Listen To Your Gut – Reimagining Hustle with Shari Hammond

Roxanne Merket: Podcasting from under my blankets. So it’s quiet enough to hear me. This is Reimagining Hustle, a podcast for entrepreneurial parents, creating a life or business and parenthood live peacefully in the same space. I’m your host, Roxanne Merket, a mom of two, micro business coach, and serial entrepreneur on a journey to prove that it really is possible to do what you love. Without sacrificing all of your precious time. Let’s do this.

Welcome back to Reimagining Hustle. I’m so excited for my guest today. I have Shari Hammond with me, Shari. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Yeah, this is going to be really fun. Shari, can we just jump right in? Will you just tell us about you your, what it is that you do and your journey to get.

Shari Hammond: Sure. Um, I am a young entrepreneur. I say young, I feel young at heart anyways. I’m I’m 48 and. Uh, my father and I have started the business about three years ago, and we invent products for the home that make life daily tasks easier. And, um, I’m also a single mom to a 13 year old just recently. 13 year old super teen, and he plays basketball and lacrosse. And I’m a dog person.

I’m an animal lover, dog person, cat person. Um, every morning my dad might take a walk and three dogs go with us and one cat go on a mile, walk with us. So it’s pretty funny, but, um, just, you know, hustling every day from one thing to the next and just putting it all together and trying to make it work. But.

Roxanne Merket: That’s incredible. So you, I like how you just like, so casually say this, that you’re like you say, you’re an entrepreneur, which you totally are, but then you’ll just like slide in that you’re an inventor. So can you tell us about what it’s like to be an inventor here and some of the, will you give us some details about products that you’ve invented?

Shari Hammond: Sure. Um, being an inventor is it’s really taking entrepreneurship to the next level, right? It’s identifying a need in the marketplace. You know, if you need it, chances are somebody else would. And I actually come from a line of inventors. My father is a retired IBM engineer. He’s actually on his third retirement.

And he always says, um, right now. Um, and he’s got about 150 patents underneath his belt. And so he’s been teaching me and mentoring me and kind of getting me ready to go out there and do it on her own and the products that we have right now, I’m on my, I think, fourth patent. So it’s pretty, pretty exciting.

Roxanne Merket: Yeah, that’s incredible. and so you do this with your dad, which is so fun. I have a really good relationship with my dad, so I can only imagine how much fun you must have working with your dad every day. So what, will you tell us? Just like your most recent patent? What, tell us about the product that it’s for.

Shari Hammond: So the most recent one, and it’s the most exciting, it’s actually the one That’s gotten the most traction and is really taking off it’s called go hang it. And it is a picture hanging and leveling tool that will have you hanging in leveling pictures with zero measuring required that you literally just eyeball it on the wall and the go hang it has this. Uh, positioning system, which identifies exactly where those nails need to go on the back of your frame. So you can hold it up on the wall and get it level push, and it marks your nail holes. And so there’s no guesswork. There’s no measuring up, down left, right? There’s, it’s, it’s super easy and, and you can hang a collage and hanging it each picture within a quarter of an inch. Well, you can hang them right up next to if you want. Um, Just very, very tight collage, which, which is exciting. I love to see the pictures of people who, when they send me reviews and stuff, like what I hung with this, you know, today, this is the best thing ever. It’s pretty nice.

Roxanne Merket: That’s genius. I have paintings all over my house. I feel like I’m going to need to go buy one of these as soon as we’re done in this conversation. This is incredible. Shari. I want to know what does success look like to you? Is you’re in this. Never ending process. I mean, clearly like you came from, uh, a family who inventing is almost like a way of life. If your dad has 150 patents and you’re on number four, which I already talking to, you can tell that like, you’ve got more brewing. And so what, how do you measure success in your own life?

[00:04:30] How do you measure success?

