“Enthusiasm is incredibly infectious, and people just want to ride that wave. It makes you feel good. That’s kind of how I roll in the world.” – Tina Roth-Eisenberg, SheEO Activator + founder of CreativeMornings
In this episode
Join Vicki Saunders and Tina Roth-Eisenberg, SheEO Activator, as they discuss Tina’s heart-centered approach to conducting business. Tina Roth-Eisenberg is a Swiss designer based in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for founding the Swiss Miss design blog and studio. She is also the founder of Friends Work Here, CreativeMornings, TeuxDeux and Tattly.
Vicki and Tina also touch on:
- The benefit of starting projects from a pure, heart-driven place
- Establishing and growing CreativeMornings, and allowing people the trust and freedom to create magic
- Using radical generosity as a “business model” and bringing the best in people forward
- Her spiritual upbringing and experience with holistic healing and energy
- Recognizing and acknowledging our own limiting beliefs
- The idea of “settling into your wisdom”
- How her businesses have adapted to COVID-19
We invite you to join us as an Activator at SheEO.World.
Take action & engage with Tina Roth-Eisenberg and Swiss Miss.
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Podcast Transcript:
The podcast is being transcribed by Otter.ai. (there may be errors, run-on sentences and misspellings).
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 0:00
Enthusiasm is incredibly infectious, and people just want to ride that wave. It makes you feel good. That’s kind of how I roll in the world.
Vicki Saunders 0:12
Welcome to SheEO.World, a podcast about redesigning the world. I’m your host, Vickie Saunders. In each episode, you’ll hear from SheEO Venture founders, women who are working on the World’s To-Do List. These innovative business leaders are solving some of the major challenges of our time. Please sit back and be prepared to be inspired.
Good morning, Tina. I’m so excited to be in conversation with you today. Welcome.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 0:40
Same for me. Thank you for having me, Vicki.
Vicki Saunders 0:42
This is really great. So let’s start at the beginning. Who are you? And why are you here?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 0:48
Well, my name is Tina Roth-Eisenberg. I am a Swiss raised and trained graphic designer that decided after she graduated graphic design to move to New York for what was supposed to be three months and found her new home, resonated deeply with the city and has worked as a designer and then sort of quite accidentally but intuitively started multiple projects that have changed her life. So that’s me.
Vicki Saunders 1:17
Nice. And okay, so already at the start, I love how you just bring yourself forward. So projects, versus companies, like serial entrepreneur know, started multiple projects. Just talk to me about how your view around business, I mean, right there, that language really sort of sets it up for me anyway.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 1:35
Yeah. You know, even though I grew up with two very entrepreneurial parents, I never speak of myself as a serial entrepreneur or, because to me what it comes down to, what I’ve learned with myself is that I start projects from a very pure, heart driven place, there are things that I want to see in the world that just bring joy, or just fill a need that I would like to see. But what is so interesting with the way I approach this is that I really am not driven by money, but money always comes. Which I find a really interesting, an interesting sort of fact around how I’ve started everything. So just as an example, the most, like the thing that I’m the most proud of that I’ve built, and has really zero intention around making money did start to make money. So when I moved to New York 21 years ago, and, you know, I will used to be a very social butterfly, back in Europe when I was in university and stuff. And then I moved to New York, and I didn’t know his soul. And I’ve remembered is really sick Friday evening, when I was sitting in my kind of shitty sublet in East Village. And I was like, well, there’s nobody to call, where are my people? And I just remember, when you’re, when you’re an expat, you become so incredibly intentional about your community. It’s such a good lesson. And I was like, I need to find my people. And it was just craving, a, you know, a gathering of designers and creative minded humans that are just open hearted, and generous and kind and a little idealistic as I am. And it took me a few years to, to create that gathering. And it’s called CreativeMornings. And that, for example, was never meant to be a business for me. That was always meant to be just as this beautiful gift to the world. I give this to New York City, we just gather humans from a you know, generous, creative place. And it has brought people to me that wanted to give me money to keep it running, which I just find is interesting. For anyone who runs a business to always remind themselves that if what you do resonates, there will be ways of money flowing to you.
Vicki Saunders 3:55
Totally. Yeah, I one of my favorite lines is “money follows vision”.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 4:00
Yep.
Vicki Saunders 4:00
Right. And so it’s, yeah, that’s absolutely amazing. It’s so you’re already like on one of the things I was writing down these questions this morning, like, what do I want to ask Tina about? And one of one of the ones was, how did you find the others? And of course, you answered the question before I had to ask. Classic. Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit about CreativeMornings. It is a deeply special community. You’re one of the only people I know, in the entire world who has who who had a desire for this kind of a community and I Your words are heart centered and kind is this just like, we are all looking to revamp how we come together as humans on the planet. And you’ve been doing this now for how long?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 4:40
We just heard 12. 12 years.
