Episode 1 – How To Stop Quitting!

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If I worked hard enough, I could create my life to be whatever I wanted it to be. 

Welcome, my name is Christy Fechser. And you are listening to all in the name of growth. This is the podcast for women who are seeking inspiration and advice on how to design their life on their terms. We cover topics like mindset shift, setting boundaries, growing a business, overcoming limiting beliefs – after 20 years of marriage, raising a family, building several businesses as an entrepreneur, and mentoring women for over a decade. I have a thing or two to share. I love helping women see their life with a fresh perspective. So thanks for tuning in. 

Hey, friends, so excited to have you on my very first podcast. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what it is that I really wanted to talk about on this first podcast as an introduction – to me, kind of what I’m about, who I am. And I felt like the best topic that I could actually talk about today was how getting started is better than getting it perfect. And I know that for a lot of people when they are very first starting an adventure, it can be so overwhelming because of all of the pressure that we put on ourselves to perfect in the first go. 

I am definitely no exception to this. I am a perfectionist by nature and if you ask my husband, he will tell you that I do not like doing anything unless I’m going to get it right the first time. I don’t like making mistakes and it’s really hard for me to put myself out there, unless I know for a fact I’m going to succeed. So this is definitely appropriate in launching a new podcast.

 You know one of the things that I find to be extremely helpful though, in this new endeavor, this kind of new adventure for me, is that I’ve been here before. I’ve been in a place where I had no idea what I was doing and I just felt called to do something something radically different than I had ever done before and it all worked out and that working itself out is what gives me the confidence to do this again, especially, because it is something I am so, incredibly passionate about. I love freedom and I’m not talking about freedom from your country, although I do love that. I’m talking about lifestyle Freedom, about Choice Freedom, about being able to have the ultimate say, in the way that you spend your day, the way that you spend your life, the relationships that you have, your Financial Freedom… about just being able to have choices. And for me, that was my sole driving force all growing up is that I wanted to make my own choices. 

So when I was 14 years old, I started a job working for a catering company and my first paycheck blew my mind. I was like, hold up. These people are going to really give me money for working and it was amazing. I was never into the babysitting thing. That was not my gig, but getting a job and actually, working a real job for a paycheck. I thought that was pretty legit. Until I realized that these people that I was working for were paying me less than minimum wage. And I was working harder than most of the adults that work for the company and I could see the type of life that they were enjoying because it was their business and they had the choices. And I, it was my first realization that I could choose something different, in time, that if I worked hard enough, I could create my life to be what I wanted it to be. 

And so that job at 14 years old, was so pivotal in showing me that I had options, I had choices to make and I could make them be whatever I wanted them to be. So as I got into high school and I started getting the question more and more and more often. Well, what are you going to do when you get out of high school? What are you going to be when you grow up? The only thing that I could ever really come up with at the heart of it all, was that I, whatever it was whatever, the thing was that I was going to do – It was going to be something where I could call the shots. Because I did not see the sense in working for somebody else building their dream, when I can work on building my own dream. And so, for me, as I got into college and I started looking at different opportunities for majors and the things that I wanted to pursue, I bounced back between literally the extremes. I thought about being a lawyer and I thought about going into the travel and tourism industry. And I thought about being a dental hygienist, and a psychologist… all of those things were going to allow me to create my own schedule and to be my own person and to run my life the way that I wanted to run it. And that was really, really at the heart of what I wanted. I just wanted to be able to call the shots for my own life. I didn’t want to be at the mercy of somebody else or punching the time clock for somebody else. I just wanted it to be my way. And so I got about a year and a half into college and I started looking at changing my major again, because I was not, after my first anatomy and physiology class. That was no way I was ever going to take another science class again in my life. And after I took my first psychology and sociology class, I was like, that sounds all fine and well, but that’s not it either. And being a lawyer, while it was appealing, it just didn’t feel right. 

So as I started looking at changing my major, I started looking at business stuff because business was always something that I really loved. I thought it was incredible. That people could take an idea that they had and just grow it into this mighty thing that like produced an income, supported their family, and gave them the ability to travel, and just have freedom. And I was just so enthralled with this idea. So when that came across, I would like, oh business management sounds intriguing. But then it came time to pick the emphasis. What was I going to do with business management? And it was like the words popped off the paper at me… when I saw entrepreneurship and I was like that is it! That is the thing I want to do. That is the thing that is going to be able to provide me the ability to really thrive in my own life, to call the shots, create the life that I want, in my way, and be able to just own all aspects of that. 

