226 : How Angela Arwady Left Google for a Sustainable Fashion Business

Introduction & Catching Up

Speaker 1:16

Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Coelho, and I'm so glad you're. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide in just 10 minutes. This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free@mindfulfire.org slash start. Let's jump into today's. Episode.

Adam Coelho 2:05

Angela, welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you here.

Angela Arwady 2:10

Thank you so much for having me, Adam. It's great to see a friendly face.

Adam Coelho 2:13

Yes, I know that you are in a new, exciting chapter of your life and career after a long time at Google, and we've been talking about doing this episode together from before you started your new business. And here we are, doing the episode together. thrilled to have you here and excited to have you share how you got here and where you're going. So yeah, let's. Go ahead.

Angela Arwady 2:36

Go for it. Let's rock out. Yeah. I'm so excited to be here and I, I absolutely love this podcast. I think every single person you interview has such an interesting take about what it means to be mindful and what it means to be, financially independent and what it means to be, really focused on, all the different things.'cause there's so many different stimuli out there right now, and it's just so hard to maintain that focus. Thanks again for having me on. I just think it's wonderful, as you led with, I left Google last July. I worked at both Google and YouTube. I've had multiple different career pivots. I, I think that's actually one thing if we ever wanted to discuss on here. We can get into that. But, started out in hr, ended up moving towards engineering operations and worked on a bunch of different launches for YouTube tv. Now I run my own business, so left in July and I run unpack.com. We are a sustainable and secondhand and handmade focused business. so we support a bunch of different local community artists in the Bay Area. We're expanding to Chicago and Seattle here in the next couple of months. and it's been a really exciting and amazing journey and, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I think entrepreneurship everyone should do at least once.

Adam Coelho 3:47

Very cool. yeah, it's been exciting to follow your journey and to get to know you o over the years. if you're recognizing the last name here, An's husband Dan Ar was on the podcast twice. and I'm gonna find out what episodes those are real quick. let's see.

Angela Arwady 4:05

Dan. Yeah, he's great. Dan has all kinds of stuff. You like

Adam Coelho 4:08

him?

Angela Arwady 4:09

Yeah, all kinds of stuff. He started out in what was Google's groupon, at the time. That's how he got hired in was he was doing Google offers and then, he ended up moving his way through getting another degree and now he's an engineering lead on YouTube music. So yeah, his whole progression is pretty, pretty wild. If you wanna talk about career switches, he's definitely got me, he's got me topped.

Adam Coelho 4:32

Yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah, and he was on episode 39 and episode 182 we did an update episode with him, and so go check those out as well. but today is all about Ange and your journey, so yeah, I'd love to hear just A little bit of that career progression and how you did a bunch of different things and how you ended up, coming to this decision that I want to try entrepreneurship and coming into this business, I, I, I wasn't, we hadn't talked until you were already into it, so I'd love to hear the story of how it came to be and how you grew it from, a, an idea into a full-time business.

