Conscious Success Co (00:02.912)
Mackenzie. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast and for our conversation today. Ever since our mutual friend Taylor told me about you and shared your post with me where you let at least the public know that you were stepping away from cotton and the successful brand that you spent 10 years building to really redefine yourself and to write a new story and that reflects who you are in this.
changing season of motherhood. just knew I had to have you on the pod. So thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to share both your career journey building cotton as well as the really, I imagine, difficult decision to walk away with listeners. So thanks for being here today.
Mackenzie Yeates (00:43.946)
Thanks so much for having me. It's exciting to be able to share these stories and hear stories from other women that are going through the same thing. Cause I know that I'm not alone in this experience, but sometimes it does feel like that. And we don't hear that side of the story as often.
Conscious Success Co (01:03.212)
No, absolutely. And so I think it's so brave that you have shared that publicly and that you've been willing to say, like, hey, motherhood has changed me. And I'm shifting with that because I think even when a lot of women feel that, that's not the reason that they give publicly. It almost feels like, especially for those of us who identify as like ambitious women, which you have to be to be a founder and build the business that you did, it can be hard to shift identities or to honor that changing season. So I'm excited to dive into all of that.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:12.117)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (01:32.568)
To start, to kick things off, can you take us back to like the very beginning of little Mackenzie? Like, what were you like as a kid? What did you dream of being when you grew up? Like, us a little, a picture for us.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:45.3)
Yeah, sure. I grew up in Toronto. I spent most of my life here. It's where I live now. I, both of my parents were people that really like followed their dreams, but in quite different paths. So my mom was an athlete and she went to the Olympics for rhythmic gymnastics. So she actually had like also a very unique experience of
working really hard literally her whole life towards a goal and then like achieving it in a day basically and then it being over and having to sort of redefine who she was and what she wanted to do so I observed that and observed and got to like be mothered by a woman that was really
Conscious Success Co (02:21.524)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (02:41.814)
passionate and dedicated and followed her dreams, but at the same time also became a stay-at-home mom and spent so much time with us. So I think that was a unique experience. And then my dad is an artist and worked when I was a child as a photographer and a director. So I had a lot of access to.
books about photography and fashion and things like that and design and my parents, you know, spent the weekends like working on the garden or reorganizing the house and moving around furniture and doing stuff like that. that was sort of the environment that I grew up in and that really influenced me a lot. I always just loved dressing up and having like
Every home video I have about 12 outfit changes. So I really loved clothes like since I was a child. And I knew that that was sort of the path that I wanted to take early on. Like I think as a teenager especially that's kind of the first place where you learn to like express yourself and your own personality through like some sort of creative outlet and like a way you can.
communicate who you are to people through some sort of first impression. So I think that's what drew me to clothes. And I always just loved everything that surrounded fashion, the photography, the graphic design, all those different elements. So yeah, I was always an artsy kid. I was not sporty at all. So I did not do any sort of like...
Conscious Success Co (04:28.705)
Ha ha ha!
Mackenzie Yeates (04:32.98)
group sports activities. My mom tried to put me into tons of different things, but I only really chose the activities that I wanted to do based on the outfits that came with it. So I like, it's fucking.
Conscious Success Co (04:47.319)
I love that. That seems like a really good criteria to choose from activities.
Mackenzie Yeates (04:52.694)
Yeah, exactly. My mom's line, like famous story was that when I did ballet when I was four at the end of the year, she was like, okay, do you want to sign up again for another year? Did you like it? And I was like, no, I only really did it for the shoes. So that was kind of the summary of how I chose things throughout my childhood. But yeah.
Conscious Success Co (05:15.359)
And also such like beautiful foreshadowing of your passions in a lot of ways and what interested you. Like, I think so often when we see people who have built careers that are in alignment, you can find those like threads and themes that go pretty far back. So to know, you you're choosing activities based on the shoes or the outfit and to know you always had a passion for kind of clothes and everything that's surrounded that, you know, it makes perfect sense how you could.
Mackenzie Yeates (05:22.453)
Thank
Mackenzie Yeates (05:32.523)
Thanks
Conscious Success Co (05:42.711)
then go on to build a clothing brand. so I'm curious, at that point or at what point did you ever think, I'm going to found a brand. I'm going to build something in the fashion world. Was that always a desire of yours, or did that not come online until later?
Mackenzie Yeates (05:46.752)
Bye.
Mackenzie Yeates (05:58.977)
Thanks.
I mean, think, like I did have, I didn't really have influences in my life of people that were like business owners or entrepreneurs in my own family. So I didn't really necessarily think about that. My dad, like being a freelancer, it's sort of a type of entrepreneurship. So I definitely like thought about that path for myself, but.
I do think I had good influences of parents of some of my friends and like the people that I grew up around and in our neighborhood were a lot more like professionals and a lot more business oriented than my parents were so I think I got some good influences there but I also felt like I kind of
was looked down upon by like some of my teachers and people at school and stuff when I decided that I was going to study fashion communications at university. Like it didn't really align with like all my friends who were going to study commerce and stuff like that. So I never thought of myself as like school smart or somebody that could start a business. I knew that I was ambitious. I knew I could work hard. I knew I like
was kind of good at a lot of things. That's kind of been like a through line of my own creative journey is that like I never felt like I was really good at one thing. I was always just like kind of good at a lot of things. And yeah.
Conscious Success Co (07:39.788)
And did you make that wrong or did you see that as like a gift and a superpower?
Mackenzie Yeates (07:45.411)
I felt like when I was starting my career that made it really hard for me to figure out what path to take. Even now, redefining my career, I sometimes second-guess myself or feel like I'm not confident in doing certain creative outputs because I don't have training in a specific area.
But in starting a business, it ended up being a superpower because I could really like do everything, especially in the early days when I had to do everything myself. And then as I came to manage people and stuff like that, like I had a general understanding of a lot of different areas. So I think it did end up being a superpower, but it's always been something that made me like question myself. So yeah, once I met
Ben and Rami, were my co-founders with Cotton, like they were both very just business minded and they didn't care what kind of business they were gonna start. They just wanted to start a business. So it was like that paired with my passion for a specific area that sort of like helped us decide that we could start a t-shirt brand.
Conscious Success Co (09:04.918)
And so you guys, I understand it, we're living in New York City. You're all Canadians. You found your way to each other and you're in your what, like mid 20s at the time?
Mackenzie Yeates (09:08.8)
Okay.
Mackenzie Yeates (09:14.162)
Yeah, we were like, we met when we were, I guess we were 23. And Rami and I just had mutual friends and ended up moving to New York like within a couple weeks of each other. he had seen on LinkedIn that I moved to New York and messaged me that we should hang out. So we ended up just becoming like fast friends and forming this kind of group of
Canadians in New York. I don't know we somehow find each other in different places and then One weekend I was having a housewarming party at my new apartment and Rami had a friend visiting and that friend was Ben and Yeah, Ben and I are now married and We became the three of us became co-founders. So yeah kind of all
Conscious Success Co (10:08.288)
And was it from the beginning when you all became friends, were you starting to like discuss, okay, so Rami and Ben want to start a business and you were kind of business curious, but wanted it to be in the fashion space. Like how did the first seed of like cotton come about and like what led, know, early 20s, mid 20s people to be like, okay, well, we can just start a brand. Like where did you source that confidence, the three of you and like,
Mackenzie Yeates (10:30.55)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (10:37.464)
Talk to me more about what that looked like.
