Episode #15: Declutter Your Life to Have More Joy + Productivity in Your Business with Ashley Barber

Intro (00:00): Welcome to The Fast-Track Entrepreneur Podcast with your host Terra Bohlmann. You are about to get filled with business strategies, advice, and motivation to get you prepared to fast track your five year plan in less than one year. So buckle up and let's create your first class business with clarity and confidence.

Terra (00:28): Hello, welcome back to the next episode of The Fast-Track Entrepreneur. I'm Terra Bohlmann. I'm your host today and Oh am I excited to bring you today's guest. She is a total rock star and I knew it from the minute I met her. So let me introduce you to Ashley Barber. So Ashley is the founder of Simply Maven and is Houston Texas's first certified KonMari consultant and a member of the KonMari speakers circle. So to transform her client's stressful spaces and to happy havens, she combines her knack for organizing with 10 years of experience as a fitness instructor. She has a degree in philosophy and an eye for good design and she has a passion for physical, mental, and spiritual wellness. Ashley lives for life's aha moments and gets the most satisfaction out of helping her clients release what is holding them back. She guides her clients from busy moms to women entrepreneurs along their own personal path to create simplicity in their homes so that they're free to focus on their energy, on all the curiosities and passions that they have in their life.

Terra (01:43): She's an organizing coach with a mission to teach others the best way to let go of their stuff, organize their homes, and create their best lives. So please join me in welcoming Ashley. Hi Ashley. Thank you so much for being here today.

Ashley (01:57): Hi Terra. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Terra (02:01): I love it. I just, you know, for the listeners, you know, I'm based out of Houston, Texas and so is Ashley and she, you don't even know what kind of celebrity we're dealing with here in Houston. She's constantly on TV here. And and we're just, I'm just so honored that you decided to take some time and talk with us today about getting organized, especially when it comes to women entrepreneurs and, you know, and I'm even more honored that I'm Ashley as part of our mastermind and I just, the growth and the trajectory she's been on over the past year has just astounded me. So I'm just so proud of you, Ashley. I just want to say that publicly and recognize you and your business partner, Jane, that of all the great work you've been doing. So, all right. So let's jump into all things organizing. So first of all, tell me what is this for people who aren't familiar, what is KonMari, can you give us an update on that?

Ashley (02:56): Yeah, so KonMari kind of became a bit of a buzz word about a year ago. It started when, well, let's back up. Konmari was started by a woman named Marie Kondo. So she's a Japanese tidying organizing, decluttering guru who's been around for awhile. She had a really popular book, the life changing magic of tidying up. And it was a New York times bestseller for a while. And that's when I stumbled upon the method and her philosophies, let's say it was like 2015, 2014 2015 and so the KonMari method is just her method for decluttering, organizing, and tidying. It's just her general philosophy to surround yourself with the things that she would say spark joy. And if you haven't heard of KonMari Marie Kondo, you've probably heard the buzz word spark joy. It's getting meme-ified. I mean we've reached that level. So we'll talk about that too. Cause it's kind of become a loaded term. I think everyone's got their, Oh that's so dumb.

Ashley (03:55): You can't measure spark joy. But I love talking about like what that actually means, especially when it comes to to women entrepreneurs as well. Because for me, what it really means is it's all about knowing what your passions are, knowing what your values are, knowing what your priorities are. And so if something sparks joy, then it's in total alignment with those things. And so this philosophy as a woman entrepreneur really has kind of like helped me hone in on what those things are. What are the values, what are their priorities, what is going to put me on the trajectory, the path to create the life and the kind of business that I want to create. That's what it's all about.

Terra (04:33): I love it. And yeah, so I first heard of, Marie Kondo from, you know, all the buzz that was going on around her Netflix episodes. Right? And then I watched a few of 'em and then I made my kids watch it and I just, you become obsessed with, and it's all she has a translator, right? Cause she's Japanese. And so, but it was like, I thought I'd have trouble following it, but it was just the simplicity of it was, I, you know, I became obsessed and you know, I made my twins watch and you know, and, and now, you know, when we can, we use the method as well. And I've been Ashley's client as well, so she tends to happen, always fall in love with my clients. So she's amazing. At what she does. So tell me, so once you learned about KonMari, what made you decide to go start simply Maven?