The Entrepreneurship Journey

Angela Arwady 5:10

Yeah. I've been, first of all, I have been, I. Buying secondhand clothing since before it was cool. so not to be like the indie, secondhand person, but, I've been purchasing stuff off eBay since probably about 2008. I was, poor college kid. I wanted to dress cool, I wanted to have all the latest stuff, but I had absolutely no money and I was the only one of my friends that would go online, would scout on eBay, would purchase a bunch of random stuff, send it to my door, would wear it. And then when I didn't wanna wear it anymore, I'd flip it. And, I'd been doing that on the side for years. I would say about 85% of my closet is secondhand. my kids closed, almost all my kids clothes are secondhand now. Almost all of Dan's closet is secondhand. and it's just, it was one of those things that it was just always in the back of my mind, man. It would be really cool someday to really promote secondhand, because a lot of my friends and a lot of the people I've talked to. I've always had a difficult time with purchasing secondhand. if you've gone in a thrift store, it's usually pretty chaotic. Nothing's that organized. No, not at all. You can get some pretty bunk stuff. you can come home with things that are, thread bear or have holes that you didn't see and then that's annoying'cause you can't return it. And so a lot of people just have this idea of secondhand, that isn't necessarily, something that they think that they can ascribe to or do. so it's always been in the back of my mind how to do this. I graduated in, 2010. I was supposed to graduate early, but because of the, the lovely recession that was going on in oh 8, 0 9, there weren't a lot of jobs for people in media studies. So I stayed, I actually got a third minor, which is not on my record because you can't have three minors, but my third minor's in Asian American studies.'cause I stayed that extra year. and I left University of Illinois and still no jobs. So I worked for Odd Jobs in Chicago while going to graduate school for human resources. Ended up getting a job out of that, at Digitas Chicago. and worked in HR for a number of years. in fact, that's how I got hired at Google, was from Digitas, transferred to Google and worked in Google Staffing department for about another five years after that. then I was having a life moment. I think everyone gets some life moments sometimes where I'd been in HR for almost 10 years and I was if I stay, I'm stuck. I'm stuck doing HR now, like I'm the HR girl if I stay and there was this itch that was like, we never really tried or gave a go at doing media and that was what my original degree was in. And this listing popped up, on the internal system at Google called Grow. And it said, they needed a program manager for YouTube tv. And I was like let's just throw our hat in the ring. Let's see what happens. And, shout out to Ben Morris. I ended up getting the job, and ended up working on YouTube tv. And, it was a game changer. it was a really another transformational experience. I had known so much about hr. I'd worked in HR for forever, and now I felt like I had to relearn everything. and that was a scary experience, but also a really wonderful experience. I was submitting cls, I was interfacing with the engineering department, having to push myself to be more technical. I was having to look at SQL scripts. I was having to do all kinds of stuff that, an HR person is not necessarily trained to do. but there's a lot of transferrable skills. I think people can ascribe and write themselves off. When it comes to that, oh, I don't know how to do X, y, or Z, especially women. so I guess I'm not qualified. but at the end of the day, there's a lot more that you transfer than you think. like interpersonal skills from hr, understanding political boundaries, things like that. you bring all that with you. yeah, and then YouTube TV was going pretty great, until I came back from my final maternity leave and I got reorged and, that really changed. You don't stay the game. Yeah, that really changed The game, was no longer on tv. ended up in a compliance area, which was just not a fit for me. and I knew that I needed to figure something else out. and again, that little knit in the back of my mind was like, Like it's a snake year, And if you know anything about the year of the snake, it means it's time for change. And it was just like, maybe it's the universe telling me it's time to shed some skin. It's time to jump, time to figure out if this thing can really fly. And so I did. So I left in July. got all my ducks in the row. jumping to be an entrepreneur, as Adam is not an easy thing. You have to prepare for that, and you have to save up for that. And there's a lot of mental gymnastics too, that comes with leaving a corporate career to go do something by yourself. I have no coworkers, my coworkers, my dog. there's a lot of different changes, that you, that, that happened with that.

Adam Coelho 9:37

Yeah. Yeah. It's, I. It's definitely a big leap and definitely need to prepare mentally and financially to do that. I think back to, it's funny'cause you played a big role in my journey as well, because the first time I created my own workshop was for your team. It was the building resilience through mindfulness, which I then had the opportunity to do a bunch of times with my old boss slash friend Paul Sada, after that. Yeah, we did it many times together and it was such an awesome thing to be able to collaborate with him on and just such a meaningful part of my career at Google doing these G two G Googler to Googler workshops and it all, it started with your team, so thank you for that invite.

Angela Arwady 10:22

Anytime. you never know. And I think I wanna pull on that.'cause You never know when it's gonna be the thing that leads you to the next thing. like I, I took, this really small gig, at this place called Golden Soul. It's a tiny little restaurant in Pacifica. And I had been talking with, the owner there. She's a wonderful lady. Her name's Becca. and she had said, why don't you come here? I know that you're trying to sell some clothes and stuff like that. Why don't you come here? Why don't you pop up and just see how it goes. And it went extremely well. and we ended up doing it more and more often, and that started to get me again flowing in, okay, how is this like an expansion point? Is this an opportunity that I could do, can I pop up places? and now we pop up pretty regularly. I pop up at a bunch of different craft fairs, secondhand festivals. I also do personal styling inside of my home, so you can come over. we'll style you in all secondhand clothing. also a lot of people don't know their size, what fits them, what looks good on them. So it's another way too to just freely explore without having to buy anything. You don't have to. If you see something you like, great, take it home. but it's just a great way too to learn a little bit more about yourself. But that never would've happened had I not said yes to the coffee shop owner being like, Hey, pop up here and let's see where that goes.

Adam Coelho 11:40

Yeah. It's amazing how these things. Come up these little opportunities that become the seed that grows into, a plant which grows into a tree. And, it's eventually becomes your life if you like it and you want to keep watering that seed. I've been, thinking about this a lot. I mentioned before we started recording that I've been thinking a lot about Omens and I'll take a side tangent here on Omens, but, I'm a huge fan of the book, the Alchemist. Have you read The Alchemist?

