We recently connected with Tracy Stine and have shared our conversation below.

Tracy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Once I took my first step in a line of work outside the box, I never looked back. As a wife and mother of 4, my priorities shifted from wanting to be a corporate woman to wanting to be at home with my babies. That last sentence looks different for everyone, as not all women want to leave the corporate world nor do all women want to stay home. How about the women who want to have both? Stay at home AND make a financial impact for their family? That was exactly the path I took.

I believe the #1 hangup women have is that they think their career path is a linear line versus shifting with their life experiences and changes along the way.

After graduating college, my first job was a traveling Financial consultant for my sorority. This small town girl had no idea what living in a lonely world really meant, until she hit the road with one very large and heavy suitcase (that was before the air travel 50lb weight limit…we used to have 75lb suitcases), and I flew weekly from college to college. Exploring this country and Canada on my own was exactly what my naive self truly needed…to see life on a grander scale and realize there was so much more outside of the county I had lived in for 21 years.

After completing that one year assignment, I moved to the city of Chicago and started my corporate career. I loved my years of working in the city, living life with co-workers and growing through training and professional development. Fast forward a few years to getting married and having kids…my worldview changed and my #1 career title became “mom”.

After having my first child, I nannied for another family, allowing me to be with my baby, serve another family and bring in income to help out our family financially. Fast forward to having kid #2 and I became a stay at home mom until our 4th child was born. Once I found my rhythm with 4 kids, I was ready to do something additional but did not want to leave the house for work.

This is when direct sales and network marketing found me. I have worked for a leading gut health & wellness brand, Plexus Worldwide for 8 years now. I became a top leader in the company within 2.5 years and worked during nap times and after the kids went to bed serving and helping customers focus on their overall health and wellness journeys. It wasn’t always easy, but it was my schedule, my time and my goals while being at home with my babies and still making six figures.

While I still work for Plexus, my newest passion is hosting a Podcast, Unlikely Housewives of JoCo. Following the roller coaster ride of 2020, my Podcast Co-Host Tori Shirah, & I learned that there was something missing in the conversations we were having with women: the real and rawness of life. Social media had taken over and allowed women to see other’s worlds through a filtered lens, a highlight reel. More and more women were starting to feel alone in their struggles with parenting, marriage, their health & wellness journey and their spiritual walk. We knew we had to start using our voices to encourage women who were tired of feeling disconnected in a world that is more connected than ever. We each had used social media as a platform for our direct sales businesses and with the overwhelming opinions and unauthenticity on social media, we decided to step out in faith and bring awareness to the comparison, constant busyness, and the false sense of perfection.

I can honestly say that the greatest gift of working outside “the norm” has been being able to set my own schedule and have flexibility to be there for my children all while still making a financial impact for our family.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m Tracy Stine, born & raised in a super small town in Illinois (my graduating class had 35, b/c that’s how you define how small your town is based on the size of your HS graduation class), lived the country life on a farm, barefoot and happy exploring life with my brother & cousins.
Fast forward to my college days where I spent most of my time trying to define my inner self and figuring out who I was all while God was writing my story and placing me in relationships & experiences that would lead me to the next step in my life.
In 2003, after my one year assignment traveling for my sorority, I moved to Chicago and met the man of my dreams at Enterprise Rent-A-Car…we fell in love, got married and had lots of babies! We spent 13 years in the city of Chicago growing our family, raising our 4 incredible children and building a foundational marriage that would sustain us through our move to Kansas. In 2016 we moved to Overland Park, Kansas and have settled into our life here…well as much as you can with still being fairly new to a city, having lived through a world pandemic and trying to find the balance of life moving on while wanting time to stand still.

After having our 4th child, the pressure of going back to work one day was rising as that was the plan my husband and I had envisioned. However my desire to stay home with my babies, and not just until school age, but to be there for all the sick days, field trips and moments in between lead me to venture off into the world of direct sales and network marketing. To be able to run my business from my phone, during nap times, after bedtimes and during carpools was something I wanted more than to go work for someone else, be on someone else’s schedule and to have to ask for time off.

This business model was exactly what I needed for that season of life and while I have added a second venture of podcasting to my work life, my direct sales business has sustained us for what we need right now.

In both my health and wellness business as well as podcasting, I’m very open and real about my own personal struggles and want to encourage you for where you are in life.

I am most proud of the fact that I have stayed true to myself and who I am at my authentic core. So many opportunities have come before me and yet I knew where my heart was and that is what I have pursued.

I have a passion for a personal & loving relationship with Jesus!
I’m a woman who fights in and for her marriage…I’ve seen the beauty from the ashes.
I’m a mom who will fight for her children, their rights, our rights as parents and I know no matter how we lead them as parents, God is their compass.

I’m beyond the feelings that because I don’t make the same decisions as the next person that I am anything but a child of God, a good wife and mom. So there you have it… a little bit of my story…and for the rest, I guess you just need to listen to the podcast ;)

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

In January of 2018, I had already lived in OP, KS for a year and a half but it still felt so new and many feelings were still very raw. Moving away from comfort, friends, our church, small group and the home we’d started to create with our 4 children only to start all over, was the greatest change of my life (quickly decreasing in memory as the pandemic may have taken the top)…in my marriage and for my children.

I met a lot of great people, built some quality friendships, but not many that could truly understand what I was going through and how to move on from it…until I met Tori. After complaining to a friend who had also moved here about my struggles, she made the connection and introduced Tori and I…good ol’ fashioned network marketing connections for the win. Tori had just moved here from Texas, working for the same company as I did, yet we had never met. We are just two moms who discovered we shared the same feelings of discontentment and loneliness after moving our families across the country. Oh how quickly I had made a new friend who loved God, was freaking hilarious, and could put up with my rough edges.

We had no idea that just a few years later we’d be starting our own podcast and going into business together.

In our podcast you will find realness and laughter from a recovering people pleaser (that’s me) and a straight shooter (that’s Tori)… our mission is to help women become intentional, free, and confident in the world that is addicted to comparison, busyness, and “the hustle”. We stepped out in faith and believe that God calls the UNLIKELY. We created this podcast to share our personal stories and encourage women to step out of their funk, not allow culture issues to hold them back and to walk with the Lord into who God created them to be…. together in community. What a journey it’s been to do life together and share it so boldly for the world to hear!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I would imagine that the majority of today’s society could say that one of their greatest pivots in life occurred in 2020. Let’s be honest, so much has changed for everyone, especially families. So many think that pivoting is a bad thing, when I truly believe this pivot season helped me realign in some areas that I had fallen away from.

In the beginning of 2020, my goals were to reach one more step up the leadership ladder and reach the very top rank in my company. I had been so successful over the years and just knew that was the next step for me…until our world literally came crashing down, our children were sent home from school, my husband was now working from home and my responsibility went from solely running my business to homeschooling 4 children. My focus shifted to helping our kids adjust, to keeping our family healthy and happy and being a teacher. Our kids’ mental health took priority for me as well, leading to me continuing to homeschool my youngest for the following full school year. This was the greatest pivot of my life. Never in a million years did I expect to slow down my business and tend to my family in the ways I have these past few years, but it’s exactly where I’ve needed to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.unlikelyhousewivesofjoco.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/tracy__stine?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Other: https://instagram.com/unlikelyhousewives?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://www.risetorestore.com/