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Pull up a seat at our table, where badass women from all walks of life—fashion, beauty, design, music, philanthropy, art, and more—come together to share honest stories, serve truths, and dig into the realities of modern womanhood.
Johanna Almstead:
Hello, everyone. I am menu planning for my next guest and I'm going to start, because I know she likes champagne, I'm going to start with champagne. I'm going to do a little fancy, I'm going to do a little French fancy. I'm going to do traditional gougere, which are a little cheese puff, to start with my champagne. I'm going to go sliced cucumbers and potato chips with a little creme fraiche and some caviar. I'm going to do a little caviar today. I'm in the mood for something salty and delicious. I like to do a mix of both. I have a little fresh cucumber slice because I still have beautiful cucumbers coming from my garden.
Then I also do some potato chips with a dab of creme fraiche, little dollop of caviar, and some bubbles. Then for dinner, I'm actually going to try to recreate. I just went to one of Jean-Georges' restaurants recently, I hadn't been in a while, and they had this lovely chicken dish that he makes, which is a Parmesan crusted chicken with a lemon butter sauce. I'm going to do some zucchini and some yellow squash on the side and some roasted red potatoes. I'm going to serve that with a chilled Beaujolais. I'm into Beaujolais now, little chilled red. It's this nice bridge, for me right now, it's really sunny still, but it's getting a little chilly in the air, so that feels like a really nice meal for this kind of weather.
Then for dinner, I'm just going to keep it simple. I still am getting really beautiful strawberries from the farmer's market. I'm going to do strawberries in Chantilly cream. Super simple and easy. For music, I'm going to do some badass ladies tonight, I think. I'm going to do some Millie Jackson. I'm going to do some Joni Mitchell. I'm going to do some Betty Swann. I'm just going to keep it powerful and lovely and beautiful tonight. I'm so excited for you guys to meet my next guest. She's so interesting and so delightful and I can't wait for you to get to know her, so let's dig in. Hello everyone and welcome to Eat My Words. I'm so happy to be back.
We're back in our fall season, so we are just getting back behind the mic and I'm so thrilled to be here today and introduce you to my next guest. My next guest is a Los Angeles-based creative executive, entrepreneur, writer, and lifelong collector of people, places, ideas, and things worth knowing about. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism and began her career in media, eventually becoming COO of Citysearch. Remember Citysearch? Before moving into nonprofit leadership as executive director of Step Up Women's Network. She later founded Nursery Works, a contemporary children's furniture company that grew from an idea into an internationally distributed brand.
For the past 13 years, she's helped lead the House of Honey, a Los Angeles and Montecito based interior design studio known for its highly personal art-filled approach to interiors. Most recently, she returned to her journalism roots when she founded The Wonderlyst, a cultural newsletter where she writes about the art, books, films, music, food, travel, design, and wonderfully unexpected things she thinks are worth sharing, and we love them. They're good. She has a very good filter. She is also a mother, a friend, a seeker, a connector, a world traveler, and a woman who is endlessly curious. Traci Fleming, welcome to Eat My Words.
Traci Fleming:
Thank you. What a nice introduction. I appreciate that. It's really nice to be here. I feel like I'm in your backyard, in that lovely backyard.
Johanna Almstead:
Still pretty right now.
Traci Fleming:
Yes. Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
Well, thank you so much for being here and for taking the time to share your story. I know you have a very full and busy life, so I always appreciate when people sit down with me for this conversation. I almost always start with the same question because I think it's super interesting what people say. Where would you say your journey began?
Traci Fleming:
Well, I assume you mean just in general, my journey, because oftentimes-
Johanna Almstead:
Whatever you want it to be.
Traci Fleming:
Sure, sure, sure, sure. I grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, on the coast, and I live far too inland right now for my inner nature. I need to get back to the water one day, but I think it began there at the ocean. In many ways that connection to nature is a thread that continues to pull through me today. Then on the professional side, I remember clearly being in fifth grade and I wrote a letter to the editor of our local town newspaper, and it was more of like a feature, although it was written as a letter to the editor. It was about our fifth grade trip to Washington DC, which all the fifth graders would go on when they hit that grade, so I was 10 or 11.
A woman wrote me back a letter in the mail and she was a retired school teacher, and she told me that I had a gift for writing and that I should never forget it and that I should return to it in my life over time.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, I love that.
Traci Fleming:
I've kept her letter. I think that led me to be a journalism major, and I've done a whole bunch of different things. The return, as you said, to my roots in journalism is rather new and exciting and it feels like that is a return of that 10-year-old Traci, which feels great. It feels great.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. You went to UNC Chapel Hill, you graduated from there.
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
What did you do when you graduated? How did you start your career in media? Because I think nowadays all you hear about is kids saying it's impossible to get a job. I know obviously times are very different now, but I always like to hear because it sounds... Most of the time what I hear is that people create their own opportunities, so I want to hear how you started your career after you graduated.
Traci Fleming:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It is all about that. I answered a classified ad in the newspaper. The newspaper, huh? The newspaper keeps coming up. A classified ad in the newspaper for a job that paid $4 an hour working for a company that published telephone directories for universities across the country. I don't know if you went to school at university at the time when you got a phone book.
Johanna Almstead:
No.
Traci Fleming:
You literally went into your room and you moved in and there was a phone book on your bed, and it was how you would contact your friends who lived somewhere else on campus. It also had a very large yellow page advertising section. The job that I answered was for a company in Chapel Hill, where I went to school, that published those campus phone directories. I started off in the production department because they needed to put the ads together so that students would come every summer and learn how to sell advertising, and we'd ship them out to universities all over the country and they would go to all the pizza parlors and sell pizza ads. Then I worked on the team that made the ads look pretty and there was a dark room that I worked in.
All of it is so crazy now how much time it took, but eventually, I wasn't in that job for a long time. I got a promotion to more of a full-time job. Ultimately, I rose through the ranks to become the general manager of that company.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my goodness.
Traci Fleming:
With a little bit of a side twist in the middle, where I moved to New York to work for Ralph Lauren and be a shoe designer.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my goodness.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. It's crazy how that happened and that I did take this detour and ended up coming back and becoming the general manager of the company. Then that decision ultimately led me to California because it connected me to Citysearch.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my goodness. That's so crazy. Okay. We need to back up because I don't think I knew that you ever worked for Ralph Lauren and became a shoe designer.