Angela Arwady 12:09

I have not yet. No. Oh,

Mindfulness, Adaptability & Parenting

Adam Coelho 12:10

you gotta read it. Gotta read it. it's from my fake Uncle Paolo Paulo Cuo. and it's. It's an extremely well-known book, and it's essentially about a shepherd who goes in search of treasure at the pyramids. He's in Andalusia, Spain, and he's has this dream that his treasure is at the pyramids. And he goes in search of his personal legend. that's what they call it. And I think about that as, purpose or vision. And he has these trials and tribulations along the way. And, the whole thing is he's following the omens. And, and I feel like that, that person you met who owned that restaurant who said, or that cafe who said, come and pop up, that's an omen. And I've had, in this, I've had many omens and I feel like it, it jives very well with what I teach is, which is envisioning and having a vision and then following, the breadcrumbs to move towards that vision. But in the last like month. I've just had this one. I'm reading the book to my son again for the second time. it's one of those books you can read again and again, and you get something out of it new every time. and so I had this experience where I spent the last year trying to drum up corporate workshops and you've been helpful. You've introduced me to people and things like that. And I thought it was gonna be so easy. It's back to come back to, the whole starting a business thing. Yeah. I didn't think it was gonna be like easy, but I thought, oh, I have all these relationships at Google and I have these people introducing me and yeah, like this, the feedback is always amazing and all of that. And there were omens that this was not the right path, or maybe they're not right path for right now. some workshops that I had lined up, dropped out and whatever. and as I started to realize, like. Why do I really wanna focus on this next year? And the question that kept coming up is, how can this be more fun? How can this business be more fun? Yep. And for that, it's stop optimizing for money and start optimizing for connection and fun. And I decided to move back towards the group coaching and mindful fire evangelism. Yeah. And empowering people to live the life they're meant to live. Using the practices of mindfulness, financial independence, resilience, and envisioning. And as I did that omen started to come my way. People started to message me, Googlers and non Googlers saying, Hey, I love your podcast so much, this and that. I had a call with this woman who left Googled and is now, her name's Dina. She's awesome. Had a long call with her. She's now doing a junk removal business with her husband in Pittsburgh. Cool. And loving it, right? Lit up. who would've think junk removal would light you up? But she's lit up by it. And anyways, I'll get to the point, which I don't know what it is, but I will get there sometime. But the whole thing is just these omens and just before this, I had two yesterday, I put out an email just saying, Hey, I'm thinking of putting together this group coaching program. Again. Let me know if you know anyone who's interested. 10 people replied. Nobody ever replies to my emails and barely anyone ever says anything about the podcast.'cause it's really a one-way media. But these omen started coming and today I had two of these calls with these people and I would just, I'm lit up by it. I'm just feeling so good, so energized. And so there's a lot to be said about paying attention to the omens and both things that aren't going your way. Things that start to go your way. It's like there's something there.

Angela Arwady 15:48

Yeah. I've heard it framed as when the energy matches the art. like when you're in a moment and you're feeling it and something's telling you, go this way. You're not feeling this anymore. You don't need this anymore. It's time to leave this backpack and go this way. It's I dunno if you're a gamer at all, but it's if you've ever played Zelda, like any of the really good Zelda's, like Breath of the Wild or anything like that where there's just, there's so much you can do. Like the universe is so big in those games, it's absolutely beautiful. It is a work of art in itself. but there's a bunch of different quests you could take on, and there's some main quests, right? Like in life there's main quests too, trying to get to some financial stability, trying to have some housing that's stable, trying to, and those, I would say are like pretty main life quests, but there's a lot of these little side quests that if you do, they make the main quest a lot easier. They fulfill it a lot more. And usually these side quests involve talking to people. They involve doing things for others, they involve finding things, searching for things, going out on a limb, doing something that's a little weird or quirky or scary. And they're not always straight and narrow. it can be a little confusing. And I think though that's the beauty of this that's the beauty of what you're calling omens, right? Is that you don't have to necessarily take them on. But if you do it, it could really transition something into something even more powerful or beautiful than you even expected. and having that agility to be open is. Is, I think a core skill that everyone should learn, because in my mind, I think agility and flexibility are the number one skills for a person to have in order to navigate life. Especially as a parent. I know we were talking a little bit about some parenting stuff right before this. Yeah. the parenting stuff is also like a main quest skill. You have the kids, you gotta, you still have the kids. Yep. Keep kids on the, once You have them, and the side quests become even more difficult because of what you have on your main quest. but it doesn't mean that they're not worth pursuing. It doesn't mean they're not worth doing. It just means trying to figure out how to balance in your mind, what is the energy you need to pursue in the moment to create the art that you actually need inside of your life.

Adam Coelho 19:31

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, I really appreciate that because. Adaptability, flexibility, adaptability is the core skill, right? I'd say it's the core skill that made both of us successful in our careers at Google for sure. I dunno if I totally describe my, my, I, I guess I was successful at Google. It's hard to say, at the end, but I feel like that is just, that skill with the constant reorgs and the constant change. And then in parenting, like I think adaptability is the core skill. I'm trying to teach my son right now'cause he gets very attached to things happening a certain way. Yep. And when it doesn't happen that way, it's not good. And he needs to build that skill of I can adapt, I can navigate this. I think it, it is the core skill for life, especially with how things are going now, where it's, who the hell knows what's going on every day.