Mackenzie Yeates (10:40.424)
Yeah, so I think Ben and Rami literally just that was like the thing that they talked about was just business ideas and like brainstorming about stuff. That's what they did for fun. And so I would sort of like join in on the side of these conversations. And I started to realize that like, I like talking about this stuff too. But a lot of their original like one of their original ideas was that they were going to start this like
delivery laundry business and I was like, yeah, I don't really want to be in industry. So we also were all working in jobs that were semi creative or just like, I don't know, new age sort of workplaces because I was working at a
Conscious Success Co (11:13.275)
You're like, that's not for me. There's not cute clothes there.
Mackenzie Yeates (11:34.165)
design agency, Ben was working at a tech startup and Rami was like in a finance role but in the music industry so we were really just like dressing super casually to work and going out and to brunch like the guys uniform was always just black and white t-shirts and that was kind of the impetus of us thinking about like can we make a better t-shirt and
It sounds so basic and everybody thought that we were insane I think when we said we were gonna start a t-shirt company but we just felt like in their wardrobes, in the boys wardrobes like they had their good t-shirts they're like going out t-shirts that in those days were from like James Purse or APC and then they had their everyday tees which were like crappy quality Hanes t-shirts or whatever
Conscious Success Co (12:29.773)
My husband still wears those.
Mackenzie Yeates (12:32.232)
Yeah. So we were like, why did we get a hundred dollars or like two hundred dollars in some cases? Like it doesn't make sense. So it seemed easy enough to make like a good quality t-shirt that cost thirty dollars. And that was really just the starting point was like this could be like a fun thing that we can do as a side project to kind of like get out that.
Conscious Success Co (12:35.479)
We need to get him on Kaian.
Conscious Success Co (12:42.296)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (13:01.634)
urge to do some of these like business ideas that we talk about and that kind of thing. And I quickly...
Conscious Success Co (13:07.599)
And so did you start it as a side project, like alongside your jobs, or did you guys immediately quit and are like, okay, we're founding a company and we're going all in?
Mackenzie Yeates (13:18.87)
I thought it was a side project. I was like the last woman standing. We started it. We started like working on it, I guess, in like November of 2024. I mean, not 2024, 2014. And then I was still living in New York in like March of 2015. So after we started
quickly after we started talking about it, Rami had quit his job and he was gonna go to South America and travel. Which ended up getting cancelled and he ended up going to Egypt to make t-shirts. And then Ben got let go because his tech startup that he was working at folded. So yeah, they were like, I guess we're all in on this t-shirt thing. And I was still working. I was making like,
good money. was 24, I guess, at that point, and I was like brand director at a design studio. so I kind of like left the most on the table in a way because they had already kind of given up on and they didn't like their jobs. But I decided to quit and move back to Toronto. Ben and I moved into my parents' basement.
And I still did freelance work for like a year to just pay the bills. But yeah, that's how we started and then we were kind of, ball was rolling from there.
Conscious Success Co (14:55.373)
And were there any fears or limiting beliefs or like practical blocks that you had to navigate or overcome in order to actually quit your job or like go all in on founding Cotton? If so, what were those for you?
Mackenzie Yeates (15:11.412)
I think because we were so young, I definitely was the most risk averse of all of us, but I just told myself like, this is basically my MBA. Like we all put in our own money to start it, but it wasn't that much. think I put in, I put in like under $5,000 and the boys put in a little bit more, but I was like, if this all goes to hell in a hand basket, like.
at least I will have learned something and it's like cheaper education than doing an MBA. So that was always like how I calmed my nerves about it, I guess. And because I had the ability to still do freelance work and make money, it was a little less stressful for me. But I think like being so young worked to our advantage because we had no responsibilities like living in my parents' basement.
Conscious Success Co (15:50.071)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (16:08.864)
from like a nice apartment in Brooklyn was a downgrade, but it also wasn't like so demoralizing at that stage in our lives when like our friends were in similar type situations. So I think that was like a real advantage for the fear component of it and just the total lack of knowledge about like what was involved in building a company.
allowed us to kind of like take it one step at a time and go about it in a way that was kind of totally new for building a garment business.
Conscious Success Co (16:48.259)
So not knowing that much or going in a little bit blind and hopeful was actually ended up being a competitive advantage for you.
Mackenzie Yeates (16:58.068)
Yeah, we didn't really set out to like build an ethical or sustainable business. We just wanted to treat people right and like do things the right way and make quality garments. So those things kind of ended up going hand in hand and we ended up starting our process of trying to create a good quality t-shirt at a different cotton farm, which like nobody does. If you're in the fashion industry and you're gonna...
create a product like nobody goes to a farm. We only did that because we had no idea. Like Egyptian cotton, I guess we have to go to a cotton farm.
Conscious Success Co (17:36.259)
And how did you even know about that? You were just like, I know there's like Egyptian cotton sheets, so like it must be good cotton. Let's go to an Egyptian cotton farm and figure it out.
Mackenzie Yeates (17:44.043)
Yeah, pretty much. Like Rami is Egyptian and he speaks Arabic. So he was already in Egypt for a family wedding and we were like, well, we all know that Egyptian cotton is good quality. And Kanye West had just come out with this like collab with APC that was a hundred and fifty dollar Egyptian cotton t-shirt. So we were like, well.
We already have connections in Egypt, like this seems like a logical thing. So literally that's what he did.
Conscious Success Co (18:13.007)
You're like, all right, Rami, go find the farms. You're there.
I love that. mean, how bold and how figure it out of you all to do that and to figure that out. I feel like having this romantic vision of we'll make this perfect t-shirt that's also affordable and then the gritty reality of figuring out supply chain and factories and fundraising and freight and all of the things, that's a lot to learn, especially as like.
24-year-old. So how did you guys take this from like just an idea to actually launching something?
Mackenzie Yeates (18:55.966)
It was, yeah, it was really like one step at a time and definitely Rami, like speaking Arabic was a huge component of being able to set up the supply chain there and being like a native.
Egyptian Arabic speaker. He was able to like talk to people on the farms, get connected to people, literally was like in Dubai and heard a guy talking with an Egyptian accent about manufacturing, went over and talked to him. And that guy ended up being our manufacturer who still produces like a big percentage of our products today. So a lot of it really was just like
bucket, we'll figure it out sort of attitude. And then everything else came kind of one step at a time. for two years, we were grinding it out ourselves doing like packaging all our orders ourselves. And we had like a really limited product range and it just kind of like we would add and then we added a pop up shop then we added a retail store and we just kind of like
figured it out one step at a time.
Conscious Success Co (20:09.559)
And you mentioned how, OK, the vision to start was this t-shirt that was a good shirt at a more affordable price point than the higher end things. But it wasn't necessarily sustainability or an ethical company that kind of came about. But Khan is a certified B Corp with one of the highest impact scores in North America. And I know you have funded more than 20 community schools, is that right, in Egypt?