Vicki Saunders 4:42
Over 12 years, and bringing this community together. So let’s talk a little bit about how it—how it grew, how it evolved from the New York gathering of your people, and then tell us a little bit about that journey.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 4:56
Yeah. So the reason why I started CreativeMornings and the premise for those that don’t know what CreativeMornings is, the premise is very simple. 12 years ago, I ran a co-working space. I unintentionally accidentally created the first creative co-working space in Brooklyn, I didn’t realize I was the first one. And the notion was very simple. I just wanted to surround myself with equally creative, kind, generous humans on a day to day basis. And what I realized is in that magic every day being surrounded by people with complementing skills and just a really kind and generous mindset is that I mean, conversations were nourishing, all day was nourishing for me, and especially at the time I was a mom with small children, I couldn’t go out. So I kind of got my social nourishment, over, lunch or a coffee break. So I realized, there’s so many more out there, like this is an 8 million people city like there’s so many creative more, and more creative people out there. So I just had the idea of one Friday morning a month I’m going to open the door, we put a little breakfast out and have a 20 minute lecture. I mean, and this is this is the beauty of being a designer, it’s just a prototyping mindset, not overthinking it, just like putting one thing out seeing what works, and then you you know, you chisel away and make it better. But instantly, we had like 50 people in my studio. And the next time we had 70, and the next time we had 80. And so once a month I just gathered the creative community. And, and I never thought about growing it, that was just my little thing I did in the city. And I did it for two years. And I did it incredibly scrappily. But it was beautiful. We got invited to other design studios and six months in, we were at Google, which was kind of to me, like, okay, there’s something there, if Google is hosting us. But again, for two years, I just ran it by myself, I often paid breakfast just by myself, it was fine. It was just you know, it nourished me. And, but then I was approached by two friends, and I’m sure that wasn’t an accident, within a week, one of them wanted to take it to Zurich, and one of them wanted to take it to LA. And that was kind of a big moment for me. But the good thing is because I knew them, I kind of knew there was a certain trust, and they wouldn’t disappoint me. And then I had to figure out, if I want to make sure that the soul of this can, you know, expand all over the world, I need to be incredibly clear, in what what I call the non negotiables are, both the values are what needs to say the same. But then also given that these are creative humans, I need to give them freedom to explore and experiment. So we created sort of a non negotiables, these are the things that need to stay the same that you have to do in order to be to host slash ambassador in your city. But beyond that, please go experiment and tell us what works. So there’s an incredible level of trust that I had to extend. But my like, my favorite phrases out to that sort of came up within this whole process of building CreativeMornings is trust breeds magic. Because CreativeMornings is pure magic. And when you trust someone you allow, I keep telling myself all the time, you just ,it’s the biggest compliment of all. Trusting someone, you get the best out of them. Granted, we have to also make sure that we get really good people with good values. And, and so we had to create a system there. But anyway, long story short is that those two friends sort of became the catalyst for me to think well, maybe there’s more. And I, we we’ve never reached out to anyone. This is pure organic. So we’re now 12 years later in 220 cities in 67 countries happening every month, completely volunteer driven. So we have 1500 volunteers. And, and these are humans, they’re just, like they’re very special. They’re in service of their community. They’re in service of gathering their creative communities. And it’s very humbling, to be honest. It’s a very special type of human that that is attracted to this and wants to spend time, their free time on organizing free events.
Vicki Saunders 9:11
It’s I’m just in awe of everything you’ve created, as you know, and when we came down with our little baby, SheEO organization when we were getting started and said, How did you do this? Because it was just it is very magical and very special. You know, I wonder if you’ve sort of stepped back and look at what you’ve built and thought. If money got put into this system, would everything go sideways?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 9:37
Oh, I have goosebumps right now, as you’re asking this. Yeah, I’m actually a firm believer that it would have and you know, a lot of people, first of all, when I initially had the idea that I want this to be free. And in the morning, all the New Yorkers pushed back and said like, nobody will show up at 8:30! And I was like I’ll prove you wrong, but also they all said you will never be able to keep this free. And I remember last year we had Esther Perel speak in New York, it was a venue with 750 people. We had Balthazar breakfast we had like, we fed them all. It was incredible. And I was sort of doing the math in my head. If we had to pay Esther Perel a speaking fee if we had to pay for the venue, if you had to, like if you all added up, I think a ticket would have been around 150 bucks a person. Yeah. And we are able to do this for free. There is an innocence and a purity to it because there is no money flowing. That I think has been the secret sauce, why we can, we can grow it.
