Ep 038 – Traci Schubert Barrett, Navigate the Journey
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Featuring: Traci Schubert Barrett, Navigate the Journey
In this episode, Traci and I talk a lot about what drives people to make life-changing shifts in their lives, whether being personal or professional. And how people can look at their lives to see if they’re living them with intention and significance. Traci shares about the ups and downs of being part of the launch of a billion-dollar media empire and what her driving force to suddenly leave that life to live one of more significance is. We talked about how success is different for everyone and how Traci’s program and book help people find better paths forward than being driven by success.
Traci Schubert Barrett is an author, speaker, business owner, and podcast host. She is the President and founder of Navigate the Journey, a business consulting firm that comes alongside entrepreneurial companies helping them scale their businesses and build healthy teams and leaders. She was also one of the founders of the national cable television network HGTV. She enjoyed the amazing ride of taking a fledgling idea and turning it into a billion-dollar media empire. She spent over 20 years in the television industry before taking the leap of faith to create a new path. She writes about that journey in her new book, What If There’s More? Finding Significance Beyond Success.
Contact Traci on their websites, tracischubertbarrett.com, and navigatethejourney.com.
Episode 038 Transcript
[00:00:00] Traci Schubert Barrett: Welcome to Byte Sized Agency Briefs, a webinar series that packs a ton of important agency information on one topic from one expert into a 25 minute brief. Why 25 minutes? Because who has the attention span for much more these days? And you can squeeze in a listen between meetings. with time for a bathroom break or coffee refill before your next meeting.
[00:00:28] Steve Guberman: This is Bite Sized Agency Briefs. I'm your host, Steve Guberman from Agency Outsight, where I coach agency owners to build the agency of their dreams. My guest today, I'm really excited to be talking with Tracy Schubert Barrett. She's the president and founder of Navigate the Journey and the author of her new book, What If There's More.
Tracy, thanks so much for joining
[00:00:45] Traci Schubert Barrett: me. Thanks for having me excited to be here.
[00:00:48] Steve Guberman: I'm this is episode 40. I'm pretty pumped to cool round number It's kind of to me was like maybe there's an idea here Let's launch a podcast and it's set for a long time And [00:01:00] so to see this momentum and to be able to have people I admire like yourself on Really is pretty cool.
So I'm excited. I got a bunch of cool things I want to talk about because you have had such a journey and I guess you're probably most popular question is, what was it like launching a billion dollar media empire? You were involved in in the initial launch of HGTV. Can you kind of talk about what that excitement was like for you for 20
[00:01:27] Traci Schubert Barrett: years?
Yeah you know, it's so funny because as you work with a ton of entrepreneurs, I do as well. And it's, it was just like any other entrepreneurial endeavor, you know, just a scrappy group of people with an idea. Just, it was a small group too, and we. We're trying to, you know, piece together a cable network and back in the early nineties, when what cable was kind of like, what you think of the Internet and the early 2000s, it's like, it was the wild frontier.
[00:02:00] Everybody wanted to start a cable network and. There were so many cable networks launching that didn't make it so there was no guarantee and we all knew that. I think the year that we launched or the time that we launched, we launched the very last day of 1994. There were 25 other networks that launched around those, you know, the last day of the year, the 1st day of the next year.
And only 2 survived, including HGTV. So it wasn't a slam dunk. I think there were you know, a lot of us that were super helpful. We thought we had a great idea. Our founder, the man who came up with the idea, Ken Lowe, he was just so dynamic. He was so good at. At really crafting mission and vision and core values and instilling it into us.
And I bought it hook, line and sinker, and I loved it. I think it was a group of people that were really dedicated to seeing this come to fruition. And we had a great time putting it together, but in the beginning it was [00:03:00] hard. Nobody knew who we were. And You know, it took a long time to get full clearance on television.
And then once we did, it took off, you know, and it was, it was fun to see all the different evolutions of that network. And it was a good group of people, which is why I stayed for so long. But, you know, we grew from. I was a 25th hire to thousands of people and we bought the food network and we started other networks.