Mackenzie Yeates (20:36.726)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (20:37.197)
When did that mission part start to find its way into the company? Because that's not just like, we're here for sustainability. That's like a really big thing to be a certified B Corp in supporting schools in that way. So can you talk more about that component?
Mackenzie Yeates (20:54.408)
Yeah, I think what ended up allowing us to build a mission that we believe to this day is like a lasting mission is the fact that we were on the ground like talking to people and meeting people and we didn't just come up with an idea and then try to execute it. actually
came to understand what the communities needed. At the time that we launched, there weren't tons of ethical brands. The ones that were popping off were Warby Parker and Tom's, which were the two that, both of them had the same kind of marketing ploy, I guess, which was the one-for-one model. buy a pair of shoes, give a pair of shoes, but.
Ultimately, like, Toms didn't end up being successful with that mission because it wasn't really what the community needed. So I think the fact that we were literally like boots on the ground understanding what the community needed also allowed us to change our mission over time. And when we started, the main thing that we were doing was
providing subsidies to the farmers so the year that we started the government cut all subsidies to cotton farms which is like a huge deal but a thing that not a lot of people really know about that even American cotton farms are highly subsidized by the government and it allows them to pay for the stuff up front and then not see a return for a year
because that's how growing seasons work. so that was something we never would have even understood was a thing if we hadn't gone and met with farmers and talked to them. And then as we were in these communities and seeing kids working on the farms or running around during the day, and we were like, why aren't these kids in school? And then they said, there's no schools in this area that we have access to. So then that and another anecdote.
Mackenzie Yeates (23:10.304)
from our experience was that when we were giving out the subsidies, the farmers had to come and sign for their bags of fertilizer and stuff that we were giving away. And like 50 % of the signatures were just thumb prints on the paper because they couldn't sign their own name. So that was like a very visual thing that allowed us to understand the literacy rates in these regions and just like as three kids.
grew up in Canada, had no idea about the fact that that was even an issue in these rural parts of Egypt. yeah, one thing led to another as you actually got to know people.
Conscious Success Co (23:55.461)
Sorry, McKenzie, it sounds like there's like a fan or some like reverberating. don't.
Mackenzie Yeates (23:58.967)
Maybe with my computer, like... Is that better? Okay.
Conscious Success Co (24:02.192)
Oh, yeah. OK. That is much better. Sorry. We might need to go back just to the last answer. was so good. I don't want to ruin it. hopefully, I can edit that out. But that might be a little too intense. don't want to. So I'm just trying. Yeah, let me ask that question again, because it was great.
Mackenzie Yeates (24:16.266)
That's okay.
Mackenzie Yeates (24:23.51)
Okay, I can probably edit it down anyway.
Conscious Success Co (24:26.512)
Yeah, OK, great. OK, so you talked about how you had this mission to create this great t-shirt at a more affordable price point, but that creating an ethical company or a sustainable brand wasn't necessarily at the forefront at the beginning when you founded Cotton. But now you're a certified B Corp with one of the highest impact scores in North America, and you've funded more than 20 community schools in Egypt, which is
such a mission-driven company, sounds like, and you've had such a big impact. So I'm curious, how did this mission-driven part find its way into the company's DNA as you built it?
Mackenzie Yeates (25:08.022)
So when we were starting there weren't a ton of good examples of like ethical or sustainable brands. The ones that were really popular at the time were like Warby Parker and Tom's and both of those brands had a one-for-one model where it was like buy a pair of shoes, give a pair of shoes and we didn't start with some sort of to me what feels like a marketing idea like
The good thing about those concepts is that it's a very sticky idea that you can communicate easily to customers, which what we do, that's one of the biggest challenges is like communicating it to people because it's very complex, but it wasn't rooted in like a marketing slogan or something. was, it came about just from actually getting to know people on the ground and spending time in Egypt and learning that,
farmers didn't have access to subsidies and so we started by providing subsidies through fertilizer and agricultural consultants and soil and stuff like that ahead of the growing season. And then through that we came to learn that when the farmers came to sign for their subsidies about 50 % of them signed with a fingerprint instead of a signature because
they didn't know how to write their own name. So that triggered to us some investigation about literacy rates in these communities, access to school. And we found out that a lot of the kids that we saw running around every day or like helping out on the farms weren't in school because they didn't have access to it. And so that then made our mission evolve into helping
build these communities through literacy. And we really felt just by getting to know the people that we wanted to, you know, teach a man to fish, so to say, and like give them the tools to learn how to advance these family owned businesses that they've had for literally like thousands of years, a lot of people farming cotton. So it felt like literacy was like the biggest.
Mackenzie Yeates (27:31.036)
gift and tool that we could give them and so that's kind of been our focus ever since. But also just having transparency through the supply chain is something that a lot of fashion businesses don't have and it was something that as I said came about through total naivete and having no idea what we were doing in the beginning and sort of like starting at the farm level so that's how it came about and I think it was just
Also through Ben and Rami and I's own personal values and how we wanted to build a business was treating people right. So that's kind of at the core of everything that cotton does to this day.
Conscious Success Co (28:15.52)
And so you mentioned that originally when you founded Cotton, you guys bootstrapped it and you put in like whatever, a few thousand dollars. When did you first raise money to try to scale Cotton and what did that process look like?
Mackenzie Yeates (28:22.294)
Thank
Mackenzie Yeates (28:30.582)
We started by getting a loan from Business Development Canada and that helped us to manufacture a little bit more. then after that, we, guess it was like a year and a half in, we opened our first pop-up shop and that helped us to really prove what we were capable of and the fact that we like had customers and we're getting good responses to our brand.
So following that, we signed our first round of investment with a family office in Toronto that's focused on working with mission-driven companies, and they're still our biggest partner today. So yeah, that has turned into now like a nine-year long relationship. But.
Conscious Success Co (29:23.248)
And I was just going to ask because you have this mission-driven company, but oftentimes when you take outside investment from venture capital, it's like they want to see 20X or 100X returns. And sometimes that can bump up against the impact and mission-driven brand. But it sounds like because you went to this family office to raise that money that was only investing in these types of mission-driven companies, you both were aligned, your investors and
obviously yourselves with your values and how you wanted to grow and build the company. Is that right?
Mackenzie Yeates (29:51.658)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (29:57.417)
Yeah, for sure. And I think it meant that we grew slower in the early days. And it was also like 2015, which was when we launched. That was like peak D to C era. And there were so many businesses that were raising like tons and tons of seed capital to launch a fashion brand and just like
crazy stories but a lot of those companies have crashed and burned since then. So I think ultimately it was for the best for us that we didn't do that because we never would have been able to like keep up with the expectations and the predictions that people had about acquiring customers and Facebook and all that stuff like didn't really work out in the end so.
The fact that we grew a little bit more organically in the beginning I think allowed us to stick around We always just said that we had like cockroach energy like we just refused to die so that was super bad
Conscious Success Co (31:09.403)
my God, I love that. I mean, every successful founder needs to have cockroach energy, truly, right? It's like, well, why are you still going? Well, you refuse to die. That's so good. So in terms of like acquiring your early customers, how did you go about this? How much of that was like organic versus paid? And how did you start to actually see revenue in the door?
