394 MINISODE Missy Kelly: Patience Wins

Women Innovating Networking Growing Scaling – that’s WINGS … I’m Melinda Wittstock, my mission is to help women take flight to soar to the success of our dreams in business and in life– and create and grow businesses in alignment with our passion and purpose.

On this special Mentoring Minisode of Wings of Inspired Business … we talk about how to navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and why patience always wins the day. Often as female founders, mothers and partners we have a never-ending task list, so we also talk about how to manage all that doing with time for yourself.

Here with us today to provide her insights and inspiration is …

Missy Kelly

Missy is the Co-founder and CEO of CatTongue Grips – an innovative adhesive non-slip grip that can easily be applied to your mobile device, laptop, tablet or case to provide a layer of what she calls “Gription” in your everyday life.

Missy Kelly will be here with her advice in just a moment on our Mentoring Minisode and first …

And now to the inspiring Missy Kelly.

Missy is the co-founder of Cat Tongue grips … solving common (growing) problem that many people have: mobile phones & devices often slip out of hands (and off tables) and fall to the ground, ending up damaged. Missy and her husband found anti-slip solution.  It’s called CatTongue, and its super durable – even for extreme athletes. CatTongue Grips are recyclable, extremely durable and waterproof – and pretty too, with more than 50 cool customizable designs. Appropriately for Wings, I have the butterfly version.

Melinda Wittstock:         Missy, welcome to Wings.

Missy Kelly:                       Thank you so much, Melinda. I’m honored to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m excited to hear all your mentoring, Minisode tips and I always like to start with, what’s inspiring you right now?

Missy Kelly:                       Right now I just got back from the WBENC National Conference for Women-Owned Business. I have to say, I am incredibly inspired by the female entrepreneurs who are out there doing amazing things in the world and helping one another. That’s awesome.

Melinda Wittstock:         WBENC is doing some interesting work to help everybody. What was that conference like?

Missy Kelly:                       It was incredible. There were probably, I would say 4000 people there. It was a four-day event. One of those is a business fair, just women doing amazing things, different sorts of businesses. Really, all walks of life networking with one another and just extremely inspiring and a benevolent environment. It was awesome.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wonderful. Well, you know we all have so many challenges in business. It’s part of a territory and sometimes it can put people off being an entrepreneur, that kind of up and down roller coaster ride. Yet, I like to de-stigmatize it because it’s part of the journey and it’s where we learn and grow. So what are some of the challenges that you have in your business right now?

Missy Kelly:                       Well, I feel the entrepreneur journey, as you mentioned, it is, it’s up and down. It’s not a straight line up. I think that that’s an important thing to remember. For me, it’s putting one foot in front of the other. There’s going to be challenges, there’s going to be setbacks. But I have my eye on the prize, just to grow my company and to help people everywhere in the world really, with their gription needs. So I’d say that the most important thing for me is just to not take it all so seriously, take it in stride, and just keep my eye on my vision.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh, that’s such great advice. So speaking of advice, we turn now to your top three for women in business and entrepreneurs. Perhaps these pieces of advice would be things that you would have told your younger self, or things that you learned along the way. What would be your top three?

Missy Kelly:                       Well, for me the first piece of advice is definitely to have patience. What I was saying, building a successful business is a marathon and certainly not a sprint. Entrepreneurship is hard. The to-do list is never ending. For me, finding balance is extremely difficult. Not letting the business run me, but finding time for myself. So I’d say definitely patience.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. Finding time for yourself is something that I see so many women struggle with. We get these really long to-do lists, and we think we have to do it all. And we don’t actually. We can hire people for things.

Missy Kelly:                       Well, that’s another thing I’ve learned is that the to-do list is endless. Not only balancing my business, my relationship, my kids, everything in my life. We’re going to make mistakes. You don’t have to be perfect. And just having some patience with myself, as well as how the business is growing.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, I love that. Patience with ourselves. Because I think we make it harder on ourselves than we need to. So what is number two?

Missy Kelly:                       The second piece I would have is that it’s okay if the to-do list is endless. They connect there. For me, it’s just focusing on the tasks that need to be done today. In addition to focusing on those tasks, focusing on completion of the tasks so they can just be checked off and then I can move on.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh yeah. One of the traps that we can fall into, because we’re better at multitasking, say than men, just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should. Because we can end up advancing a whole bunch of things a little bit, but not really advancing our business because things don’t get completed. So that type of focus and completion is really super smart. Thank you for that. What about number three?

Missy Kelly:                       Number three for me is definitely making time for myself. That’s something I’ve really learned along the way, is how important it is to have balance in my life and taking that time for me, whether it’s getting up a few minutes early to squeeze in my daily meditation practice, or spending time alone with my dogs in nature, just honoring the importance of finding those quiet moments in the chaos of my life right now. Because it’s those quiet moments that bring me back to center.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love it. So Missy, how can people find you and work with you?

Missy Kelly:                       Our product CatTongue Grips is on CatTongueGrips.company. Check out our website. We manufacture phone grips that go on the back of your phone or case just to provide you with an extra layer of gription in your daily life. So in the car, on your workspace, in your hand and on the go.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love it. Well thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Missy Kelly:                       Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.