IAM1673 – Founders Inspire Self-Care from the Inside to the Outside

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”: Linda is awesome and I met them at the very beginning when I started my business. I loved that she talked about her “happy place” and how many phenomenal things came from there. We talk about putting your oxygen mask on first and how important that is to give to others. I love the “Love” that Linda talked about and how that is manifested in everything that they have been able to build and grow.

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Previous Episode: https://iamceo.co/2020/02/14/iam550-founders-inspire-self-care-from-the-inside-to-the-outside/

Linda Mitchell Teaser 00:00

Yes, we are doing coaching. We offer Christian counseling. We offer life coaching and we offer couples coaching. All the things in our lives that we use every day. Prayer, praise, just taking care of ourselves, exercising, sharing scripture, reading the word. We share it with our clients to encourage them to have a good life, to be healthy and to be happy.

Intro 00:24

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you are in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:51

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. And if you've been listening this year, we're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes under certain categories or topics that we think are gonna be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

This month is going to be about not forgetting about the human part of business. Often we forget about the. Part of life, we often forget about the human part of business. So look forward to self-care tips, fitness, burnout, purpose, biz and personal, personal branding, motivation, drive, success, understanding your why, and of course, how important customer service is. But at the heart of it, it's all about remembering the human part of business. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've Linda Mitchell from David and Linda Mitchell, and we're just interviewing Linda today, but they're both from this Sweetheart Mitchell Collection. Linda, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Linda Mitchell 1:54

Glad to be here, Gresham. I appreciate you.

Gresham Harkless 01:57

Yeah, no problem. I definitely appreciate you as well too. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about their business so you can hear about all the awesome things that they're doing. And David and Linda are CEO and founders of Sweetheart Mitchell Collection, a collection of self-love and self-care products and services that inspire you to take care of yourself from inside to the outside.

Their services range from Christian counseling to couples coaching to individual self-love and self-care coaching. Their homemade products range from all-natural whipped body butter to massage candles to herbal supplements. Linda, are you ready to speak to the I am CEO community?

Linda Mitchell 02:30

I am so ready. Hello everyone.

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Gresham Harkless 02:33

Awesome. It was great to have you on and haven't talked to Linda in forever, but it's great to reconnect with you. And I wanted to just give you the floor and hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you guys to get started with your business.

Linda Mitchell 02:45

We got started, well, first I had my own coaching practice myself. Before I met my husband. I was a certified life coach, and then I got my master's degree in Christian counseling. And also I got my doctrine in theology. And so that was one of the best decisions I made in my life because what I did was I incorporated my Christianity and my faith into my practice, which changed me and changed my business as well. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit and scripture and prayer and praise every day, I allow myself to receive what I need to receive and then share it with my clients and my customers.

When my husband came in, when we got married about 30 months ago, we started using like a lot of the products we use ourselves in our lives for health and wellness. People started asking us if we would make them and share the products with them. And so I was like, do I have time for that? And he was like, please. I was like, ok alright. So I started making the shea butter and the candles, and these are things that for me personally, take me to a space that I call my happy place, right? I think everybody should have not only that mental process that goes on in their head that thought, that logical thought, but you should also have that balance, that creative side of you, that artistic side of you, that side that just takes you there with joy, right? Doing the things that if you could just do it all day, you would just be in your happy place all day.

And that's where our candles came from and our shea butter, our essential oils, everything that we use in our life, we just started sharing it mainly with family. That's how we initially started, and then we took it from there into our workplace. I was working full-time. My husband was working full-time, and we started sharing our products with our coworkers at work.

Gresham Harkless 04:43

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that and appreciate the natural progression of everything, because I think so many times I always say like, the best things that are created are sometimes what we create for ourselves. And then you have people knocking down the door saying, let me get some of that? can you start making this? Can you make this into a business? Then all of a sudden it starts growing from there.