Mackenzie Yeates (31:19.606)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (31:34.473)
and
Mackenzie Yeates (31:38.291)
It was a lot of experimentation and it was like in the early days looking back on it, like experimenting with such small budgets that I don't really know if we got like accurate indications of, you know, what was working and what wasn't, but we did, we did do paid ads, like from the beginning. But I was always a really big advocate for not.
going too heavy into paid and also making sure that we weren't advertising in the same way that a lot of the other companies at that time were. And I had so many fights with our head of growth at that time because I was like, don't have, we don't really have like a core value prop. We can't put an.
put together an ad that has like a t-shirt with a bunch of arrows of like the features of the t-shirt. That's not what we're doing here. We're building a brand and a lifestyle and we need to like emotionally connect with people and it's about relating to people's values and stuff like that, not the features and like technical components of a garment, which really was not, we didn't really have any like innovation there, so.
I think in the more recent years as we've been leaning a lot heavier into that brand side and doing a lot more like experiential marketing and brand marketing, it's gotten a lot more traction. But yeah, it was a real mix in the beginning, but a lot of the focus of on organic in the early days was just because we like didn't have crazy budgets to do.
to do.
Conscious Success Co (33:32.197)
But to get that organic reach, you had to figure out how to tell your brand story or your mission-driven values and all of that, or what worked for you to get organic shares.
Mackenzie Yeates (33:44.681)
Yeah, I do think people resonated with the story and we definitely tried to focus on storytelling without making it only about the mission. our priority was always to make really good products first and foremost. And I think once we started to open physical retail locations, that was a big shift for us too, because people could actually come and like touch and feel things, talk to us.
kind of like get the whole brand experience in one place. And that was what I really loved to do was like building out those stores and creating that experience through like the photography on the walls and the way that we laid out the stores and the way that we trained our staff and the candles that we burned and all that stuff really like played into the overall feeling of the brand. So.
I think that was like the first real big win where we realized, okay, stores are like a great billboard for us, but they're also profitable. So as much as people think that creating an e-comm business is like lower overhead, it's really not in a lot of ways because you have the benefit of traffic in a real space. You have the benefit of like,
Conscious Success Co (35:03.089)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (35:11.894)
creating real connections with people that are going to Spread the word and have like real word-of-mouth more than you would with like seeing an ad for something online So, yeah
Conscious Success Co (35:23.832)
Hmm
Conscious Success Co (35:27.705)
Yeah, and it sounds like you really loved that part of working in the business and designing those kind of experiences and connection points. so beyond it also being a good business strategy, it sounds like that was something that really like gave you joy and energy.
Mackenzie Yeates (35:32.393)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (35:44.543)
Yeah, that really like ignited my passion for the business and like, I just liked more than anything being in the store during those like setup periods, like literally painting walls and trying to like DIY things and doing the merchandising and picking like supporting products that could go alongside our products and things like that.
Um, and it was also like being off my computer for these like concentrated periods of time when we were opening stores really like gave me a lot more energy and made me feel a lot more inspired and like it was exhausting work. I would get into bed at the end of the day with like my legs so achy and I would, I remember like when we were opening a pop-up in New York.
Conscious Success Co (36:19.505)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (36:43.572)
walking from our store to Canal Street, which was like three city blocks, like probably 10 times in one day to go like pick up different things that we had to get. But I just felt so invigorated by that versus like sitting in meetings for hours upon hours every day. And so I think that
Conscious Success Co (37:08.517)
And that's such an important reflection too, to be able to be like, wow, even though I'm working hard, even though I'm exhausted at the end of the day, I'm actually still like getting energy from doing this, where you could be like just sitting on meetings and not like physically using your body or working as many hours, but feel less motivation or less energy. And I think sometimes it's so easy for us to get wrong. We think like the more we output or the harder we work, the more we're depleted. And it's like, actually, when you're aligned with things that light you up,
Mackenzie Yeates (37:31.477)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (37:38.371)
and give you energy, you can work hard but still have a renewable fuel source and renewable energy as you do.
Mackenzie Yeates (37:44.791)
Totally. Totally. And I don't know, that's a really like interesting thing that I think, yeah, a lot of young people coming into the workforce maybe don't understand, but like part of what I loved about the startup phase too was that because it was like, we'd have to go walk to our storage unit and like get more stuff and then like.
pack orders and I'd be trying to like DIY boxes for this wholesale thing that we were doing and there was just like so much variation in a day and that was part of what made it exciting for me. And a lot of it was like grunt work and physical labor and so many people like don't want to do that kind of work but it actually can be very rewarding especially when your day is broken up with
different types of things. Like what is truly draining I find is like, yeah, sitting in meetings or like responding to slacks for like 10 hours a day. Although that in some ways is like the goal for a lot of people. Like I want to be in all these like executive meetings and like I want to be part of this thing but and I don't want to be sweeping the floors. I don't want to be doing this this other thing but
Conscious Success Co (38:53.319)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (39:10.026)
I don't know, I actually enjoy that. And I also liked working in those environments where I was working with contractors and store sales associates. And then I'd be going to Egypt and working with people in factories. And it was a much wider range of access to different types of people that have different ways of working than just the typical office crew that...
has the same kind of background. So I really liked that side of it as well. And I think like when I started realizing that the sitting in meetings all day thing wasn't for me, was like later in our journey when I wasn't in more senior role and I wasn't doing as much of that like hands-on stuff, was when I was, it was like you reach,
Conscious Success Co (39:59.271)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (40:06.516)
your goal of moving up, but then at the same time, it's not necessarily like both.
Conscious Success Co (40:10.918)
You're doing less of the work that gives you energy or less of the work that you actually love. Yeah. And also what you're talking about of like, sounds like every day was different. You were solving different problems and creative challenges. And to what you speaking about earlier of not feeling like you were excellent at just one thing, but you were pretty good at a lot of different things. That's like wearing a lot of hats really suits you.
Mackenzie Yeates (40:13.95)
Yeah, exactly.
Mackenzie Yeates (40:24.502)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (40:36.282)
And getting to do a lot of variety of things sounds much more aligned with your design and the way you work best versus just like, OK, now I'm just in leadership, managing people, sitting here, responding to emails and slacks. That was actually taking you out of alignment with the things that lit you up or gave you joy or made you feel really impactful.
Mackenzie Yeates (40:36.502)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (40:56.886)
Totally. And I think like, I don't identify as like a wellness person at all, but I think like from a wellness perspective, the things that like make me feel good about myself are like having that physicality throughout the day and like being up and out of my desk, working with a variety of people and helping like.
do physical work, like serving people, collaborating with people, like, it gets you out of this sort of like navel gazing mentality where you're like so focused on yourself and like, I want to be in this meeting and I want to be heard and all this stuff. It's like, that's not really important. And at the end of the day, I feel like there's so much focus on that in work. Nowadays that
young people are like having trouble finding fulfillment because they're like so focused on their mental health and like toxic environments and all this stuff. Versus like thinking about like how can I help other people? How can I like take on a new task or learn a new thing that's like outside my comfort zone? And I think for me anyway, that's where I find a lot more fulfillment than.
just like trying to focus on myself so much. I don't know if that makes sense.