Angela Arwady 20:27

Totally. You wake up and you're like, wait, what? I hear you and we're on this end. one of the things that I personally fight as a demon is perfectionism, where it's like, ah, I messed this thing up, and then you'd beat yourself up consistently, the Catholic guilt, and you flog yourself until, but you have to learn how to let that go too, Just because, you had mentioned the end of your career wasn't as ideal as you had imagined it. And that's a difficult thing to go through. Neither was mine and, but. When you think back at all the different things you've done throughout your career, there's so much to be proud of. I was literally the person who pressed the little red button to launch the Olympics in 4K. Like I was the person Awesome. Who actually launched the Sports Plus package to YouTube tv. I was there when we were discussing Spanish plan. I was there when we were doing all this different stuff for the Super Bowl. I launched, primetime channels in multiple countries, in a time zone that wasn't mine. Yeah. I hired so many people into Google working in recruiting and staffing, people who still work there today, whose journeys have gone on to be amazing things, Yeah. And so when you look at it, when you take just a tiny slice and you're like, Ugh, dang it. Yeah. This can go when the gamut is like. Unbelievable. God damn girl. Yeah, we've a lot. Wake up. We had a lot wake up. Yeah. Especially for, I have three kids and a husband who's also working full time and is also a musician and also has side projects and, went back

Adam Coelho 21:52

to school.

Angela Arwady 21:53

Went back to school, and when you look at the thing on a whole, your success is your partner success. And at the end of the day, beating yourself up about one small microcosm you just spin. And so that's one of the things that I've been working on with my son daily too. my eldest has definitely got perfectionist tendencies. I see a lot of my personality in him. And so the two of us together are working on that. There's a great, great book, about perfectionism. It's escaping me right now, what the name is, but I promise that I will send it to you afterward. but they talk about the different types of perfectionism and how to negate them. and so interesting,'cause there's different types. Apparently we're not, the perfectionists are not all the same breed of perfectionists. There's hyperized little perfectionists inside of the perfectionist core. he and I are navigating that together.

Adam Coelho 22:43

Yeah, no, I resonate with that a lot. It's I always called myself a closet per closet perfectionist, because I don't think of myself as a perfectionist, but I absolutely am. Like even writing the email yesterday, it was like two lines and I was like, it's like for me it's I don't want to do it wrong. my inner critic is always you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. And I'm like, ah, I can't do it wrong. And it's no, just send the email. Like just. Write it and send it and see what happens, and I think one of the things, the core, the core things that has helped me release that and navigate the ups and downs of life with a more ease is mindfulness, right?'cause there's, non-judgmental aspect to mindfulness. I simply a kind, curious awareness that if I can remember to bring it to the situation it allows me to get out of my own head and get out of that doing it wrong and not far enough and along and all of these things. And it's really been helpful to have that practice in that in my back pocket. Even if I am caught up in God knows what, I can always remember to come back to be like, oh, actually I can. Step back from this and just see it clearly.

Angela Arwady 23:53

Exactly. And even just little mindful changes in your day to day. I don't know if you do anything to short circuit yourself, but a couple things I do to short circuit me is I'm in the clothing business now. I just am. And one of the things I do every morning now is I try to get dressed as mindfully as possible. I try to envision my day, I try to envision what it is that I wanna say to people before my mouth even opens. and from there it really sets a tone for me for how I expect my day to go, And look, can you do it every day? No. There's some days where, my youngest daughter has thrown up in her crib and we are just gonna do our best and this is the day we're having. And even that is a little bit mindful. Absolutely. We're just gonna absolute have our sweater on. We're just gonna put your hair up and we're just gonna make it work. But for the days where you actually have a little bit of pause. it's good to, to set that tone, to set that energy to say, this is how I'm gonna show up today and this is the person I wanna be. And even those little hesitations, like you said about ah, this email, is it right? Are people gonna judge me for it? Is anyone even gonna respond? Do people even care? we have, everyone has that going through their head. Especially if you're an entrepreneur or a business owner. Oh yeah. You're looking at your website and you're like, is the alpaca like too much? Or is it like, or should we have more alpaca, less alpaca? And then you get the feedback and it's you need way more alpaca and you've got two people. I don't get the alpaca. so you're just gonna be questioning constantly. And at some point, I think one of the best things a business owner can do is make a confident decision and stick with it and be able to just roll with it and just defend it. We have an alpaca on our site. It is our logo. It is. We are rolling with it. can't go

