Angie Colee (00:02):
Welcome to Permission To Kick Ass, a podcast about leaving self-doubt in the dust, punching fear in the face, and taking bold action toward your biggest dreams. I'm Angie Cole and let's get to it.
Angie Colee (00:18):
Hey and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass, with me. Today is my new friend, Ar Kreutzer. Say hi, Ari.
Ari Krzyzek (00:25):
Hi, Angie.
Angie Colee (00:27):
Yay. I'm so excited to be meeting you and your background is lovely, which of course they don't get to see because I'm not showing this video anywhere. I know it's related to what you do, so tell us a little bit about your business.
Ari Krzyzek (00:38):
Sure thing. My business, Chykalophia, is a digital brand consultancy. We're based here in Evanston, if you know where that is, it's about 25 minutes away from downtown Chicago. Now, a lot of the time we serve woman-led brands, from tech and D2C brands, in terms of all things related to brand strategy, UX strategy, so that's user experiences, as well as all things related to the website. Be it a e-commerce website, marketing website, or even a custom web application, we do it all.
Angie Colee (01:10):
Awesome. How did you get into that line of business?
Ari Krzyzek (01:14):
Good one. I started off as a graphic designer. Never in my life I thought I was going to be a business owner, an entrepreneur, and running an agency. I just wanted to design. That's essentially what I wanted to do. I even dropped a scholarship to a tourism school back in the day when I was living in Bali, Indonesia, and I wanted to just be a designer. Once I start becoming a designer, I got my bachelor degree in art, I start getting my job. My husband, who was then my fiance, he asked me a very simple question, "Hey Ar, how much you get paid per month?"
Ari Krzyzek (01:57):
And the thing is, I'm from a terrible country. I was born and raised in Bali, Indonesia, and he's this Polish American guy, has all the cool things about internet and stuff like that. And when he found out that I got paid $250 per month, he was shocked and he asked me, "You mean you had another zero at the end?" And I told him, "No, just 250." So he introduced me to the world of freelancing, the digital nomad, all those freelance gig that you can find. It's like, "That was sweet." So that was the introduction to the digital world for me.
Angie Colee (02:35):
I love that, too. I don't know if you know this, but I'm a digital nomad.
Ari Krzyzek (02:38):
Oh neat.
Angie Colee (02:39):
Of course, you're seeing this lovely background behind me. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, as we are writing this, at one of those extended stay hotels because Airbnb has gone bananas in terms of their pricing. But I get that man, and it pisses me off so often when I see people in different countries making $250 a month because of this outdated, and I want to kill it with fire, notion that somehow other people deserve to be paid less for the same work, for any number of reasons. No, no, pay a living wage, I don't care where people are. And especially you're doing great work. I'm literally looking at your office behind you and it looks beautiful. Talk about demonstration, and they don't get to see it, that kind of tickles me. But I'm glad that you had someone to advocate for you, because I think that's the biggest hurdle in business. Is that somebody usually has to show you a reality that you can't even see just yet. And I'm so glad he showed you that. Tell me more about your digital nomad stuff. What did you guys do?
Ari Krzyzek (03:35):
Oh man, yeah. It really takes me back, and some of these stories going to get intermingled with my love life, to be honest with you. Because I'm an international couple with my husband, we basically travel between US, Bali, Poland. So it gets pretty expensive.
Angie Colee (03:54):
Love it.
Ari Krzyzek (03:56):
But now the reason why things got a little bit mingled, because my husband was actually getting his master degree in Poland, so he got master degree in computer science. I was getting scholarship to come to the United States for a few months under, I would say a different program in U of A, so in University of Arizona. And in a way it really did open up a lot of possibilities for both of us, in terms of where do we want to grow ourselves as a person, and what do we really want to be. So a lot of this discussion was really interesting because, "Oh, let's just leave in Bali," or "let's just live in United States." But what I ended up doing is that I took a chance to leave my friends, family and everything that is comfortable, and the nice beaches in Bali, to go to United States simply because I did not have a support I needed as a woman entrepreneur.