Conscious Success Co (42:24.892)
Totally, 100%. I mean, I think I'm the same and it's taken me years to really recognize this, but I think most people are this way. It is human nature to want to grow and to evolve and to learn, right? And so that, yes, sometimes it can be scary to push ourselves past our growth edge or learn how to do something new, but there's also so much intrinsic enjoyment and fulfillment when we do.
Mackenzie Yeates (42:37.885)
All
Conscious Success Co (42:50.212)
And some of that is doing those scrappy jobs or figuring something out. And it's not just the navel gazing or the politicking or positioning. It's actually the growing and the doing and the evolving. So it sounds like that is something that when you're doing a lot of that, that feels a lot more enjoyable. And I think that that makes perfect sense.
Mackenzie Yeates (42:58.774)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (43:11.688)
Yeah, totally. And I want, I also want to like...
inspire other like young people to do do that sort of thing and take on those kind of tasks because I think like the people that we were the ultimate sort of impact players in our business were the people that would like see a task and and be like I'm gonna do that thing they were the people that like know where the spoons go sort of thing like you need to there's a lot of stuff you do have to just kind of figure out on your own especially in a
Conscious Success Co (43:34.288)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (43:48.023)
startup environment and like be a team player, whether that's like helping clean up an area or like being a contributor or presenter in a big meeting. And the people that were able to like move seamlessly between those things, I think were the most successful in our sort of culture, I guess. And I think
Conscious Success Co (44:14.481)
And then you trusted them with the next bigger thing because they were doing those things and doing them well and consistently and you could rely on them. And so it's like, you might not think, well, knowing where the spoon goes is going to get me ahead in my career. But actually it is. It is paying attention and to be that team player and be a person who's willing to jump in and help out and figure things out that then leads to the presenting opportunity or whatever promotion or growth opportunity they want next.
Mackenzie Yeates (44:18.943)
ugly.
Mackenzie Yeates (44:44.53)
Yeah, totally. And those tasks don't go unnoticed, even if it seems like it sometimes. It seems like those are thankless jobs, but I think ultimately if you're willing to do it, it can lead to your own personal fulfillment and growth and also other people seeing what type of a team player you are.
Conscious Success Co (45:11.379)
So you got a lot of energy from like, OK, we're going to this place and we're opening this pop-up or we're opening this retail location and you're working these long hours. But then you became a mother in what? Was it 2022? 2021, OK. So you had your son in 2021. And now I imagine that your time, your ability to do trips like that or work in the same way changed. Can you talk to us more about like,
Mackenzie Yeates (45:23.638)
2021 so yeah, COVID I mean, there was the whole COVID thing.
Conscious Success Co (45:41.221)
What did that look like once your son arrived and then your daughter two years later and now I understand you're pregnant with your third, congrats. So talk to us a little bit about that kind of transition into motherhood while still being a founder.
Mackenzie Yeates (45:48.726)
Thanks.
Mackenzie Yeates (45:56.479)
Mm-hmm. Well, I think another thing that really like inspired me in the business was I was essentially like as the leader of the brand, I was the storyteller of like this Egypt side of it and trying to craft how we talk about.
and like romanticize our connection to Egypt and being a girl from Toronto that literally has like no prior connection to Egypt, it could have been kind of unnatural, but I think the fact that I was like an outsider looking in helped me to do it in a way that, or like tell the story in a way that was maybe a little bit more like romantic or I could see.
a different side of Egypt and I think traveling there a lot, which I did in the early days, always gave me new inspiration for the next campaign or the next product or how the store should be designed. And that also was fueling my creativity a lot. And I haven't been back to Egypt since right before COVID, February of 2020 was my last trip. And then...
COVID happened and we were kind of like scrambling to try to figure out what we talk about, what's gonna happen with our business. That was like a crazy time. There was a lot of fun in that time too of like getting creative with what we had. And then yeah, in 2021, I have my son and I only took five months off, which I guess is a lot in the US. It's not that much in Canada.
But I took a five month mat leave, but the whole time I was still doing like all my one-on-one meetings. It was still pretty remote. So I was like doing.
Conscious Success Co (47:54.046)
So you were just working remotely. You weren't actually on mat leave if you're still like holding the weight of the business and one on one.
Mackenzie Yeates (48:00.477)
Yeah, and I was like doing meetings with him in the carrier and stuff like that. And then I went back to work and I think like once I went back to work and then got pregnant again and was like pregnant, my son was then in daycare, I felt like we were getting sick like every other week. I was trying to stay passionate and excited about the business but I was also
trying to be a good mom and I think maybe part of being an ambitious person is like for some people is being ambitious in all areas of your life and I really don't like doing things half-assed and I felt like I was doing everything half-assed and I wanted to be like I was interested in parenting stuff and like
child development and wanted to learn more about that and experiment more with like how I do stuff with my kids and also just like not just spend quality time with them but spend quantity time with them too. And I just felt like I was doing everything at like such a subpar level and I just wasn't really that like excited about the work anymore because I wasn't able to do the things that really energized me there which was like
going to Egypt for like three months of the year or being in New York for like five weeks to open a store like it just wasn't possible anymore. And I also think like, I don't know, it just changed my perspective on things where I found it a bit difficult to have like an hour long meeting about denim washes. Like it just didn't feel important anymore.
And I also think just getting older in the fashion industry, like, I lost a little bit of that, like, obsession with clothes. And I think to be in fashion, it's such a competitive space. You have to be, like, constantly on the ball of, what's happening, where the trends are going. Like, there's so much gambling, essentially, and, creating product lines and...
Mackenzie Yeates (50:24.608)
spies and all that stuff and I just didn't feel like I was like tapped into the culture anymore and I didn't have the energy to get myself tapped in again or care enough to like be going out and traveling and like going to the events and doing all that stuff. And so I just started to feel like I didn't get it anymore. I wasn't like the right person to be leading where the trend should be going and that kind of stuff.
So yeah, that's a long-winded answer, but a lot of those things in mind.
Conscious Success Co (50:57.975)
Hmm. Yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, there's the reality that you only have so much time in the day and capacity. And it's like it had to shift in terms of where you were spending it. And then there was also like, OK, well, if I'm not as invested in the trends, or also my interests have changed, I want to learn more about childhood development than I want to learn about denim washes that are trending right now.
Mackenzie Yeates (51:18.87)
you
Conscious Success Co (51:22.171)
All of that started to make it so that you just didn't feel as energized or as motivated or like you're the right person for the job. And I think that can be a really challenging reckoning when you have so much at least external success. Cotton had 14 global retail locations across North America and the UK, and you guys are winning numerous awards and making an impact and funding these schools. And yet despite all of that, you still had, sounds like this like,
Mackenzie Yeates (51:31.894)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (51:48.773)
unshakable inner whisper that like you are ready to move on and that this season was ready to complete. Is that right?
Mackenzie Yeates (51:53.238)
Mm.