Ashley (05:18): Yeah. So it was something I sort of stumbled into in a way. So I started KonMari and it was sort of like a personal journey to just getting more organized. And you mentioned the simplicity of the method and I think that's what makes it resonate with so many people is that it really is simple and it's something that you can kind of cater towards your own needs. And so for me it was really about simplifying my life. I was doing a lot, I just had a new baby, I was working full time as a fitness instructor and I was just trying to like figure out how to quote unquote like do it all mentality, you know? So for me, this kind just helped me take stock and simplify and it just created, it had such impact in my life. I didn't know that it was going to become a career, but it really did affect me personally in terms of, like I said earlier, values, priorities. And I decided that I wanted to kind of start sharing it with other people.

Ashley (06:16): I wanted to learn more about it. And so I got, I got certified, not necessarily with the intention of turning it into a business, but just to kind of learn more and to go deeper into it. And then I just decided to kind of help people. It was a side hustle and that's actually when I met my, my business partner Jane, she was actually my first client. And and then it just kind of grew from there. It became something that I realized I could turn into a business and I realized that the next step for me personally was to start to go, I've been working with clients on a, in a group fitness setting, so front and abroad way helping people achieve their goals, their health and wellness goals and things like that. But I was really excited to start to go deeper with people to kind of help them, not only in their health of like their physical bodies, but in the health of their environment. I just, you know, I've got that big belief that when people are healthy and they're happy, they're just doing better work, they're making better decisions, they're just better people. And I just felt called to start to guide people in this particular realm. And so I officially launched simply Maven about two years after going through the process myself. And we've been around for a little over two years now,

Terra (07:26): So I love that story. I love that. So take us back to, so you met Jane who was your first client. Who, Jane's now, her business partner and is amazing. They, out of anyone that I've ever worked with and I've worked with, I mean hundreds and hundreds of women entrepreneurs privately, they have by far the best partnership. Like they know their lanes, they know where they shine. There's no ego. It is like I have now you have changed my philosophy around business partners because I had only seen them really be great at the beginning and then fail. And what you two are doing is it's like, it's breathtaking. Like just to watch it. So, and I know that's probably because you have such a strong foundation around organization, all that kind of stuff. And when you clear that clutter, it really makes way for, Hey, here's our purpose, here's our values, now let's go do it. Let's go serve others. So anyway, I just wanted to share that, but you are both an awesome testimony to what it's like to have a really healthy business partnership.

Terra (08:27): Second thing like take me back. So you worked with Jane. And so for those listeners that are like, okay, so great, she has, she found out she had this passion, she went and got certified, she had the side hustle, which a lot of, you know, I call them corporate newers. So people who worked at the nine to five or the corporate job for someone else, but they're really kind of, they're building this side hustle as you called it, you know, what was it like? Like after, you know, you worked with Jane and then what happened? Like how do you get those first five customers?

Ashley (09:00): Yeah, well for me, yeah, I was fortunate enough to have a decent sized network. And, and a lot of relationships with clientele through the health and wellness community. And so because I think of my connection with them in that way, that's where I was able to kind of use those relationships to start to kind of share what I was doing. So I mean, I did, you know, I have to give my previous boss a huge shout out cause he really did support me in allowing me to do workshops at the studios. The word, the place I worked define was it's all about health and wellness to begin with. So he was whole heartedly supportive of me kind of bringing this side of health and wellness to the clientele as well. So workshops is huge. That face to face contact, just spreading the message, you know, working on being able to give a good offer at the end of an event or workshop and things like that.

Ashley (09:54): I mean that was certainly how I just slowly started building my clientele. And then from there it was referrals. So once I had those first few clients I mean, and then I'm not gonna lie being associated with the KonMari and when the Netflix show came out, that was some wonderful marketing and brand alignment for us as well. And so we got a lot of, a lot of attention and from that. So that was really great. And yeah, I would say that those are kind of the two main things. The one-on-one, the cheek to cheek is you sometimes call it connections and just the people that we knew and just making sure that we delivered a good service so that we were referred and then just kind of taking that message and staying in that lane.