Ari Krzyzek (04:55):
And knowing that, I felt like I just needed to go out there. I needed to chase that resources that I need to grow, and things that I don't know yet. I feel like it's worth trying. So I did that in 2011, got married to my husband, and immediately after that he would say to me, "Hey Ar, since we're both freelancers, why don't we just join forces? I do development, you do design, we'll fill a company together. How's that sound?" And I said, "That's fantastic, let's do it." Did not know what I getting myself into, to be honest with you. But things change, things moved on. And I feel like in a way we just learn a lot, not just about each other, but also about the business. The one thing that people don't tell you about building a business, is that there's a lot of things to look at. You're wearing a lot of hats, and I'm actually lucky I have to share that with him. I have great admiration for solopreneurs because you're doing it all on your own. That's just amazing, I don't think I can do that.
Angie Colee (06:03):
And sometimes it can be so challenging if you're dating somebody, you're an entrepreneur and your partner's an employee, and there's just certain things that they don't get about being an entrepreneur. And my business partner and I bonded. I stayed with her for a couple weeks last year, and she loved it because she'd come down from her office in the middle of the day, and we would sit there and we'd geek out like, "Oh my God, here's this program that I want to create and I'm really excited about this business conference, and here's a way that I think I can boost the revenue. And I'm super excited by solving all these problems." And I was literally watching her teenage daughters and her husband like, "Oh my God, they're at it again," and they'd walk out of the room. There's a certain amount of geeking out that happens in most entrepreneurial circles that I know.
Angie Colee (06:44):
But you're absolutely right. You having somebody that gets it, and being able to work together towards solving that problem is a huge advantage. And that, I think, dovetails nicely with what you talked about. You made a huge investment in yourself and a huge bet on yourself by saying, "I'm going to go here so that I can have support and people that will help me in pursuit of my dream," which I think is something a lot of us, it's scary to do that.
Ari Krzyzek (07:11):
It is.
Angie Colee (07:13):
What tipped that scale for you, and made you lean toward that versus staying where it was safe and you knew people?
Ari Krzyzek (07:25):
It was definitely not a easy decision. I think a lot of us, when we are in that intersection, you going to have to figure out, "Okay, what do I need to account for? What are those things that you need to be considering for?" For me, it was really the thing that my mom had said a long time ago. Something about women not really getting the resources that they need, nor the advocate that they need in a patriarchal culture, like in Bali. Right now, if you look at Southeast Asia, there are some different resources available. Tech is getting big startups, getting big capital resources, all those different things are finally popping up. But 11 years ago, there were none of those. So I feel like I did not want to wait a decade just to get to those resources. So I just challenged myself, "Can I do it? Of course I can, right?"
Ari Krzyzek (08:20):
It's just a matter of, will you do it? And getting the support from my parents as well. Just like, okay, even though I am a first daughter, their first child out of three daughters, they were willing to let me go. And that was huge for me, knowing that I got the blessing. I got the blessing to go a venture out to see whether or not I can really prove it to myself that I can do it. So there's that one, but also I try not to deal with regrets. I really suck at dealing with regrets and I really need it. So sometimes I often just told myself, "Hey, let's just try it. If it doesn't work, that's fine. We can figure something out. There's got to be something out there at the end of the day as you're trying it doesn't work, you will find something else." And I do believe in that.
Angie Colee (09:14):
I love that, I wrote it down and circled it a couple of times. Yeah, let's just try it. Because I think that attitude of experimentation is super important. I think especially since it's our livelihoods. When you start a business, there's a lot of self of ego of risk attached to every decision that you're making, and a lot of fear that kind of keeps you stuck. But if you can slip that mindset to be about, "Well, let's just try it. Let's just it and hope for the best, and we'll be able to figure it out." Everything that I have taken that approach on, it either worked out the way that I hoped, or it didn't work out the way I hoped, but it led me to a next step that I never would've seen if I hadn't taken action, you know?