Vicki Saunders 10:40
Yeah, that really resonates with me, I feel exactly the same way. And there’s all this. Yeah, there’s something the spirit of radical generosity that we have at SheEO, feels like a similar kind of vibe, right? It just, it brings the best in people forward. And it gives them a place to show up whole. And to share all those incredible, like, MJ would call them sort of our overflow of our abundance of mastery in something. Right, so people who just really want to contribute. That’s amazing.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 11:08
You know, I remember when I met you, and you introduced me to the term radical generosity. And it was shortly after I realized that, and I mean, that resonated so deeply because the business model of CreativeMornings is radical generosity. That’s it.
Vicki Saunders 11:24
Totally, yeah, absolutely. It’s a thing. Well, and but I also like, it’s also dangerous. I think, as a designer, you probably felt through all these things were both very feeling leaders. But this, as soon as you name something, it starts to lose a bit of its energy, as well. And so I kind of love the fact that it doesn’t, what does it even mean? Like, what do these words actually mean? They’re still in flow, because there’s so little of it, I think, maybe in the world, or maybe we just can’t see it yet. Let’s, I want to ask you, one of the things that I think is one of your unbelievable superpowers, is relationship building. And so you talk, you talk, you’re like, hmm interesting. You talk about trust, and trust breeding magic? And so do you have a theory or a practice that you notice about yourself around building relationships?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 12:16
It’s so funny, I don’t see myself having a superpower built—superpower in building relationships. That’s interesting. I always find it so interesting how we perceive each other, right? And what we’re good at. But uh, well, I, I don’t know. The only thing I know is that I just love humans. And I will always believe assume the best intentions until you prove me wrong. And that is an idealistic worldview that has oftentimes been criticized by people who are more jaded. And I’m like, I will not give up on that I will lean into love before, you have to prove me wrong, that it’s not, you know, and I think there’s something there when you just show up. Just really, and then it’s my enthusiasm. I think my superpower is enthusiasm. I, if you should come towards me with like, an open heart and some interest in what we’re doing or whatever, I will just steamroll you with enthusiasm and love.
Vicki Saunders 13:19
That is true.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 13:22
And there’s something to be said. I mean, enthusiasm is incredibly infectious. You know? And people just want to ride that wave, it makes you feel good. I mean, that’s what I think is the secret sauce of CreativeMornings, no matter how jaded you show up at a CreativeMornings, and you have your walls up, and it’s the first time and you’re like, what’s, what’s the deal here? You know, what’s the catch? This can’t be real. And then you just feel so good when you leave, because people were kind and generous, and there’s no MO and, and then you kind of leave and you’re like, damn, that felt really good. I want more of that. That’s kind of how I roll in the world. Like if, if we’re resonating if we are, if there’s something there, then come on that wave with me.
Vicki Saunders 14:06
Very true. Energy is a real, we use a lot of energetic words, right? When we’re speaking to each other. We’re talking about like resonating with each other and following the energy. Do you, do you do work around energy? I know that you come from interesting background with your family, paying attention to energy and the sort of spiritual nature that is often left out of a lot of our conversations. You want to get heard about that?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 14:33
Yeah, sure. I mean, I’m so happy when people ask me this, nobody ever does. So hey, Vicki.
Vicki Saunders 14:39
Well, I grew up in the Swiss Alps. And the area of Switzerland I grew up was, like that state I grew up in, was the first state that allowed for holistic healers in Switzerland to open shop. So it sort of became that probably the equivalent of I don’t know Arizona, here in the States or something. And so I just grew up with a lot of kooky things, you know, in my, in my day today and then my dad who was like a totally badass entrepreneur, at the same time was really interested in past lives, and, and past life regressions, and he did them in our living room. So talking about reincarnation was something I grew up all my life and how the process of dying is actually a beautiful process. And like, sort of just, you know, you don’t actually understand how much you absorb as a kid just by being in the presence of these conversations. So I am just, I just believe a lot of things that just, you know, have to do with energy and, and that this life is not our only life and all of that. So when I moved to New York, interestingly enough, and I was my open blabby self, I realized that I just really shocked a lot of people with my beliefs. And what I noticed happening is like I had to kind of close down just to protect myself, and I protected my angel books, I put them in a different bookshelf that not everybody could see. But it’s just so beautiful to see how that is actually has, is changing right now in our society. There’s a more openness, and I’ve always been someone who, like when I started my first business, and I went to get like all of the business books, because I wanted to be a Super Pro Boss Lady. And I read these books, and I was like, Well, what the heck, man? Where’s, why are they not talking about the things that are important to me? It’s love and showing up, you know, nourishing, and where’s play, where’s fun? And, and so to me, that’s how I approach business because in the end of the day, if you want to put it in spiritual terms is you’re vibing higher. Those are high vibrational states, right. And, and, and I am totally open with my employees, they know I’m super woo, I share articles, I share things I do or see or read. And it’s interesting, like, I can see that, you know, some of them, it took them a moment, but they’re just opening up and they’re also starting to use words like resonance and energy and, and it makes me so happy because I truly believe that we’re in a time of awakening the business world and going from the purely analytical into our hearts, and I am so here for it. I’m in a frontline with a marching band. It’s like, come on everybody, let’s do it!
