Episode #034 — Transform Your Brand with Jess Trachsel’s Insights

Melanie Branch: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Trailblazers Rising. I'm so excited to bring to you my new friend, Jess Trachsel who is the founder of Prairie Glow Studio. And we met just a few weeks ago at a networking event. Can you imagine this neurospicy girl going to a virtual networking event? It was hard, but I did it, and we had a fantastic time.

And then we had a little coffee afterwards and got to know each other. Yeah. And she is after my own heart if you're watching this with this pink and purple light behind her. So Jess say hello Tell everybody who you are And all that good fantastic fun stuff.

Jess Trachsel: Well, yeah, hi. I'm super pumped to be here today. I was thinking about getting ready for this and was just so jazzed because you are the person who understands the most the power of that authenticity and stepping into your own and I'm just jazzed to have this chat because that's the core of what I do.

It was what I did when I worked at Early Childhood Development. It's what I did when I When I moved into university again, and it's what I'm doing now as a brand designer, that is just my jam is talking to women specifically, but men too. Um, about being yourself in your business and not feeling like you got to cut off the pieces, you know?

And I think you talk a lot about burnout and that's so much where that comes from is the cutting off of pieces. So I'm just pumped to dive into this conversation. Cause I think it does not happen.

Melanie Branch: Yeah, so we will dive right in and let's talk about the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey where I went from working 30 hours a week in a very busy restaurant, which will not be named, but has a gigantic menu Um, and maybe known for dessert and um I went from you know Working 30 hours a week building my business at the same time And then I finally got to sign for my spirit team that they said I walked into that restaurant And we were about to open and my spirit guide said to me This is how good your life gets if you stay here You will have this much time and energy for this place.

You have this much time and energy for your business You'll have this much time and energy for your family and that's it. This is as good as it gets I said two weeks are in you got it motherfucker. And then I started Just working at home, and I was under the Misconception that I was gonna be working from 9 a.

m. until 6 p. m. And that's just not the case. So what was your transition from, you know, worker bee muggle life into entrepreneur heaven?

Jess Trachsel: Yeah, it's actually so wild how things are put in place before we even know what they are like so often. I feel like that's how it works. Hey, the universe just kind of sets you up and you don't know what you're set up for until you're in the middle of it. And for me, my, like, I call it my serial entrepreneur journey kind of started when I was 7 and a half years old.

Melanie Branch: What?

Jess Trachsel: Because I desperately wanted to go to summer camp and my family said, well, sure you can go, but how are you going to make the money? Like, that's 400. How are you going to do that? And so I founded I started a bakery in my parents kitchen and I paid for my utilities, my ingredients, my advertising, everything.

I built the flyers myself and it was my jam. So I did that for six summers. I made all of the money to send myself to summer camp. And I went out and got to know the people. I went out and like made connections to get my stuff cheaper. Like I, I was like, Pretty hardcore about it. And that was the beginning of, I don't actually have to work for someone else.

I can always find a way to do this differently. And I can always find a way toward my goals that works for me. And I don't have to figure out, well, you know, you're in high school and people ask you, so what are you doing after school? You go to university and people say, what are you doing after graduation?

I don't have to have an answer to that. And that seed was planted super young because I had parents who said, sure, you can do things. What do you want to do? Like, where do you want it? We'll make it happen. We'll move the things. We'll drive you to the places. We'll, we'll make sure you can do it. So that was my first exploration into that.

And it never really stopped. It changed form, but that attitude of like, I can find the thing that works for me, just kind of stuck with me. So I ended up when I was 18, I started partnering with a local business and leadership development company. I worked with them for five years. And. Helped them coach business owners and mentor people in the life stuff so that they could do the business stuff better because they were one of the first people I met who really noticed no one is looking at business owners as whole people. And then we kind of met that need as we went and we taught a lot of things. I was a wedding photographer. My first wedding I ever shot paid. I was 12 years old. That is insane to me. I don't know who, what kind of bride trusts a 12 year old to take your wedding photos

Melanie Branch: and ask them about their child labor laws, because I'm pretty sure here in the U. S. that is not

Jess Trachsel: my goodness. Oh, it was crazy.

My dad was the officiant and he said, Hey, they don't have a photographer. Somebody fell through or something didn't happen or something's not set up. Um, they'll pay you the amount they were going to pay their other photographer. Do you want to come? I said, okay.

Melanie Branch: Let me ask you this. What do

Jess Trachsel: And I think that's a big hurdle for him too. My dad is a pastor. He's been a pastor my entire life in one church. So in a pastor, he actually originally was going to go to school to be a vet. And moved over into full time ministry. And my mom was a stay at home mom and worked halftime for the church. And she worked with kids. She was the most industrious, creative person.