Linda Mitchell 05:02

Absolutely. Very organically. That's how it happened. And our name, I'll share the story real quick about that. It came from our sister-in-law. Every time she saw us, she was like, oh, you guys are always so in love. You guys are the sweetheart mitchells, hello sweethearts. And this stuck. We were like, we like that name.

Gresham Harkless 05:21

There you go. It's got a good ring to it.

Linda Mitchell 05:24

So we started using it for our business. It just worked for us. It was natural, it was organic and it stuck.

Gresham Harkless 05:31

Nice though. I definitely appreciate that. And so I know you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to hear, so what are you guys doing with Sweetheart Mitchells. So you can get the body buddies, you can get the different products. Are there any other things that you guys are doing along with the collection as well?

Linda Mitchell 05:44

Yes, we are doing coaching. We offer Christian counseling. We offer life coaching and we offer couples coaching. All the things in our lives that we use every day. Prayer, praise, just taking care of ourselves, exercising, sharing scripture, reading the word. We share it with our clients to encourage them, to have a good life, to be healthy, and to be happy. And that's where our coaching comes in. And we're gonna start doing in 2020 live videos on actual Facebook and Instagram.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna have couples on as guests, we're gonna do our own version of Black Love. We're gonna call it Black Love Hampton. That's where we live in Hampton, Virginia. We just feel like there's really a market for couples to, you know, take that time to take care of each other, make sure they connect with each other, check in with each other, but also to make sure that people are just checking in with themselves, individually, right?

Because you've got to be full yourself before you can help anybody else. And you know, that's another thing. When we work with individuals, we coach them to take care of yourself put your oxygen mask on first. Before you try to give to someone else. And that's one of the things that as women, a lot of times, not only do we give, give, give, we're given from a place where we haven't filled up our tanks. And so it might cause us to be cranky. We might be a little snappy. You know, I go back to my childhood. My mom was so very cranky most of the time. I wish I could just pour to her when I was a baby. All the things I know now is because she wasn't taking care of herself. She had eight children. And those eight children, we were pulling at her, pulling at her, pulling at her, and there was not that much me time. And then on top of that, she's a nurse.

Gresham Harkless 07:34

Yeah. So she was definitely giving herself.

Linda Mitchell 07:36

So one of the things that I share with my clients, I work a lot with women, fill up your tank first. Make sure that you are taking the time to first check in. Check-in mentally with your mind. What are your thoughts saying? Right? Check-in emotionally. How are you feeling in your body? Are you feeling present? Are you feeling complete? Are you feeling whole? If you're not, do something about it.

I can't tell you the number of years where I went, where I was just not in a good place because I was so used to pleasing others and making sure everyone else was okay. When I got to the point where I realized through journaling, through my long baths, through taking care of myself through exercising, eating the right foods, watching my thoughts and making sure I'm not thinking negative things that are not gonna serve me in the future. Just checking in with myself and making sure I'm okay, and if I can say, yes I'm okay, I feel good, I'm in a good place, then I can give to others from that place and I can show up. Right? A hundred percent.

Gresham Harkless 08:38

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And it's funny because I guess, well now this past year, I was saying that my whole focus for the past year was to put on my oxygen mask and make sure that I do that because it's, as you said, it's very hard to pour from an empty cup.

You could keep trying and trying and trying, but it's gonna start scraping at the cup at some point. And you got to make sure that you have something to give. And the best way to give is really to give to yourself first. Make sure you're in a good spot and then you're able to, You know, 10 times, 20 times, 30 times compared to what you could.

Linda Mitchell 09:05

You got it, Gresham.

Gresham Harkless 09:06

I definitely, I appreciate that. So, lemme ask you this, and you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And it could be for you personally or for your organization, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Linda Mitchell 09:20

What sets us apart is how we show up. Our greatest gift of all is love. We show up in love, to love ourselves and everywhere we go, take love with us. And we experience that individually and we extend it, experience it together as a couple. When we're out in the grocery stores, you know, we talk to people, we have conversations, we greet them, we greet them by name.

