We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alexa Hughes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alexa below.
Alexa, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
I’ve developed a confidence in myself that I can achieve what I want to achieve and thereby increasing my self-esteem by getting excited about being “bad” at things. A pivotal moment in my adult life was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book that outlined the idea of the 10,000 hour rule. The book explains that most “masters” of their craft have put in 10,000 hours of practice and that is why they are now considered “masters”. They just put in the hours of work while others didn’t. Deliberate practice creates an even playing field for everyone.. While the validity of that idea has been called into question, the idea that ANYONE could become great at something just by putting in the hours of practice really struck a cord with me. For a lot of my life, if I wasn’t immediately great at something, I would quit it. Now, when I’m terrible at something, I celebrate it. I examine how I can put more intentional practice hours towards that thing and celebrate the little improvements. The easiest way that I do that is through art. I find it to be a double win, to be doing something creatively as well as building my internal sense of confidence by learning a new task or trade. Over the last several years, I have learned ceramics on a wheel, sewing, and watercolor painting. For the first 3-4 months of ceramics classes, I could barely get the little lump of clay centered on the wheel, let alone make anything useful with it. I’ve taken enough classes and put in enough practice time now that I was able to make my own tea pot and gift friends mugs.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am the founder of The Flaccid Cactus, a plant consultation & accessories company. The idea for the company name came from when a friend came to me because she had a dead cactus and didn’t know how it had happened. I mean a really, really dead cactus that had deflated and laid itself flat down the outside of its pot. She had done what I like to call “hugged her plant to death”, when plant parents love their plants so much that they think they should just water a little more and a little more and eventually overwater and essentially drown them with love and water. I wanted to make sure no one else had to have a “flaccid cactus” so I initially started the company helping people with their plant care needs. For the last year and a half, I have been working with individuals and businesses to pick out the best plants & accompanying pots for their spaces, teach them how to take care of the plants, and even offer in-house care services. In a few short weeks (mid-December), I will be launching my plant accessories arm of my company, available on Amazon. My first product is a modern hanging planter, available in white and terra cotta, which can be used indoors or outdoors. They are made out of recycled plastic bottles, recycled wood, and recycled stone composite. They include the stainless steel hanger, pot with a drainage hole and stopper, as well as the saucer. I was looking for an alternative to macrame hangers for plants on Amazon and couldn’t find any, so I made the product I had been searching for!
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?
Quality: Curiosity – I think we are all fed a lie as kids that you should choose a college degree in a field that you are “good” at and then stick with that lane for the rest of your life. I think true fulfillment actually comes from exploring your curiosities in life and then creating a life around what actually makes you fulfilled. For example, I have an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and art history, masters degree in biomedical sciences, and only got into plants because I wanted a way to bring more life into my living space. Life is so much more enjoyable when you view it from “ooh that looks interesting, I don’t know why, but let me try it” and seeing what sticks and what doesn’t. All skills and talents that you grow from anything you invest time and attention into can be combined in new and cool ways that only YOU have developed. This is where new and unique business and creative opportunities can come about because you have built up this specific set of skills and interests to be able to accomplish it.
Skill: reading – I’m an avid reader – anywhere from 60-80 books a year, and it is a skill that has helped me in every aspect of my life and business. I read biographies of great inventors and creators to see how they got to where they ended up and what mistakes they made I so don’t have to make them. I read sci fi and fantasy to get my brain thinking in creative new ways of what could possibly be. I read fiction to be able to live lives in others shoes and non-fiction to learn something for my business or an aspect of life I didn’t know existed. I can consume information a lot faster than many others and it is only because of my dedicated daily practice of reading before bed, no special trick or “talent”.
Area of knowledge: awareness if you are better at 1. seeing a product or an idea and improving on it incrementally or if you 2. see gaps in what is even available and make the thing that you or others are wanting and don’t even know it. I think for the second skill, fostering your own creativity is really important in being able to create what hasn’t been thought of already by others. For the first skill, write down ideas in your phone of what you would do differently when you see products. Start getting your head in the space of improving everyone else’s inventions.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I think the most impactful book in my most recent development is Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act”. One idea that immediately stuck out to me was the point he made of how many times in your life have you thought of a great idea, invention, creation, etc, did nothing about it? Then, a couple months or years later you see it being advertised on television or appear in a store and you immediately think to yourself…hey, I thought of that years ago! He makes the point (regardless of your religious affiliation) that the universe is constantly trying to get ideas out from the aether into the real world, and essentially you can be linked up to the universe in that moment to have “creative inspiration” where it is your time and your place to bring that idea into fruition. And whether or not you do it, the universe is going to make sure it happens. So, it is your responsibility when you have a creative idea, or art piece, or business idea in a moment, to immediately act upon it, or else risk losing out on the idea to someone else. I just loved the idea that it is your responsibility to bring your ideas and your art into the world, no one elses, and do it NOW.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.theflaccidcactus.com/
- Instagram: instagram.com/the.flaccid.cactus
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexa-hughes-5634a435/