And I think she influenced a lot of what I do now and how. Some of my business is expressed just the idea of you can literally with your hands, make the things you see in your

Melanie Branch: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Trachsel: Yeah. So it kind of flowed through my young adult life. And after being a wedding photographer for a while, the passion for that died down and I discovered just before the pandemic brand design and brand strategy and realized that would allow me to like sit with.

Women who were passionate and ask them the really big questions that I wanted to ask people, because I've never been a small talk person. Maybe it's the autism, maybe it's the parents in a people helping field, who knows, but I'm not one for just shooting the shit for nothing. So I loved that I could sit down with women and say.

Who are you for real? And what are you about? And what do you actually want to be telling the world about how you help them? And that just opened up like a whole different world of my favorite work ever, which is brand strategy and design. And now that's what I get to do. And it, it does feel like entrepreneurial heaven sometimes, like you say, um, it is definitely not the nine to five that I had maybe thought it might be, but it is so much better

Melanie Branch: That's so funny that I use the term entrepreneurial heaven because I've never used that term before, but it makes sense for you and your upbringing. So, with your Scorpio sun, which I know about you, um, but we don't know your, your moon and rising offhand, I would not be at all surprised to find out that you have an air moon with that kind of attitude and that kind of ability to like look somebody directly in the eye and say, please tell me your deepest, darkest thoughts and secrets before I even know your last name.

And you're amongst good company here because I'm a Taurus, and if you know anything about astrology, we're sister signs, and Scorpios love Taurus, and Taurus love Scorpios, but we typically don't end up together long term, because we're both fixed signs. We both are deeply physical, sensual beings, but in two totally different ways, so, like, A tourist wants to be very comfortable and happy and cozy on the couch, cuddling and, you know, we like our sex and all that sort of stuff.

But it's typically not the same approach as a Scorpio. So it's not,

Jess Trachsel: until we felt that vibe when we got on that coffee. A couple of weeks ago, it was just right away like,

Melanie Branch: You know what it is, too.

Jess Trachsel: is going to be fun.

Melanie Branch: Taurus, we love being involved in a secret, but like we don't really have any of our own. And Scorpios are so good with secrets that it's like, a Scorpio will tell a Taurus their secret and we're like, OH MY GOD WE'RE COOL ENOUGH THAT THEY TOLD US THE SECRET! AND NOBODY'S GONNA KNOW!

OH MY GOD I'M SO COOL! Cause we're not inherently cool. We're not. Scorpios, though, they are. So happy Scorpio season! I felt The transition into Scorpio season. It was a thick day. We're also in the middle of a, uh, huge eclipse portal that will come to the end, um, here in October 20 on October 28th, so just a few more days.

I know you guys are listening to this later, but

Jess Trachsel: A

Melanie Branch: it comes to branding specifically, I know that my biggest hiccup with people is when they think that it's all about the font and the color. What would you say is the biggest? What you really want people to know if you were listening to every single if you were talking to every single person right now that was working on a brand strategy what's the one thing that's number one

Jess Trachsel: That is such a good question. I feel like I keep coming back to this with, with clients in different ways, because I think the expression of it looks different for everybody, but at the end of the day, if you're going to have a solid brand, it has to be built on strategy. You cannot just make visuals and expect yourself to move somewhere successfully.

And that brand strategy has to be. A truthful expression of who you are and who you want to be for your clients. It's not just about consistently representing what people can expect from you. It's about being true to you and that therefore true to what your clients are going to get. Because people want to look at your brand and feel, Not just like they understand cognitively what's going on in your business.

They want to look at you and feel that like soul level connection of, Oh my God, they get me. I have to work with them. And it wasn't in my own journey. It wasn't until I figured that out that I had a client say, you know, you're the only one I would trust to do this. Like I would not trust anybody else. To, to look at my business with this level of vulnerability to be this involved in the things I'm not good at.

Like that was a huge affirmation for me, but it only came after that moment of knowing what does it look like to be self expressed in my business and still. Be a professional. And that's my, my message right now is you can be both. You can be fully yourself and totally fucking qualified for the shit that you do.

Being yourself and being fully expressed and feeling true in the way that you say and do and show up doesn't have to mean you look, whatever your perception is, amateur, like maybe your 18 year old influencer who lives in your house, you know. You can look like the fully developed and experienced professional that you are and be yourself, but you have to be

Melanie Branch: you don't have to tell everybody your deep dark secrets but you can't be lying about the face that you're putting on every day

Jess Trachsel: Totally, and you can't be shrinking from it either. I think sometimes we think, well, I'm not pretending, I'm not lying, but are you shrinking? Because people can feel that, and like I said before, I think that's how burnout happens, and we don't recognize it, but it happens because we're hiding, and then we wonder why we're not lit up by the work we're doing.