Adam Coelho 25:34

wrong, can't go wrong with an alpaca,

Angela Arwady 25:36

can't go wrong. And that's the brand, I want the brand to feel friendly and a little quirky and slightly off kilter.'cause that's how secondhand clothes are. the beauty of secondhand clothes is that even if you have two dresses that are, were identical to begin with, they're no longer identical after they've been worn because there's a story to them. And when you buy secondhand, you're carrying on that story. secondhand just means more love and you're giving an object more time and ability to do the purpose that it is supposed to be doing. there are just billions of garments out there, and billions more now with fashion. Fashion being made every single day, it's honestly pretty gross. If you look it up and you look at all these different pictures of garment factories and all these places that just. Piles and piles of clothing washing up on beaches and just, it will change your entire point of view about what you buy and how you consciously consume. and yeah, it's just, it's one of those things that again that mindfulness of, I'm intentionally purchasing this and I'm bringing it with me on my journey. And when you do that in your morning and you reset, can help negate some of those other negative things like, oh, I'm just not good enough. No, that's not what we're saying today. That's not the clothes we put on. The clothes we put on today, say, Angela's a badass. They don't say we're lame. They say, we're cool and we're gonna rock out and we're gonna go do our thing. And who cares? We got this. and going into your day like that, it's a game changer. Really. A game changer.

Adam Coelho 27:09

Yeah. I love the intentionality and just starting your day intentionally. Choosing how you wanna show up, how you wanna be, how you wanna see yourself, and how you wanna interact with others. I, I aspire to getting back to the morning routine any day now. Any day now, I'll be doing that. but I think it would help so much, because a lot of my morning is reactive, right? React, reacting to the mood that my son is in instead of with him creating the mood in this intentional way of being. and it's not gonna be perfect, but it, there, I've had times where we've done a little bit of that and it's just wow, like starting the day with the connection and the intentionality really makes a huge difference.

Building Unpack: From Poshmark to a Business

Angela Arwady 27:50

Yeah, and I've noticed too, with my eldest son, my, my middle child does not care about what he wears at all, but my eldest son really does, and I've noticed that. when I compliment him on what he's wearing, when I take pause and see him and how he's shown up, because it is your first impression of someone every day is, oh this is what so and so looks like or is wearing. And that just is, you are a human with eyes. That's just how it goes. And I've noticed when I compliment his outfit, he comes home in a different step. He comes home,'cause we've started the day off with a different energy. and he feels confident and he goes, yeah, confidence, confident, and it's a, it's really a tone changer. And how you talk to yourself as a parent too, they really internalize that as well. They take that on too. they notice. What do you mean by that? So let's think about this. you're in a career that maybe isn't going so hot, you cry a lot, you're tired, you're upset. Your kids see that. They see how that impacts you. And it impacts them. It impacts the whole house.'cause you all live together. When they see you in a space where you're thriving you're pushing forward, you're doing cool things. now my kids wanna help me pack orders for the business. They ask me how the business is going. I have a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old. and they get excited about it too. And they tell people, oh, mommy runs her own business. Mommy's business is really cool.'cause they hear how you talk about it.

Adam Coelho 29:13

They reflect that

Angela Arwady 29:14

too. And when they see that you can do something like that, they wanna do it too. And not that it's not okay to cry or show anger or anything as an adult. I think that's important for kids to see too. But I think the amount you do it, should also, when you talked about almond, should also be an indicator of, this isn't the energy we need to bring here anymore. We, we need to change this. Something has to change.

Adam Coelho 29:36

Yeah. It's really interesting that you bring that up because I noticed last year when I was short with the kids, or when I was frustrated more easily, it was because my business was frustrating me. My business was not having the success and the story my brain was telling me is, you're not far enough along and this and that. And it's yeah. That was immediately bleeding into my interactions with them. And, since in the, these last few days, where I'm really embracing this, I'm like, lighter, happier, more playful. like we played, they all they just wanna do is they just wanna play tag. Like they just wanna run around the house. Totally. And we just run around and, that's what we did last night. And it was super fun because I was in a, I was feeling good and feeling the energy.

