We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kim Morales. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kim below.
Hi Kim, so happy to have you on the platform and I think our readers are in for a treat because you’ve got such an interesting story and so much insight and wisdom. So, let’s start with a topic that is relevant to everyone, regardless of industry etc. What do you do for self-care and how has it impacted you?
I’m a full-time graduation cap artist. As you may predict, my high season falls between March and June, where I make 80% of my income within that time-frame. Try to picture all of the the hours that a person who has a “normal” job works throughout the year, and then try to condense all of those hours all into just three months. That’s what my graduation season looks like.
Over the years, I’ve really struggled with establishing a healthy work-life balance. Let me bring you back to three years ago in 2020. The pandemic started and I truthfully thought I was going to be out of a job because how was I supposed to decorate graduation caps if no graduation ceremonies were taking place? However, thanks to the power of social media, my content went viral and despite my fears of not having enough work, 2020 ended up being my best year yet because graduates wanted to purchase their graduation cap designs as a physical memento of their academic journey and proof that they had graduated since they didn’t have a ceremony to celebrate.
Fast forward to the year 2021, my sales had tripled and even though I have been a full-time graduation cap artist for almost 7 years, I was not prepared personally for the amount of time and effort it would require on my behalf to fulfill all of those orders by myself. Not only was I hand-painting custom graduation caps, but I was fulfilling about three thousand orders a month for printed graduation cap toppers that I sell on my website. One of my biggest flaws is not knowing when to ask for help or being too stubborn to ask for it when I absolutely need it. So while I did request the help of my parents to help me pack orders during those months, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders to handle my business all on my own.
I started working more and sleeping less. I was working between 20-40 hour shifts at a time, with little to no breaks in between. I was getting to the point where I would collapse into bed with exhaustion or eat a meal with my eyes half open, eventually leaving half the plate on the table and succumbing to my exhaustion. Overall, it was very unhealthy. My immune system was low so I was constantly getting sick and pushing myself to the limit to fulfill all of my orders and keep my customers happy. I remember specifically there was a day where I had finished working about 38 hours straight and was so proud of myself for fulfilling all of my orders and when I was on my way back home from the post office just a quarter mile away from my house, I started seeing flickering lights in my vision and I had to pull over just a half of a block away from my home to muster enough energy to get back safely.
Somehow, I made it to June and had survived my craziest, yet most successful, graduation season yet. What I didn’t know was that I was about to fall into the worst burnout of my life. By the time it was September, I considered going to the doctor to get some tests done because I could not peel myself out of bed and had done the bare minimum for the last three months, the results of pushing my body and mind to their limits during my high season. Self care? Ha. What was that? I didn’t realize what I was experiencing was severe burn out. I was talking with a friend one day and she was the first one to suggest that maybe there was nothing physically wrong with me other than just my body begging for a rest after the extreme limits I had pushed it to earlier in the year. I knew something had to change.
Another big factor that contributed to my lack of self-care earlier that year had been my intense tendency to procrastinate. Not only was I working on custom orders from that timeframe, but I was also finishing orders that should have been done months ago, therefore doubling my work load. When I was finally caught up with orders and felt like I could breathe, I sat down and really reflected on what things I needed to change in my life and my routine so that I could prevent this intense roller coaster of emotions, work ethic, and my mental/physical state.
In 2022, my experience during grad season was completely different, but still not perfect. I focused a lot on my social life instead and granted myself every privilege and outing I wanted. I bought season tickets to my favorite baseball team and attended multiple games a week. I was dating and going out a lot with my friends. I was sleeping 9 hours a night and eating 3 meals a day. I said yes to every traveling invitation and found myself taking flights in the middle of grad season to go hang out with my besties on the beach. While I was still fulfilling orders, I did struggle a bit with procrastination but managed to stay afloat somehow and not fall behind with my workload. I put content creation on the back burner and didn’t receive as many orders as the two previous years. It was still a really good year for business, but I would not call it my most successful because my head was not in the game and I was doing the bare minimum to get by. Emails and messages were piling up and I was leaving my social media pages untouched for weeks at a time. During that time, I thought I was practicing amazing self care by granting myself all the experiences of social life that I had deprived myself of the previous year.