We're not excited by the people who are showing up, why it's crickets and we have no one showing up. Well, are you giving them something to show

Melanie Branch: i mean i think so many people get this wrong with content and it's one of the major things that i work on with people at the academy um and with my own one on one clients is It's not about you, and this coming from somebody, I have over 200, 000 followers on TikTok, this is my second account, my first account got banned at 45, 000 followers two months after I quit my job and was full time with my business.

It was crazy. Uh, but like, it's not about you, yes, people know me as the pink hair, pink and purple hair girl that wears a lot of makeup and talks really fast and does all this stuff, but like, my videos aren't about me, and if they are about me, instead of me saying the word I, I say the word you. It's about you. So what are some other little like tips and tricks that you have discovered in all of your experiences, especially with branding and marketing?

Jess Trachsel: Yeah, well, one of the big ones, and I think you're kind of on the edge of it with what you just shared is I encourage people if you're not sure how to share your story in a way that connects with your clients, because I see a lot of people in their business accounts, their professional accounts kind of treat it like it.

A group chat with their best friends or their personal Facebook, where only their mom looks and they post all of their personal stuff. But there's no connection to why you do what you do or how that actually helps people. So that's not building a personal brand. Just being your personal life and airing your everyday doings is not a personal brand.

So what I tell people to start doing that is you need to start with I and end with you. You need to start with I did this. This was my story. Here's what I learned. Here was what I did today. Here's how I help you. So I might share a story about my husband and I went for coffee and we had an interaction with someone that really struck me.

Um, I see this pattern in people that I work with all the time. This is what I work my clients through in. My program in my branding in whatever, but you're starting with I, and people get hooked in because they want your experience and they want to hear that you know, and you've lived what you're talking about and you move it over to you and without that you piece, you're losing people.

So even if you're posting on, you know, stories, if we're talking social media marketing, you're posting on your stories, a picture of what you did today, maybe you just hung out with your kids all day and you're posting a picture of yourself relaxing. Are you going to tie that to something? What is the tie in?

Is the tie in, are you taking time to relax for yourself? I'm so excited to get recharged before I jump into creating for clients again. What is the tie in for people so that they can stay connected to what you do because they care about you being yourself, but ultimately they care about you being yourself.

So that they can get what they want. Everyone's asking what's in

Melanie Branch: that's why we're here. I have to remind people all the time. I am not on social media because I want to be, this is not about my personal life. This is about money, honey. This is about me growing my businesses and helping the community that I came here to earth to help and really, really benefit.

So it's funny you should mention stories. I was just talking about this, um, with a girlfriend who's in marketing, um, and I was like you're always in your stories and you're always really good in your story So what are the recommendations that you make and she said the same thing you did it's like Stories, especially because they're going to be gone in 24 hours and they're such an easy commitment So when you think about content as tiktok is a bit of a commitment You got to hear it So if you're out in a public place and you don't have headphones, you can't really get into tiktok, right?

instagram You can scroll Instagram, but we all know it's boring and it's ads, but stories you can go in on Instagram stories in 10 seconds and see a bunch of people's stuff. It's not a huge commitment. And we, it's that transient feeling of like, Ooh, maybe they didn't mean to post this. Right. So there's a lot of intrigue when it comes to stories.

And I feel like a lot of service based business owners are sleeping on that. So when you think about it from the perspective of, If you're a big foodie, I have a lot of tourist placements. I love my food, but I love my food in the sense that I love good service with my food. So I only go to certain restaurants and bartenders.

I don't drink anymore, but I always sit at the bar because it's, I don't want to sit at a table and by myself and the bartenders know that I'm a good time. I'm low maintenance and I'm a good tipper. And I'm here because I'm a good time. I'm low maintenance and I'm a good tipper. So don't make me do anything that I don't want to do.

Right? Like I came here because I don't want to wash any dishes. I don't want to cook any food. I want you to take care of me. And so always using, like, are always putting a picture in of when I'm out to eat at a restaurant and putting a text on screen that's like, you know, a year ago, I wouldn't have imagined that I was able to go out to eat on the first day of my period.

That's something that I actually did just post about the other day. But two years ago when I started my business or a year, I've been doing it since 2021. So whatever the math is on that time isn't real. Um two years ago, it would have been a different message of like When I quit my job and went full time with my business, I never would have imagined that going out to lunch multiple days per week was in the cards for me.

Right? So when it comes to bringing it from you to somebody else, that's so valuable. Everybody write it down. Start with I end with you. Start with I end with you. So

Jess Trachsel: And the reason that things like that work are because it's you sharing your values and sharing the things that matter to you, you know, you sharing why you go out to eat and your mindset going into a bar to eat, you know, that tells people you value being good to service people. You value people's time.

You value people's effort and attention poured into you. You value the experience of good service. So when people come to you, they know. I'm going to be treated well, because Melanie treats people well. She treats people well who are doing nothing for her. She treats people well who are not clients. So it's a value level communication all the time.

And I've had that in my own business.