Yeah, for sure. And I felt like there were other people on our team that like understood the fashion side of it in terms of where things were going better than I did. And I also felt like especially not being able to like spend as much time in Egypt, I started to like feel more disconnected a little bit to that story. And as much as I
love telling it and I felt so related to it. It wasn't my story at the end of the day. And even like the aesthetic of the brand and stuff. It wasn't my aesthetic. And I think that's something that I enjoy doing and I've done through my whole career is like learn about a brand and a story and like tell that story. But I started to feel like, okay, this is like Rami story to tell but
Conscious Success Co (52:31.656)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (52:53.044)
I feel like it's time for me to figure out like what's my story to tell and get back in touch with like my own personal fashion sense and my own like what do I actually like versus what's on brand with cotton. And as you said like not being the best person for the job it also started to feel like the only place that I'm not replaceable is
Conscious Success Co (52:56.989)
Hmm.
Conscious Success Co (53:09.172)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (53:23.094)
as a mom and I feel confident that we've like set up the brand in a way that other people can like understand it and run with it and do that work as well if not better than I could but like somebody else can't parent my kids better than I can or just physically be their mom so
Conscious Success Co (53:45.874)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (53:53.067)
that started to feel like the area that I needed to focus on. And it was like a real clincher for me when I was going back and forth in my head about what should I do? It was like about returning to mat leave after mat leave. And I went into my mat leave with my second child with the intention of like, I'm gonna take this time to think about what I wanna do next. And so as I was nearing the end, I had to try to...
Conscious Success Co (53:58.099)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (54:23.678)
Reconcile was like, okay, what's my decision gonna be? And I was flip-flopping a lot. And then I like went and looked at a journal and I saw some of the things that I'd written from like years before, which had a lot of the same sentiments. And I was like romanticizing it in my head and like all those, you know, successful sort of bullet points. But at the end of the day, I knew that.
Conscious Success Co (54:49.586)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (54:53.175)
those core things that didn't feel right weren't going to change. So that was their
Conscious Success Co (54:57.972)
So helpful to have that journal reflection of you years earlier saying the same things. And you're like, OK, this is ready to shift. Did your phone go back on your laptop? It's sounding a little bit loud again. Yeah, that's better. I think just away from the computer, maybe the motor. Yeah, OK, so what I loved in reference at the beginning, and I just want to read a part of what you wrote in the post where you announced that you're leaving.
Mackenzie Yeates (55:09.174)
This? Is that better? You just have to fold it further away.
Mackenzie Yeates (55:24.822)
Mm.
Conscious Success Co (55:25.69)
It gives me chills, honestly, to read. And in it, you celebrated many of your wins and learnings from Cotton. But then you wrote that, I've also changed. I became a mother. I grew in ways I never expected. And after my maternity leave, I realized it was time to leave the party while it's still thriving and take on what felt like the harder path for me to begin again. It's not easy to redefine yourself when so much of who you are has been tied to what you built. That's partly why it took me so long to write this.
But now my work is to write a new story, one that reflects the woman I am today. And the bravery it takes to honor that inner knowing and to walk away from something while the party is still going and to venture into the unknown and to redefine yourself and to start again. Like, so many people, and I know this because I work with women at this juncture. Like, it's really hard to.
Mackenzie Yeates (55:58.39)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (56:21.682)
begin again and to do this and to do this in such a public way. So can you just talk to us a little bit more about what did it take to finally get to the point from an identity perspective, an emotional perspective, a practical perspective where you were able to ultimately arrive at that decision confidently and transition out of the business?
Mackenzie Yeates (56:44.173)
Yeah, I think a lot of it's been yeah, just like a leap of faith and I think I've always been somebody that really leans heavily on my intuition in my work but also I just I think I'm like pretty good at listening to my gut and it was just the strong feeling from my gut that like this is what I should do. Also
I think I'm a person that hates being bored and as a mom you're never bored. So I think like I couldn't have done it if I was gonna be just like sitting at home ruminating on like what I should do next. I still like had some opportunities to be creative and like my days are pretty busy still. So I think that helped. Also my husband.
Ben left Cotton before I did. So that I think helped me too because in some ways it made it harder and in some ways it helped me but it was cool to see him leave Cotton which was you know very close to his heart as well and go and he he now works at Shopify but he was able to like find so much success outside of
Cotton and really like use what he learned at Cotton to help other entrepreneurs and merchants and really like expand his knowledge like far beyond what he you know would have believed that he was capable of like working at a really big company and having a big team under him and stuff so it was it was cool to see him like leave and and find that
sort of success in his second chapter. Also, I just have the privilege of like having a husband that is able to like support the majority of our household income and that kind of thing. So I know that it's not as easy of a decision for a lot of people in that way. We did have to make some sacrifices, but I think that
Conscious Success Co (58:42.747)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (59:10.312)
Also, that was a huge part to be totally honest about what made the decision easier for me.
Conscious Success Co (59:13.885)
Mm-hmm.
And even with that, the identity, ego, perception piece, even if your husband can easily cover all the family's expenses without any trade-offs, that is still something to grapple with, especially as a ambitious woman who has an identity as a founder to then be like, OK, I'm going to at least stop working for a period of time and focus on
Mackenzie Yeates (59:37.344)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (59:45.278)
motherhood or family. And I'm curious, do you believe you want to have another career chapter? Do you have clarity in terms of what that looks like? Or is the clarity you have right now, I want to be more present. I want to spend quality and quantity time with my kids. I want to mother them in this young season of life. And figuring out another career chapter is something that may happen at a later point, but it's not a now thing.
Mackenzie Yeates (59:45.366)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:00:11.082)
Mm-hmm. I think there's this like idea of being happy with your life versus being happy in your life and I think before I was happier with my life and like when people would ask me what I did and I could like talk at cocktail parties about like what I was working on it was I felt really good about that, but I felt like that was
really rooted in ego more so. And I feel like now I feel a lot happier in my life in the day to day, but it's harder. Those moments are a lot harder, even with my husband at night when we're like...
Talking about what happened in her day like I don't feel like I have that much to contribute in the same way that you know he has Stories or questions or things he wants to talk about? With work, and I don't really have that as much but in terms of my next chapter I have been sort of exploring doing more like interior design stuff which kind of came out of out of
I don't know, the request from like a couple friends to help them and also focusing on my own house and like having the time to really create the house that I want and like do a lot of projects myself and just like work on it. That's something I like to do. And as people saw that they started asking me for help with their homes. So
I've done a couple projects now for friends and family and I'm just kind of experimenting in that world and I do feel strongly that my next career path will be more in the home space. I just don't know exactly what that is going to be yet but...
Mackenzie Yeates (01:02:15.614)
I'm lucky that I'm able to spend a few hours every day working and doing stuff that creatively fulfills me too, so I'm not just 100 % in mom mode, because I think that's also really difficult. But I'm kind of taking it.