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
What happened there? You went from working in this directories company to-
Traci Fleming:
Yes. My husband at that time and I were in Miami on a vacation, and we were having a margarita at the bar. I bombshelled him with news about how I wanted to stop doing the directory work. At this time, I think I was leading a department. I was pretty high up, but I wasn't the general manager. I said, "I really want to design shoes." He's like, "Okay, where do you want to do that?" I said, "Well, we either need to live in New York or in Milan."
Johanna Almstead:
Casual.
Traci Fleming:
He was like, "Okay, I pick New York." I was like, "Great." I think that he didn't really believe that anything would happen or at least not happen very quickly, but here we go back to print media. I subscribed to a publication, like a newspaper called Footwear News.
Johanna Almstead:
I know Footwear News very well.
Traci Fleming:
Yes. Yes. I answered an ad in the back of the Footwear News for a production coordinator at Ralph Lauren.
Johanna Almstead:
Did you have any shoe experience?
Traci Fleming:
No. No. No.
Johanna Almstead:
No. Okay.
Traci Fleming:
No. I had put together a makeshift hand-drawn portfolio of shoes that I had dreamed up in my head, but I was not an artist. It was not something I ever showed to anyone. No, I had no experience. All I had was a journalism degree and this University Directories experience. I got a call to do an interview over the phone with the head of the production department at Ralph Lauren. As luck would have it, she was from the South and we connected over being in the South, and she hired me over the phone. I don't think the bar was very high for this job necessarily. I went back to my husband and I said, "I have a job and we need to move to New York." He's like, "I can't move. I just opened a restaurant."
It's a long story, but I ended up moving to New York for a while by myself. This was in 1993 and it was a crazy experience. It was very much like the Devil Meets Prada. It was a hardcore experience. I felt very out of place. Most of the people that worked at Ralph Lauren didn't need a job, and I needed this job. I wanted this job so badly that I didn't even really ask what I was going to be making. I got there with very little money, and I had to eat. Instead of buying separate pasta and spaghetti sauce, I ate the kind that was all mixed together in the can.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, like SpaghettiOs?
Traci Fleming:
Exactly. I had a shoe thrown at my head. I worked very long hours. A lot of my experience at University Directories putting together those ads came into play because I put together line sheets and spec sheets. It was fabulous though. I got to sit in on all the design meetings. I got to be part of the fit models. I never got to see a show, but it was really cool and I loved it. The weather was really, that was one of the years where the stock market closed down because the weather was so bad. I was there for about a year and a half and I got a call from the woman who was general manager at University Directories, which was the directory company, who said, "I got a promotion.
I'm now going to be a very high VP, executive vice president inside of this publishing company. I want you to come back and be the general manager." My husband had never been able to physically move to New York because of the restaurant that he had just opened. While I really learned a lot and loved my job at Ralph Lauren, I knew that fashion was not for me. I wasn't in it for the long haul. I wasn't truly passionate about it. I was going to get a company car and a big raise and coming back to a place that I knew. Technology had come and things were very different, so I came back.
Johanna Almstead:
You didn't have to eat SpaghettiOs anymore.
Traci Fleming:
I could eat real pasta. Yeah, so I came back and I honestly never felt like it was a failure. I felt like what a cool thing I did. How did I do it? I don't know. It was just, I saw something I wanted. I asked for it, and I did it and it was hard, but I loved it. I think that that experience, you know how they say when you look back at what happened in your life, you could draw the threads or figure out what the themes were. That experience helped me with my later experience when I started a furniture company. But yes, I came back and I became the general manager of University Directories and was there for, I think, like four years when I got a call from someone I had graduated college with, who was living in Pasadena at the time.
They were working at an internet incubator. Bill Gross had started eToys and epets.com, and he was starting this media company called Citysearch, and the very first market they wanted to test it in was Chapel Hill.
Johanna Almstead:
No way.
Traci Fleming:
They said, "Come be the general manager of this really cool new company that nobody could really understand or explain." I came out to Pasadena to interview for the job and I got to my hotel and there was a note there that said, "Hi, Traci. Welcome. Can't wait to meet you." This was Charles Conn and Thomas Layton, two very erudite Stanford entrepreneurs who were now doing this fancy internet thing. They said, "We're going to meet you on the Frisbee golf course." I was like, "I don't have anything to wear to an interview on a Frisbee golf course, and also I don't play Frisbee." I had to go and get an outfit really fast.
My first interview at Citysearch was on the Frisbee golf course, and I guess I did okay because I got the job. Then came back to Chapel Hill and ran that market for a good two or three years before I then became a regional vice-president. We rolled out Citysearch markets from New York all the way down to Miami and as far west, I think for me, as Nashville. I ran all those markets. Then in 1999, I was asked to become the CEO of the company and I said no.
Johanna Almstead:
Really?
Traci Fleming:
I didn't want to-
Johanna Almstead:
How old were you at that point? You were like in your 20s still?
Traci Fleming:
Yeah, exactly. I said no because I knew that I was a better number two.
Johanna Almstead:
Interesting.
Traci Fleming:
The person who was running the New York Citysearch office, he and I had spent a lot of time together and I said, "I think you need to hire Steven to be CEO and let me be COO. If you do that, then I'll move to Pasadena and do this and I'll do that job." They were reluctant at first because that wasn't their plan. I should have figured out a way for them to feel like they had made up that plan, but it ended up working out. I moved to Pasadena. We moved to Pasadena, my husband at the time and I, on New Year's Eve 1999, when Y2K was was going to happen.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my God, yes. The whole world was going to explode.
Traci Fleming:
And the plane was going to crash and the ATMs weren't going to work and all the things, and it all worked out just fine. Yeah, that was business school for me, was running an internet company.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. Wait, we need to go back because I need to know what you wore to Frisbee golf, because I don't think I would know what to wear to Frisbee golf.
Traci Fleming:
Pasadena was not as fancy, or there weren't as many shops as there are now in what's called Old Town, but there was a Banana Republic. I was at a hotel near the Banana Republic. I just walked into the Banana Republic and I bought some khakis and I think I bought some tennis shoes, and who knows what I wore on top, but I looked very conservative and waspy, I'm sure, but it worked. Then afterwards I had the best meal. I had the first time I'd ever had catfish. We went to this fancy restaurant and had catfish.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my gosh. Isn't it funny?