Shari Hammond: Gosh, I, you know, I don’t really equate. I’ve never equated success to money. I’ve never wanted like more money. I’ve always just wanted to be the best mom that I can be, the best, you know, provider that I can be, the best daughter that I could be. Um, and getting to work with my dad, it’s truly a blessing, you know, I get to come and see him every single day and take a walk with him every single day. And during this pandemic, you would think that we were about to pull our hair out, but it’s. It’s actually been quite the opposite, you know, I am a true daddy’s girl. That’s that’s for sure. But, um, he’s just an amazing guy and a he’s very, very patient with me, but cause I I’m, I’m the gruff one sometimes, but uh,

Roxanne Merket: No, that makes a lot of sense. Um, so how has, so this is interesting because you’re a mom to this 13 year old brand new 13 year old, but you’re also acting in this role as daughter during this entrepreneurship journey journey. And so I’m curious, how has kind of that juxtaposition of roles through this journey changed you as a person?

[00:05:51] How has the juxtaposition of roles changed you?

Shari Hammond: Gosh, you know, one of the things that I found is that it really keeps me young at heart. You know, my dad and I were talking about this the other day. He recently turned 80 and, and I asked him how he felt. And he said, I feel like I’m 60. I said, well, that’s awesome. Cause I feel like I’m 30 and maybe it’s because I still work with him and haven’t, you know, left the nest. So to speak, I guess. I mean, I know I have, but, but it, you know, it, it really keeps you young and being a single mom, he has really stepped in and taken the role of a male mentor for my son. Um, you know, just the, the daily male mentoring for my son, I would say know.

Roxanne Merket: What a special thing to have, not only for you, but for your son as well to have just that regular presence of grandpa in his life. I imagine that that is, that is so special for him and for your dad as well. I imagine that’s really special. And how fun for you to kind of watch that happen in the middle of this? All right. Of these two significant men in your life. Shari, do you ever experience guilt around being a mom and an entrepreneur at the same time?

[00:07:04] Mom guilt?

Shari Hammond: Sometimes. Yes I do. I do feel guilty because I’m so busy and it seems like. Especially during this pandemic, you know, I’m not an eight to fiver, right. I work, you know, when, um, when he’s in school and then when he’s at basketball practice or when he’s at lacrosse practice. So I do get my eight hours of work in a day, or I spread those hours out throughout the entire week. You know, the pandemic, you know, Saturdays and Sundays. You often find yourself going, what day is it? You know,

Roxanne Merket: regularly.

Shari Hammond: you hardly even know, is it time to watch church on zoom? Is it, you know, so it’s, it’s definitely, I do feel guilty. Um, you asked me about, you know, what measures for success that I have, one of the things like, uh, my son Pierce, he’s very good in basketball and he’s very good at lacrosse and he wants to play at a D1 school on the D 1 level in basketball. And the way he’s passionately taken after basketball and really hustling and really working at it and shooting he’ll shoot like 300 shots here, you know, in the afternoons and, and everything. And, you know, I truly believe he’ll get there. So success in one of the major goals in my mind is that when he chooses a college or go to play at that college, I want to be able to be comfortable enough to have an apartment there or someplace where I could go and, and be, and watch his games and all that kind of stuff. So that’s, that’s like one of the goals that I have set in my mind. I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody.

Roxanne Merket: I am so glad you told us. I thank you for sharing and just letting us in a little bit that’s so that’s, such a beautiful way of. Of expressing support, I think has to have that goal. So thank you for opening up and sharing that with us. How involved is your son in the work that you do?

Shari Hammond: So I grew up working. My, my parents had a business called Huntsville crafts when i was younger. It started as a hobby. My dad’s an engineer at IBM and he wanted to make his own furniture. So he started doing this woodworking hobby. Well, he, they started making lamps and, uh, LP holders,

Roxanne Merket: Yes.

Shari Hammond: and things of things of that nature. And he got to be quite good. And so as, as a young child, I remember spending Saturdays staining wood products. And getting them ready to take to trade shows. Artists harvest shows, kiosks in the mall, and eventually we had a store called Hunt’s Woodcraft and I was eight years old, sleeping under the kiosk while my mom decorated it late at night to get ready for the day tomorrow, the next day. And working with her in the mall. And so, you know, Pierce, he’s just on Saturdays and Sundays, he’s part of the team, you know, come help me pack orders, come help me, um, you know, break down all these boxes and take them out to the burn pile. Can you help me, you know, load. Shipments up and take them to ups. So it’s it’s, he is part of the team. He’s like, well, mom, what am I going to get paid? And I said, when you can spend an hour without stopping to go shoot the basketball for 15 minutes in between, when you can work a solid hour, you’ll get paid for that hour.