Ari Krzyzek (09:53):
Mm-hmm. I think in a way you can also see it as your own path. It's never going to be straight. And I learned that the hard way, because nobody's paths are straight line. It's always going to be bumpy, it's always going to be different corners to turn, or even intersections that you have to choose which way you want to go. And it's just part of life, and I think that's what makes it really exciting. My mom also used to say, "You only live once," right?
Angie Colee (10:24):
Right.
Ari Krzyzek (10:25):
And live to the fullest, and that really do stuck in me for a long time. So whenever I make a decision, I would really look at it, "Okay, does it really get me excited?" I think you have to be excited about it. You have to follow your gut, and you also have to feel it, if it feels right to you. So yeah, I would rely on some of those.
Angie Colee (10:45):
I love that. Yeah. I was talking to one of my business mentors earlier, we have regular weekly meetings. And I was telling her about this new project that I'm working on with my partner, and she goes, "You know how I know that this is going to succeed?" And I was like, "Wait, what? That's nice. Yes, please pump me up. It's going to succeed, lay on me." And she goes, "The energy that you're talking about this is completely different. You're radiating joy from the inside out, I can tell how excited you are to work on this thing." And I was like, "Ooh." I hadn't connected the dots quite that way before she said that, and then you just said something similar along the lines of, if you feel that enthusiasm, you feel that calling to do it. This lights you up, this is super exciting. Do it!
Ari Krzyzek (11:31):
Yeah.
Angie Colee (11:31):
Do it and see what happens.
Ari Krzyzek (11:33):
I agree. Part of it is scary though, I would definitely say that. But when you do try it and find out for yourself, the result, you might be surprised of how much you are capable of.
Angie Colee (11:47):
Oh yeah. And I do, yeah, absolutely a thousand percent agree that you might surprise yourself. Challenge your assumptions regularly because things are going to catch you off guard in the best way possible from time to time. And I'll punctuate that with this quote that I wrote down that I remember hit me at a very crossroads point with an event that I was deciding whether I wanted to keep this as part of my business, or jettison this. It's a lot of self judgment about whether I hosted this event right, whether I taught the things right, whether I could do it again. And this quote popped up in TikTok of all places. So, "You are worth the time and effort it takes to learn a new skill."
Ari Krzyzek (12:26):
Yeah.
Angie Colee (12:27):
You are worth the time and effort, and business building, make no mistake, it's a skill. I don't care how creative you are, if you've got all kinds of notions about, "I don't get math, HR, ergh." All of these things can be learned.
Ari Krzyzek (12:38):
Yes.
Angie Colee (12:38):
They can be learned or they can be outsourced. I know this hasn't been all sunshine and roses on the path to building your business. So tell me about a time where it got really rough and you started wondering, is this really the right path?
Ari Krzyzek (12:54):
Oh man. Okay. Down that road we go.
Angie Colee (12:56):
Down the road we go.
Ari Krzyzek (13:01):
I didn't know anything about business, but when my husband asked me to be in a business with him, it was so exciting and he also didn't really know what he was doing. I was relying on him, and we both didn't really know what we were doing. So our first two years, to be honest, was a hot mess. It was a full blown disaster. Not only we not know how to build a business plan, relearning everything, marketing ourselves, we also didn't know how to set boundaries for ourselves. We're newly wed and then we're also new business partner. It was really tricky to set those boundaries, and really respecting each other beyond spouses. I was telling him how to code, he was telling me how to design. So it was just hot mess to be honest. And it finally come to a point where, "Okay, we got to talk to somebody about this."
Ari Krzyzek (13:57):
I mean, I obviously love you so much and I want to work with you, but we got to figure something out. So our mentor told me how to really separate things, set boundaries, setting different roles and responsibilities for both of us. That was a good start. But the other thing too, we did not have enough funds to market ourself. So bad move in my opinion, because every business needs to have funds to do marketing. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to get people to know about you even exists, and be able to help them. So I decided that, okay, so we're going to do something totally different. I'm going to go get a job and you stay in a business. I'll do part-time, and we'll see what happen. So that kept going on until 2016. I worked for Sears Holding for about four years, until I got pregnant and have my son.