Traci Fleming:
It was so fun.
Johanna Almstead:
When you think about those meals?
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. You find yourself in Pasadena, you're the number two at Citysearch, which is a very big job, I imagine, at a very high paced time. Well, I don't feel like tech was ever not high paced.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. We went through three or four major reorgs while I was there where I had to... I was responsible for about 2,000 people and I had to lay off many times. Also, while I was there, we went through a public offering. Those experiences, they shape you, for sure.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah. There's no way to learn those unless you go through them, I feel like.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
But you were still quite young, right? Yeah.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. I was in my late 20s and then I was in my early 30s when this was going on. Yeah, I feel like there's been this theme where someone above me has felt like I was ready for something before I felt like I was. I did not feel like I was ready for a promotion I got at University Directories, but I did it anyway. Because I've had really amazing mentors in my life who have always seen something in me that I didn't see in myself and because I'm a pretty trusting person and I guess a bit of a risk-taker, I listened.
Johanna Almstead:
I would say a big risk-taker. Leaving your new husband and his business and your hometown or your college town, that all feels big.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. I feel like I've lost some of that as I've gotten older, but I'd like to try and find more of that moxie again because it was, you don't see all of the pros and cons necessarily. You just see all the pros and you're just like, "I'm going to go for it. What have I got to lose?" Yes, even my idea of becoming the COO of Citysearch, I don't know that at the time I really believed I could do it. But yeah, I was still young and making it happen.
Johanna Almstead:
When you were young, did you have a picture of what grownup success would look like or what having it all would look like?
Traci Fleming:
No, I didn't. I knew that I wanted to move from North Carolina. I did go to school three hours away from home, and that was like a baby step, but I knew I wanted to live somewhere else. It was always New York. I think I loved reading and fashion and history and learning about other people, biographies. I loved reading biographies, and just travel. I knew that it needed to be somewhere else, but I didn't know what it looked like. I've always dabbled in a lot of different things. I played the violin and the piano. I loved writing. I loved reading. I didn't know where it would take me. For a long time, I thought I was going to work in advertising.
My degree was in journalism, but it was a concentration in advertising, and I thought I was going to work in an ad agency. I loved Bewitched and Samantha's husband, and what he did was always very exciting to me. I feel like I had a very broad open mind to what could happen, but I always knew that I was going to need to be the one to do it.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. Yeah. Then what did you do when you left Citysearch? How did that happen?
Traci Fleming:
What happened there was, one of the things that happened at Citysearch is that we were acquired by Barry Diller and he merged us with Ticketmaster. When Barry Diller got on the scene, that was real business school. I was the only female executive at a high level on the team, aside from his wife, Diane, who would sometimes come to the board meetings, but it was challenging to be the only woman. At that time, I think I was like 37 and I hadn't had kids yet, and I really wanted to have kids. I had my daughter at the age of 38. One of the first people that I met in Los Angeles was a woman named Kaye Popofsky Kramer. Kaye worked at CAA as a talent agent.
She also had started a really cool women's nonprofit called Step Up Women's Network, and I wanted to get involved in something and give back. I met with her and she's a dynamo. By the end of that first lunch, she had me committing Citysearch to be a sponsor of her annual concert at the Wiltern Theater. We became very integrated quickly at all levels. Then I also joined the board of Step Up. I did a lot with Step Up over the years. I recruited for and ran the board. We did all kinds of fundraising. I loved it. I brought all of my friends from Citysearch onto the board. We were such a dynamic group of women who were making all kinds of great things happen and raising money for women's health and social issues.
Kaye and I stayed very close. When I was pregnant with my daughter, she and I said, "We do so many good things together. Let's start a business." We decided, which was, in hindsight, a very difficult endeavor that we chose to do, which was to launch a baby and kids' furniture company. At the time that this was going on, and we were brainstorming it, the nursery had never been thought of differently in a very long time, maybe ever. The furniture in the nursery was very traditional, sleigh beds, very ornate, and we wanted to do something very modern. We designed a little suite of a crib, a rocking chair, and a changing table, very mid-century, and took it to the big trade show called ABC Kids in Vegas.
Hung up a banner and started Nursery Works. Some of this was happening while I was at Citysearch, side hustling the idea. Then I left after maternity leave and decided to put full force behind this and, yeah, grew it to an international company. It was so much fun, but we didn't know anything about what we were doing, nothing. We had no idea that furniture like this, how and where it could be made, that there were federal regulations on how wide apart the slats were so the baby couldn't put their limb through it or their neck and choke themselves.
Testing and distribution and trucking and warehousing and all the... I could do all the marketing and design the website and make the pretty things pretty, but all the logistics and everything, no, we had no idea. We were learning it as we went. She was a talent agent. She managed Jim Carey and Renee Zellweger for a living.
Johanna Almstead:
This is so random, that you chose this particular business.
Traci Fleming:
It is. We should have just started a pillow company. I don't know why on earth. It was so fun though. I still have a lot of the pieces. On my front porch is a bookcase that we made that is shaped like a tree. I have the tiny little rocking chairs that we made for kids that one day I hope my kids will have. I'll have a grandkid who'll want to use it. At one point, we had about a hundred distributors across the country. We went to all the trade shows. We did partnerships with people who made us bedding and rugs. Then after that, when we started, then a whole bunch of other people started doing modern baby and kids' furniture. In many ways, we started a movement.
Johanna Almstead:
That's so wild.
Traci Fleming:
We started at the same time as someone in your neck of the woods, David Netto.
Johanna Almstead:
I was just about to say his name because my best friend had one of the, still does actually, has one of the coolest baby kid stores in New York City. She was the first to carry David Netto in New York, right around that same time.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah, the Netto Collection. David was at the same trade show as us, but we didn't know it. It's a huge trade show. We didn't know that we were at the same trade show. We launched at the same time and went through it all at the same time and then a bunch of people started doing it. It was really cool. I really enjoyed those days. I feel like so many of the experiences I had at Citysearch and also at Ralph Lauren prepared me for that. Yeah, it was cool. Then we started distributing in Australia. Then 2008, 2009 hit and the crash, and a lot of our clients were like Tribeca, people who worked in the financial industry.
We had already started thinking that we wanted to try and sell the business and we had a couple of rough years. Then we found a suitor who came to us and wanted to buy the company.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, wow.