Roxanne Merket: That’s fantastic. Shari. I want to ask you a question that, um, that I have not asked many of my guests, but I hope you don’t mind me asking you this. You are clearly like you have a wonderful family, right? You can tell even, I mean, this is an audio podcast, but we’re recording videos. So I have the advantage of seeing your face as you talk about your dad and you talk about your son. What do you do for you? How, like how, I mean, we, we kind of talk about like self care, but like just kind of throwing that buzzword to the side, like genuinely, what do you do for you to establish you as, as a human.

[00:11:09] What do you do for YOU?

Shari Hammond: So for me, I have, I, I don’t do like very big things, but I do little things. So each morning I wake up about 30 minutes earlier than I have to get my son up and I get up and I make a cup of coffee and I sit down and I play a game on my phone.

Roxanne Merket: Yeah.

Shari Hammond: And it’s like just 15, 15, 20 minutes of just me doing nothing basically, but just kind of taking in the day and I’ll check the news and, and, um, you know, you know, check them out. So I’ve got an app that has some scripture in it and I’ll, I’ll read through that and all that. It’s just kind of, you know, like me time. And, um, so I do that, um, I do enjoy getting pedicures every now and then, uh, one thing I, I am religious about is I do get a massage every two weeks. And that, to me, it does, there’s so many health benefits, you know, you know, lymphatic drainage and really just relaxing you and having, having that on a ritual basis. I think it’s really improved my overall health and wellbeing. And so, um, I said, I suggest people go find themselves a good masseuse.

Roxanne Merket: Oh, I will second that suggestion a hundred percent. That’s I appreciate you letting me ask you this question too, because I think that sometimes, especially as women, we tend to get lost in all of the hats that we wear. Right. And so, I love asking this question because I want my listeners to know that. Self care that taking care of yourself and finding you as a human being and you as a person, just a self, right. Can be found in so many different ways. So I love that that’s something like massages that that’s a priority to you and that morning time, however like that, that just sounds so pleasant. It sounds just so calm and peaceful to just sit with your cup of coffee and just play a game. Like how delightful is that every morning and what a beautiful way to just start the morning with. Feels good to you. So thank you for letting me kind of throw that one in out of the blue. No warning here, but I,

Shari Hammond: No, no worries.

Roxanne Merket: like I said, I think that that’s, um, we tend to lose ourselves. And so I appreciate you letting us in a little bit, Shari, what do you wish people knew about being a parent, especially a single parent and an entrepreneur simultaneously.

Shari Hammond: You know, if you can be a single parent, you can pretty much be anything. It’s it’s the, it’s one of the greatest challenges, because if you don’t have that, now I do have a support system with my dad. And when my mom was alive, she, uh, she passed a couple years ago, but, um, she was a real big part of helping me. Um, when I first went through my divorce in 2010, my dad said every Friday, I want you to come bring Pierce over. So every Friday, Right after I got off work, I, I didn’t work for myself at the time. I would pick Pierce up, take them off to my parents and just drop them off. And some days I would be like, go find the girls and go do something. And other days I would just go home and just sit and watch a movie by myself or drink a glass of wine or whatever. And that was huge. Um, but you know, Being a single parent, you have to constantly move from one thing to the other, you know, Pierce is doing lacrosse, currently lacrosse track and basketball

Roxanne Merket: That’s a lot.

Shari Hammond: right now. And so, and you know, they say, God only gives you what you can handle. Thank goodness. I didn’t have two or three. Right. Um, juggle and nine Fort the awful. Um, but, but, um, I don’t know, you know, you, you said something that made me think of, you know, you said I wear many hats, you know, I’ve always considered myself a Jack of all trades master of none. And I think that was the perfect grooming for me to become. Uh, parents and then eventually a single parent and then eventually an entrepreneur because you wear many hats. As a matter of fact, my Skype profile. That’s what it says. It’s a, Shari Hammond, I wear many hats and, uh, it does. And, um, so, you know, you’re just, just get good at juggling, right.