Terra (10:33): I love that. And I think the biggest lesson there is, you know, we all have, prior to us being an entrepreneur in our current business, most of us have a previous life, I call it previous life because, you know, I, I tend to think once you find your passion and your purpose and you create a business around it, that's like your, your next phase, your next chapter. And oftentimes I've seen that women entrepreneurs, when they come from their quote unquote previous life, or they're, whether it's the corporate world or doing, you know, working for someone else, right? They tend to not think that they can pull any of that forward into their new thing. And so often you can, and I love, I mean shout out to your boss at define who like completely was a supporter for you on that. Like I wish more people would do that.

Terra (11:20): Right? So, cause oftentimes, you know, when you're doing the side hustle, it's like you're trying to do it on the down-low so you don't get caught. You know, and it's a lot of stress. So, you know so yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. That's awesome. All right, let's get into the organizing part of things. So less clutter, more joy is what we're seeking. And what does it typically look like? Like you've worked with a good number of women entrepreneurs as well and you know, you've got to go really deep with a lot of them just learning and you know, our mastermind and everything too. So think you've gotten to get in the heads of what's going on with them, these high achieving women entrepreneurs that are just, you know, very focused on going faster and all that kind of stuff. What does that look like to you from the outside of, you know, what they're feeling inside and where, you know, they, they should go to get more of that, less clutter, more joy, sparking joy and not just their life but also in their business.

Ashley (12:19): Yes, yes. Okay. So de-cluttering our lives. So we've got more joy and our in our businesses. What does that look like? Well, it looks to me it's streamlining. I mean, it's de-cluttering. When I go back to the goals and the priorities, I mean it really is setting some clear goals and priorities, which I'm sure we all have in our business lives as well as in our personal lives. And then just being really true to staying focused on those priorities. And so, you know, we use the term a lot, make space for what matters. And I think that we are living in an age of distractions like never before. And that includes, that includes in our business, you know, this person's doing that thing, this person's doing that thing, this person's doing this, I need to do that, I need to do this and this.

Ashley (13:04): And while I love this information age, if you're not good at filtering that out, if you haven't done the work to declutter and to be able to see the joy or see the priorities within it, it can be very overwhelming. I think that's where a lot of women are. I think that's where a lot of women entrepreneurs can certainly be sometimes. And I know that I've felt it as well. And so being able to declutter not only my environment, but also my calendars is what really makes a big difference. And for me, it starts with the environment. What I love about decluttering, let's say your office or your closet is that it, those priorities and values can start to appear. So if you're not sure where to start, you're like, there's so much to do. I don't know where to begin. Something as simple as actually going through your closet is actually a great place to start and you can kind of take stock of what do I want my days to look like by, so what outfit is going to be appropriate?

Ashley (13:58): With that kind of day. I mean it sounds silly but it's actually really important because I think what we wear affects our self confidence. It affects our self image and I think that's important when you're an entrepreneur. I'm a big fan of actually getting dressed even if you are just going to your home office or wherever it is. I still wear my slippers, but I do like to actually get dressed and like and make myself presentable. I think that's important. And making sure that your environment is a space that actually allows you to do good work too, that you're not feeling distracted or cluttered. So I think the space helps enhance that. You can also take it to a whole nother level in terms of your to do's as well. I'm a big fan of the anti goal right now. This is something, have you heard of this term anti goal? It's not that it's not a good goal, it's just not what we're going for. It's just not what we're doing right now. You know it's a 2021 goal or 2020 it's an intentional thing that yes we know we want to do

Ashley (14:52): It. It's just not a right now you know.

Terra (14:53): I call that the parking, the parking lot goals, parking lot offers. So many women are like I want to do this and I want to sell this and then I'm gonna write a book and then I'm gonna and I'm like let's just put that on the parking lot cause they focus on a couple of things.

Ashley (15:04): Right now I'm not a big fan of storage units except when it comes to goals.

Terra (15:10): I love it. Well one thing I realized when I worked with you, you know I did the immersion program but you know and I love when you said just because you have a program around just starting with the closet, right? The closet. So if you want more information on just starting with the closet and using her method, it's the closet detox.com but I did the closet detox is like the step one and what I found I was doing and talk about like removing that clutter, just even literally physical clutter from my closet but also in my brain when I was doing, and I don't know if I even told you this, I realized I was holding space for a plan B.