Ari Krzyzek (14:49):
That was fun.
Angie Colee (14:50):
Yay.
Ari Krzyzek (14:51):
But the thing is, there was so many different things. Before I got pregnant, I was doing so many different things. I was hosting events, building network, go to different events and building that relationship as well. It truly led to a lot more opportunities for our business to grow, which is fantastic. But with that, and then me doing part-time the newborn, and then also the full-time job at Sears, I was super overwhelmed. I did not know what to do, but my heart already told me that, "Okay, you need to pick one. You cannot juggle it at all. I mean, how ever much joy you got out of it. You have new responsibilities and that is your newborn." So I thought it over and over, and I finally told my husband at the time, "Honey, I think I have to let go Sears job. I want to be in the business building it together with you." And he was telling me was like, "No, don't say goodbye to..."
Angie Colee (15:51):
All that money.
Ari Krzyzek (15:52):
Yeah. "It's so safe." It's like, "I know it's safe, but I truly believe that we can do it. We have enough savings for this and we going to figure things out." So that was 2016, I did not look back. After a year from building the business together with him full time, we ended up hiring a few team member that became our very top team member, and two male team has been with us since then. So it has been a really interesting, I would say an experience is trying to figure out what is it that you were meant to do, or feels right for you. But at the end of the day, I think you have the answer. You just need to challenge it out and then be willing to also take the risk.
Angie Colee (16:48):
So by that same token, you're worth the time and effort it takes to learn a new skill. You're worth the risk too. You're worth the risk in the relationship. You're worth the risk in trying a new thing that pushes you out of your comfort zone, you are a human being and I don't care who you are and where you come from, you are worth the risk. You are alive and you are worth it. That was a rant that I did not anticipate going on. But yeah, it was interesting. I can't even imagine what it must have felt like working a full-time job, doing the business part-time, raising this new baby, juggling all of these interpersonal dynamics as you and your new husband are learning how to just navigate work, in business, in life.
Ari Krzyzek (17:29):
Yeah.
Angie Colee (17:29):
Oh my gosh, that sounded like a little bit of burnout too. Did you ever hit that point?
Ari Krzyzek (17:34):
Yes, yes I did. It was not pretty. I think that was the very moment that I finally realized, our dream of just having the little agency we had back then, maybe studio back then. It was supposed to be just the two of us, you and me against the world, right? Typical. But when a lot more requests coming in, we got a lot more known in the industry and things like that. It becomes very overwhelming. And I found myself needing extra spaces for me, not just for my client, but also just for me, just for my family and not working on weekends. So I was like, "Oh my goodness, I do not want to work on weekends anymore." I used to love it, but not anymore. Especially after having newborn.
Ari Krzyzek (18:24):
So we're thinking, "Okay, we definitely have to grow," and I agree with him. And the discussion on that particular growth really takes us beyond what it would look like in the next five years, or in the next 10 years, so on and so forth. I wasn't comfortable talking about revenue or even all the other things, success in the next 10 years, what that's going to look like. I have to admit, I was not as open minded as I thought I was. But with everything that's going on in the company right now, the growth that we have, it forced me bit by bit to be more comfortable to it. I think part of it is in the mindset. I think most of the time women didn't really gain the confidence they need in order to reach and think bigger for themselves.
Angie Colee (19:17):
Absolutely.
Ari Krzyzek (19:18):
So it's definitely a learning process for me, but I'm happy that I actually have a reliable support from my husband to just keep nudging me towards that line.
Angie Colee (19:30):
Yeah. I know with a lot of women and a lot of creatives, that there is this really dis-ease, unease with talking about money, revenue. There's a lot of head trash, especially with the creative folks that I've worked with around, "Well, I'm not good at math, I'm not good at sales." Well, but you don't necessarily have to be, and those are skills that can be learned. I wasn't always great at sales. I'm good at sales in a written format, but face to face, something about me just locks down and goes, "No," turn into a little gremlin and I don't want to sell anything. But I also know my business partner, part of the reason that I brought her in, is she is a natural born salesperson. And so she goes out and she finds the business, and she's in her happy place making deals, and having conversations, and closing sales.