You know, people want to be seen. They want to know that they matter, you know? And we show up in absolute love that is at the base and the foundation of our business. And it's the greatest gift of all because that's how our business got started. We fell in love. I love coaching. I was coaching my clients. We fell in love, and our goal was to just turn that love around and give it to the world.

Gresham Harkless 10:04

Awesome. Well, I appreciate that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Linda Mitchell 10:17

Prayer. Prayer. Every morning my day starts with three Ps, prayer, protein, my protein shake and physical activity. So my treadmill is behind me. I get up, brush my teeth, wash my face, go downstairs, make my protein shake, and sit down and pray.

Gresham Harkless 10:37

Yeah, that makes so much sense. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO Nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Linda Mitchell 10:49

I would tell her to not try to figure out everything to be okay with the journey. To not always. I'm a go-getter and I'm always doing self-help and self-improvement and workshops, and I would tell her that she's fine just as she is. There's nothing else that she has to do.

There are no other certifications that she has to get the way that God provided her with, he's given her everything that she needs and there's nothing she has to prove to anybody. Well, nothing she has to do to be better. She's fine exactly as she is.

Gresham Harkless 11:24

Awesome. I absolutely love that. So now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on this show. So Linda, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Linda Mitchell 11:36

Being a CEO means being happy. It means getting up every morning and can't wait to get out of that bed because I know that I'm gonna be able to serve and I'm gonna be able to provide services and products to my customers, and I'm gonna be happy in the process of providing them, but also they're gonna be happy receiving them. So, win-win. it's a win-win. It's got to be mutually beneficial. You know, just being in my element, you know, sharing my gifts and serving the community. That's what a true CEO is.

Gresham Harkless 12:11

Absolutely. Yeah. And to be able to have that impact and that influence and to be able to create things that not only make you happy but be able to make the people that get them happy and create that energy and that domino effect is definitely, you know, a great perspective.

Because, I think sometimes in the day-to-day of life and of running a business, we'll forget a lot of those things of why we're doing what we're doing and reminding us of that happiness. And having that as a north star definitely helps out so much.

Linda Mitchell 12:36

It's amazing when you become a small business owner, the many hats that you have to wear, you take one hat off. You know, right now we're in the process of making labels for our products. Who knew I'd be making labels one day?

The products that I love making, but I've got to make them look professional and we've got to brand ourselves and we've got to make a presentation. You know, people see it. It's got to look good and look appealing on the outside and the inside. So, You know, being a small business owner, a CEO, you've got so many hats.

Gresham Harkless 13:07

Exactly, exactly. You got to make sure that you're paying attention to that happiness because you can easily lose sight of that with so many hats, shoes, and everything else you have to put on to walk the walk.

Linda Mitchell 13:17

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 13:18

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Linda, I appreciate you so much for your time and that definition, and that perspective. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and then of course how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are working on.

Linda Mitchell 13:34

Well, my husband is not here today because he is holding it down for us. He's still working in corporate America. And he brought me home first from corporate America. Now my goal is to get our revenue up with the business so he can come home. And so it's a team effort right now. And I just wanna say that if he was here, he would just express his appreciation to you Gresham, for giving us this opportunity to be here to share our products and services with everyone.

And he would just say that love is the greatest gift of the law. I know my husband and he's great at connecting with the audience. And you guys could check us out on our website if you wanna see some pictures of our latest products and descriptions as well as what we look like. It's nice to put a voice with a face. So you can go to our website, sweetheartmitchellcollection.com, and check it out.

Gresham Harkless 14:26

Awesome. Well, thank you so much Linda, and I appreciate David as well too. And we will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you guys and see all the awesome things you're working on. But I appreciate you both again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 14:40

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast, powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts, subscribe and leave us a five-star rating.

Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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