Terra (15:49): So I come from a corporate consulting background and I used to even have like I would keep up the certification. It was a PMP, a project management professional certification super. It was really hard to get. So I always just kept it up every few years I would have to do, you know, reapply for my certification to keep it relevant so I wouldn't have to go backwards in case right when quake and case, this whole business, they never worked out or I wanted to go back. And what I was also doing is always saving all of my suits. Because when you're in corporate consulting, you know it's a very much like you gotta have black suits, the black pumps, the laptop bag, and you're crazy with the different shelves under shirts that you can change out, you know, that'd be, have show some personality and whatnot.

Terra (16:34): So I, when I went and did my closet detox, a lot of it was getting rid of all those quote unquote power suits that I was never in aware. They probably never even didn't even fit me anymore. But I kept them because in my mind I'm like, Oh, I remember spending $500 on that student Talbots and I remember, you know, and just in case I better keep them and I got rid of them and donated them as well as a bunch of other dresses, all kinds of things and mentally. That just made me so much more productive and all in versus having those quote unquote backup plan. Right.

Ashley (17:09): Thank you for sharing that. That is huge. That's a very common lesson I think that a lot of people experience are things in form the mindset, right? I mean they really do. And so we start to examine the things that we're holding on to. Then we start to realize we're not just holding onto this stuff. We're holding onto the idea that is attached to the stuff, you know, you got to let go of plan B if you're jumping all it, you know what I mean? And, and you were literally holding onto a plan B. I mean, that's huge. And I think probably very common I would say for a lot of entrepreneurs, you know that sometimes that fear of like, well, maybe I just need an exit strategy, you know, so, and there's something so powerful about making your space and your possessions fully reflect what you really are up to and what you really want to be doing.

Ashley (17:59): You know, it's walking the walk, it's talking the talk, it's making you know, your environment and your closet match what you're, what you're really about. And I think that that's hugely powerful. And then there's also the, just the really practical side of it, I mean that it's just less stuff to take care of. It's literally less brain space. You just have to manage. And deal with that stuff so that you can literally focus on, I mean there's, it's a personal note. I'm doing project three 33 right now, which I don't know if anyone knows that that is, you can go Google it, but it's 33 items of clothing that you walk out of the house. And it doesn't include workout clothes. It doesn't include lounge wear pajamas, but it's 33 items for three months. So, and I have to tell you, and look, I did not have a lot of stuff to begin with.

Terra (18:44): You are the most organized. Before we get off this episode, you have to share about your hair tie.

Ashley (18:51): Oh, I will totally share the hair tie site. But right now I'm down to 33 items. I'm, it's my, I'm 33 right now. So for the final three months of my 33rd year, I'm doing 33 items of clothing and it's insanely free. I mean, and I didn't have a lot of stuff to begin with anyway, but the, the decision making time, you know, to, to get ready, I can get ready in five minutes between, I'm not kidding. Like between, I know I've got my skincare routine down. I've got my hair thing down, I got my outfits are so easy to pick up and like, and it's just so nice to feel like I can just walk out the door, you know, so easy breezy and I can focus my time and energy on the bigger things. The family. Yeah.

Terra (19:33): So good. So what do you tell the quote unquote, the busy woman entrepreneur who's overwhelmed, who this whole idea of doing KonMari sounds absolutely amazing and dreamy to her. But she's like, where am I going to find time to do it? And I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know how to get started or put time to make it happen. Like what do you tell this woman just to like, what's the, you know, invest in yourself, invest in yourself?

Ashley (20:02): Ao you have to make time to make time. I'm I really think that I'm a big believer we got remove the, I don't have time, you know, mindset from a vocabulary. It's, you are choosing every day. You were choosing what to spend time on and what not to spend time on. And if you, if you were choosing that not spending time on this is, is you know, you've got other bigger fish to fry, then that's fine. But let's just be honest that you know, that you, it's not that you don't have the time, is that we're choosing not to make the time. And what I would try to convince anyone of is you get a gigantic return on investment of your time. So, and it probably won't take you as much time as you think it will. I've found that a lot of people make big mountains out of these small hills mean you can do this in a weekend if it's just your closet. Most people can, you have to have a pre, I mean some people, yes, I've been in homes that have taken longer. But most people I would say on average could knock out the closet weekend, two weekends now.