During the summer of 2022, I wasn’t burnt out. I was happy, I was rested, and I thought I had this self-care thing 100% down. Then I read a quote one day that hit me like a ton of bricks. It said, “you owe it to yourself to be more disciplined.” Then it hit me. Self-care wasn’t about sticking to one sunny side of the spectrum versus its more miserable counterpart. It was all about finding balance in life to become your best self. In 2021, I prioritized work over everything else. In 2022, I prioritized my social life. But I wanted to be better than that. I wanted to be the best business owner I could be while simultaneously taking care of myself physically, mentally, socially, etc. But how?
First things first, I had to work against every ounce of my being that wanted to procrastinate on work. I’ve been procrastinating since I was in high school. It’s all I’ve known. It’s what got me through college and had gotten me this far. To me, there is nothing like the rush of knowing something was due in a short amount of time and challenging myself to see if I could complete the task within that short timeframe. It was a rush. I never saw anything truly wrong with it until I reflected on my past experiences and just how much torture I put myself through by not managing my time better.
I whipped out a notebook and wrote down what my goals were, both in a business sense and in my personal life. One of my biggest goals in life is to buy a house. But how do I get there? I have to make as much money as possible to be able to afford it, that’s how. In order to do that, I needed to pour a lot of effort into my business in hopes that I would have another successful year. Deep down, I was scared that I would fall into that same black hole that took over me in 2021. I knew the biggest thing I had to fight against was my procrastination. I crafted a detailed business plan that I could follow for the upcoming season. I set aside time to tackle the hundreds of emails I had accumulated. I dedicated days to scheduling my content on my social media so I didn’t have to worry about it during my busy days. I gave myself small daily goals that I could easily attain, therefore all of my tasks would not pile up. I started to think of my to-do list as small waves that I could easily jump over, instead of letting them pile up into a mental tsunami where I had no choice but to drown. Once I was able to manage my time better with my business, that allowed me to create time and more space for self-care.
Fast forward to 2023. This was truly the first time in my 9 years of being a full-time business owner that I feel like I had things handled. I allowed myself to delegate tasks and ask for help when I needed it. I made it a personal goal of mine to check off all my daily tasks before I went to bed every night. I created a schedule for myself that allowed me to sleep enough hours and get up to pack orders before the post office closed. Somehow, grad season flew by this year and I managed to survive it with only a handful of mental breakdowns. I managed to stay afloat. I had survived my grad season. I was proud of myself.
I vowed to never let myself get to the point where I was in 2021. But I didn’t want to just survive my grad seasons, I wanted to THRIVE. So I grabbed my notebook and crafted another business plan. One where I thought of the future instead of figuring out ways to just manage my present. So now not only was I doing the tasks that allowed me to succeed earlier this year, but I am putting actions and plans into place to prep for next year. Instead of creating items as they sell, I am stocking up on inventory and putting in the work now so that when grad season comes, my workload will only be a fraction of what it used to be. I’m working with fulfillment centers to send out orders on my behalf. I have so much extra time on my hands now. This year I surpassed last year’s sales and reached my personal sales goal and new personal record for my business, further proving that my work/life balance efforts and all of my hard work have been paying off.
Working to stop my procrastination and putting a plan in place to manage my time better with my business has allowed me to create a lifestyle that I am currently thriving in. I am giving my body rest. I am allowing myself a healthy social life. I’m constantly thinking of ways I can be better and taking the baby steps to get there. I think before you can focus on self-care and thriving, you have to identify the things that are holding you back from reaching your full potential and try your hardest to create a routine that allows you to not only survive, but thrive. I’m so excited to see what the future holds for me now that I have learned to manage my workload and have opened my eyes to the importance of prioritizing my mental and physical health, as well as my happiness.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I never planned on starting my own business. Like plenty of other young folks, I was never really sure of what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I graduated high school and applied for college, I chose a major that felt general enough for me to be able to apply it in whatever career field I would eventually choose. I was a Sociology major and eventually added a Spanish major as well as an Education minor. I’m bilingual in both English and Spanish and have always had a passion for translating and figured that I would make a great addition to any school district as a student teacher or tutor.
I’ve also always been a super creative person. During my childhood, I was constantly going through different stages of hobbies, including jewelry making, scrapbooking, painting, etc. This continued on into college where I would make posters for campus organizations and offer my artistic abilities in anyway I could. I started my business in my third year of college selling handmade crafts and taking custom orders for just about anything (including hand-painted shoes and graduation caps) to be able to make some cash on the side while I finished my degree.