Traci Fleming:
At that point, my kids were out of cribs, out of bunk beds. I was starting to feel like I wasn't as passionate about this particular industry anymore, and I didn't have anything else on my radar. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I was ready to let it go. The company that bought us was a long time baby and kids furniture manufacturer, who ironically lives about five minutes from me in San Marino. They had been manufacturing baby furniture for years. It was a family business for years, but the only thing they didn't have in their lineup was luxury, and we had created luxury. Our cribs were north of a thousand dollars. Beyonce had our crib.
Angelina Jolie had bought our crib. So, they wanted luxury. Then a twist in the deal that came at the end was that they wanted me to come. If they were going to buy the company, I had to go work for them.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, wow. What'd you do?
Traci Fleming:
To transition the brand into their company, which was not something I wanted to do, but I did it.
Johanna Almstead:
How long did you work there?
Traci Fleming:
About a year and a half. I was always really grateful that this baby, pun intended, that we had started was living on. I didn't have the juicy couture mentality where I needed to be managing its direction forevermore. I was ready to let it go and I was really glad. It still exists. I was really glad for it to go. The transition happened and it lived on. It was good. I think the other thing that made that time challenging was I was going through a divorce.
Johanna Almstead:
That's hard too.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. Then what happens after that? You get out of this business, you've sold it, you worked for them for a year and a half, you moved on. What happens next? You get divorced in the meantime.
Traci Fleming:
I did get divorced and then I was like, "What am I going to do now?" I don't know. I had really no idea. I just knew that I had done a lot of really interesting things and I thought about going back into digital media, but I wanted to take a minute to just be in my body and feel how I was feeling, and I went and I did that. One night, a friend of mine who had actually designed the home that I'm still in right now, invited me to a cocktail party in Beverly Hills, because she was being honored as a feature inside of a new design magazine that was launching, it's called Domain. She said, "Come with me. I want you to be there." Well, we were there and it was a cocktail party.
We were drinking. She was like, "What are you going to do now?" I was like, "I honestly don't know." She was like, "I really want you to come and work with me. I'm ready to take my interior design firm to the next level, and I think you could do it. I want to do so many cool things. I want to do hospitality projects. I'm just doing residential now. Come help me." I said, "You know what? You've been drinking. We'll see if you still think that tomorrow." She called me the next day.
Johanna Almstead:
That was probably very wise of you, I have to say. You weren't signing on the dotted line over the cocktails.
Traci Fleming:
No. She called me the next day and she's like, "I was serious." I put together a 90-day plan for what... I interviewed her basically, like, "What have you been doing so far?" I knew about her business because she obviously had designed my home, but I didn't know everything. I interviewed her. I heard what she wanted, what she aspired to do. Again, I like being number two, so how can I help this person achieve their goals? How can I make them shine? How can I make their job easier? I put together a 90-day plan and it included new business development, like getting hotels, getting restaurants, getting big projects, bringing my shipping and fulfillment experience that I cobbled together at Nursery Works to some things that they wanted to do.
With how to acquire furniture and distribute it and all the things, maybe even designing a new line. I went and visited with her and presented the plan, and I was hired. On the first day of my job, I walked down the street to just stretch my legs. I walked down the street and walked into this space that was under construction, about two blocks down from the studio. It was a restaurant and I got us a restaurant job.
Johanna Almstead:
On your first day?
Traci Fleming:
On my first day. I felt really good about myself then.
Johanna Almstead:
Damn, you deliver.
Traci Fleming:
I delivered. It was so fun. We did that project and then some of the other things that she wanted to have happen came true. Now I blink and it's 13 years later and I'm there and we are doing some really cool things. I love it because it's a perfect mix of my right brain, left brain. I'm basically the president of the company or the studio director, and I do everything but actual design. I run the team, I run our marketing, I run our PR, I run our partnerships, I negotiate our contracts. I do business development. I wear very many hats. It was perfect at that time because after the divorce, my kids were still pretty young, and I wanted to be close to home for them. I felt that was very important.
That was the other thing I was wrestling with, is like, what am I going to do next that doesn't take me two hours in a car every day to the west side? This was five minutes from my house.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my gosh.
Traci Fleming:
And still is, which is crazy. We also have a studio in Montecito, so I get the absolute privilege of going there as often as I can to work on projects, but yeah. I've struggled a lot over the years with, what is my identity? What am I? Who am I? If I had to write it down, what am I?
Johanna Almstead:
You're an operator though. You're totally an operator, but you're like a creative operator.
Traci Fleming:
I am a creative operator. I like to say that I build brands, businesses, and bottom lines, but at the heart of it, I'm a generalist. For a long time, I think generalist is a dirty word. You don't specialize in anything. You don't really know a lot about one thing. You know a little bit about a lot of things. That's not great. There was a time when I flirted with going back into digital media and the fact that it had changed so much and I didn't know anything about it was really scary. But now with AI with us and the horrible daunting fears about what that's doing to people and their careers, the generalist is now a pretty word. I'm actually really proud to say that I am a generalist because I can and have done a lot of different things, and I think that's very valuable.
Johanna Almstead:
I also think it's a certain personality that is like a figure it outer. I am not that person. I am 100% not a generalist. I'm not sure what I do because I don't know if I know a lot about one thing either. But I have a couple friends who, again, also interestingly have had very windy career paths that most of the time what they figured out was they could figure it out. It was like they could get into a business and they could figure out how to run it. That's why I always go back to the operator part of things because I'm not a person who's good at that stuff at all. I have friends who they've made their careers out of it because they can get in, get their boots on the ground, and they can figure out how to run the business, whatever the business is, which is wild.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. I think if I were to be in an unfortunate position to have to look for a new job, that's a hard story to convince someone of. I know that I could get inside most any business. I need to have a little bit of a passion or an interest in it, but I could get inside, even a nonprofit because I have the Step Up Women's Network experience, inside a foundation or whatever. I know I could figure it out. But that's where networking is so important because someone's like, "Yeah, she is the real deal. She knows what she's talking about. She's super smart. She can figure it out." Or, whatever they need to say about you to get your foot in the door, that's so important because just saying that is not going to convince someone to give you a shot.
Johanna Almstead:
Right. It's so true. I think it's hard to put on a resume, right? It's hard to glean that expertise when you haven't watched you in action.
Traci Fleming:
It's a soft, soft, soft skill.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah. It's interesting. Okay. Then you happily have been helping to run House of Honey, right?