Terra (21:02): Yeah, I did one weekend. And just for context, I'd like 25 pairs of black pants. So, I mean, I had a huge closet that I was able to streamline and then also just kind of stick to a certain color way and organized. And when you walk into your closet or you open your closet doors and it's like there's all my blue shirts, my white, my black, my, it's like it's a great way to start your day.

Ashley (21:26): Yeah, it is. It's a great way to start your day. I mean, you get a return on investment on the time you get a return on investment in the energy. And so, I mean it's, it's one weekend, one weekend, it's one Saturday. I, you know, the closet detox program that I have, it's, I think it's two and a half hours of videos, a couple of worksheets that you can use to kind of help you clarify and then actually doing the work. So it really is, you can knock it out in a weekend. And the tools really do help you kind of make, I've done all the figuring out for you. It makes it really, really easy. I think a lot of people are just, they don't want to start a thing as continuous time cause they're, they're overwhelmed. So clutter is started because we clutter accumulates because we can't make the decision and we won't take action. Right? It's a decision fueled by procrastination. It's, I don't know what to do with this, so I'm going to deal with it later. That's how clutter accumulates. So it's just all about making decisions and taking action. That's how you declutter, that's how you declutter your house. It's how you declutter your schedule. It's how you declutter your, your mindset or your limiting beliefs, whatever it is. You know, you have to make decisions and take action.

Terra (22:33): And what I found especially, you know, people find theirselves pushing up against, Oh I'd love to do this whole KonMari thing in my house and work with someone like Ashley. But you know, there's a million excuses, right? And, and that tends to be the things that we're so resistant to are the things that we really need to step into. So it's just literally making the decision. Yes. I mean, we all have other things we could do on a Saturday, but once you do this once and then you have Ashley is the method. It's like, it's so easy to maintain after that. And then it's just, there's something that feels really good about seeing the mountain, the mountain, which, and, and just one by one seeing what really does spark joy and what it was like, Oh, I'm keeping this because I want to, you know, I'm going to lose that weight.

Terra (23:24): And it's like, okay, that's silly. You know what if I do lose all that way, I'm going to want to buy new to celebrate that. Right. And it's just kind of giving that permission to let it go and you know, and know it's going to go to a new home and a better home. And, and I actually made, I didn't even tell you this, but I made in a, you know, sending them to consignment shops. I made well over more than it costs to invest in your program. So it was really like a win, win, win all the time.

Ashley (23:51): You will literally, yeah. No, thank you for saying that because I can't tell you how many texts I've received. It's like I found this thousand dollar earring or I made this much money back by selling these clothes. I'm like, you know, yeah. I think most people end up making three times what I think I probably charge.

Terra (24:06): Right? No, it's so good.

Ashley (24:09): So you know, and, and not only that, not only in terms of like what you can sell and what you can find, but also their shopping habits change. And so you end up, because you get so streamlined, you really internalized sort of these shopping errors that you've made. And so you're so much more mindful of future purchases as well. And so that really also helps the pocket book. So that's huge.

Terra (24:32): That's so good. And as we're going into, it's like we're all getting into that spring cleaning mode right now. And it's like, now's the perfect time to be downloading all of Ashley's resources and checking things out because it's just something about the change of season just makes it a spark. You know, it sparks some energy of, okay, we need to do something. Whether it's, you know, our closets, our kids' closets. You know, my husband's an engineer, so his is pretty streamlined, but I still made him do it too. And he brought me like five shirts that had the dry clean tags still on them, you know, like, you know, so, you know, we all have our own habits and, but it was just like, I totally didn't mind taking those trips to the donation center and some cases, you know, recycle because it wasn't even good enough for you not to donate. So yeah, it was just really good. And that was the time to do it with spring cleaning. So can you quickly, while we're wrapping up, like walk us through your simply Maven process and kind of the step-by-steps of what people can do in order to get the result?