Angie Colee (20:20):
And I am in my happy place going in with that client and being like, "Here's the idea. Here's how we're going to execute." Oh yeah, and we're having a whole lot of fun. And so kind of ties back into what you were talking about with when you realized you needed to pick one. You don't necessarily need to wear all the hats at any point in your business.
Ari Krzyzek (20:38):
Yeah.
Angie Colee (20:39):
You will at the beginning as you start to grow this thing. But you don't have to master every single skill to build something good for yourself. Would you agree?
Ari Krzyzek (20:47):
I wholeheartedly agree with that. And you touch on a really good point around not being comfortable with numbers, or the P and L, or sales conversation. Goodness, I avoided those like a plague. I wish I didn't, but the thing is, sometimes you're just going to have to overcome it yourself. Nobody can force you to do it. It has to come from within. I ended up going through a program called Goldman Sachs 10 KSB. Are you familiar with that?
Angie Colee (21:20):
Yeah, I've heard that one.
Ari Krzyzek (21:21):
Okay. I needed that to be honest. I was trying to figure out, "Okay, where do I go from here?" After hitting the 10 year mark of our business anniversary, I wasn't sure where I wanted to go. So I got through the program earlier this year and that helped me realize, I should have taken the CEO role, which I avoided for so long. And I forced my husband to take on over this position. And I finally realized, "Okay, it's time for me to step up and really owning it." It is part of me, it's my career as well, and I own 51% of it. So I need to figure out what do I need to do in order to really grow it, and what the exit plan even looked like. I didn't even have an exit plan.
Ari Krzyzek (22:11):
So that question was looming in my head when they asked, "Okay, what is your exit plan?" Do I want to do this until I die? I was like, "No, until I'm 90? No." So what does that look like? So there's so many different things that I never even thought about because I avoided it for so long. Same thing with the P and L and all things related to revenue, the growth, all the numbers, it gives me headache. But hey, when you see those numbers and you're excited for it, it makes it easier to just be comfortable bit by bit.
Angie Colee (22:46):
I love that. That reminded me of a line from Rush where it's like, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." And I feel like there are a lot of business owners out there that are refusing to choose. What I heard you say that sounded really interesting to me, was that you own the business but didn't make decisions and didn't feel comfortable making decisions, didn't know where you were going to be in the future. And that just by having somebody ask you those questions to force you to think about things that you didn't want to think about.
Angie Colee (23:18):
I love that question, I want to challenge all entrepreneurs to think about that. Do you want to work at this until you die? I certainly don't. I love this and I geek out about this business every single day, but I don't want to be working this when I'm 90. I don't want to be working this when I'm 60. What's your exit plan? How are you getting yourself out of this? How are you're still supporting yourself and maybe even your staff? And if you don't have answers to those right away, that's okay. Doesn't mean you're a failure, but you got to start thinking about it.
Ari Krzyzek (23:46):
Yeah, I think asking the right question can be really impactful. Just by asking that question, you might think of something slightly different, or maybe you actually do have a different idea or different plan in the future, you haven't really take that into an account. Who knows? I think a lot of the work that we have to do as an entrepreneur is also personal growth and leadership.
Angie Colee (24:12):
Yes.
Ari Krzyzek (24:12):
That we sometimes take it too lightly, but we know that, hey, it's important but I just don't have time. We got to make time.
Angie Colee (24:20):
Yes.
Ari Krzyzek (24:21):
That's I think the most important thing for us to remember, because when we stop learning any of those, we will feel stuck. And I do feel that really helped me after going through the program. It just really helped me. Okay, I have some clarity now. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit yet another challenges in the future. But that's also the beauty of it too, right? You're going to stumble upon yet another growing pain, yet another challenge is, but you're going to figure it out.
