Meet Chelsea Morrow | Podcast Producer and Founder of Moxie Media Podcasts

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chelsea Morrow and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chelsea, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I truly believe taking risks is the best thing you can do for yourself and for the life you want. Risk is a requirement for success. I would much rather take the risk and fail than to never give myself the opportunity to succeed. The thing that holds most people back from taking risks is that they are afraid of what will happen if they fail. But what most of us don’t realize is that what we think would be the worse case scenario really isn’t as terrible as we are envisioning in our mind. When we sit down and really think about the consequences of failing – it’s nothing we can’t handle. To me, I would rather deal with the consequences of failing than being stuck living a life I don’t actually want for myself.

To most people who look at my life, they may think that my life is full of risks. I dropped out of college to pursue my competitive figure skating career. Instead of going back to school, I toured the world as professional figure skater until I was 26. I quit figure skating to go to Bali to become a yoga teacher. I quit my stable cooperate job to start my own company with only 2 clients lined up. Again, it may appear that there were a lot of risks in these decisions. But when I really think about my life and all the decisions I’ve made, I’ve never even thought of them as risks. I know that if I’m dedicated to something and if I do my best – there’s no way I can fail. I trust in my ability to succeed so there is no risk to be taken.

I think we all owe it to ourselves to take the risk on chasing the life we want to live. I’m tired of people saying “i’m so jealous of your life”. The only difference between the life I’m living and the life they’re living is that I was willing to take the risk and they aren’t willing to take the risk.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
1. How did you get to where you are today professionally?

I was a professional figure skater for 6 years (AKA it was my job) which triggered me to have an eating disorder. I retire from the sport because I knew as long as I was in that environment I would continue to struggle. I decided to become a personal trainer and yoga teacher to teach women how to build the body they want in a healthy and sustainable way to ensure less women take the unbearable approach I took.

This led me to having an internship at the Burn Boot Camp fitness franchise’s headquarters. As I was doing an internship at the gym training, the CEO ask if I wanted to also do an internship at their headquarter offices as they were growing rapidly and there were lots of opportunities available.

I knew there was no way I wanted an office job, but remained open to the opportunity and took an internship in the offices as well working with the Director of operations.

Side note: I dropped out of community college to pursue figure skating and I remember on my first day of this office job, I was asked to go make a copy of my driver’s license – I stood in front of that copy machine forever because I had absolutely no idea how it worked and was too embarrassed to admit it to anyone.

While working at the office, the marketing team needed some material written for some fitness challenges – but needed the insight from a trainer as it required a deeper layer of science than the marketing team was qualified to write.

They asked me to write on ebook, and then another, and then another, and finally they realized they needed this full time. Before I knew it, I found myself on the Marketing team as a Content Marketing Specialist.

Sitting there with no college degree, no prior knowledge of marketing, I felt 100th % like an imposter.

But I looked at the two scenarios: The position to be a personal trainer was always going to be on the table, the position to be on the marketing team wouldn’t ever be an option again. So, I decided to at least try and if it didn’t work out, I could simple carry back on the path I was originally on. No harm no foul.

One month into the position, their email marketer quit. They said, “Chelsea, can you fill this position until we hire someone new?”. I said yes and they never hired anyone new. Although it was not in my title, but I was now the content marketer and email marketer. I was writing emails that would be used for 300 franchise locations.

I was writing a weekly newsletter for a list that went out to 250,000 people, and I was excelling.

Fast forward 6 months, our director of marketing decided that we needed to launch a podcast and designated me to be the person to produce it (with the COO being the host)

I remember going back to my desk, opening up google, and typing “how to start a podcast”.

Side note: This was before podcasts were cool and everyone and their mom had a podcast, about 6 years ago.

Fast forward, I figured out how to produce a podcast and it was the #3 ranking nutrition podcast on Apple Podcasts.

I realized that in order to grow the podcast, I also needed to grow the COOs Instagram account. I volunteered to take it over and grow it 6x in 9 months.

At this point, I was wearing 4 different hats + taught myself how to do all my own graphic design as our graphic designers never prioritized what I needed. With each hat I was wearing, I was growing it exponentially.

But at this point, I still had imposter syndrome. I still didn’t think I was good enough or was doing enough. I was underpaid ($45K/year for doing all this work) and the amount I was getting paid made me feel like that was all that I was worth. But, I was miserable sitting at a desk each day – I wasn’t made for that. I was burnt out with all the work I was doing and getting zero appreciation for any of it. I felt stuck.

Then, my best friend told me I needed to start my own podcast production business. I thought she was insane – I had no college degree, how the hell could I launch my own business? I wasn’t ready, I needed more time, I needed to learn more, I had all the excuses. But, one day I woke up and said I was going to do it. I made a plan to pitch my services to 5 people a day until I was able to lock things in and quit my job. It only took about 3 days of pitching until I got two clients. I locked them in and put in my 2 weeks.