Melanie Branch: Okay. Sorry. I keep going. I love it.

Jess Trachsel: And even when you're not meaning to, everything you do communicates something that matters to you or something that doesn't. And clients are watching your audience. There's a reason we call it an audience on social media, your community. But they're watching you. And it's the same in real life. And that's part of why I tell people you've got to figure out how to be yourself in all of the spaces you occupy, whether they're in person or online.

Now that might look different. Like we said, it doesn't mean you need to air all of your dirty laundry to everybody everywhere, and you need to be the same level of deep with everyone, but you need to be the same. If I'm seeing you online valuing people and talking about how you make all these conscious decisions with people in mind, and I meet you in person, you treat the waiter like shit. I am going to have massive cognitive dissonance with that, and I'm probably going to break a lot of trust. with you because of that. I'm probably not going to move forward in any sort of partnership or maybe even friendship with that because you've been

Melanie Branch: when we're talking about neurodivergent people,

Jess Trachsel: So,

Melanie Branch: and highly sensitive people, especially, it not only makes them doubt you, it makes them doubt themselves. And I do not ever want to be. negative cause of somebody's existential crisis. I do want to call out my clients when they need to be called out and say, Hey, let's look at this.

What did you just say? What does this really mean? But I don't want somebody to think that I was a, B and C and then they find out I'm X, Y, and Z and they don't want to be around that. So, and you know, it's like when we hear horror stories about our favorite celebs, You know? It's like, oh, you know, you thought so and so was a really good dude?

Okay, I have all of these blind items over here that say he is trash. That's so insane.

Jess Trachsel: Exactly. Exactly. And that's the core of, I think, the purpose of branding. Everyone, especially in the professional business world, has heard people do business with people they No, like, and trust, right? We know this, like the back of our hand, people do business, people, they know, like, and trust. Well, how are they supposed to know, like, and trust someone who never posts like their actual self, who never uses language that reflects who they really are, who never shows their face anywhere in their marketing, who is inconsistent in the values that they talk about.

And then that they practice, like, how are you supposed to build those knowing, liking, and trusting without. Visual consistency, that's your branding and without, um, messaging and core consistency, which is your strategy, your marketing, the execution of all of that. You can't, I don't think you can at least

Melanie Branch: So, who do you think benefits the most? If there's like a tier system of Business owners, entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, and people with a team that need to build a personal brand. Like, is it realtors? Is it doctors? Is it service providers? Like, because there is a difference between the business brand and your personal brand.

Jess Trachsel: Totally. Um, this is kind of a case by case answer to some extent because everyone's situation and goals are so different. And that's often what I come back to when I do a brand strategy session with a client, as we come back to. What do you want? What, what is your vision for your company? Um, how much involvement do you want?

Do you want to be the face of your business? Because I will say, um, your face is the absolute best business card or logo you will ever have. And that will be true whether you are the business owner or anyone else, but you need to decide whether or not you're willing to be that for your business. And you need to decide ultimately what are your target audience.

Clients, those so many people that you're looking to connect with, what do they want from you? What is common in your industry? And as a brand strategist, this is part of what I do all day long, especially in audits. I run audits where a client will submit their business to me and I'll compare them to other competitors in their brand and help them find a really standout.

Place in the market. That's not claimed yet. And that's the question. I would tell people to ask if you're wondering, do I need a personal brand? Does it have to be me? Do I need to brand my business? Like, how do I do this? The question is, what is happening in your industry already? Is that something you want to blend in with because it might be depending on your goals and what you're doing or is it something you need to break away from?

Okay, then do the different thing. You have to find a different approach. So figuring out what's what's happening in your industry and what do your clients want? What does your audience need from you? Um As a brand designer, I have a personal brand because not only does it start with me at the end of the day, it ends with me, whether I am exploring an agency model, and I have tons of people under me, people are going to come to my.

Company to work with me to have my creative input and my brain on their brand. So it's going to be me who shows up in the branding. There can be other people who move around and make the things happen. Um, but to accurately reflect what I'm wanting to do with clients and how I work my process out, it has to be me.

Whereas someone else with a big, big marketing agency that maybe works with corporate people who are also in the space of not being. The face of their business, that might be someone who would opt to brand their business instead of themselves because they're relating to clients on that aspect. So there's a lot of different things you got to figure out.

Does your. Where does the trust come from with your clients? Sometimes it comes from them knowing that they're going to get you. And sometimes that is less of a factor. So there's a lot of shades to it. And it's, I think, a question a lot of people have a different take on. But at the end of the day, those are the questions I bring everybody back to is how is this going to connect with your clients?

Because if it's not going to

Melanie Branch: some guardrails and some goalposts on this motherfucker. That's what my business partner always says. Hi, Christina! She helps edit these, so, hello! Hi Theo! Anyways, um, so when it comes to a real life example, as a neurodivergent woman with many a chronic illness, I really do benefit from having an example that I can say, okay, so I don't want that, but I can see how that works for them.