Leading the parade. Here we go. Oh, it’s so true. I remember, just I’m very much aligned with you. As we know, in the woowoo sense of life. I’m giving out crystals at dinner parties and all this magic stuff. And I just love, I just love the the actual visual I have in my head now of Tina trying to be a Super Pro Boss Lady. Reading business books going, What the heck, like hilarious, like so completely hilarious. And it just it strikes me because earlier this week, we’re all now of course in COVID and sort of locked down, or not all of us—New Zealand is free. But the rest of us are.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 18:05
Lucky them.
Vicki Saunders 18:05
Yeah, exactly in our spaces. And I remember like limiting language is something that I’m super attuned to when people say negative things before doing something. Which basically sets them up for like, not a great outcome. And one of our team members sent me a picture that she was pulling a card before sending out an email for intention. She goes, okay, I’m just about to send out a big mail merge. And I’m pulling a card, Vicki. And here’s my card. And it was this great card, and they sent it in Slack. And I’m like, Yes. The future. Just this concept of like what intention you show up with, you know, your heart centered approach your care for others, people feel, and then it shows up in their work, to your point of is like higher vibe. I just I think it’s absolutely crazy. There’s so much more. Yeah, go.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 18:56
Let me add one thing here because that, that is something. So I’m like you, the limiting beliefs is really something I’m paying attention to. And to the point where last year with my leadership team, at CreativeMornings, we started pointing each other out when we are saying limiting beliefs. Even though we’re all super attuned. We didn’t catch it all the time. So we would just do a little, point at each other and then we go like, oh my god, that was a limiting belief, what I just said, and it’s so beautiful when you when you can bring sort of this kind, safe spirit to work as well. Where you can, like I am a, I’m a firm believer that work should be the playground and the school of your future self. Where you don’t have to just pretend you know it all or like, it should be just a really beautiful safe and let’s help each other grow kind of environment. And I feel like I’m so lucky. I have that with my team and CreativeMornings.
Vicki Saunders 19:57
Well, it’s the leadership of creating a space for that right. It, and it is really different. So you have to find different kinds of people who will actually step into the transformation right and the opportunity for it. I mean, I think that one of, I have, I check in with everyone on my team each week. And we have this like little framing for showing up. And one of the questions that I want you to, to kind of report on whatever, show up and say is, what are your pain points? And I remember when I first started talking about that people be like, What do you mean? Like, I’m not in pain? Yeah, but like, what, what is it that you’re not getting done? What are the things—and which is like the opposite that anyone would ever talk to their like, boss lady about, to use your language. And I’m like, No, no, that’s, that’s the gift, right? It’s like, if you show up with a thing that you’re not getting done, it’s data. It’s information for us to go, Oh, those are things you don’t like to do? Let’s find someone else who likes to do those. But the unwinding? Wow, like, are you gonna write a book about your—What is like the I have to go back to your phrase, because I thought it was hilarious. This is a perfect title for your book, The Super Pro Boss Lady Guide, to getting it done. Opposite land.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 21:10
I know, I have another example that is similar to what you just said, in terms of, when you ask them those two questions when you check in with them. So I think that we do in our weekly check in as a group, we’re still small enough that we can do this. Granted, you can do it with smaller groups if you’re in a large company. But I, I must say this is one of the most successful things to what I call, they don’t know this, but I call it aligning hearts. So before we start our weekly sort of check in, and we do what we call cherries and pits, where we go through the whole group, and everyone shares one thing, that bums them out, that’s the pit, like, what happened, something that happened since last week. And that doesn’t have to be, so in the beginning, people think it has to be semi professional. No, it can be anything, anything, that bums you out right now, because it’s such a good context setting for us to understand where somebody is at. And then the cherry is like something positive that happened. And I must tell you, like just starting out the meeting like that, and just humanizing the space we’re in and allowing people to also just say, I am not doing well, because you know, and sometimes actually, it gives you a point of reference, and you start understanding, oh, they’ve been really down the last two days, because I don’t know, you know, they’re dealing with something really big, which you need to give it space to show up. And, and again, I to me, that moment is really sort of an aligning of hearts and getting us all in sort of the same heart space, and not just be like, who what do we get done? And how productive are we? What are the numbers? I mean, that’s important, too. But.