Ashley (25:38): Yeah, so we, we have we call it the simple method. And so it's six steps that we applied to decluttering and organizing anything, a home, a calendar schedule. So the first step is like we were talking about earlier scheduling. So it's just making time to make time, putting it on your calendar, getting that accountability partner, you know, hiring a consultant if that's what you need to do to actually keep this date with yourself. And then the next step after that is imagine. And that really has to do with what we talked about, the values and the prioritization. So it's imagining the ideal lifestyle, figuring out what is your goal. A lot of people skip this step and it is one of the most crucial steps because remember clutter is caused by we can't make decisions and that's because we don't have the clarity.

Ashley (26:24): So you have to spend time on the imagine step to get the clarity and exactly what you're trying to achieve here. Once you've got that, then you actually can dive into the making space and that's when you actually start, you pile everything together. Using the KonMari method, we would put all of, you know, one category in one space. You make the mountain. Then you go through, you figure out what sparks joy and if that term doesn't resonate with you, you think about your vision, right? Is this item a part of my ideal lifestyle? Is this item, you know, in, in my vision of my life as a female entrepreneur who's, you know, bossing up or whatever it is. Is this fit that it, does this support that or is it a distraction or is it a plan B or is it a fear that the, you know what I mean, what does it really, so getting it down to that, we are big on making sure that you bring in some sort of sense of play because this is all about choosing joy anyway.

Ashley (27:15): And so making sure that you're building in self care or breaks or just like some kind of reward system for this. And so it's not all just like business business, business cause sometimes decluttering can be heavy, you know? And sometimes what gets revealed in the process can be a lot. So I think that's important. We don't organize or tweak layouts or go get bins or anything until you've decluttered and this is another thing, I think when people put the cart before the horse, they want to go to the container store first and then come home and organize. Everyone is guilty of it.

Terra (27:44): Myself included. I spent so much money on that. Yeah.

Ashley (27:48): Yeah. And that, that is huge. It's not worth your time or energy to go buy things you may or may not need. Most people end up reducing so much that he can use what are, what they already have or they end up letting go of bins and hangers in addition to clothing cause they just don't need all of it anymore. So the law, we call it the layout love section. That doesn't come until you've made space until you've fully decluttered now we know what you have and what you're actually keeping. Now we'll focus on really perfecting what that looks like and giving everything its final home. And then the last step is just enjoy. And I think that this is really, it's an important step and that's why it's in there. There isn't a whole lot to it except to just take a moment and appreciate what you've accomplished. Cause I think we skip over that too. We're just like, okay, I did that. What's next? What's next? You know? And so just taking that moment to remember when you wanted what you currently have and to just kind of appreciate what you, what you've accomplished and to keep that space for you to just appreciate what, what you've done.

Terra (28:52): That's so good. Like, so good. And like, Oh my enjoy thing. It really turned into me dragging all my, like all my best friends are my neighbors. So I was like, Hey, come over here. Look what's this. Isn't this so amazing? Don't you just want to hang out? Honey? Can you put a chandelier in my closet now? You know, it was just this constant like let's just hang out in here cause it feels good. Yeah.

Ashley (29:15): I get a lot of texts, especially from from women who have children especially. So I'm just sitting in my closet drinking my coffee. It is my happiest space right now. But I love that. I think everyone needs a power spot. Everyone needs a spot where you can go and just like recharge. And why not your closet? I mean you go into it every single day. It should be a place that makes you smile and not a place that makes me go. Did you have to interact with it every day?

Terra (29:46): Absolutely. And, and it's a great way to start your day, so I love that. I love that. Yeah. Very cool. All right, so to learn more. Where can they go to learn more about you and simply Maven and all that good stuff?

Ashley (29:58): Well, simplymavenhtx.com is just our general website. We also have a free download. So our system, our simple method or system is in what we call our choosing joy tidying booklet. And if you're interested in checking that out, you can go to tidybooklet.com for people who you already mentioned the closet detox. So the closet detox.com is where you can actually find out about, that's our online course. If you're not local and you're interested in maybe doing this virtual or you just like to work on your own time and that's a great resource. And then for people who want more more that connection, more guidance, we do free consultations too, so you can do simplymavenconsultation.com. So lots of options. Wherever people are, we always meet them where they're at. And our goal is to just help everyone declutter. So we really just want a world full of happier people.