Angie Colee (24:48):
You're going to figure it out. And here's what I hear that's super brilliant and I want to highlight for everybody that's listening. Two concepts, one is the importance of space. If you don't have time, I'm probably bastardizing this quote, but isn't there that the quote about the Buddhist mon who is like, some busy dude says, I don't have time to meditate. Or the monk says, "You should meditate for 10 minutes every day." And the guy says, "I don't have time to meditate."" And the monk goes, "Well, you should meditate for an hour every day." Make time. And especially if you're a creative entrepreneur, I think we underestimate how critical that space is to be able to create our best work. In my twenties, I could do 20 hour days and crank out some pretty good work. But these days, if I take my time, we were joking beforehand because you saw me writing on my little remarkable tablet.
Angie Colee (25:44):
And it's kind of become a joke with my clients that they see me out at an event just writing down some ideas, some notes in a strategy, it becomes an email, it becomes a campaign. I jotted it down in 10, 15 minutes because I've allowed it to percolate in the back of my mind while I'm out on a walk, doing some exploration, focusing on some other things besides business. And then the other concept that I thought. So space is important, take space or make space, and investing in yourself. When you acknowledge or notice that there's a skills gap, there's something that's uncomfortable. Hey, knowledge is power for this very reason.
Ari Krzyzek (26:19):
Oh, yeah.
Angie Colee (26:19):
I learn more. I love this. So if you could go back in time and tell younger you, when you were on the verge of quitting this thing and burning out, what advice would you have for yourself?
Ari Krzyzek (26:34):
Carefully curated your schedule, to be honest.
Angie Colee (26:36):
Yes.
Ari Krzyzek (26:37):
Yeah. Simply because I tend to get too excited going to a lot of different things. It's like, "Oh, there's this event." It's like, "Oh, I don't want to miss out on that." I was like, "Ooh, imagine who I'm going to be meeting there." You don't have all the time in the world. I mean, you have to also take care of yourself and you do not want to get into the burnout consistently. That's really going to be a dark place to be honest.
Ari Krzyzek (27:05):
Burnout to me feels like you are questioning a lot of different things. When you have a clarity and you have enough rest, you have enough relaxation for yourself, enough space for yourself and family, you feel inspired to do more things. And for me, if I were able to just go back there in the past and just tell myself to be very careful curating things on my schedule, or on my calendar, that would be the top advice I would give. Because I just tend to coast to many different places just because I thought I could do it. But the reality is, you can't go to all different places all at once.
Angie Colee (27:47):
That's true. I think that that is brilliant, a great observation. And it ties back into what you were talking about with boundaries before. I think too often we have this misconception that boundaries about laying down the law and telling people what the rules are. I think of boundaries more as understanding what you need to do your best work, how you operate best, and then just communicating that to people. So I operate best when I have lots of free time and I am not available constantly for slack pings and email answering all day long. I, like you, resisted controlling my schedule for a long time because I'm creative. I work best when I have a flexible day.
Angie Colee (28:27):
You know what gave me that flexible day that I really wanted? Deciding that my call days were Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and that all my calls start afternoon so that I don't have any particular morning where I had a bad night's sleep, or I decided to go out exploring and I got back late. I don't have to get up at seven, eight o'clock in the morning and jump right into a meeting. That is a boundary I set for myself. And no point in time did I go up to my clients and be like, "You MFers ain't getting me on the phone before noon." No. I just set up my calendar to where they could schedule calls afternoon. That's a boundary. And they say, "Hey, do you have anything before noon?" And I go, "No, sorry." And we make it work, right?
Ari Krzyzek (29:09):
Yeah, yeah. I think it's also really nice to be able to do that knowing that you're being disciplined for yourself, because people would be able to force you to do things that you don't want to. But when you already have a clarity on things that you are disciplined about, like for you in this case, Angie is you have set your boundaries in terms of timing. We need to decide our own timing. We need to decide our own boundaries. Not letting others scheduling things on their own for us.
Angie Colee (29:43):
Exactly. And I think that starts with getting that clarity on what's important to you. I know one of the important things to me, like I said, is not being tied to a computer. And so I actively seek out clients that understand, I'm not going to be online from nine to five. I'm not going to be answering your pings within five minutes of business day. Absolutely. I do some of my best work in a fricking hot air balloon, or doing other adventures because I'm letting that subconscious brain percolate on stuff instead of trying to force it and accepting good enough.