Vicki Saunders 22:44
Yeah, the to do list like tha’s sort of over. Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. It’s, I like the two pieces as well, the cherries and the pits. And because we I mean, I think lots of organizations do check ins now, right, where you do a quick one word check in or something to live, again to create the space for humans. And I’ve been doing a lot of calls with Indigenous leaders lately. And they always have the the paradox of the two things you’re holding, it’s never a one word check in, it’s a two word check in. And so anxious and excited, you can be both at the same time, is framing and so I love the cherries and the pits, it’s actually very Indigenous, that place of holding two things. So.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 23:25
Also, you know, what’s funny, anxious and excited is a word that we coined into “anxcited” at CreativeMornings, because that’s kind of the state we’re in. We’re so “anxcited” all the time.
Vicki Saunders 23:37
Oh, my God, of course. Look at the two of us vibing here. I love it. Um, I listened to an interesting podcast yesterday. And there was a phrase that was used, which reminded me of you. And I wanted to see if this resonated with you too. But it was I, I witness you as being very settled into your wisdom. Do you feel a little settled into your wisdom?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 24:05
Well, first of all, thank you.
Vicki Saunders 24:07
You’re welcome.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 24:08
Um, I would say, now, I’m starting to really feel that. A few years ago, I was still doubting sort of the, you know, that this is actually mine. But I mean, I’ve done you know, my story, and I’ve done a lot of inner work for the last five years and, and it’s actually interesting, and especially with what how COVID has changed our lives. I feel like there’s a lot of clarity around who I am in the world and what is important that has sort of happened. I mean, I’m eternally grateful for the lucky position I’m in that you know, I’m not going hungry. And I’m, and I’m actually I can, even though things are hard, I can lean into sort of the the beauty that comes out of this year. And what’s interesting is that I am starting to have to the desire to write a book. Which to me is what you’re saying. Like, I mean, I’m starting to trust my own wisdom, to put it actually into written form. So but but to be honest, for me, it’s a really big journey to trust my own inner voice, and to accept that that is actually valuable for other people. Like, it’s interesting when people talk to me that have seen me give talks. And I tell them what an incredible struggle it is for me to work on those and, and I just, last year actually had two moments where I gave talks, where I could physically sense that I was standing in my power for the first time ever. That what I was fully standing in my truth, and that was me. That was, there was no, kind of like, you know, what, I gotta understand, are they gonna, you know, as they’re gonna resonate? No, I was just standing solidly in my, in my truth. And that is a, I’m sure anyone who gives talks kind of relate to that. That’s an incredible feeling. And so yes, I’m, I think I’m settling into my wisdom.
I love it. I love it, because we need you, right? We need those stories. And we need those different perspectives. I think we’re just really at the moment, my perception is we’re very, we’re between worlds, right? This, this old world in this old approach is failing us. And it’s obvious every day, so much more every single day. And where we’re going isn’t yet quite clear. And so the ability to sort of stand in that uncertainty, and get ready for the transformation that needs a new operating system, essentially, for humans, what’s that going to be?
A much more gentle, gentle operating system.
Vicki Saunders 26:37
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, bravery, and courage. These, I think about the courage to actually be the Super Pro Boss, Lady. Is that part of the journey as well for you, you know, finding your way along this?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 26:56
See, it’s so interesting, people always say, You’re so courageous, and you have such a high risk appetite, you know, and I’m like, No, I’m a Capricorn. I’m from Switzerland, I’m the most safe human, you know, like, but then, but then it’s interesting, how we, again, how we perceive ourselves, I think one of the reasons why I run so many different things is because I, you know, hold the table analogy, if one of the things fall off, at least I still some other, that’s to me is just some controlling safety. Want to make sure I’m not going under situation and people perceive it as like, you’re so risk. I mean, you’re just so leaping into all of these different risky endeavors. And I’m like, No, I’m just trying to create safety for me. But it’s just, it’s, I don’t know, I wouldn’t call myself courageous. I just again, I think I’m really good in being in complete denial of what could go wrong?
Vicki Saunders 27:52
Classic entrepreneur, not calling yourself an entrepreneur, I get it. Yeah. Well, it is. It’s interesting, because I had one of my one of my favorite coaches, MJ Ryan, we were doing this whole thing around risk with our organization. And I’m like, I don’t view that as risk. I don’t view that as risky. And she goes, that’s because you’re not even on the chart of risk. Like you’re so far off the chart, you don’t even think of it as risk. So I maybe laugh at you on that one. Because, in a sense, it’s sort of a risk mitigation strategy to have multiple things going on.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 28:21
Yeah, I think it is. But don’t you think that, I remember when, you know, CreativeMornings, for example, has gone through many really stressful times where I wasn’t sure if I’m going to make it, and then this dear friend of mine, who, who I just admire so much in who’s just a smart human, very grounded human, he said, Come on, let me just talk you through a few things. And I was just told, that was in my time, you remember when my life was changing a lot, and a lot of fronts, where I was just, I was just fear spiraling, I was just, I didn’t have any tools to catch those things. Again, I’m going into energetic talk. But eventually, they’re just like, giant trains barreling down a mountain if you don’t catch them early enough. And I was like, fear spiraling like crazy. And my friend said to me, was like, what’s the worst that could happen? I was like, Well, CreativeMornings is going to go bankrupt. And this is going to go bankrupt, and everything’s going to go fall apart. And he just looked at me but with such a calm, like just such calm, and said, Tina, you can turn on the money hose if you need to. And I was like, What do you mean? He’s like, Tina, you can go get a job. Like, you have so many skills, like somebody will hire you. And and I think in the back of my mind, I’ve always known I’m hireable. If everything falls apart, I’ll find a job. And I think when you have sort of like your own safety net in the background, your mind I was like, I’m going to be fine. And that, yeah, that really helps.