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
For these many years and that you get to do all the things but design, but you're in this super creative environment, which I think is interesting too. You keep dipping your toe back into these creative environments, which I think is great. Then tell me what made you start The Wonderlyst, because that's where we are now.
Traci Fleming:
Sure. That's been a real passion project of mine and something that I can see being around for a long time, because it's feeding me creatively in ways that I think go back to that 10-year-old Traci. I've always been the friend in the group that people have turned to to say, "Okay, we're going to go out. Where do we go? What do we do?" I think that comes from Citysearch because our mandate was to highlight where to go and what to do in the city and help you plan it. Interestingly, on product development at Citysearch, there were no women. I'm like, "That's crazy because women are the ones who plan things." I got myself very involved in product development because I really felt like it needed that touch.
I'm always that person. I was having drinks with a bunch of women and a woman was there who runs a not to be named, very well regarded publication. We were chatting about, I don't know what, I think I mentioned a fashion brand that was just starting and a restaurant here or whatever. Over the next month or two, I started to see some of the things that I had chatted with her about show up in their newsletter. Now it could have been total coincidence. I do believe that, what is the phrase? It was a form of flattery, so I didn't take it.
Johanna Almstead:
Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Okay.
Traci Fleming:
Exactly. I didn't take it as a negative, but it did spark a desire in me to do it. My friends had always been saying like, "You need to do something with all this knowledge." I'm highly, highly insatiably curious. I realize there's a lot of people who are doing a lot of recommending. I think that I get very overloaded by that on social media. I'm very, very sensitive to that. I'm not trying to, with The Wonderlyst, say anything more than, these are my rabbit holes that bring me an opportunity to step outside of myself and capture this transformative power of wonder, which wonder and awe, scientifically proven to have health benefits.
I needed, at many times in my life, to feel that transformative power, whether it's standing in some beautiful natural experience or environment or seeing a painting or watching a film that connects with me emotionally, or reading an article that really made me think. I wanted to capture the essence of that transformative power into something, and it became The Wonderlyst. I know that for me, taking time out to do those things is really good for me. I don't know how much you know about human design, and that's a whole nother podcast, but my human design is projector, which means that one of the hallmarks of being a projector is that you need to wait for the invitation.
Meaning that I am not going to be successful if I try to tell everyone where to go and what to do. I need for people to find me. Then if they ask me and I give that, then that's a symbiotic relationship. It's a very unique quality and one that is, it's been hard for me to understand. If someone doesn't take my advice or think what I think is cool is cool, it used to be that I would get very bitter about that. How can you not see it? But over time, I've come to learn this about myself. The right people will find me and my rabbit holes may not be for you or not all of them may be for you, that's totally fine. I'm trying really hard to just stay in my lane and do what feels good to me.
If it resonates with people, great. If it doesn't, that's fine too. It's been really fun and really successful and I get a lot of really great feedback about it. At its core, it's a weekly newsletter. Again, I've bitten off more than sometimes I can chew, which is a weekly newsletter, a weekly newsletter with a dozen ideas for how to find wonder in your life.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Yay.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. I love the idea of wonder. I've been thinking about it a lot. I was just reflecting on summer and I was thinking about how for me wonder is so much more accessible to me during summer, because I'm a summer baby and I love summer. I was thinking about this idea that I'm always in this state of like awe, and I can fall in love so easily with a place or a thing or a person or whatever in the summer because I have the time I think more and the mental space. I've been trying to think about how I can bring that sense of wonder into the rest of the year because the slide from September to the holidays can be a slippery slope, so I love this idea.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah, that's a great goal to have. First of all, kudos to you for recognizing that that's how you feel, and the environment and the space that you have to feel that is a catalyst. How could you bring that into other times of the year? I think that's a great goal to have.
Johanna Almstead:
Well, luckily The Wonderlyst will be in my inbox every week, so that'll help remind me.
Traci Fleming:
Well, you have a Wonderlyst now.
Johanna Almstead:
I do.
Traci Fleming:
I'm so excited.
Johanna Almstead:
Yay.
Traci Fleming:
I learned so many new things. I'm just intrigued.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. You have a full-time job. You are also a parent. You have a side hustle, which is a pretty big deal. How do you nourish yourself?
Traci Fleming:
I do Pilates. I've been doing Pilates for about nine years and I'm addicted. I love a founding membership of anything. I like to become a founding member. I became a founding member of this little Pilates studio in my town and founding members tend to get lots of goodies and a good price. That's the last thing I would ever cancel on my list, is my Pilates. I also do yoga and a stretch class at the gym of which I am a founding member. I love spending time with my friends. The Wonderlyst has given me a great opportunity to test drive so many things in Los Angeles, in my community, galleries and all the things. I do that as much as I can. I have a special ritual called sARTurday, which is Saturday I go look at art.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah. Summer is a lot of pause for that, but we're coming up on the big fall gallery swing, so sARTurdays will be back in motion. I try to get to the ocean as much as possible. I've got a trip coming up where we're literally just going to be sitting by the ocean and floating hopefully on a boat, if we're lucky. Yeah, those things are important.
Johanna Almstead:
That sounds lovely. I love that The Wonderlyst also just gives you a remit. It gives you a job that you have to make sure you're filling your life with wonder so you can fill other people's lives with wonder. I like that.
Traci Fleming:
Exactly. Yeah. I think that was the hidden goal selfishly.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah. You have to have a hidden agenda sometimes with these side hustles. Okay. You've achieved, clearly, you've achieved a lot. What is an achievement that you are the most proud of?
Traci Fleming:
I think that if I look back at the whole arc of things, there are two things I'm most proud of. One was my unbridled moxie to go after things that I didn't necessarily know anything about or had a clue about, or even felt that I could really do. The second, which is probably more important, is all of the people that I was able to mentor. There are just so many people that as a leader I was able to stand beside and walk through day-to-day business decisions and the ups and downs, all of it. They've gone on to do amazing things and start their own companies. I'm just so proud that I got to be a part of their careers at whatever stage they were.
I love thinking about those moments of leadership that I was able to. I became and learned how to become a leader by walking the path with all those people.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah. Amazing. Is there something that you once believed about yourself that you've since outgrown?