Conscious Success Co (01:02:33.253)
Mm-hmm. And it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense based on what you were talking about of what you loved most in many ways about Cotton was like being in these stores and figuring out the scent of the candle and how to arrange things and like those physical spaces and, you know, that those connection points in those physical spaces that you would then be called to more like home or interior design and helping people out. That seems like such a natural.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:02:46.079)
you
Conscious Success Co (01:03:00.657)
evolution, not even a revolution. It's like a continuation of the things that you really got energy and enjoyment from doing. And I think anytime also there's that inbound pull where the path is kind of presenting itself where people are like, hey, will you do this? You're so good at this. Can you help me with that? They're pointing us to our genius and to where we might want to go next, especially if that feels like energizing to think about or to work in a few hours a day.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:03:04.48)
Thank
Mackenzie Yeates (01:03:21.11)
when
Conscious Success Co (01:03:29.717)
Like just hearing you say that, just feels like, yeah, that's like, but of course.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:03:36.693)
Yeah, yeah, I think
It's like evolved naturally and as I was saying earlier about like young Mackenzie and what I was passionate about like clothes and dressing myself was like what I had access to to express my creativity and now in this season of life where I have a house and I'm trying to like build a home for my family and sort of this like the backdrop for my kids childhood like this has become more of my
of outlet and it's the thing that I'm more passionate about and interestingly I also feel like it's a better, not that I'm old, but it's a better environment for like people that are getting into the second half of their life in the like home and interior design industry like there's a much wider range of
Conscious Success Co (01:04:30.271)
Mmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:04:30.672)
ages of people that work in this industry and also Just getting to work with different like trades people and learning More about their craft and stuff this stuff is all the things that like excite me So it's been interesting obviously being pregnant. I'm not like going full-on into Business planning mode right now, but I am still somebody that you know has
the dream deep down of being like the next Martha Stewart or whatever. just don't know exactly how I'm gonna get there.
Conscious Success Co (01:05:03.422)
Yeah.
Conscious Success Co (01:05:07.253)
Yeah, well, 100%. And I think that that's the truth. The truest truth is that oftentimes we just have a vision or an inkling or a desire of what that could be, but we don't really know the path. And it is kind of like building cotton, this just like iterative approach, and you're just going to figure it out and you like learn as you go. so similarly, right now, it's like it sounds like you have this pull.
both in terms of how you want to show up as a mother, which you're doing, and I'm sure will continue to evolve as your children grow and all of that, but then also feeling more called to the interiors and home and allowing yourself. mean, what you said about you've always had this connection to like your gut or listening to yourself. mean, I think that is one of the consistent themes I see across my clients and people who are consciously successful and happy.
in their life, not just with their life, is that they listen to that and they follow that. But it's so easy to override it, especially when it is easier to stay with the story of being happy with your life, even though you know that, hey, it's time to evolve and it's time to move forward. Or the lack of clarity on how to get from point A to point Z sounds so overwhelming. So you just stay stuck and wait for the later day. So just really like.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:06:07.158)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (01:06:29.777)
recognizing and celebrating you for being willing to be like, hey, I don't know what it's gonna look like entirely and I'm gonna give myself time to figure it out and to play and to take on some projects for friends and see how that feels and develop relationships with tradespeople. And I know it might be in this in some respect, but like, we'll see. And it's like this unfolding. So I can't wait to see where you are in five or 10 years from now. I totally hold that vision of the next Martha Stewart for you.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:06:55.318)
Thank you.
Conscious Success Co (01:06:55.985)
Absolutely, but I think it's so cool to see someone in that unfolding rather than that like finished product.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:07:01.858)
Mm Thank you. And I think like a lot of people wait, whether it's like in starting your family or getting married or like personal things or also in business, like changing careers, starting a business, whatever it is, like a lot of people wait until it like feels like the right time. But I think the right time like isn't a feeling, it's a decision.
based on like, you know, listening to your gut and things like that, but there's, it's never gonna feel like the perfect time. So there is an element of it where at a certain point you have to just like make a decision to do it and do it and follow through. And like, yeah, take that leap, even if it's not 100%.
figured out how you're gonna, you know, build all the different pieces, but I guess that's something that I learned in cotton was that taking that blind leap, whether it was starting the business or even just like launching before things were perfect and figuring out how to like open a store and do that kind of stuff. A lot of it was just like that.
fuck it, I'll figure it out kind of attitude and like making the decision of now's the time. It's like now or never. yeah.
Conscious Success Co (01:08:30.728)
And doing that enough times where you're like, fuck it, I'll figure it out. And then you do figure it out. It builds your self-trust. It builds your self-confidence where you're like, yeah, I'll figure out interior design. I'll figure out the next thing because look at this long track record I have of being able to figure it out. So like, yeah, I don't necessarily know entirely how I'm going to get there, but I trust myself to figure it out. One of my mentors talks about how confidence isn't knowing what or how to do something, but it's like,
Mackenzie Yeates (01:08:37.642)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (01:08:58.964)
that like, fuck it, let's go, energy. It's like, confidence is like, well, let's go. I don't know, let's go, right? And so I think that's really what you're speaking to. And so often we think of confidence as being like having complete certainty or skill set or expertise and then being able to lean into that versus the like, I don't know, let's go, let's figure it out attitude.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:09:00.82)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:09:05.206)
We'll do.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:09:20.7)
Yeah, 100%. And like, I think even just the mindset shift of thinking of things as like a challenge that you're working through versus like something you don't know how to do or you can't do the like, I don't know how to do it yet, or I haven't figured it out yet sort of attitude, even with parenting, I think like, it's hard when you're
being triggered and like your kids having meltdowns or you're like trying to deal with a certain thing that's happening in their life but having like the mindset of this is actually like a puzzle or like a challenge to try to figure out.
how to connect with them about this thing or how to like get through to them or figure out what works for like their personality like I think it can make the whole process like more fulfilling or less challenging if you try to have that sort of mindset shift of I can like keep trying different things and figure it out
Conscious Success Co (01:10:13.312)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (01:10:30.405)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, that's a growth mindset and an empowered mindset. It's like, I haven't figured out yet, but I can. Let me keep trying. Let me keep iterating versus like, oh, I guess this is the way that it is. And I'm stuck and disempowered, right? And to believe that you're capable of creating a better future, whether that's in a certain developmental stage with your child or whether that's in a new iteration of business. And I think for everyone listening, I think so often we can fool ourselves into thinking that like,
Mackenzie Yeates (01:10:33.526)
Mm-mm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:10:37.076)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:10:51.382)
Thank
Conscious Success Co (01:10:58.586)
the thing I need to solve for to be more successful is to like, whatever, no more, have more experience. it's like, most often the thing we actually need to focus on is strengthening our mindset to be able to lean into the discomfort and to grow and to stay regulated and open and moving towards honoring that like inner gut voice and all of that. so I think you just like the way you speak is so clear to me at least that like,
That is something that is a superpower of yours. so then success in whatever chapter feels like an inevitable and natural byproduct because that's the place that you're moving from. And so I think just for everyone listening to hear you talk like that, I think can be really expansive and to be like, OK, do I believe that about myself? Do I think that every challenge is an opportunity? And if not, can I see it as such? Because that's such an unlock, no matter.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:11:48.232)
and
Conscious Success Co (01:11:54.971)
where you apply that mindset.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:11:57.501)
Yeah, and it's not like I don't have self doubt, like I have tons of self doubt, but I think it's overshadowed by those thoughts of like...
whatever I'm going to figure it out ultimately. But it's not like I never have those thoughts. And I think like having been an entrepreneur for 10 years and building a business that's successful on paper or whatever like it also it makes me a bit jaded like see a lot of things or there's like ideas that back in the day I would have thought this is such a good business idea where I feel like I can
see through it or see the realities of what it require to make it an actual business and I'm like, it's not worth it or that would never be financially successful or whatever. So that's like a negative of having been through this experience. But I think a positive of being through the experience is that like I've also learned that reaching the peak of that mountain or whatever it is, like what I have been able to achieve in my
previous career is that like you kind of learn that nobody knows what the hell they're doing at like any stage and as you move up into different higher positions or as you grow your company like there's new challenges so nobody has it like totally figured out because the next step is always new for anybody even like the most senior person at a company and as companies grow and as
the industry grows or the economy or whatever, things are constantly changing. So there's literally nobody out there that knows exactly what they're doing, especially if it's something that's growing.