Angela Arwady 30:24

Yeah. And we as parents too, you only have so much energy, right? there's only so much you can do and that it's just another area too. Again, perfectionism tendencies. It's just another area too, to be hard on yourself. Oh, I didn't show up today as much as I should have. Oh, I yelled at so and so because, they colored on the table with washable marker that I could easily get off, but I was overstimulated and I took out on them instead of being the adult. And just seeing that this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, right? And so it's really easy to keep beating yourself up about it. But I do think, again, going back to that mindfulness practice of, recognizing that and being like, tomorrow we're gonna do better. Tomorrow we're gonna set a little bit of an intention, and we're gonna, we're gonna be mindful of that. We're gonna, we're gonna show up today and we're gonna, we're gonna say, sorry. I also think saying sorry to your children for things like that is really important. Owning up and taking ownership and accountability and being like, Hey. Sorry, mom yelled at you yesterday about coloring on the table. Should you have done that? Probably not. Should mom have yelled at you so much about it? Also, probably not. Sorry about that. Yeah. And taking that accountability is really important. So

Adam Coelho 31:32

yeah, I would definitely say I have a good habit of that, that I do. I, I'd like to do it less, but Totally. But at the, at least I do it. At least I do it. so let's get back to the business. Tell me a little bit about, how, how it grew from, startup. You mentioned, the pop-up stores, like how did it go from what it was, which I think you were selling things on Instagram and how it now what it is how that evolution happened.

Angela Arwady 32:00

Totally. I, so I had been selling stuff again since about 2008, just flipping my own gear, when I went on my last maternity leave with Layla. I had gotten the idea and I was like, people had been starting to give me maternity clothes that they didn't want anymore, and I was getting like boxes and bags of clothes for baby for me. And it was just, it was like overwhelming. Like everyone meant very well, clearly. It was a very kind thing to do. I used a lot of it, but I was like, what do I do with all this extra clothing? And I started to realize man, this is the story of everyone. Everyone has extra clothing that they're just like, man, I don't know what to do with this. I feel bad just giving it to Goodwill.'cause they've heard all the stories that they just throw clothing away, which sometimes they do. They get thousands of pounds, probably more than thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of pounds every day. Yeah. And it what do you do with that? It's such a massive problem. And so I started thinking it through and I was like I could start doing this myself on the side and starting to flip some stuff and. Lo and behold it, it started and I started a Poshmark account while I was on maternity leave. and I started doing, and I applied to do Poshmark Live, which at that time was brand new. They had just rolled it out, and they granted me access. So I was one of the first people that had Poshmark live and my account exploded. I now think I have about 75,000 followers on Poshmark. So

Adam Coelho 33:26

what is Poshmark like? I know what Poshmark is, but So

Angela Arwady 33:28

Poshmark, I tried to get, I tried to get my

Adam Coelho 33:30

mom to sell her stuff on Poshmark'cause she's got a lot of stuff, got a lot of gear.

Angela Arwady 33:34

Posh is great for that. It really is. I do think they charge quite a bit from all the different services. If you're ever looking to get into this, they charge the most. that being said though, I do think they have the nicest tools for sellers. so anyway, balances out. they also do your sales tax for you, which is a huge pain in the ass. for anyone who's using Shopify like I am now, a pain in the butt. But posh Mark's great that way. posh Live is where you literally can live stream on your phone, like similar to like Instagram Live, but when you live stream on your phone, you can also sell stuff at the same time through Poshmark. So it's

Adam Coelho 34:09

Q it's QVC.

Angela Arwady 34:10

It's QVC. It's secondhand.

Adam Coelho 34:12

They were, my client and I went and saw like their, where they do it actually. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. But, okay. So it's like QVC for, for secondhand clothing.

Unpack's Mission & Community Model

Angela Arwady 34:21

For secondhand clothing. But people now sell all kinds of stuff on there. You can get almost anything on there. I buy rocks from a lady who does Poshmark rock rocks, like big gemstone rocks. I have like huge crystals and stuff in my house. but you can get, so it's

Adam Coelho 34:36

become more like eBay. It's like eBay. It's a little bit

Angela Arwady 34:38

more like eBay now. But they don't, you can't buy like boats,

Adam Coelho 34:42

right? No. Boats Not yet. You can't buy a boat. No. Boats you can buy. I bought my first car on eBay actually. So you really? Yeah, I did. Yeah. GMC, Sonoma truck

Angela Arwady 34:52

kicking it, dude. but yeah so started through Poshmark. and yeah, and it was just okay. And I went back to work and I was feeling a little sad'cause I had built this community in Poshmark. I started having all these people and now I kinda had to let it go'cause I had to go back to my job. And again, it was just like the universe like slapped me in the face and was like, Hey, you're not going back to your job that you liked anyway. You're gonna go back to this other thing. And it was oh. Okay. And more science had started pointing to Hey, this secondhand thing, this is starting to build. And through all these different popups, I started meeting all these different local artists who were expressing how hard it is to build a website. They don't, they're not tech savvy. They, it costs a lot to host a site, to build a site, to do the marketing, to send everything out, to have a customer data database, to do customer service, to do all the things a small business has to do. and so a lot of them are just selling at these markets with their beautiful stuff and that's it, that's as much as they can expand. And so I thought what if we put our money where our mouth is? And what if we tried to make something that was like a sustainable stitch fix. So you can subscribe to us and we will actually send you handmade and sustainable goods based on your profile, or you can shop your own way, and buy things as you go. so our first artist community was in the Bay Area just because that's where I live. but the second communities we're targeting are Chicago. I also know a ton of artists there from Dan, and Mine's time living there. incredible stuff that's gonna be coming out from that community. and then Seattle, there's really an amazing amount of beautiful art up in the northwestern United States. a lot of, native inspired art as well. And, a lot of genuine native art too. so hopefully we're gonna bring some of that in as well.'cause we'd like this to be a community that showcases a lot of different types of work, and yeah, and helps launch a lot of these different artists into their careers. So hopefully maybe one day they can have their own space, they can have their own business. we wholesale from the artists, we don't charge them anything else otherwise. So all the marketing, all the features, all the shipping, all of that, unpack a handles moving forward.