Vicki Saunders 29:49
It is interesting, because we do forget that, and I think this is one of the things where I you know, I think at this moment in time in particular being in community, and getting surrounded by the others is really important because it’s so hard often to see these things ourselves.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 30:05
Mm hmm.
Vicki Saunders 30:06
You know, to your point, it’s, if you want to get rid of limiting beliefs, or if you want to at least be aware of those limiting beliefs and how they influence you, it’s easier to do it if someone else is helping you figure it out. It’s like, Hey, you just said that, oh, I did. Oh, my God, I didn’t even realize it. Right?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 30:20
You know, I call it, thanks to my friend, Sharon, she taught me this this term. And I just love it so much. It’s helped me actually in the business world, how to see that. I call it the web of love. The people that just will have your back that you can introduce to like, it’s just, like, for example, she told me at one point, if you have, let’s say, sponsors, or partners, or clients that you just love, there’s just a deep nourishing relationship and a win-win on every level. Right? She says, go to them and ask them for who else should I work with? This is so wonderful. Is there someone that you think I should know? Or just with friends even? We did once a undercover singles event with CreativeMornings, where we just asked people we loved—Is there someone you love that should come to—who’s single—to come to this event? So it was sort of the web of love in action. And there is just something to be said, and when you trust someone, and there is just a friendship and love there, That whoever they’re introducing you to for whatever reason that is, there is a you show up with such trust and like a deep connection right away, that otherwise has to be earned. And you don’t know are they for real or not? So I just keep thinking about when I’m hitting a wall or something, oh I need help. It’s like, how can I activate my web of love?
Vicki Saunders 31:45
Boom. Oh, my God, I love that so much activating the web of love. It’s ah, what we keep noticing at SheEO, because it’s this concept of radical generosity and stepping into it. And we do everything kind of the opposite of everybody else. Zero clones.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 32:00
Welcome to the club.
Vicki Saunders 32:01
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. that people are like what, huh? And the only way our community has grown is through that trusting relationship of you know, Tina told her two friends and they told their two friends. And it, and it sort of comes with ease when it goes that way. Otherwise, there’s way too much explaining and convincing. There’s like forget it. That’s just way too hard. But I wonder about the the trust piece as well, because I, you know, one of the tools that I’ve learned and you just shared a piece of it from your perspective, too, which is when you vibe immediately with somebody like I did with you, we met each other It was like, boom, okay, soul sister. It didn’t take time to build that relationship. It happened in an instant. Right. And so I I often, when I find amazing people like that, and we we meet each other again, my husband says the family’s coming together is how he talks about it. It’s like, who are the five people like us that we haven’t each met? And that, so coming from that position is so much easier than like going into that huge room and going oh my god, how do I find the one person in here who’s my soulmate? It’s hard. Yes. So I love that. I think there’s there must be some energetic theory around that somewhere that we’ll learn later and go, Oh, that was the secret to everything.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 33:14
I mean, what are you doing is all web of love if you ask me.
Vicki Saunders 33:17
Yeah, it is.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 33:18
It really is.
Vicki Saunders 33:19
I love it. And it’s funny because you even said at the beginning, I’m learning all these things, again to that trust breeds magic. We keep saying when you show up on these calls each week with SheEO because we’re doing them each week is this hashtag #SheEOMagic. Again, you went into a small group of four people you asked for help and the person was in your room. Like how does that happen, week after week? It’s so crazy. Again when it comes to trust. Yeah. Tattly. How’s it going? What’s happening with Tattly? And what is Tattley? Give us a quick—
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 33:48
So Tattly is a temporary tattoo company that I started nine years ago. I still have to laugh when I tell this story because I—
Vicki Saunders 33:56
It makes me just laugh watching you laugh. Yeah.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 33:59
So okay, here’s how it happened. So I have a daughter who’s now 14 but at the time, I think she was seven. Wait, math, whatever. And she, she came home from a, you know, so I’m a trained designer, right? So I have high, high demands into aesthetics that’s around me. So anyway, she came home from another birthday party. And in this shitty goodie bag, were these like designs, these tattoos that were just such an insult to my Swiss aesthetic. I was like, I can’t, I can’t deal with this one more time, as I have this personal rule that if I keep complaining about something, ’cause in Switzerland, people complain all the time and I can’t stand it. I keep telling myself if you catch yourself complaining repeatedly about something you have two options Tina—do something about it or just let it go. And I was like, I can’t let this one go. So I’m a designer, at the time I ran a design studio. I was like, wait a second. I have so many illustrator friends. I can create a website without a problem. I can brand this thing and then so two months later, I launched Tattly. Sort of, as a joke. So my daughter could have really cool temporary tattoos by really cool artists. But then the second day business, the Tate Modern shop called. The buyer. And I was in complete shock in my office. And he’s like, congratulating me on the brand and asking me how long we’ve been in business. And I’m like, two days? And then, he asked for a wholesale catalog. And I remember I was cool as a cucumber. I was like, Sure, no problem. I wrote down his information. And then I hung up. And I remember turning to my studio mates, I was like, What the heck is a wholesale catalog? Does this mean I need packaging?