Roxanne Merket: Yeah. Yeah. I heard it explained once recently, um, that being a parent and an entrepreneur, doing all of these things, it’s, it is a constant state of juggling. And you have to determine which ones are the glass balls and which ones are the plastic balls, because you’re inevitably going to drop some. So you’ve got to be dropping the plastic ones, that’ll survive that fall.

Shari Hammond: Right. My dad always says the project takes the time allotted. So, you know, always set yourself a deadline and when it’s done. it’s done.

Roxanne Merket: Mmm.,

Shari Hammond: So.

Roxanne Merket: That’s a good advice. I appreciate that advice. Shari. I would love to ask you a question about the name of this podcast. So I named this podcast re-imagining hustle because when I was first starting my business, I was not a parent. I started my business first and I really loved that hustle, hustle, hustle, go, go, go. It felt really good to me. Right. It felt, it felt like something that I was accomplishing something. And then I had my first child and my whole world stopped and I had to think, okay, Is what is life going to look like now? And I’ve been on this quest to re-imagine what hustle looks like since then. So I would love to know how do you reimagine this idea of hustle?

[00:16:45] Reimagined Hustle

Shari Hammond: so, you know, I guess with my dad teaching me, I always felt like it would be my job to teach Pierce math homework and, you know, clean up the dishes and clean his own bathroom and all that kind of stuff. But to really teach him how to create, um, I’m a creative person. I have, uh, I do box packaging before, before inventing these products, you know, do our own packaging and marketing and all that kind of stuff.

So, um, again, Jack of all trades master of none and you kind of, it’s our job to teach our children to be capable. So you really just have to continue doing what you’re doing, but now as a mentor, basically, you know, Pierce needs to look at me and know what it is to have to work, to have to want something kids these days, you know, they get things handed to them left and right.

And they don’t ever have to work for it. They don’t understand the value of it. And so that’s one of the reasons that. You know, I’ll be darned if I’m not going to raise a son that knows how to do stuff when he gets out there, you know, cause I won’t always be around. He needs to know how to do stuff when mom’s not there.

Roxanne Merket: Sure that makes a lot of sense. And to just kind of step into that role of mentor as a parent, we have a lot of it comes back to this hats idea, right. But to be a mentor, I appreciate that wisdom. Shari, would you give us a pep talk for other parents on an entrepreneurial journey?

[00:18:19] Pep Talk

Shari Hammond: Sure. You know, don’t ever quit. Don’t take no for an answer. Somebody you’re going to hear no. Or, or I don’t really think that’ll work for me or, and all that kind of stuff. And just don’t take no for an answer. Follow your gut. If your gut really tells you, I think women can really appreciate this. Women rely on their gut a lot. You know, they call it the female intuition or whatever, but if something. It doesn’t feel right. It, it’s probably not out of something moving in the right direction, you know, take a step back and kind of, re-analyze it, lay it out there, reposition it, and maybe tweak it a little bit and head down a little bit different path and see if that feels better.

Um, that my gut has served me well in this business. And you know, I don’t know if, if you don’t end, it really helps you buy into it and believe in it. If you don’t believe in it, then you’re not going to give it 110%. So by trusting your gut and really believing in what you’re doing and heading in the right direction. I think that that really, really helped.

Roxanne Merket: Thank you for that pep talk to listen to your gut. I feel that on a deep level. So thank you that. Shari, tell us where we can find more of you. We need more of you. Where can we find you on. online.

Shari Hammond: So the name of my company is inspired product development group, and you can go to inspired PDG product development, group.com. Um, our products are also on Amazon and home Depot, Wayfair, and the grommet. So

Roxanne Merket: Awesome. Awesome. And we’ll make sure that we link everything in our show notes, Shari, thank you for your time today. It has been a treat to just be with you in this space. I appreciate it. I feel like I’ve gotten to know your dad and Pierce as well at the same time. So thanking them for a sparing you for a little bit, but I just, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Shari Hammond: no, thank you so much.

Roxanne Merket: Thanks for listening to Reimagining Hustle with Roxanne Merket. If you like the show and want more, check out ReimaginingHustle.com and please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back next week with another episode. See you soon.