Meet Stacy Townsend

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stacy Townsend. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stacy below.

Hi Stacy, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I was born into a family of entrepreneurs, and didn’t know any different. Whether nature or nurture, it feels woven deep in my spirit.

My grandfather was a an inventor; always tinkering in his shop, building things and creating little problem-solving tools to use around the house, all while working as a full time mason. My dad followed in his footsteps, building a business on nights and weekends after working hard at his day job.

Growing up in an environment where it was exciting when those ideas took off, and there was work that filled and spilled beyond the typical work day created a framework of excitement for that pursuit. It feels thrilling, and so fulfilling, to get to do the work I love and answer to what feels like part of my life’s purpose.

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’m an designer and entrepreneur at heart, and that expresses itself in many ways.

In the coming month, we’ll launch our collaborative bridal jewelry line with long time friend Jasmine Snyder, of Jasmine Lilly Bridal (www.jasminelillybridal.com), as well as a line of hat adornments that we co-created with our friend Kricia Storms with Bang Bang Hat Company (www.bangbanghats.com). It’s been such a gift to weave our work together with the vision and talent of these dear friends, as well as venture into new markets that we may not have explored without their partnership.

This feels like a through-line with what drives my other work. With a background in graphic design, and marketing, I continue to do work under Townsend Collective (www.townsendcollective.com) as a graphic designer and photographer, wiht the focus of elevating the vision and work of others.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three skills that were most impactful and influential in my journey are my creativity, realistic optimism and stubbornness,

I am deeply stubborn when it comes to moving toward the things that I want to see come to fruition, and have a hard time moving away from ideas once they’re solidified in my mind. Rather than being discouraged by obstacles or the doubt of others, I find it to be fuel for me to dig in and get even more focused on the outcome I’m moving toward.

Within reason, optimism can go a long way. When it comes to making things happen, so much is possible through strong and resilient relationships. Whether within our team, with clients and customers, or partners and collaborators, we’ve built a practice of working to do what is best for the folks that we are in relationship with, and working hard to foster open communication and the belief that we are all doing our best and operating with good intent toward each other.

Lastly, creativity is the through-line through my life, and all that I do. I’ve built multiple businesses that are founded in creativity and design, and find that it’s most powerful when applied to work and life at large, and most importantly, relationships. I’ve been most fulfilled thus far by creating businesses that can operate as a healthy and thriving workplace in ways that I could only imagine when working inside another’s business. To have the autonomy to do things differently that feel good an authentic, and in a caring way for our team has been a highlight of being in business.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I recently read the book Buy Back Your Time, by Dan Martell, and helped rewire my brain in really important ways.

As a bootstrap startup in both of my businesses, it’s been challenging to understand my role and where I add the most value and impact as the businesses scale. There were many lessons in this book, and perspective changing concepts that made clear some of the things that I’ve been struggling with (hiring, scaling, and how to maximize the impact of my time).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://commonform.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopcommonform/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopcommonform

Image Credits

All images by Townsend Collective (towwnsendcollective.com)