And so it became a much bigger entity, but I feel blessed because it was the best training ground as an entrepreneur. And to be able to see a company from like non existence all the way through, we took it publicly, you know, took it public. And then eventually it's been sold a couple of times since, but.
To see it through all those iterations I think was like better than any MBA I could have ever gotten. It was, it was fabulous. Yeah.
[00:03:55] Steve Guberman: And that was probably tough if you're, now that you're not in it, seeing it go through [00:04:00] transitions and saying, what are you doing to my baby? What are you, that's not how we did it.
That's not what it was supposed to be. That's got to be really challenging. Was it a lot like startup life is today where it's like bootstrapping and, and kind of getting, getting VC money? Or was it not, was it backed by a media company already or how did it get going? Yeah,
[00:04:19] Traci Schubert Barrett: it was backed by EW scripts who basically just own local television stations and they wanted to, you know, try out cable and see if they could expand to like a national presence.
And so for them, they saw the promise of cable television. And so this was kind of their, you know, they took a chance. They didn't give us as much money as we needed, but they gave us enough money to get off the ground. And and so, yeah, I mean, it definitely was. Super scrappy in the beginning, it's like anything you can imagine where it's like, all right, hit the ground, hit the pavement, go out there, you know, talk to ad agencies, talk to, to clients and just get money, you know, because [00:05:00] cable networks run on advertising dollars.
And so it was all about that. And then the more money we got, the better program and we were able to make. So it's just like any company, you know, you start out. The programming looks kind of sad and you know, you do the best you can, but then when you get more money, you create better shows, you get better talent and, you know, and you build into what it looks like today.
[00:05:19] Steve Guberman: So fast forward, you left there after 20 years. Was there like an event, a crash for you? Like what, what was that like moment for you where it said, I got to do something else, or this isn't working for me
[00:05:31] Traci Schubert Barrett: or. Yeah, it was, it was after my 40th birthday, I was like in my forties, had two kids at home, small kids at home, super busy life.
You know, my husband was super busy and, and you know, I basically grown up there. And so I started to get a little restless. It wasn't like I was unhappy necessarily. I liked my boss. I liked the company. I felt super comfortable there. I was basically on autopilot. And I think I. [00:06:00] What, as you do, when you kind of cross over 40, you look at the second half of your life and you think, okay, do I want to keep doing what I'm doing?
Do I want to pivot? Do I stay where it's comfortable and safe? Do I take a leap of faith and do something different? I was flying all over the country constantly because I was 1 of the executives. So I'm like, always in New York or always, you know, all over the place. And I just felt like I wanted to be more present for my family.
Nobody was getting the best part of me. And so I couldn't figure out. What to do next, or how to wrestle through those questions. And I just kind of up and quit, which was shocking to everybody around me because I had this dream job. And, and I think people thought I was crazy and maybe I was a little bit crazy, but I think I felt like, you know, who am I outside of HGTV?
What's my identity? What do I really want to do? Can I, you know, create a life with more autonomy and agency and more, you know, figure out who I am outside of this and maybe stretch my [00:07:00] wings a little bit and and see what happens. So it was super scary, but, you know, it was, it was definitely a leap of faith.
So I left and decided that I would take a break and figure out what I wanted to do next.
[00:07:16] Steve Guberman: So the leap of faith was really powered by a lot of courage, like just whatever's going to be is going to be, we're going to figure it out as a family. Probably imagine you had support of your family, but this is not, there was a wake up call.
This is not what success is. For me, this is not what my true happiness is. And like you said, nobody was getting the best versions of you. Yeah.
[00:07:40] Traci Schubert Barrett: I feel like, you know, I have been told my whole life as many of us are like, you can have it all. You can do any, you can do anything you want to do. You can have it all.