Like, it's like in elementary school when you were learning a verb and a noun and all that. I don't know what you're talking about until you give me a fucking example. Like, if, if you're talking about colors, you gotta show me green, red, purple, and I go, Oh, okay, I know where we're going, right? That's just the way my brain works.

And I use the Real Housewives of New York City, Orange County, and Beverly Hills, because those are the only three franchises that I watch religiously. They're, like, part of my comfort shows. Um, and Old New York, not this New New York bullshit, but we're not even going to that. It's a whole other episode. Um, but when it comes to Real Housewives, They are such a good demonstration of what you're talking about about authenticity Because the ones that built an authentic personal brand And went hard in on this is who I am flaws and all are doing fantastic.

Ie Luanne, um, ie ramona like these women aren't even on this show anymore But they have a solid ass personal brand and they're doing great But the ones that we don't, we didn't get a real accurate representation of for whatever reason, they didn't want to bring us into the nitty gritty of their lives, even though that's what they sign up for, we don't even talk about them anymore.

Like, we just don't talk about them. So when it comes to personal branding, I feel it's so important to mention, like, it doesn't matter how big you want to get one day, If you are working in the internet online space and you're the face of your business You have to have a personal brand and you have to take care of that personal brand like lady gaga She was a lady gaga when she was just stephanie.

Giamatti. Jeremiah, whatever her last name is She was lady gaga well before she had any recognition for it, right? So it really takes the ability to take up space unapologetically So my question for you is how much? Does mindset play a role in personal branding and professional branding?

Jess Trachsel: Oh my God. Yes. All of it. Just, yes. Um, hugely because for one, your beliefs about personal branding will form whether or not you're willing to step into that world. So I'm in the middle right now, actually, of creating a program where we're going to bust through all of those myths and all of the fears around the visibility and the vulnerability of personal branding, because that is all mindset shit.

And nobody's talking about that. People are giving you, um, you know, ideas, five tips for this and three ways to do that. And at the end of the day, if you are scared shitless, be visible as yourself to be visible and vulnerable at the same time, you are not going to do it. Um, you need support. It's intensely vulnerable to show up and be who you are in any context, let alone the internet.

And comment sections we all know are sometimes places you just want to like leave there and not worry about. Um, it can be really, really difficult to show up and be yourself and open yourself up to Criticism. You need to have a strength of conviction and mindset around yourself, your offers, your value.

One of the first things that I teach my coaching clients is you are the value in your business. Because a lot of times, especially in professional world, we hear all the time, you have to give value, add value to people. Well, what the fuck does that mean? At the end of the day, it means You, are you in your business or is someone showing up and finding a list of features and benefits to a program, a list of maybe pretend testimonials, you know, like, as opposed to they show up and they go, oh, yeah, I can like, feel in my gut who these people are, whether it's one person or it's a team of people, or it's a, um, a company that's taking on a personal approach, which is another, you know, Option.

There's infinite ways to spin this, but it's the effect. It's the gut feeling. Someone has the things that they say, think, and feel about you when you're not in front of them. That's your brand. You can't create that without doing a ton of inner work, a ton of work around, maybe it's rejection, especially for a lot of us neurodivergent people.

It's a big one. It's a big one. So are you going to show up and allow yourself to be vulnerable and potentially rejected for who you are? Yeah. That's huge. And you can't do that alone. I think you do need to have, whether it's a community of business owners, you have a really, um, a coach who really knows you, you need people, you need support, you need to be guarding your mindset carefully, whether that's with energy work, with breathwork practices, all sorts of things you need, because it's, it's going to put you through the ringer.

I will not pretend that this is an easy process. I often end up saying that to clients and say, okay, you might be surprised as we go through this, Beginning of our strategy, I am not just going to ask you what your revenue goals are, what your, like, what the words are that you want your target audience to be saying, like, no, I'm going to ask you, why does that make you uncomfortable? Because it's a mindset thing. It starts in your head and your heart and your history and all of the ideas that you're carrying with you. About what you're about to do. So I think it's huge. I think it's an ongoing process of figuring out what is going to be supportive to you in the season that you're in, in business.

And as you take more steps, because every new thing, right. Is that stretch, stretch, and then we get comfortable. It doesn't feel like the stretch anymore. And then we do it again, you know, over and over again, we have to do this process. It has to be your mind. And your capacity growing at the same rate, if not

Melanie Branch: Somebody once

Jess Trachsel: than your brand and your

Melanie Branch: uh, this, you can take the sting out of rejection sensitivity when you realize that you'll never be rejected from the wrong person. So, it really helps the whole idea of, it's not rejection, it's redirection. Right? And it's like, understanding that it has nothing to do, every choice that everybody makes.