I quit, with only $3,000 in my bank account. (I’ve actually never told anyone that before, but I’m proud of myself for taking a chance on myself).

Within just 2 months of starting my business I was already making more than at my desk job (no hard to beat LOL).

Then COVID hit. I had two clients drop me, and I had an OH SHIT moment. But about one week in, I got so many referrals as everyone needed to shift and go digital and launch a podcast. With podcasts just gaining traction, not a lot of producers available, and with me specializing in health/fitness, I created an extremely great niche for myself that helped my business grow.

But at this time, I my goal was growth. My goal was freedom. For the first two years of my business, it wasn’t really a business, I was just freelancing. I just wanted to have the freedom to work when I wanted and where I wanted and to go mountain biking whenever I wanted (my life revolved around mountain bike and to be honest, it still does).

Fast forward two years, I broke my knee and couldn’t mountain bike in the height of mountain biking season. So what did I do? I created an official business for myself, set goals for scaling, and implemented processes for growth that didn’t require me to do all the work myself.

I invested in my business to grow my business. I built a team. Sure, I didn’t make any money for a couple of months as I hired them before I pitched new clients, but I needed them in order to pitch new clients.

I decided that I was really going to do this – I was going to be a podcast production agency. I was going to be a legit business owner.

Fast forward another 2.5 years, I now have 3 full time employees, 2 part-time contractors, 15 clients, and a business that I love.

2. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges?

No, it wasn’t easy. The best things that happen to us are typically also the hardest challenges we ever have to face. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. For the first year of my business, I worked 70 hour weeks, I would wake up at 5am to start working. I was hustling.

Growing up I was a competitive figure skating (Competing at the highest level + going to the olympic trials). I didn’t get there by doing it leisurely. I skated 7 days a week. I skated 25 hours a week. I skated all year round. I left school at 12pm to go practice. I was at the ice rink from 1pm -6pm daily. In the summers I trained from 8am to 3pm. I didn’t enjoy youth the same way other people enjoyed youth. I knew what I wanted and I did what it took to get there. I couldn’t think of anything else except working hard so I could reach my goals.

But that same work ethic that was engrained in me growing up, that same level of dedication and perseverance I had translated into running my own business. I was going to do and I was going to succeed. That was the only option. It didn’t matter how many mistakes I made, how many hours I had to work, I was going to succeed because this is what I decided I wanted to do. And so I did it.

I think so many people give into the urge to give up. It’s the people who push through the urge to give up that actually succeed. I pushed through and to be honest, sometimes it still feels like I’m pushing through. It’s still not easy. But we get to choose our hard in life. I would rather have the hard of building my own business than the hard of building someone else’s business.

3. What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way?

Hire, hire, hire. The cost of outsourcing pays for itself very quickly. So many people want to do everything themselves so they can make more money – but they are looking too short term with this mentality. They you are literally trading time for money. That’s not being an entrepreneur, that’s being self employed (There’s a difference!). When you stop trading time for money is when you know you’re on the right track. And when I say hire, it doesn’t need to be complicated with W2 employees. There are amazing contractors out there who require less managing and deliver higher quality work.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, this week is going to look a lot different depending on who is visiting – so I’ll keep this on the mild side of things as if my parents were visiting – because if my best friends were visiting we would just mountain bike every single day.

One of my favorite places in the world is sitting on the couch at Durango Coffee company. I don’t know what. it is about that place, but it warms my soul – so that is always on the itinerary.

11th street station is my favorite place to hang out in the evenings – especially when there is live music.

The Bookcase and Barber s also a fun hang as it’s a speakeasy with fun cocktails. You enter through a barbershop and someone asks you if you know the password (Don’t stress, it’s found on their website homepage) then they lead you through bookcase to the bar.

James Ranch is also always on the list – the best and highest quality burger and fries you will ever have with an amazing view.

For friends and family who aren’t into extreme sports, I typically take them for a bike ride along the river trail and a mild hike up horse gulch – going at sunset is the best. Paddle boarding along the Aminas is always relaxing, fun, and beautiful.

I typically will drive my family to Molas Pass for an amazing view and do a little bit of a hike (as far as they want to go as that section of trail is apart of the Colorado trail and goes on a long time). Then we would continue on to Ouray as the drive is stunning. I’ll take them to Box Canyon and then if they are up for it, do the Via Ferrata.

Other fun things in Durango that I love: Amaya Spa – super small but has a great Jacuzzi, cold plunge, and sauna and it feels super tranquil. In the summers they have yoga there as well.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My best friend Melissa convinced me that I deserved more than what I was getting at my cooperate job and that I was selling myself short by not starting my own company. If it weren’t for her, I may still be sitting at that desk and perhaps wouldn’t be living the life I’m living. I cannot thank her enough for that. Surrounding yourself with motivated and supportive people is priceless.

Website: www.moxiemedialtd.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meditatingchelsea

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-morrow