Especially women are like, you know, like try to carry this kind of weight or banner. And I think, you know, I realized, well, I guess I. Do you have it all? But why am I not [00:08:00] satisfied? And I find the more people I talk to, especially at that kind of crossroads of life are saying the same thing. Like, I chased everything.
You told me I was supposed to chase. I checked off all the boxes. You told me I was supposed to, you know, I have the, the big title and the money and the, you know, success. And now I'm still wanting for more. What is that about? You know, and so I think, you know, along the way, you know, early in my days of HTTP, I'd got my master's in psychology because I thought that was like the cool thing to do because I had been pushed into management really early in my career because, you know, that's what happens in a startup.
It's like, you're the warm body, like you lead the people. And I didn't want to get my MBA cause I already had my business degree. So I was like, I'm going to get my master's in psychology. And I just became. Completely obsessed with motivational theory, like, what drives us and I think, you know, so many of us are driven.
Whether we know it or not by what people are tell our society is telling us we should be driven by and I think when I woke up and [00:09:00] realized, like, you know, this is why I call my book. What if there's more? Because I kept saying there there's gotta be more. Like, what if there's more out there for me? And I realized, you know, what I was doing was sort of pushing into that self actualization mode where.
I was aware that I wanted to kind of reach my full potential or, or, or I wanted, I wanted it all to mean something more to me. And so I wanted to kind of go and discover what does that mean? You know, everybody's telling us to live our best life, but that's great. It sounds wonderful, but what is my best life?
And so I started to just sort of dig into that process of like, how do you figure out what the best version of you is? And then what is the life that fits you? And that became sort of my quest and that journey is what I write about in my book.
[00:09:53] Steve Guberman: So fast forward, you launched Navigate the Journey, you wrote a book, you work with leaders across a [00:10:00] bunch of verticals on how do they figure out what their significance is, well, what success means to them, but then what is their significance beyond that?
Or is that inclusive? What's that process look like from like a workshop standpoint?
[00:10:15] Traci Schubert Barrett: Yeah, so what I do is what's called strategic life map and basically it's a strategic plan for your life. So, you know, 1 of the things navigate the journey is known for is strategic planning. So we help companies scale their businesses.
And my husband's sort of the master of that. And we own the business together. And so he's, you know, doing his thing, really helping, you know, agencies and companies scale and grow and. What I've done is taken some of those traditional tools, and then married them with some psychology tools and and basically created a framework where people 1 on 1 can kind of go through the process of saying, okay.
I want to figure these things out. I want to look at my life [00:11:00] full 360 and I want to see, you know, what got me to where I am today, who am I today? Like what, you know, what are my unique talents? What are my true passions? What are my core personal core values and what is my purpose? And can I apply those things, not just to work, which is super important, but also to all areas of my life and going through the process, it's like, it's so.
Enjoyable and fun for me, because I love hearing people's stories and everybody has a different story. Everybody's had trials and triumphs. Nobody comes in like, like, nothing's ever happened to them. Right? And to process through that and to sort of reframe our self limiting patterns and to understand the labels we've taken on rightly or wrongly.
And, and reframe those read, rediscover who you are today, which is very different than who you were at 22. And then look to the future and say, all right, now that I know all of this, what do I want to do? What's the best path? And so a lot of people [00:12:00] come to me and they're like, these are the three things I'm trying to decide between, like, should I.
Sell my agency. I already have and now I don't know what to do. Do I start something else? Do I do, you know, some people come to me and they're like, I just want to fall back in love with what I'm doing. And I just don't know how, you know, they felt that same angst I felt, you know, when I was at HGTV. Or there's some people that are like, I'm tired of pushing my dream to the side.
Like I want to do something crazy and I know it'll seem crazy to everybody else, but it doesn't seem so crazy to me. And I want to vet it out with you. And you know, sometimes those dreams sound, you know, when, once we go through the entire process, we think that's, you should totally go after this. And sometimes it's like, you know what, you should make that a hobby.