Traci Fleming:
Such a great question. I think it's not necessarily about myself, but something that I believed that I've really come to understand. It's just, it comes with a lot of experience and age, is that I used to think that things that were hard were going to be struggles and they would give me lots and lots of anxiety. I'm a worrier, I would worry, worry, worry. But this concept of everything will work out is something I used to not believe at all. I used to believe that I had to fight my way through it and come up immediately with the solution. If I didn't check it off my list, it was going to plague me forever. Now, having had a lifetime of experience of seeing things that look like the worst thing that could have possibly ever happened to me, or the business or whatever it was or my kids or whatever, all of it worked out.
I love that now I have that perspective because it used to ring me into knots. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely times where I'm like, oh, maybe this is the thing that's going to do me in.
Johanna Almstead:
This is it. I'm going down with this one.
Traci Fleming:
But if I just take the six breaths in and the eight breaths out and say, I know this to be true, I will get through this, this will work out, then it's proven to help me see another day.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. Is there anything that you've said no to that you wish you said yes to? Because it seems like you said yes to a lot and you created a lot of yeses for yourself, but is there anything that you said no to that you're like, damn, I should have done that.
Traci Fleming:
No. I think that I have a problem saying no. I'm learning to do that more, but I don't know that there's anything that's ever come across my plate that I've said... I don't have any regrets. I really don't.
Johanna Almstead:
Good. I feel really strongly about everyone doing so, but particularly women and particularly women of a certain age continuing to dream for themselves. What are you dreaming about these days?
Traci Fleming:
I am dreaming about two children who are fully launched and super happy doing what they love, who worried about the world in which they are embarking upon. I have a 23-year-old and a 21-year-old. I dream about that being all good. Like, it's going to work out. I dream about a space in my life that would allow me to travel more. I love to travel and I would love to do a lot more of that. I could see some amalgamation of The Wonderlyst, art, beauty, nature, and food. We haven't even talked about food on this part too, food, wine, all coming together in some tangible experience.
Johanna Almstead:
Sounds dreamy.
Traci Fleming:
I don't know what it is.
Johanna Almstead:
Please invite me when you figure out what that space is.
Traci Fleming:
Yes, I will. You're definitely at the top of the list.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. Well, speaking of food, we are just at the point in this interview where we're going to do the lightning round of questions, silly questions.
Traci Fleming:
Oh, okay.
Johanna Almstead:
Many of them are about food. We're going to get a little into food now because I do like to talk about food, because I just love it and I like to make up stories about why people choose the foods that they like. Okay. Don't overthink it. It's just from your gut, favorite comfort food.
Traci Fleming:
From my gut. Okay. Favorite comfort food. Okay. It is a childhood comfort food and it's followed me through my whole life. It is cream of mushroom soup poured over buttered toast. It's really good.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my God.
Traci Fleming:
You have to try that.
Johanna Almstead:
That feels like a recipe that was in weird good housekeeping in the '50s or something.
Traci Fleming:
I'm sure.
Johanna Almstead:
It's like, have you ever had chipped beef on toast?
Traci Fleming:
It is like chipped beef on toast.
Johanna Almstead:
It's like a vegetarian version.
Traci Fleming:
It's really good.
Johanna Almstead:
Will you make it for yourself still? Will you eat it?
Traci Fleming:
Oh, yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, okay. Is it like Campbell's cream of mushroom soup?
Traci Fleming:
Mm-hmm.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay.
Traci Fleming:
It's probably not that healthy.
Johanna Almstead:
I'm into it. I like it. Okay. What was your first paid job, the first time you ever exchanged labor for money?
Traci Fleming:
I worked in the lingerie department at a drug store in Wilmington, North Carolina called Roses.
Johanna Almstead:
A full lingerie in a drug store?
Traci Fleming:
Well, it was like, what kind of store was it?
Johanna Almstead:
Like a general store kind of?
Traci Fleming:
It was like a general store kind of.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay.
Traci Fleming:
Well, this is a weird example of why the store is so odd. I hated working in the lingerie department. I hated it. The bras were always falling off the little hangers and I was like, "Can I please get transferred?" They put me in the hotdog stand.
Johanna Almstead:
Definitely a general store.
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
Well, that was your first step in your career as a generalist. You could do hotdogs or bras.
Traci Fleming:
I never thought about it that way, but you are so right. Yes, absolutely.
Johanna Almstead:
Come and get a bra and then get a hotdog. Amazing.
Traci Fleming:
Oh, gosh. We could go somewhere with that. That's not good.
Johanna Almstead:
That's not good.
Traci Fleming:
We're not going to do it.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. What is something you are really, really good at?
Traci Fleming:
I'm really good at connecting people. My taste in people are very varied, so it doesn't always work out well to have a dinner party with all of my different friends there, but what is successful is me meeting this person over here and that person over here and going, "Oh, you guys need to meet." Then connecting them and then something happens. I love that. I love doing it. I'm also a really good researcher. I could be a private detective if I wasn't doing what I'm doing.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. I have a friend who's like that. She solves crimes and things in her spare time.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. What is something you're really bad at?
Traci Fleming:
I don't know directions. I have a bad compass. You don't want me to be your compass.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. I do. I used to really pride myself on my sense of direction and some. I don't know. I feel like it's maybe once I had kids, that part of my brain just really went somewhere else. It's no longer...
Traci Fleming:
I never had it.
Johanna Almstead:
Maybe I was fooling myself all those times. I don't know. Okay, the writer in you, what is your favorite word?
Traci Fleming:
Well, I use the word nonsense a lot. I feel like there's so much nonsense happening in the world and people acting nonsensically. I use the word nonsense a lot.
Johanna Almstead:
It's such a good word.
Traci Fleming:
It is a great word. I also have this new app on my phone called, I think it's just called the vocabulary app, and you can choose categories of words that you would like to know about, like you want to learn more food words or you want to learn more fashion words. The word that came up, I think yesterday, that I really loved is gossamer, which is a very floaty, thin fabric. It's a fun little app.
Johanna Almstead:
I think I had that on my phone and then I don't know what happened to it.
Traci Fleming:
It's like a widget.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah.
Traci Fleming:
It pops up.
Johanna Almstead:
It pops up with a word of the day kind of thing. Yeah.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah, and then you can train yourself and test yourself.
Johanna Almstead:
Gossamer. It's a good word.
Traci Fleming:
It is a good word, but so is nonsense.