Vicki Saunders 35:37
Oh my God.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 35:38
And then it just, you know, and I have never sold a product. I knew nothing about margins, like I mean, God, talk about a really steep learning curve. And then I just bootstrapped the heck out of it. I hired young, super enthusiastic people, and we figured it out one by one. And so now, fast forward nine years later, and with COVID, giving me so much clarity on where my energy should go. I’ve sort of, I mean, I’ve ran Tapley as a side project for the last nine years and which kind of hurts me, my soul because it’s an incredibly loved brand. We have over 120 legit incredible artists that we license art from we’re, we’re shipping all over the world, we’re in like 1000 stores, we’re in all the museum stores I mean, if you look at the story of Tattly, and considering that I ran this as a side project, it is a freakin miracle. But, you know, when when COVID hit and over 60% of our whole—income is wholesale. That was really hard. And I had to basically let the whole team go, because overnight, sort of 60-70% of our income was gone. And now we’re back to like a small crew and I’m trying to sell Tattly, trying to find it a new home. And it’s just and again, talk about, talk about like, I’m a big believer that Tattly’s an incredible teacher in my life. Because I’ve just learned so many things. And especially now with this sort of, in this in this moment of finding a new home for something you have built and feeling into what, how can I honor this company, I really believe that Tattly is an entity that has a soul and has feelings and has like, I really am all out there. And and I just want to do Tattly right. And I’ve been going through so many acquisition conversations over the last seven months, where sometimes I would get off these calls. And my heart would want to just fall into a million pieces, because I was like, no. There’s no way this person will get this labor of love. Because they don’t get it. They just don’t get it. And then there’s people you know, that you just, your heart starts singing, and you’re like, Oh, my God, if only you can adopt Tattly, and it’s just, it’s just an interesting story. And there are some people we’re talking to right now. But I mean, for me, and maybe you can relate because you’ve run multiple businesses. It’s like, how do you honor it? Because I am not entirely driven by money. But at the same time, I would love, I would love to see an exit, right? So but then there’s like this, this balance of what is the right thing to do? What is the right intention? Or what is the right sort of? You know, I know, I’m still learning a lot, but I must say, the thing I’ve never thought about is that when you start a project, you don’t really think about how hard it is actually to end it as well.
Vicki Saunders 38:28
Yeah, it’s very true. There’s like this birth and dying process. Right. And or like rebirth. Whatever is happening at the end.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 38:35
Yeah, yeah.
Vicki Saunders 38:36
Yeah. And I mean, I, I don’t know how, it’s so funny. One of the first things I learned when I was getting more involved in sort of the original venture capital spaces, as you’re starting, you’re asked about how you’re going to end it. Like, what’s your exit strategy? And I always found that so bizarre. I’m like, I’m just starting. Like, why would I think about that? And so that’s, that’s the whole like, capitalist, old school, just flipping things vibe, right that just is like, so, you know.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 39:05
Wrong incentive. Wrong incentive.
Vicki Saunders 39:07
Totally wrong, incentive in every single way. So is, what are the gifts of COVID? For you? Let me stretch you here a little bit.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 39:19
No, no, I always I just always have a hard time answering that question without hurting people who are hurting, you know?