So, so the, the process really flushes things out, but people leave with an amazing. Moments of aha, and they, they leave knowing who they are, even on a, on a deeper level, but also they are able to articulate who they are. They [00:13:00] have like words and definitions and it's so empowering to them. And so a lot of people leave with confidence and and really a clear action plan.
That's, you know, another favorite thing is to like, put pen to paper and say, all right, here are some things you can do over the next, you know, Okay. Six months to a year that's really going to help you move the needle on this and and that's freeing sometimes people think planning You know, for your life is going to be restrictive or you shouldn't do that.
You should just fly by the seat of your pants. But when we fly by the seat of our pants, we wake up 1 day and we're like, what just happened? Where are we? I missed everything. And when you have a plan, you can more easily let go and live, you know, because you have a direction that you're going. Right? So it's such a fun thing to do.
I love doing it. I love, You know, what the clarity it brings to people's lives and and now we just launched a course, because I really want it to be more accessible to all people. And a lot of people just want to do it in the privacy of their own [00:14:00] home and, but I love how it's turned out and it's been super exciting.
So it's kind of my passion project and I see doing it for, you know, the next couple decades of my life because I, yeah, I just feel like it's the thing for me. And so really, I love
[00:14:16] Steve Guberman: that. Do you find, and maybe it's not a or, but do you find that more people come to you looking for this because they have that nagging question of.
Why am I doing this nine to five? I wake up every day. I'm miserable, blah, blah, blah. What if there's more, or they have a pivotal event in their life that says, wait, you know, a lot of people come out of COVID like, Oh man, life's too short. Why am I wasting time, you know, doing this or not doing that? You know, for me, I had a pivotal event right before COVID that was like, life is way too short.
You need to take a chance, have some courage, make a move, launch a thing, do whatever. So is it. More than nagging question or the there's a pivotal event or the same. [00:15:00] Yeah,
[00:15:00] Traci Schubert Barrett: I say it's both. I mean, I've had people who've come to me, you know, because they went through a divorce, you know, 6 months, a year ago, and they've re stabilized and they want to, you know, just redefine their lives.
I've, I've had people who've had very tragic events happen to them. But I've also had people that just have hit a crossroads and it could be a midlife crossroads. It's really any kind of crossroads. I think, you know, even if it's just a, an awakening. Crossroads where they wake up, like you just said, you know, post pandemic and they're like, you know, I know I have gifts and talents.
I, and I know this all should mean so much more to me. And work, you know, work's always going to be work. It's going to be toil, you know, but it shouldn't suck the life out of you. It shouldn't be the soul sucking experience. You know, we should be able to find energy and reason in it. And so I think, you know, sometimes When we hit those crossroads, whether it's an age crossroad or a life [00:16:00] event crossroad, we're awakened to like all the different areas of our life and, and wanting to, to really frame meaning around it.
So that we can show up better and so whether that's our personal life, our professional life, or life in our neighborhood or in our city, I think people are really trying to live more intentionally and trying to find some framework, especially because our world is so divided and chaotic. And I think people are thinking, you know, what it can't.
This this isn't right. This isn't what life is supposed to be. And so I think there are people that are like, I'm going to make it different. I'm going to reclaim it for myself in a different way. And I'm going to push out all this noise and all this fear and all this negativity and I'm going to hold on to hope and I'm going to figure out what my hope is and what I want to place my hope in.
And so, yeah, those are the types of people that are coming to me.
[00:16:59] Steve Guberman: So, in [00:17:00] addition to reading a book, taking your course, going on an ePrayLove journey through India or Italy or whatever, what are, you know, whether it's leadership, entrepreneurship, or just anybody what are some of the questions that people could be asking themselves to really dig into?
Is there more? Is this my purpose? Is this my significance? What should I be doing? What, like, what are some of those things they should be looking for?
[00:17:25] Traci Schubert Barrett: I think people should be asking themselves, you know, am I on autopilot? Is life living me or am I living it? And if they feel like, dang, I think maybe I'm just going through the motions.