It's based on them, not you. So if somebody says, I think your pink and purple hair is stupid, it's secretly because deep down inside, they have something going on with the fact that they can't have pink and purple hair, or resentment that their job won't let them do this, right? So it's never a reflection of me and my hair, it's a reflection of whatever they have going on internally.

Which brings me to my next point that you were talking about briefly, is I tell people all the time, there's a reason why Health and wealth are only different by one letter because they really go hand in hand And you cannot really have one without the other because you know If you're sitting here thinking to yourself that you want a million dollars and I say, okay I'll give you a million dollars tomorrow and you go.

Okay, cool. And then I say, okay, but you die tomorrow Well, that's not it. I want I want a million dollars and I want a lot of time on this earth. Okay, great um, but So I'll give you a million dollars, give you a long time on earth, but I'm gonna make you sick the whole time. And you're not gonna be able to enjoy it.

And then you go, no, no, no, I want health too. And then you go, okay. Well, then I'll give you a million dollars and you'll be healthy and you'll live a long time, but you'll have nobody around you that you love. And you go, well, shit! That's something that I want too! So when we really think about it from the perspective of, Long term goals, not just personal and not just professional, but how they weave together because we're entrepreneurs.

It's the same thing. My life and my business are the same thing because I can't take one away from the other, right? My big focus as a mindset and energy coach is on self care and I don't mean self care in the sense of massages and pedicures. I mean self care in the sense of Every single decision I make throughout my day is based on how good that's going to make me feel.

And it's no longer about avoiding pain, it's about embracing joy and goodness and happiness. Because I do have Ehlers Danlos, and I do have POTS, and I do have mast cell activation. And my body is, and I have PMDD and I have PCOS and I have endometriosis. My body is always inflamed and it's always yelling at me about something that was just fine yesterday, but today we've decided it's not okay.

So self care is literally the only way that I'm able to keep myself running my businesses and happy and serving my clients. So for me, that looks like having these flexible systems that achieve my goal in different ways, right? So I talked about this on TikTok a year ago, and it was. My goal is always to get my makeup off before I go to bed.

Because I did used to be the girl that was like, No, I just sleep in my makeup, it's fine, my skin's great, la la la la la. No, that was a lie that I was telling myself. But I'm okay and I'm gonna be truthful with myself now. But that means, on a low energy day, that's a makeup wipe. On a high energy day, it's gonna be, it was an 8 step skincare.

But now, I am really into castor oil. And we can talk about that afterward if you're interested in learning more about castor oil. Externally only! Um, but now it's like, if it's a, if I'm on a higher energy day, then I can really go to town. But the goal of getting my makeup off was achieved either way. So what does self care look like for you as an entrepreneur?

In very cold Saskatchewan,

Jess Trachsel: Yes, very cold. We were just saying it's like end of October when we're recording this and it just snowed where I am, which is kind of miserable. I'll be okay. We're ready for this. Yeah. Self care. It's always flexible. Like you mentioned having flexible systems, but also it's fluid and I'm learning a lot of it.

Self care for me is asking for help. It's allowing myself to be supported and any women listening I think will know that we are not used to being good at that, you know, we all I think have this, I can be super woman. And if I can't, at least I can tough it out attitude. And there's so many discussions and so many books worth of.

Discourse around why that is how it is, um, for different women in different situations, but so much of it has looked like just admitting that I can't actually do it and that's okay. And it doesn't always feel okay. Actually, it pretty much never feels okay to ask for help. Sometimes it's, uh, self care has been.

Last month, when I started my period, day one is always the worst and I can hardly get up. And my pain woke me up in the middle of the night, which is pretty rare. And I like tried to roll over and go back to sleep a few times. And finally, I shuffled myself to the bathroom, took a few pain meds, went back to bed, and I woke my husband up and I said, Can you heat up the heating pad?

I can't fall back asleep. But like, I woke him up in the middle of the night. I would not typically do that. He hadn't been sleeping super well that week and it was an admission to me. My needs matter too. My pain does not have to be endured alone. Like, it's okay for me to have help. It's okay for me to be supported.

Um, so sometimes it looks like those moments, um, sometimes it looks like, Recognizing people pleasing tendencies in myself and consciously stopping myself. Um, Sometimes that looks like asking my husband, Hey, can you make dinner? I'm going to sit and play video games tonight. And he goes, Oh, sure. Because my husband is just wonderful. Allowing myself to have a moment of rest that felt kind of selfish. Instead of doing the thing for him. That I would gladly do, and I have often done, but saying, no, I'd like to switch that today and knowing how to do that in an emotionally mature way is a huge part of being able to have these conversations with the people in your life.

Whoever your support system is. Um, I think that often gets missed and then we get into well, why did my self care become. a relationship issue. Well, we got to back that up a few steps and learn some healthy communication, some assertive communication instead of what you may be used to using. So there's tools to make that happen in a way that can work.