Angie Colee (30:14):
And I think we do ourselves, especially creative folks, talk about the concept of joy and ease in the business. When you love doing this thing, it's so easy to undervalue it, and think that it comes just as easily to everybody else as it does to you. My beautiful, brilliant, creative friends worry, and everybody that is listening to us talk. Just because it comes easy to you does not mean it comes easy to everybody. And in fact, something that comes really easy to you might be a sign that this is where your sweet spot is. You can do really good work really fast with a lot of joy, and people get a lot of value out of it. Go make that money. Don't make it harder than it has to be.
Ari Krzyzek (31:04):
I love that.
Angie Colee (31:07):
It was like having my eyes opened the first time that I was on a call with an old colleague, and this was during a job. But she, bless her, thought she was trying to help me by writing a draft that I could help her edit. And I had told her many, many times, just give me a bullet point to checklist. Tell me who you're writing to, what you want them to do, where are they clicking, what's the call to action. Just give me the relative details and I can bang one out, because I'm a writer and I do this all day every day.
Ari Krzyzek (31:34):
Yeah.
Angie Colee (31:34):
So two weeks later when she had been agonizing over every word and every line in this email, she finally feels like it's in good enough shape to bring to me for review. And I'm just like, "Okay, let me help you." So we jump on a joint zoom call and hop on screen share, and I start making edits. I'm asking her a whole bunch of questions about what this email needs to accomplish, all those questions that I asked up front. And I think I changed two lines that she had in the email, and I was like, "These two bits were causing confusion and I just edited them." And she literally goes, "What kind of witchcraft did you just do? I just witnessed you change two sentences and I don't even understand how such small changes made such a big difference in this."
Angie Colee (32:18):
And she goes, "I don't think you even realized what you just did and why I'm just bewildered by this right now." And that was what the first inkling that I got, that not everybody can do this. So not everybody has a skill with words. Not everybody has a skill with graphic design. Not everybody even has a skill with spreadsheets. Y'all whatever you're good at and it comes naturally to you, chances are there are a lot of people out there that don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to that, and they admire you and they see it as some sort of magic. I don't understand how they can do that. That's ridiculous. Don't undervalue it. There might be something to this joy in this ease, in a business.
Ari Krzyzek (32:59):
So well said. I love that.
Angie Colee (33:02):
I love it. So this is fantastic. Tell me a little bit more about your business. Let us know where we can find you.
Ari Krzyzek (33:08):
Well, everybody can find me on LinkedIn. I'm always on LinkedIn these days, so find me there, or check me out at my own website, chykalophia.com. Essentially my business will help those who are looking for support on the website. Maybe technology is not really your strong suit, and that's okay. That's why we're here, we can help you out on anything related to the consulting side of things, the design portion of it, or anything related to the automations, and anything that we can geek out on for a tech part. So that's that, and or maybe you actually want some help in terms of translating your brand into a digital experiences. We can help with that too.
Angie Colee (33:47):
Excellent, excellent. I'm going to make sure that they have clickable links to all of these things in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show. I love everything about this conversation.
Ari Krzyzek (33:55):
Thank you, Angie.
Angie Colee (34:00):
So that is it. Another awesome episode of Permission to Kick on the books. If you want to know more about the show, if you want to know more about me, Angie Cole, and the mission I'm on to help entrepreneurs punch fear in the face and do big bold things, then head on over to permissiontokickass.com. That is all one word together, permissiontokickass.com. Make sure to sign up for my email list so that whenever there's a hot, fresh and ready podcast episode out for you. And also on Mondays, I like to send out a little newsletter called Kick Monday's Ass. I'm sure you're totally, totally surprised by that. So thank you for being here with me today. I'm Angie Cole. Make sure that you share this with a friend that needs to hear this message today. Like it, share it, comment wherever you're listening to this today, and let's go kick some ass.