Terra (30:49): Yeah. And I'll tell you, because I'm out, I'm always, I'm a recovering perfectionist myself. So it was kind of like I'm scared to, you know, for people to come in and let you see behind the scenes and behind the closets and behind, you know, under the beds and this and that. I mean, it's a very fearful and both Ashley and Jane do it with such class and there's no judgment and they just always know they've seen worse. Right?

Ashley (31:16): It's true. And no, there's no, there's no judgment. I'm human. I'm not perfect. You know. So never, never any judgment. The whole goal is when you know better, you do better. So it's totally about just about, you know, just doing better.

Terra (31:31): And then so on that note, share the hair ties story with us.

Ashley (31:34): Oh, the hair heritage story. Okay. So yeah, I had one hair tie for about two years and this was when I was working still and I had done KonMari, I had, you know, streamlined quite a lot and I was still teaching fitness classes and I was teaching like 10 to 15 a week. So it was a full time, full time gig and my hair was in a ponytail every single day. I had one hair tie for two years. And I love the power of one story when it comes to organizing because so many times where like, well I need to have this stockpile, you know, like what if I run out when you have less stuff to keep track of and last stuff to manage and your hair tie comes out of your hair and goes into its spot and it's bathroom and it lives in its home.

Ashley (32:18): You don't lose it. Like you just don't lose it. Like you, you can keep track of it. It's true of sunglasses. It's true of purses. I mean, you know, if you like having options then that's one thing. But I love the power of one because you can take better care of one thing. You can keep track of one thing. Yes. So I had one hair tie for two years. Oh, I bought like, you know, and then it broke cause it was finally broke. It was my only hair tie for two years. That's it apparently. Do you use it every day? That's about the lifespan of a hair tie. And then I, you know, needed to go, I mean you can only buy like a hundred or I feel like I had a lifetime supply of hair types and I do like I'll do, you know, I will give them out Willy nilly and I'm like, no, please feel free to borrow a hair tie. I will not need it.

Terra (33:05): Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. I love it. I love it. So very good. So we'll put all the links that Ashley mentioned in our show notes on terrabohlmann.com. Just click on the podcast episode and there'll be a recap as well as all these links so that you know, if, especially if you're driving or you're working out, don't feel like you have to write it down. Just go to the website and you'll be able to see it. So before we wrap up, I like to ask all my guests this one question, which now I feel like as I've been interviewing people, they're like, I know what it is cause I listened to your podcast. So anyway, so if I'm a big hallmark and lifetime movie person, like I love watching them on the weekends, it helps me relax. So if hallmark was making a biopic about your life, Ashley's life, who, what actress would play you?

Ashley (33:52): Oh, Oh, I don't know. I mean, am I supposed to go for personality or whatever.

Terra (33:59): I know, but whatever comes to mind because it's funny cause I always think I know who it would be, but then I'm always curious on what people think. Like,

Ashley (34:09): Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna choose Reese Witherspoon.

Terra (34:12): That's mine too. I love that. I can totally see that. Yeah. My makeup for you, what's going to be like a Jessica Alba? I, you know, just kind of the whole honest company route and whatnot. But no, I can totally see Reese Witherspoon.

Ashley (34:28): Yeah. And I'm always gonna I dunno, I'm a big fan of her, but the reason there's like something about like, I don't know, Reese has got that little bit of kind of like country-ness to her?

Ashley (34:40): So it just feels like, I don't know. I feel like I'm, I aspire to be, but what? I'm more chill. I'm more of a Reese Witherspoon.

Terra (34:50): I love it. No, they're all all amazing and I love all those actresses, so that's perfect. Well, thank you so much and definitely go to the website, check out her links and we appreciate you Ashley being on the show.

Ashley (35:02): Thank you Terra. It was so much fun.

Terra (35:03): Thank you. Alright, bye.

Outro (35:07): There you have it. Another episode packed full of strategies and motivation that you can use every day to put your business on the fast track. For a podcast recap and more resources, visit TerraBohlmann.com. Don't forget, subscribe to the podcast and get what you need to help fast track your five year business plan.