Johanna Almstead:
So is nonsense. I say nonsense all the time. It was very funny. Actually, my 13-year-old said something the other day and she goes, "It's just a bunch of nonsense." I was like, "Oh my God, you sound like me. That's amazing." It was very cute coming out of her little 13-year-old tweener body. Okay, so we know cream mushroom soup on toast. What is your least favorite food?
Traci Fleming:
Well, it's the one food I'm allergic to. I had a very bad reaction to raw tuna.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, how sad.
Traci Fleming:
That sent me to the emergency room and I had to spend a night there. That is my least favorite food, sadly.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah, I get that. That makes sense.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, least favorite word.
Traci Fleming:
Dare I say, I have two. My first is chic. I'm so tired. Dare I say that.
Johanna Almstead:
It's okay.
Traci Fleming:
Please stop telling me what is or isn't, and then boundary. I think it's such an overused word and I think it's an excuse for people to behave badly and I'm so over it.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. I feel like people in LA particularly like to talk about their boundaries.
Traci Fleming:
Yup. It's really bad when you've got people at work saying that they can't do something because they have a boundary. It's like, I took a $4 an hour job back in the day and I was lucky if I made my age. You have to do things. Anyway, boundary, it's a trigger word for me.
Johanna Almstead:
I understand. Okay. Other than Pilates and yoga and stretching and going to see art, do you have any hobbies?
Traci Fleming:
I don't think I do. Do I need one? I don't think I do.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. It's okay.
Traci Fleming:
Maybe I'll develop one over time. I like to drink champagne. Could that be a hobby?
Johanna Almstead:
I think that's a great hobby. I'm really supportive of that. Okay. Best piece of advice you have ever received.
Traci Fleming:
Well, I think we've talked about both of them. I think one of them is that projector in me, to know who I am I need to be sure that I wait for the invitation. When I have waited for the invitation, then things have always worked out really well for me. The second would be, well, maybe I should say that it's the woman who wrote me the letter back in fifth grade, who said to return to this. I'm going to go with that because look where it's taken me.
Johanna Almstead:
Return to this. I also am confused a little bit about the projector thing because most of these huge big risks that you took in your life that led you to success were not waiting for an invitation. You asked for them.
Traci Fleming:
Because those were for me alone. It's really about, the wait for the invitation is really in regards to your relationship with others.
Johanna Almstead:
With others. Okay. Got you.
Traci Fleming:
Again, a whole nother podcast episode.
Johanna Almstead:
A whole nother podcast. Okay. Ooh, this is a good one. I like this one. If your personality were a flavor, what would it be?
Traci Fleming:
A flavor. A flavor. I would say almond. I think an almond could be a flavor, right?
Johanna Almstead:
For sure.
Traci Fleming:
The almond to me is a really good representation of who I am because it could be raw. You could get it naked, raw, no accoutrement, or you could get it salted or roasted or sweetened with some chocolate on top. I'm a Gemini, so I'm all those things all at once.
Johanna Almstead:
I like it.
Traci Fleming:
I also love almond flavoring inside of a croissant. Like an almond croissant.
Johanna Almstead:
Like the almond paste?
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. Last supper, what would your meal be tonight?
Traci Fleming:
It would absolutely be oysters, french fries, and champagne.
Johanna Almstead:
Perfect. Any dessert?
Traci Fleming:
More champagne.
Johanna Almstead:
We're going into the next lifetime wasted.
Traci Fleming:
A little tipsy. A little tipsy. A little tipsy.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay, so champagne. Got it. Okay. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you've had to eat your words and would you like to share?
Traci Fleming:
Such a great question, obviously. You know what? I wish that I had had more moments where I wish I could have eaten my words. I don't have enough of those moments. I'm thinking about a particular big thing that happened to me over the last year and a half, two years, which was the loss of a friendship. I think that if I had spoken up sooner, and I might have said some things that would have caused me to really need to eat my words, I think that I could have saved myself a lot of angst and misery through that whole process. I will speak up when someone is in danger or someone's being awful to another human or to one another or to an animal or whatever.
But I grew up in the South where when you say bless her heart, you mean something else. You're not really saying what you mean, and it's been something I've needed to get over. I want more opportunities where I say something that pisses someone off and then I feel bad about it.
Johanna Almstead:
I love it.
Traci Fleming:
I'd like some more of that.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. I feel like that's a new era for you.
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
I'm very supportive of it. I also feel, I lived in LA for a few years and I also felt like LA was very similar to the South in that no one was direct. I was coming from New York and I was used to being direct.
Traci Fleming:
It's a definite maybe.
Johanna Almstead:
It's a definite maybe, with maybe daggers behind your back. I was so weirded out by it and it really took me a while to... It was very unsettling to me. I couldn't function there well. Okay, so you're going to eat your words more. I love that.
Traci Fleming:
I'm going to. I can't wait to tell you all the trouble I get.
Johanna Almstead:
Why do you think I started this podcast? So I could say stuff that I could get in trouble.
Traci Fleming:
Yes. Or, you could edit it out.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah.
Traci Fleming:
Which you have that power.
Johanna Almstead:
Exactly.
Traci Fleming:
Yes. It's important, I think, that we all find our voice. As you grow older, you find new ways to do that. I think I'm on the precipice of that, for sure.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that for you. I have to say, I feel like, for me, the combination of middle age and hormonal changes definitely made it a lot easier for me to speak my mind.
Traci Fleming:
Absolutely.
Johanna Almstead:
I lost a layer of filter instantly.
Traci Fleming:
Yeah, and not caring so much anymore about what people think about you.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah. For sure. I really stopped caring. Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited for this. I'll coach you in this. I'm good at this.
Traci Fleming:
Thank you.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, you don't have to worry about it nutritionally sustaining you because it's just for fun, what would you eat every day, all day?
Traci Fleming:
I think it's chicken piccata, which is the chicken that's pounded and breaded really thin with lemon. I love chicken piccata. I could eat it every day.
Johanna Almstead:
All day, every day?
Traci Fleming:
Yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
Chicken piccata and champagne. Okay. Where is your happy place?
Traci Fleming:
Anywhere where I'm traveling. It's being in the travel mode and mindset that always makes me happy. Even if I've missed a train or whatever is happening, I'm just so delighted to be traveling. Travel is a happy place for me.
Johanna Almstead:
It's a happy place for you. What did you have for dinner last night?