Conscious Success Co (01:13:47.168)
So true.
And as.
And as kids, we think of our parents as like having it all figured out and knowing everything, right? And as we grow into adults ourselves, we realize like, they were just figuring it out. Just like we're just figuring it out. Just like the executives at our company are just figuring it out. Like everyone is, but the difference is again, like having that mindset and trusting yourself to figure it out and to being able to deal with whatever like comes your way in life, you know, imperfectly, but still being able to move forward. And so I think that's such an important note.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:13:57.43)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:14:11.594)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:14:16.66)
Yeah.
Conscious Success Co (01:14:22.551)
point to make is because I think that to understand that no one has it truly figured out, but they might have the mindset that they can is the biggest differentiator.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:14:31.542)
And to live with some fear and some stress and stuff like that is normal like if you're gonna have if you want to have a career a job a job where you don't have those things like it's I'm sure there's one out there that exists. I don't know what it is, but like it's not gonna be a Career where you're like constantly growing because there's no chance that
Conscious Success Co (01:14:37.591)
Totally.
Conscious Success Co (01:14:57.684)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:15:00.936)
you're not going to have stress even if you're like working in your dream job it's still going to be hard and stressful and there's going to be days where you like don't want to go to work and I think just being comfortable with that too is something that
Sometimes I hear from people that I think they're like a bit too focused on that but like stress is such a bad thing and yes Constant stress will burn you out and is not good for you. And that's like when you need to decide to make a shift but Some stress is important and normal
Conscious Success Co (01:15:37.912)
100%. And from a nervous system perspective, as humans, we're meant to be able to have some stress so we can sprint away from a predator to find food at a basic human level. We're designed for that. But what is important is that we can return to a sense of regulation and equilibrium after that. It's not about trying to avoid all stress. When we try to avoid all stress, that's kind what you talking about earlier with the
Mackenzie Yeates (01:15:44.97)
Mm-hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:15:51.188)
Hmm.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:16:03.615)
Yeah.
Conscious Success Co (01:16:04.511)
younger people wanting to avoid any toxic environment or any stress at all. You're not going to grow. You're not going to be the person who knows where the spoons go and all of that. But at the same time, if you're stuck in a state of chronic stress, you need to look at, are you truly motivated? Is this truly aligned? Is this truly what you want anymore? Or has that season come to completion and it's time to move on? But avoiding stress entirely is not a recipe for success or fulfillment. Yeah. OK, I want to close with
Mackenzie Yeates (01:16:29.202)
Yeah, 100%.
Conscious Success Co (01:16:33.047)
a few rapid fire questions before letting you go. So what does conscious success mean to you?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:16:34.87)
Okay.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:16:40.707)
I think conscious success is...
setting a clear path for what you want your goals to be, what you want your whole life to look like, not just your career, and working towards that, but I don't think it's possible to set out the entire path. It's more just like aiming towards what you want and being conscious about it.
I'm not going to use word manifesting, but I think just like thinking about where you're going, whether that's like with your family or your career, and then having that always in the back of your mind when you're making decisions, to me is conscious success and just having that like diversified fulfillment outside of work as well. Yeah.
Conscious Success Co (01:17:38.729)
Even the people that we admire are still growing and evolving. What's one area of your life where you're currently being stretched or learning something new?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:17:48.967)
so many areas. I think right now, like working in some interior design projects, I think one of the things that is interesting and is a new challenge is like that ultimately it's a services business, which is different than what I was doing before. And really like
you know, as a merchant, also have to put the customer first, but this is a totally different type of really like trying to create this luxury sort of like concierge experience for people. And I definitely am not at that level yet, but just thinking about it as much as this creative output, but also like, how do you...
help the people that you're working with, make it a more enjoyable experience for them. So I think that's something that I'm trying to figure out myself right now and how to like over communicate and stuff, which is a very different way of working than how I had previously.
Conscious Success Co (01:19:00.606)
Mm-hmm.
Conscious Success Co (01:19:06.433)
Totally. And you'll figure it out. You'll figure out that service space and those client relationships and everything else. I love that. Who's someone in your world today who you admire for how they live, or succeed? And what is it about them that inspires you?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:19:08.446)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:19:24.566)
I I think like I would say my husband because we're so close to him in his career path, but he's such a positive person and is really like always willing to take on something new at work and like try a new challenge and he just has this sort of like
unwavering optimism about stuff so that really inspires me even though it's like annoying sometimes but I think I tried yeah I tried to be like that as well and that's inspiring me right now.
Conscious Success Co (01:20:04.011)
Two things can be true.
Conscious Success Co (01:20:13.045)
If you could give your 10-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:20:24.008)
I think like not to try to grow up too fast and just enjoy being a child and like stay true to the things that you enjoy doing whether it's like wrapping presents or collaging in your scrapbook or whatever the things I was doing back then were.
making tea parties for my family. Like, I never saw those things as a precursor to what my career would end up being, but ultimately they were in a lot of ways. So just like continuing to do those little things every day that give you joy and energy.
Conscious Success Co (01:21:11.383)
And final question, if there's someone who's listening right now who's achieved one dream or milestone but knows it's time for something new, what do you want them to know or believe?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:21:25.447)
Yeah, I think like...
to just listen to your gut, think about what, when you're old, you're gonna be wishing you had more time to do and try to make more time for those things because like, life is short in a lot of ways and I think as much as, you know, we wanna like achieve things and pack as much as we can into this life, like.
making the time to like spend it with the people that you love and do the things that you enjoy and create beauty around you like that's ultimately I think what we're all going to be hoping for in the future or like wishing that we had more time to do um and like I've always been a real
proponent of finding beauty and joy in the ordinary and just the moments that no one ever thought to photograph are the ones that we're gonna give anything to relive. So just make time for those things and appreciate them in the present as much as you can.
Conscious Success Co (01:22:45.825)
So beautiful. Well, I've loved this conversation. Thank you so much. If people want to follow your journey and maybe work with you in an interior design capacity or just see this evolution of this next chapter, how can they stay connected or in your world?
Mackenzie Yeates (01:23:00.276)
Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram at mckenzie8s. I try to post on there sometimes some of my home journey stuff, but yeah, stay tuned. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again in the future, but...
Conscious Success Co (01:23:15.144)
We'll have to have you back for a part two in a couple years time when you've got the Martha Stewart thing dialed and the service-based client industry locked in.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:23:19.495)
Yeah.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:23:28.134)
Yeah, that will have to be part of your podcast concept is getting back in touch with people.
Conscious Success Co (01:23:32.701)
Yeah, inviting people back for the 100%. Well, thank you. really just love talking with you. So thanks for making the time.
Mackenzie Yeates (01:23:42.123)
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