I don't want people listening to think, well, I tried doing that and now they're mad at me. Well, let's look at everyone and their ability to handle caring for each other and being cared for because

Melanie Branch: and your partner is dysregulated, and your kids are dysregulated, and your friends are dysregulated, because you know, like attracts like, then you can expect To have any of these, like, I call them natural holistic approaches work for you. If you guys are super duper in toxicity just with like the stuff in your house, right?

Like if you're still using all the Glade plugins and all this other kind of stuff. You're messing with your endocrine system and you're messing with your nervous system. Especially as a neurodivergent, super sensitive person. And you have too much stimuli happening all the time and everybody's at a 10.

When we wanna all just be at a two. Oh

Jess Trachsel: Yes, totally. So there's lots kind of like wrapped around the idea of caring for ourselves and for the people in our lives. And until we acknowledge that, I think we can often run into these blocks and run into this, well, why didn't it work? Someone said it would, I could just like take the bubble bath and be fine.

Why is my husband upset that they're working with the kids and I took a bath? Wow. There's more connected. We don't live in a bubble or a vacuum ever. Um, and that's part of self care too, is doing the hard, ongoing work of maturing inside out, of learning what unhealthy patterns of communication and relationship have you learned and become used to.

That maybe you need to undo so you can have better relationships, so you can communicate without friction, so that you can ask for the help and receive the help from the people who are ready to give it and to receive it. So, we don't like talking about that as self care. We like to leave it at the bubble baths and the face masks and the girls night out, and it just isn't.

Like, and some of that is done with other people. And arguably that's so much harder than the things you'll do alone because people are just difficult. We just need to learn each other and be willing to have grace with each other, and that's not always easy. And the other side of it is some of it is the deep personal inner stuff.

I did a, a breathwork journey with a friend of mine, um, Kimberly Stevens from Embark Wellness. And she ran us through a 9D breathwork journey on fear. And it was like the most intense thing I think I've done in a long time. There's a two points in the audio you're listening to on these immersive headphones, um, where they guide you through the music intensifies and your breath intensifies.

And they had us do. Like a scream, just like guttural, like releasing. And when she was talking to us about it at the beginning, I thought, I don't know if I'm going to be ready for like, I don't know, we'll see. I was kind of skeptical. I wasn't quite sure if I would be there. And in the moment. It was the biggest release I think I've ever had.

I wasn't expecting to have such a physical reaction. And afterward, um, I had this refrain in my mind of, like, I will not let fear run my business and my life and it was such an affirming. Journey. And I'm now walking out the aftermath of that and figuring out what does that really look like to do in my business and to execute and guess what?

That means I have to do things that freak me out. Um, so the self care is never one moment. It's a lot of things and

Melanie Branch: And it's really important too, to like understand nobody else came to this planet to take care of you. And that's not, nobody else is, is wrong or selfish for that you came to this planet to get you into the best possible position. Right? So it's selfish for us to think. That our happiness and fulfillment relies on somebody else, right?

So I've been a mom for a long time. I have a 19 year old stepson. I have a 15 year old son and a 13 year old son. And. You know, when I would go into a dysregulated rage clean in the kitchen or the bathroom screaming about nobody ever helps in this fucking house, NOBODY WANTS TO JUMP IN AND HELP A BITCH THAT IS RAGE CLEANING AND YELLING ABOUT EVERYBODY IN THAT HOUSE.

So, you're really going about it the wrong way. Flies with honey, not vinegar, right? And so taking the approach of I actually sat my kids and my husband down a couple years ago when this whole Thing started spiritual awakening business all this sort of stuff and I said listen I am here to help you whenever you need help get through any sort of life event Whatever it is that comes your way, but it's not my responsibility to know that you need help It's not my responsibility to read your mind and see that something's going on Um, and it's not my responsibility to pull it out of you.

So I will be here You Taking care of myself to a degree that I have never done before so that when you need me to help you, you can come to me and say, I need your help and I can help you with very little preparation. And that really made them because you know, they're all men that really made them go.

Oh and realize the enormity and the magnitude Of the services I was providing basically of you know, if something seems off did something happen with one of your friends? Something seems off. Did something happen at work? Well, maybe you want to do that. I don't do that anymore I'll have that I say how was everything tell me about your day They'll tell me what they want to tell me and I say, okay And then if something's going on with them, I say i'm here when you're ready And then I give them this look and i'm here when you're ready Okay, fine.

And instead of getting nothing wrong, they're like, Okay, and then I know they're going to bring it to me when they're ready to share, right? So, really, that communication is so important. And I know that I've gotten the best communication from the people closest to me by modeling the behavior that I expect, right?

So, I quit drinking a year ago in November, so it's almost a year fully. Because I literally just had this sort of, for lack of a better term, this come to Jesus moment, and I had been out to a bar with my friend, my one in real life friend, now I have two, but my one in real life friend at the time and my husband, and I hadn't really drank that much, but I had blacked out.