Traci Fleming:
What did I have for dinner? I had salmon.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, there you go.
Traci Fleming:
Salmon and spinach. It was a poached salmon and lightly dressed spinach. It was a good meal, being a good girl meal. Very healthy.
Johanna Almstead:
Yeah, sounds like it. Healthy, balanced. Okay. What do you wear when you feel like you need to take on the world? So, a big meeting or a big presentation or a hot date or a fun party? What's your power look?
Traci Fleming:
It's a puff sleeve. The bigger, the better. I love a puff sleeve. Puffy sleeves are awesome and I guess they're my version of a shoulder pad.
Johanna Almstead:
Okay. I like it. Most memorable meal you've ever had?
Traci Fleming:
It was recent. I went with two girlfriends to Santina's and we went to a restaurant called Bar Le Cote and it's so fabulous. It's just, he does this lovely California seafood, crudo, vegetable driven cuisine in the most unassuming but charming space. He had done a pluot dish and they were obviously in season and fresh with basil and a cream sauce. Of course, we had champagne. When you go to Bar Le Cote, you sit down and they bring you a glass of champagne.
Johanna Almstead:
That's my kind of place. I love that.
Traci Fleming:
It was fabulous.
Johanna Almstead:
Let's just get things kicked off on the right foot.
Traci Fleming:
Exactly.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that.
Traci Fleming:
Can't recommend it enough. There's a documentary coming out about that restaurant soon that I can't wait to see.
Johanna Almstead:
Fun. Okay. Go-to coping mechanism on a bad day. Shit's going sideways, you can't get your head straight. What do you do?
Traci Fleming:
I have two dogs. One of them is a senior dog who's blind and has dementia, so she can't really walk anymore. But my other dog, Bug, is always up for a walk, so I'll do a walk. A walk is always a great place for me to be, to think through things or not think at all, just be in the moment. Then it almost always is finished with a bath, with lots of a concoction of mustard seed and lavender and rosemary, whatever the bath is. It just extracts all this... I feel like it literally just takes it out of your pores. Then maybe an escape with some sort of a show or a movie, but most likely just sleep. Tomorrow's another day.
Johanna Almstead:
Shut it down. It's my motto. Okay. Dream dinner party guest list. They can be dead or alive. You can have as many as you want. They're all going to say yes, even if they don't know you. Tell me who's coming to your dinner party.
Traci Fleming:
Okay. First would be Josh O'Connor. He's my movie boyfriend and he most definitely needs to be there. Then Tracee Ellis Ross. She and I will both be wearing very big puff sleeves.
Johanna Almstead:
Big sleeves. Yeah. So much voluminous fabric happening.
Traci Fleming:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Marisa Tomei.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh my God.
Traci Fleming:
For sure. I love her.
Johanna Almstead:
I haven't thought about her in a long time. I love her.
Traci Fleming:
Bella Freud, and Nick Cave. My favorite musician on the planet. Those three women are expanders for me, and Josh is my movie boyfriend, so yeah.
Johanna Almstead:
This sounds like a really good party. Are we asking Nick Cave to play music at the party or is he just hanging out?
Traci Fleming:
No, I wouldn't ask him to do that.
Johanna Almstead:
Are you making out with Josh O'Connor at the party?
Traci Fleming:
We'll have to see.
Johanna Almstead:
Maybe, if there's enough champagne involved.
Traci Fleming:
Maybe. Yeah, maybe.
Johanna Almstead:
My last question, what is one thing you know for sure right now in this moment? You don't have to have known it yesterday and you don't have to know it tomorrow. What do you know for sure to be true right now?
Traci Fleming:
I know that I have a lot of gratitude for what I have today and tomorrow will bring me something more to be grateful for. I'm really trying hard to see all the wonder, all the beauty. It's there today and there'll be more of it tomorrow. We all need to just stop and see it. There's an inordinate amount of abundance if we look, and I know that to be true.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. I actually have a post-it right on my computer here that says, all that I need and more, to remind me that I have all that I need and more.
Traci Fleming:
My post-it on my computer says, these are the good days.
Johanna Almstead:
I love that. Can you please tell the nice people who are listening where they can find you, where they can find The Wonderlyst, where they can find House of Honey, your Instagram or websites, all those things?
Traci Fleming:
Sure, yeah. House of Honey is the best place to look, and learn more about House of Honey is at our website, which is houseofhoney.com.
Johanna Almstead:
It is such a gorgeous website. Oh my goodness.
Traci Fleming:
Thank you. It's fun. We're a female founded, female run firm, so it's all ladies doing really great things and our portfolio is there to look at and we have a great Instagram as well. Then The Wonderlyst, the easiest way is to go to thewonderlyst.com and it's spelled L-Y-S-T.com. From there, you can subscribe. You know what I'll do, is I'll give you a code for folks to have a discount for an annual subscription.
Johanna Almstead:
Oh, amazing.
Traci Fleming:
Again, it comes out every week. You get a dozen things and you'll be stacking books on your nightstand and adding songs to your playlist and adding podcasts to your queue, and hopefully some of it resonates.
Johanna Almstead:
Amazing. Thank you so much.
Traci Fleming:
Thank you.
Johanna Almstead:
Yes, everybody should go to The Wonderlyst. It's really, really fun. You'll see me as a contributor on it too, so that's even more fun. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for taking this time.
Traci Fleming:
Thank you. This was so fun. I was nervous, but it was just like, as you say, an easy conversation with a friend. I appreciate you having me so much. I really do.
Johanna Almstead:
I'm so glad. We're going to get you to eat your words a little bit more. That's my mission now coming forward.
Traci Fleming:
Yes.
Johanna Almstead:
Well, that was so fun. I could talk to her all day. I love her accent. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did. If you're not doing so already, please follow us on social media. We are at Eat My Words The Podcast on both TikTok and Instagram. As always, we are so grateful that you continue to tune in, that you're here for this new season listening to our stories and supporting each other by sharing links to this. If you think there's somebody that you think might benefit from listening to this, please send it to them. You can send it to them in their text. You can just text the link.
You can send it in DMs, you can email it, you can do all the things. Again, thank you as always for being here and we will catch you on the next one. This Eat My Words podcast was created, produced, and directed by me, Johanna Almstead. Our sound editor is Isabel Robertson and our social media manager is Isabella Boutros.