And maybe I've just been following the pre described. You know, life I was supposed to lead or, you know, and, and if they realize that, then I think they need to ask themselves, you know, what do I really want and, and are the things I want worth wanting worth
[00:17:55] Steve Guberman: wanting and worth working for, right? Making the change for or doing the thing for.
Yeah.
[00:17:59] Traci Schubert Barrett: [00:18:00] Yeah. Are they worthy? Because if you're just working for the money, I mean, you have to pay the bills, but is that really worth. Yeah. It all, you know what I mean? And, or, or fame, which I find people are just obsessed with today, you know, how many followers or what's my platform or all those things. And they have gotten their head all messed up into that.
And it's like, okay, well, you know, some of the most beautiful things happen in the space between 2 people and the ordinary day. So, you know, maybe. Stop chasing after fame, because it's not really worthy. It's, you know, and so just, you know, read, you know, waking your mind up to and asking yourself some of these questions, I think, can be a very powerful experience for people.
[00:18:45] Steve Guberman: Yeah, and even I think I mean that fame that people chase that like the number of likes the that endorphin rush It's people that they'll never even meet in person. There's no physical like intimate true connection there and To [00:19:00] me, I don't understand it like and sure I also get a rush Oh my god, so and so many people will listen to the podcast or like the thing or open my email or whatever So I get it.
But yeah, it's it doesn't I don't think it's Tied to somebody's true, authentic self,
[00:19:16] Traci Schubert Barrett: right? And those things should be additive. They shouldn't be driving you. You know, if you're really following your mission and you really honestly and authentically want to, to positively impact the world, then if those other things come, you know, money, title, whatever, fame, great.
Like those are additive, but they should never be your driving force.
[00:19:38] Steve Guberman: Yeah. One of the big things that I dig into with agency owners is what their goals are, but more importantly, why are they what they are and not, not on the Simon Sinek track of like, start with why, but more like, are you, are your goals true to you and to your family and what you want this business to be for your team and the people that are involved in it?
Or are you like [00:20:00] parroting somebody else's goal? Cause you heard it sounds cool to hit seven figures or 25 people or to exit through an acquisition or whatever. Right. Right. And it's amazing to me how many people realize if they ask themselves just a couple of questions, that's not even a goal that means anything to me.
No wonder my team's not rallying behind me. No wonder there's that disconnect between what I say and what we're actually doing. Why can't I get there? You can't get there because it's not really a true goal. It's not yours. You, you're not owning it. And so I'm curious for you, what does your vision of success look like?
[00:20:33] Traci Schubert Barrett: Yeah, for me, you know, Again, one of the reasons why I might the subtitle of my book is finding significance beyond success. And for me, redefining success away from that drive of like a money fame title has been to just, you know, use my gifts and talent. You know, to help other people figure out what their full potential is, you know, to help other people figure out how they can [00:21:00] uniquely impact the world around them, big or small and and help them realize.
It doesn't matter if it's big or small, as long as they know. You know, I believe we're all uniquely designed, you know, just like our fingerprints on the outside were uniquely designed on the inside. So tap into that. And so I feel like my mission on earth is to help people figure out what their internal fingerprint is and then go forth and, and really live that out.
And so that's, to me, what success looks like when I can help one person do that is when I feel the best, I feel fulfilled. Yeah, I love
[00:21:34] Steve Guberman: that. Now, are you still working in the agency with your husband or focusing more on the coursework and the passion
[00:21:42] Traci Schubert Barrett: projects? Yeah, both, both. So, you know, Strategic Life Map is part of Navigate the Journey's offerings and it's, you know, my baby, my thing that I love to work with and you know, I, You'll see me at digital bureau events and, you know, different events talking about this [00:22:00] type of thing, because, you know, I think it's important for, you know, all agency leaders and owners to think about their life 360.