Vicki Saunders 39:26
Yeah, no, of course.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 39:26
So I feel like it’s a very privileged lens I have so I just want to acknowledge that. To me, COVID has been incredibly humbling and a big teacher in that just as an example, CreativeMornings I built because I believe true connections are made face to face and not behind a screen. I’m the biggest face to face proponent and so that was really important to me that you know, every thing is face to face. And, and then COVID hits and the whole premise of what why we exist is taken away. And I was completely numb, like I was in shock. And then a community is not a community until it self-organizes, but our hosts like Denver, Calgary and Austin on March 13, hosted the first virtual events. And I attended one after another, and I was in tears. Because they instantly flipped it, we have a saying, like flip it when you have a problem, just like flip it on its head and make it positive, they instantly flipped it. And I was very, I felt very humbled and, and felt like, wow, Tina, where are you closed off in life in general, not just with your own company, because now we’ve had over 800 virtual events. And we have started to define what is possible. How the notion of, the good feel of CreativeMornings can translate to virtual, and it’s not a one to one translation, we had to experiment and figure out, how do we get into people’s hearts the way we do in IRL. And I’m realizing that I’ve been really closed off, because for example, field trips, it’s sort of a workshop series that we’ve prototyped in New York for three years, which I really believe is sort of basically put a peer to peer University on top of CreativeMornings. And we had over 600 in New York. And we tried to figure out how can we scale this in other cities? And the biggest problem was venues, how are we going to figure out? Well, guess what? Yeah, field trips has exploded. We had over 200,000 signups since March. And, and again, I’m like, dang Tina, you didn’t want to see it’s possible? So to me, I feel that a big lesson from COVID, is Tina where, again, limiting beliefs, where do you not see an opportunity that you had to be forced into? Don’t get don’t have to be like, just maybe see them before? You know, and then also with Tattly, I mean, if I’m really honest, I was I was having a hard time for a long time, and was trying to sell it for a while already. And even though as horrible it was to let the team go, it almost, I almost felt like wow, I can do it without feeling completely guilty and a loser. And I, some other business owners have told me the same thing that they were already kind of at the end of their energy. And, and I and I know this is this is, I probably shouldn’t say it out loud. But it, there was some relief there that, you know, I was given some outside circumstances that allowed me to, you know, reduce the team.
Vicki Saunders 42:50
Yeah, there’s been we’ve noticed quite a bit of rethinking with some of our vendors as well, where they, the COVID experience has had them step back and go, wait a minute, I built this whole beast that I have to feed. And it’s like, I’m not I’m no longer at the center of why I started this. What does that mean? And so there’s, yeah, there’s quite a journey. For many of us.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 43:09
That’s a really difficult position.
Vicki Saunders 43:10
Yes. It’s hard. So hard.
Unknown Speaker 43:11
It’s really hard. Because you, especially if your heart centered leader and you just love all your people so much and you’re—but I feel like that’s a lesson that when people come to me now, especially young entrepreneurs, like keep checking in with yourself, because I’ve been I’ve been drained by Tattly for two years. And that’s, and I don’t want—mean to say this as in, I’m complaining about the company I built, but I think it’s important that we actually stay in touch with is this still feeding me? Yeah. Because you don’t do anyone the service because your team senses it if you’re drained by it.
Vicki Saunders 43:48
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, my husband Richard and I, every day are like, what worked today? What didn’t? What do we want to tweak and constantly like feeling like we are the designers of our life. If it’s not working, how do we shift it? Because I’ve had I’ve had lots of journeys along the way of starting these projects and companies where I found myself going how did I get here? Oh, my God, I hate everything I just created. What did I just do? I’m so acutely aware of that, with SheEO that I don’t want to mess this up. Because it’s I want to love this. Mm hmm. And I do but it’s a constant. Paying attention to what’s working and what’s not. And where are we going? Yeah.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 44:27
I will take that with me, Vicki.
Vicki Saunders 44:30
Yeah, it’s it’s a continuous thing. It doesn’t end. It’s not like okay, good. That’s the right strategy every day almost. Especially now. I feel like every week is a year. There’s just so it’s just like Fast Forward insanity. All this stuff. I love you so much.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 44:45
I love you too Vicki. You know I have this thing when I when I I’ve made my my word of the year is resonance. As you can probably tell, it comes up a lot. And I’m really trying to deeply deeply listen to my body. When I talk with people when I experience things, and I have this thing that I’m noticing now that when you know there’s, I call it when I’m in the presence of truth, I get really warm and fuzzy here. It kind of expands. I had that multiple times during our conversation. So thank you.
Vicki Saunders 45:16
Thank you so much. It’s absolutely a blessing to have known you and keep on doing it, sister, you’re incredible.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 45:22
Well says Vicki, who’s changing the world.
Vicki Saunders 45:28
Thank you so much. Do you have an ask, by the way? We always end with an ask if you have one. Do you have an ask for the community?
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 45:33
Just think about how you can show up with an open heart and kindness in your day to day.
Vicki Saunders 45:40
Nice. Thank you, Tina.
Tina Roth-Einsenberg 45:42
Thank you, Vicki.
Vicki Saunders 45:44
Thank you for listening to the SheEO.World podcast. If this conversation resonated with you, please share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast player. If you’d like more information about SheEO, please visit our website at SheEO.World. That’s s-h-e-e-o dot world.