Adam Coelho 36:57

So you essentially become like a distributor for them.

Angela Arwady 37:01

Exactly. Exactly. We're a distributor for them, but in order to not lose the sparkle that is them, we actually make sure that everything is logged. Under them on our site, we put up a personal bio about them. we link to their personal Instagram pages. We link to their personal websites if they do have one. We bring them to the lot of the bigger popup shows. We just did Sip Shop, eat, which is a really expensive show. I don't think a lot of people know this, but like the larger craft fairs like West Coast and things like that, that you've heard of, charge crazy amounts of money to be there to show up. tents can be for just a 10 by 10 tent can be like 2, 3, 4 grand Wow.

Adam Coelho 37:38

To get, just to show up, be there just to

Angela Arwady 37:40

show up. And that doesn't include like all the money you have to put into like buying a rack to display the stuff and getting POS to purchase the stuff and everything that goes into it. So again, for a lot of these small businesses, it doesn't make any sense. But it does your one business. That brings everybody together, right? Yeah. And it will show everybody off and display your cards on your behalf and stuff. So that's what Unpack is supposed to be for. We really wanna promote community. We really wanna promote, handmade and we really wanna promote secondhand to sustainable thinking.

Adam Coelho 38:09

I like it. I like it. And I guess the question that comes to mind for me is like, what, how does that differ from Poshmark and Yeah, great

Angela Arwady 38:16

question. So Poshmark is like a one-off purchasing, kinda like eBay, right? Like I want to buy a, let's see, I wanna buy like a Lily Pulitzer dress and I want this specific dress'cause I'm going to my friend's baby shower. So I'm gonna look up this dress, I'm gonna bid on this dress'cause I don't wanna pay full price and I'm gonna buy and send the dress. Okay. It's just a very transactional experience. We don't wanna unpack it to be just a transactional experience. if you subscribe to us, we really try to get to know what are you missing from your closet? What do you wear on the regular, what don't you wear that you wish you did? And we really try to understand what it is that you need that we can help fill in the gaps with and what you might even just wanna send us get store credit for and we can send you something back. we're hoping to make it more circular, so that way you feel like you can change things in and out of your closet. while also again, keeping that mindful practice of nothing new. You don't need to buy anything new. This is new-ish, but you don't need to buy anything new. New. And by us offering store credit too, we hope it also alleviates people's pocketbooks a little bit too because you're trading in stuff you're not gonna wear anymore, getting new stuff that you can put in your closet. it's hopefully like a mutually beneficial system for both. And you can get handmade stuff too with that credit. So if you wanna shop a cool artist that you've never heard of, or you wanna get some new pottery or something like that, you can do that as well. so again, it's a little bit more personalized and a lot more intentional. and we really want our customers to feel that personalized and intentional piece of it. I write handwritten notes in every package. I pack every order right now.'cause yeah, I don't want it to be some big transactional who cares about you a business. I want it to feel, I want it to feel like, Hey, somebody cares about this, somebody cares about this garment. and somebody wants you to show up and feel good about yourself every day. And if it doesn't fit, we have a return policy too. trying to make sure it doesn't go back to a landfill. Trying to make sure it stays within the realm.

Adam Coelho 40:10

And how do the economics work? I imagine sending things back and forth is pretty expensive. It is. And time consuming.

Angela Arwady 40:17

It is. if you do a subscription box with us, typically we'll reach out and we check on your measurements and things like that. we also, again, try to really make sure and be really conscious about what is it that you're looking for? What is it that you'd really like in your box?'cause yeah, we wanna minimize the amount of returns that happen because it is not the most sustainable thing. Unfortunately, there is no true sustainable business at this time because, everything uses gas to deliver stuff and whatever. but we do try our best to make sure we minimize that we use recycled packaging. again, everything's secondhand or handmade. and yeah, we really discuss with our customers beforehand, like what is it that you're looking for, when they're doing the style boxes, just to make sure we're getting it right and we're minimizing that, that return.