The next morning, I was hungover, and 5 a. m. That I want to see, so that I can get work done before everybody's awake, or so that I can go outside, and jump on my trampoline before the world has really started stirring. It's very difficult when you're hungover! And I just had this moment where I went, you know what?

Alcohol, you're no longer serving me. And, you know, to the unknowing eye reflecting back on my alcohol usage, which was exhaustive, uh, it wasn't serving me, but it, I recognized it and I thanked it for it getting me to this point. You know, it helped me mask, it helped me accommodate in, you know, environments where I was super duper overstimulated and overwhelmed, and it did all the things that, um, I needed it to do at that time.

But it's no longer serving me. The thing I'm going to go to, right? So really modeling the behavior that I expect from not only myself and my clients, but from my family members and my friends and whatnot. It's like we have to have this, intentionality instead of mindfulness or you have to have an intention behind your mindfulness or our neurodivergent brain is like mindfulness sounds really boring like I check out of all the situations I'm in mentally because they're so boring and I can't survive them without going into dissociation mode so if you tell me that I'm just supposed to go throughout my life and like oh look at that pretty tree oh look at that like freaking impossible right so what is it that you really demand from people in your life, you know, being mindful or being aware authenticity.

What is it?

Jess Trachsel: I think a huge part of it definitely is. That authenticity piece, because I'm going to show up and be me. So if you're going to show up also, you're going to have to be you, or this is not going to work. And I was not always that way. That took a lot of work to get to that point. And I'm still working through it.

It's not always something that's easier. It comes naturally to me. Um, but definitely authenticity is huge. And the other side of it is I ask that everybody in my life, know your limits, know your capacity. Know your own needs and your own boundaries like you were saying you do with your family. I set that up for clients from day 1.

They know that I have a process. They know that I have contracts in place that are meant to protect both of us and create a safe environment to do this work because it is so vulnerable. I have client portals and I have setups and I have spaces that say, this is your job and this is mine. And here's how we're going to do it.

And here's how we're going to collaborate. And that's more than just being professional. Although it's that too. It's also being safe. And it's also creating that space that allow everybody to show up. As themselves and I had a client I met with just yesterday who'd worked with some previous designers and had some rocky experiences with them.

And she came into, we hadn't even met yet. And she had done, I sent her a welcome email and like, entered her into my portal system. So she could see everything. And she said, when we met, she said, I just took a deep breath. Like, I just thought, oh, this is going to be good. Like, it's okay. I can, like, breathe again.

I was like, okay. Yeah, like that felt so good to hear because that's why I do it. That's why I set things up in my business the way I do. And it's why I set things up in my home. The way I do same thing. You're teaching people how to treat you. You're teaching people how you will treat them. Expectation. It comes back to that.

No, like, and trust you build it through you, the way you present yourself in business, it's your brand. In life, it is all the other things, right? It's your hair. It's your aesthetic. It's my fancy lights. You know, all these things are part of my outward face and how I teach people how things are going to go, but it's also the backend and the actual real life person to person experience that people have with me, whether that is through my business systems or whether that's through going for a walk and having a coffee with me, you know, or recording a podcast, you're having an experience with me and I'm having one with you and, and.

The hope is that we're doing that in a way that is. authentic enough that it'll create knowing and liking and trusting. But the thing I tell people, and we kind of touched on this earlier, but is if you're not repelling, you are not attracting. So if you're not actually doing something that's going to cause someone to go, um, not for me, it's never going to cause anyone to go that one.

Yeah, I need that. You know, you have a with the fact that you're going to say, this is my expectation.

Out. That has to be okay. Totally. And that I think is just the kind of the core of this whole conversation that we've been having is you got to get okay. With who you are and with how that's going to be received by other people.

Melanie Branch: Everything will be in the show notes So you don't have to write this part down everybody but tell them where they can find you and what is your Like favorite social media to hang out on because everybody knows for me.

It's tiktok

Jess Trachsel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've everywhere. That I exist, you can find me at Prairie Glow Studio. It's my website, prairieglowstudio. com. I hang out on Instagram more than anywhere else. So that's my space. And, um, on Instagram and I can provide the links for the show notes here too. But on Instagram, you can head to that link in my bio and either follow me on Instagram and, or join my email list.

And if you mentioned that you found me through this episode, I'll have a gift for you. So make sure you connect with me, whether that's a DM com. Or you send me an email or you contact me through my website

Melanie Branch: Thank you so much. Jess for being here, especially for getting here, trekking through the cold snow of Saskatchewan, because here in 80 degree Florida, we do not have those problems.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here. And to everybody that is listening,

and for different reasons. Do your research and take care of yourself. And we'll talk again really soon. Okay, bye.

Jess Trachsel: Bye everybody.