So I started pursuing that course of action becoming an entrepreneur. The funny thing about it was that I was taking college classes to try and teach me how to be an entrepreneur. Which, I understand the basis of it, but the part of it… entrepreneurship is something that you feel inside of you. It’s a desire and it’s a, it’s a longing, a wanting to be able to do something more to create something to have a business, not just to learn it in theory. And as I was going through all of these business classes, I realized that I already knew much of what they were trying to teach me. And even my professors that prided themselves on never giving A’s out – I was getting A’s in their classes. I just felt like at that time it was time for me to do something that I’ve never done before, and that was to stop going to school. And so about six classes shy of my bachelor’s degree I dropped out of college and decided I was just going to pursue my own thing, and we were going to live our own life. At that time I was married and we had just had our first baby and it just felt like it was time to do something different. 

And I dabbled. I dabbled in a lot of different things, trying to find the thing that I really wanted to pursue. And I think for my husband at that time, he loved the idea of entrepreneurship, but he also loved the idea of a solid income and didn’t know how we were going to create money without having any money. So, it took a while for us to find our groove, but we did and we ended up falling into a business that we were doing together. It was actually one that he had started. He was amazing at all things computer and tech. He had been in the construction industry since he was like 12. His dad was in the construction industry and so it was just something that he had naturally done. All the while, he really wanted to learn how computers worked. And just the technology aspect of it, and he started doing computer repair after learning that skill. That computer business ended up turning into web design and development. And we owned a full-scale web development business for a lot of years. And it was really, really rewarding. But also something that was a little feast or famine, and it wasn’t giving me the freedom in the way that I wanted it to. It didn’t look the way that I had imagined, but it gave me a lot of skills and I was grateful for those skills and I was excited to be able to put them into use and whatever venture came next. 

So in 2011, I started getting this itch to step away from web development. It was always really my husband saying it was a thing that he really loved. I loved business, so it made sense that I helped him with his business, but it wasn’t ever. The thing that I was super passionate about. I didn’t want to learn HTML, didn’t want to learn design. It was things that I knew how to do because that was the industry that we were in, but it wasn’t my love. What I really wanted was to be free, and I wasn’t free. I was still at the mercy of our clients and we played a little bit of the feast or famine game, which a lot of entrepreneurs do. And I was just longing for something that I could do that was going to uplift and inspire people, that was going to make a difference, in a different way.

I had an opportunity fall into my lap in 2012, which was radically different than anything I had ever done before, and it was in the wellness industry. It was actually, I know I’m going to say it… brace yourself. It was in network marketing. Don’t worry if you’re prejudiced against network marketing, believe me, you weren’t more prejudiced than I was. And so it was just this weird crazy. Incredible opportunity to do something, radically different. And I could use the skills that I had gained in my web development business and bring it over into this new venture and blossom it into this really incredible thing. And it did – it totally worked! 

And I remember in the early days of that business, knowing that I could create it to be something special but I had no idea how I was actually going to do that. That’s exactly how I feel right now starting this podcast. I know I can make this be something really fun and really enjoyable and create a community that supports each other. And I’m so looking forward to the day when I can see that come to fruition, but for now, I understand that there’s a point where you just have to get started. And so that’s where I am. I’m just here getting started and I’m so grateful that you’re here, getting started with me. It means the world to me to be able to have people who are supportive of one another and to be able to have each other’s backs. That is huge, huge, huge for me. And I’m just, like I said, just so grateful for this opportunity and to be able to bring to life all of the things that I have learned along the way. From going from an 18 year, old small-town girl from Wyoming, with a hundred dollars to her name, moving out to a new state, with no real job prospects, no real place to live, no money to her name – and making it work. 

I’m still in the same state, decades later and I love it. And I’m excited to share my story and my experiences about life and business, and to be able to help you see that you can create your life your way as well. And that the very beginning of it is going to be imperfect. So don’t worry about the imperfect part, Envision for yourself what it is that you want to see in the long-term and go for that. Take the baby steps that are going to get you there. So thank you so much my friend for joining today. I love having you here. Thank you for supporting me. If you feel like this podcast would be a benefit to anybody that you know, please share it with them and I am so looking forward to the coming episodes. I have so much good stuff planned and I’m just really looking forward to sharing that with you and to getting to know you better. So I will catch up with you guys next week. 

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of all in the name of growth. If you felt like the content shared today was helpful, or inspired you in some way, please share it with your friends. And be sure to tune in again for a fresh perspective on growth, mindset shapes, and leveling up your life and business.