When I graduated, I thought I needed to follow what society deemed “normal” and get a regular 9-5 job. I got a job as a student teacher at a local school and quickly realized that it was not for me. At the same time, my little craft business was taking off and I was struggling to manage my time between lesson planning for my job and fulfilling orders once I got home. After a month of panic attacks and my hair falling out due to the stress of stretching myself too thin, my mom was the one who convinced me to quit my job and tackle my business full-time. This made me very nervous because in my head, I thought, “who the heck does arts and crafts full-time?”
Fast forward to nine years later, I am now a full-time graduation cap artist. I followed my passion and it has gotten me this far. The majority of the customers I work with are first-generation Latino students, so I always find it funny to look back and realize that while I didn’t follow the “normal” path I intended after college, I still ended up working with bilingual students like I was passionate about on a daily basis, just in a different way.
Working with first-generation students like myself is my favorite thing about my job and the fact that I get to explore my creative and artistic abilities on a daily basis. I truly feel like the sky is the limit and every day I surprise myself with how much I improve. I am blown away at the amount of support I have received over the years and am truly humbled by all of the opportunities that have come my way.
I have been featured in the New York Times, been interviewed on TV for multiple news channels and my work has been included in countless online magazines and articles. It’s truly crazy to think about how many people have seen my work over the years. I feel truly blessed to have the opportunity to make a living doing something I love and am passionate about.
Most people assume that with me being a graduation cap artist, I only work in the spring. However, I actually work year-round and I am booked out fully for the next two years for custom orders, with people filling out application requests for my custom caps up until the year 2034. Yes, you read that right. I have moms emailing me asking me to paint their current kindergartner’s high school or college graduation cap in the future. It’s pretty crazy to think about.
Recently, I did expand my business to include stationary that I personally design. Aside from offering graduation cap designs, I now offer notebooks, sticky notes, blankets and tote bags that feature my hand-drawn designs. My current goal is to become a more well-rounded business owner, so I have decided to start selling at in-person events recently to expand my audience. This is a very new development to my business, and I’m excited to see what the future holds!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The three most impactful qualities in my journey as a business owner have been determination, discipline and a willingness to learn.
Starting a business is terrifying. There are so many things that you don’t know when you first start out and it’s very difficult when you don’t know where to look or what to do. The one thing that carries you through all of these fears is determination. Once you set your mind on what your goal is, big or small, don’t let anything get in the way of helping you achieve that goal.
Not only is starting a business terrifying, but it’s also a lot of work. There are going to be days where you feel like there’s no point in moving forward. You truly have to have the discipline to keep going. Personally, discipline has been a core value in my professional life because sometimes I’m prone to being lazy. When you are your own boss, there is no one forcing you to get out of bed at a certain time or forcing you to show up to work when you don’t want to. You have to have the discipline to get what needs to be done done without being told.
And lastly, I think an important quality to have is a willingness to learn. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and take notes. Always strive to grow and be better. Push yourself to your fullest potential and never stop asking questions. One day you’ll look back and realize that you are light years ahead of where you started. This willingness to learn also makes you very excited for the future because who knows what that will look like as you keep pushing yourself to be better every day.
Visualize your dreams. Even though they seem so far away and out of reach, your life is in your control. Figure out what baby steps you can take that will get you closer to living your dream and do them. Never lose that fire inside you to be better and achieve more.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
The most impactful thing my parents have done for me is to support me wholeheartedly my entire life. My dad is a go-getter and has always push me to my fullest potential. My mom has always supported me and served as my confidant when things get hard. They instilled in me core values use that I use every day and make me a good person and a good business owner. When they saw me struggling in a job I was not happy with, they are the ones who encouraged me to take a risk and pursue my business full-time. I would 100% not be where I am today if it wasn’t for them. In addition to wanting to buy a house on my own, one of my biggest goals is to be able to financially take care of my parents. They have given me everything and worked so hard to give my brother and I a good life. Now as a grown-up, I want to be able to reverse the roles and take care of them so that they can enjoy all the fruits of their life-long labor. I’m hoping to one day tell them that they don’t have to work anymore and provide them with a lifestyle that offers them rest, peace, and happiness.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kimscustomcraft.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/kimscustomcaps
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimscustomcap/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Kimscustomcap
- Other: Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@kimscustomcaps
Image Credits
Adelyna Tirado