And so, yeah, so it's, it's definitely. Where I'm putting the vast majority of my energy, but we still do all the things we do at Navigate. So, which is great fun.
[00:22:19] Steve Guberman: There's so much to admire there. I mean, you juggle a lot and it seems like you put passion into everything that you're doing, which I think is kind of this phase of your life that you've designed that I'm not going to do things that I can't put passion into.
And like you said, help people find their blueprint. And so I really admire that. Because I think a lot of people will do the passion project because the nine to five sucks the life out of them, or, you know, they'll have those side things that will feed their soul more. And it seems like you are just intentionally doing it in all areas.
And that's something very inspirational. So I love that. Thank you. So I want to shift gears to a couple of quick rapid fire questions, not [00:23:00] related to the book, the course, the, the agency for you. So, what, what's a a book or a show or a podcast or something that you just can't get enough of these days?
[00:23:11] Traci Schubert Barrett: Oh, wow. There's a couple. So I am as part of my journey, you know, to living a significant life. I, I'm really into health and wellness. So you know, as I age, I'm now in my fifties. And so I really have to make sure that I'm optimizing my health and I want to live a long and healthy life. And, and so I listen a lot to Dr.
Will Cole is a functional medicine doctor. The art of being well is one of my favorite, but I just started listening to Jill. Thank you. Julia Louise Dreyfus's new podcast where she interviews older women and about their wisdom. And it is like a mix of just what you'd expect out of Julia Louise Dreyfus, like, you know, really learning from these women, but laughing out loud at the same time.
So I, I love podcasts. I love listening to them and I could [00:24:00] probably name about 10 and you'd be like, stop naming them. Those are two that I'm, I listened to a lot. Yeah.
[00:24:06] Steve Guberman: Awesome. What is a tool, whether it's digital, physical, personal, professional that you recently integrated into your workflow or your day or just your life in general that you've now found completely indispensable.
[00:24:19] Traci Schubert Barrett: Oh, my gosh. I am not, you know, as men as for as many. Tech firms that we help. I not a very tech person. But I do spend a lot of time on slack and a lot of time on Trello and I used to not be a big Trello board user, but now I am because my my coordinator and my my director of operations, they're really good at it and they have just shoved me in there.
And so now I'm dragging things over and checking and improving and So I kind of, I know that Trello is not new to most people, but
new
[00:24:54] Steve Guberman: to you and, and when you embrace something and you're following the lead of somebody who [00:25:00] is a power user, I think that it makes a huge impact. I use it for a lot of my my one to one clients.
I. Some of my gardening water schedules and things in the Trello board also. So it's not as satisfying as crossing something off on a piece of paper, but moving things over can be, can be pretty exciting. So finally, what's an invaluable piece of business advice that you can share with us?
[00:25:25] Traci Schubert Barrett: My, my best advice to myself and to others that I'm coaching is really, it's all about progress, not perfection.
So every day, just try to be the best version of yourself, not somebody else. You know, this isn't a competition. This is really the best version of you. And all that means is that you just try to be more curious. You try to learn, you try to just get a little bit better every single day. And when you go to bed at night, you can say, I did the very best that I could with what I have.
[00:26:00] And as opposed to that endless pursuit of being perfect or competition or. You know, accumulation of things just every day to me is just getting a little bit better and I'll still be learning and growing till the day I die and I've accepted that. So perfection is gone, but progress is, is to me completely doable.
And so, for us, as leaders, if every leader just committed to that, what a better.
[00:26:31] Steve Guberman: So Tracy, thank you for your time. Thank you for your experience and wisdom. And I am grateful for you joining me today.
[00:26:37] Traci Schubert Barrett: Thank you. This has been great. Thanks, Steve.
Thanks again for tuning in to Bite Sized Agency Briefs. As always, if you found value in this episode, chances are someone else will too, so please share it with your network. Also, if you know someone with expert knowledge on a topic that agency owners would love, drop me a note and [00:27:00] let's get them on.
Finally, find someone to hug today.