Ep 009: From Online Product to Retail Storefront with mamapreneur Ana Maria Munoz

Dreamcatchers District Podcast - Mindset, Authentic Marketing, Coaching, Goals, Creative Entrepreneur, Online Business, Fear

Today on the Podcast, Guest Ana Maria Munoz:

For anyone who may be feeling like they've started the wrong creative business, or like they just can't imagine their current endeavor being their "forever thing," this is the episode for you.

Given our culture's obsession with "being the best," it can feel counterintuitive to not keep going, keep pushing, keep hustling. This is especially true for high performers, high achievers, who identify themselves as "do-ers" and who thrive on "making it happen."

Yet, sometimes, the smartest and savviest thing we can do is to let something go. Sometimes the quickest route to more satisfaction, more support, more sustainable success and sweet synchronicity is to start again. To open ourselves up to something better.

Give Yourself Permission:

Just because we're good at something, just because others want something, doesn't always mean we're a fit for something. Usually, there's something more congruent just around the bend. And if we're patient, if we're trusting, if we're willing, if we have the capacity to see a new vision — we'll heed those whispers of intuition and allow ourselves to transition to the next right thing.

What eases that swan dive into the great unknown? Knowing your strengths, knowing your values, knowing what you want and surrounding yourself with others at that same stage of business and season of life. So that when the going gets tough you can look around and have support to ...

Breakthrough Comfort Zones:

If you're lover of off-the-grid travel and global design as much as I am — than you know part of that spirit is intentional living. Consciously choosing to try new things, take in different cultures, indulge the five senses, and experience less as more. Enter friend and fellow creative entrepreneur, Ana Maria Munoz.

While you may recognize Ana Maria from her former online product based business, Ring Cozy, or her exquisitely curated storefront in North Carolina, Port of Raleigh, you may not know the story of how both were born during times of major transition. The first whilst traveling abroad (she's lived on 5 continents) and the latter while pregnant with her first baby, Hazel.

But what stands out most about this woman? Not only her talent and tenacity as a photographer, a blogger, a product creator, and now a brick and mortar shop owner (she's introduced over two dozen design-driven brands to North Carolina) but her appreciation for how interconnected every leg of the journey has been.

And it's that perspective, that everything is everything, that's allowed her to pivot with grace and gratitude.

In this Episode We Talk About:

• Living intentionally in the fleeting time we have; in the homes we inhabit

• What growing up in Southern California to Colombian parents taught her

• When she was a traveling blogger, photographer, and vintage find maven

• How living on 5 continents helped her break out of her comfort zones

• The time she struggled with the "creative's dilemma" & finding her "thing"

• How her former product based business, Ring Cozy, attracted its ideal audience

• Why she felt secretly disconnected and disengaged from her buyers

• When she knew she was emotionally ready to close the business

• The inconvenient timing of opening her retail space at 6months pregnant

• When she finally came to accept the "new normal" of motherhood

• How she batches her days, manages expectations, and zones out with purpose

• Why her husband is her biggest support and the #1 thing he told her that made all the difference

• The assumptions we make about online businesses versus the behind-the-scenes reality

• Where her strengths and desires show up as more Ambivert than Introvert or Extrovert

• How she balances the masculine/feminine as a wife versus a boss babe

• Her thoughts on Minimalists versus minimally designed pieces

• How listening to her intuition has changed over the years and what she hopes to teach her daughter

Get Ready to Hear All The Behind-The-Scenes Stories & Insights from Ana Maria Munoz

Mentioned in this Podcast:

• Follow Ana Maria: Port of Raleigh Instagram , Ana Maria Instagram

• Port of Raleigh: Website

• Netflix Documentary: Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

• Podcast: The Minimalists Podcast

• The Dreamcatchers District Creative Direction: For Your Beliefs and Business, Ask Me How

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