a mom, step mom, wife, business owner, writer… hip-hop dancer (this one is hard!)

Now, there is no one right way for anyone to do anything. Whether you’re looking to build your business or create a better bond with your step-daughter. There is what is right for you. But, I have spent many years worrying about doing what was right according to other people’s standards. Mistake! Doing this only made me feel bad and question what was inherently right for me.

 

#Entrepreneur, #BusinessOwner, #WorkLifeBalance, #BlendedFamilies, #Parenting, #StepParenting, #Boundaries, #Overwhelm, #Visionary, #ADHD, #smallBusinessOwner, #RomanticPartner, #EntrepreneurialCouple

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