Adam Coelho 41:02

That makes sense. Yeah, I think it's very interesting.'cause yeah, I, as somebody who has no idea what they're doing when it comes to fashion, this is useful,

Angela Arwady 41:13

Adam, we do men,

Adam Coelho 41:14

we do mine's. I see that on the website.

Mindful Fire Final Four

Angela Arwady 41:16

We need men's clothes, so if you have stuff to send in, send it to us. If we can't take it, for example, if it's slightly, slightly more used than what we go with, we have really high quality standards for our stuff because again, we want it to be really circular, come back to us and resell it. we also don't take specific brands too. Like for example, we don't necessarily take Target or Walmart or anything like that, but. We partner with a couple amazing charities. one is out of Oakland called Oakland Collective. they do a free popup where they give literally everything away to the community for free. And so everything that we can't sell, I ship over there to them, for them to use for their free popup and make sure it goes back to the community. also 5% of every purchase right now in an order goes back to a local charity within the Bay Area. we'll be expanding to certain charities in Chicago here shortly. but yeah, again, we wanna try to maximize the amount of good we're doing in a time where it feels like everyone is trying to amass the most amount of money. Be a billionaire and buy another jet.

Adam Coelho 42:18

Oh, so important. So important that they get those extra yachts.

Angela Arwady 42:22

My goodness. What will they

Adam Coelho 42:23

people go hungry and can't go to the doctor.

Angela Arwady 42:25

Exactly. What will we ever do? pray for them. I really just, I want, I wanted to build something that felt a little counterculture to that, I hope I'm never a billionaire. I really want this to be something that benefits the community, benefits artists, and benefits the subscriber or, individual on the other end. I don't want you to just feel like another number. I want you to feel like confident and you did something really good today. You went back to charity. You bought something secondhand, and it looks really great on you. And now you can go back today feeling positive, and that's what I want this business to be about, is about really, really pushing for community, really pushing for, sustainability and doing our best with it. again, we're not perfect. A business that is a quote unquote sustainable business is I've yet to see it. but we are gonna continue to try to do our best and learn from where we can.

Adam Coelho 43:14

Yeah. that, that's all you can do. so you mentioned that you're expanding to Chicago and Seattle. Yep. What is the why? Why is it expanding like that? Why is it not just available to everybody, everywhere? I don't understand what,

Angela Arwady 43:27

yeah. We're more about that. We're trying to keep, so the artists, we're trying to keep them in like a community collective. In a way, right? So we have like our Bay area artist community. we're gonna try to have our Chicago artist community and we're gonna try to have our Seattle artist community, and then we're gonna keep expanding community wise like that I see

Adam Coelho 43:45

from the handmade goods. Exactly. You could buy them from anywhere.

Angela Arwady 43:49

Correct. The clothing itself is gonna be centralized through unpack. There's just no good way to do that business wise elsewhere. but the handmade goods piece, we want it to feel like there's a cohort. again there's a community element to this. And then when we go to those places, when we go to Chicago, when we do those popups. we can have artists meetups, we can have artists popups with our Unpack a artists, and so expanding really intentionally, and again, really trying to make it about the communities and about the artists.'cause it really, to your point, it would be really easy to just be an all call. Just be like, Hey, any artist within the United States sign up to be an unpack a artist, right? And we might even make more money that way. But I do think it devalues the community element of it. And it doesn't place people in a, like a cohort and give them some stability as the artist to have other people who are going through that cohort with them who are learning how to do business with them. And, again, I wanna make sure we're doing the artists as much of a service as we are in the business. So it was an easy way to expand a little bit, more intentionally. and also again really continue to make it about the communities and the artists.

Adam Coelho 44:56

I like it. Very cool. let's shift gears now into the Mindful Fire Final four. You ready? Ange?

Angela Arwady 45:02

Let's do it.

Adam Coelho 45:03

Alright, so the first question is about envisioning and we you've talked a little bit about your vision for this, but I guess when you think five years out, everything's gone better than expected. What is the vision for this business and how it, how your and your life, right? Your, this business is your, is part of your life. So what, how does that all come together you think

Angela Arwady 45:26

five years out? Five years from now, it'd be amazing. If we could be in 10 cities, I think would be incredible. I think it would be awesome to have, some of our artists have some success stories of, growing their accounts, starting out on their own, really starting to see that shine through. Also just like watching the charitable donations be able to grow, like I can't tell you enough again, 5% of every sale goes to a charity and it'd be really cool if instead of donating, in the hundreds per month to a charity, we started donating in the thousands or in the tens of thousands and really started making this something that like was game changing for both community and for personnel. I also think it'd be great to get more secondhand in the hands of people who don't have the time or the effort to go thrifting. and again, making it really easy for someone to make the conscious choice of instead of buying something new, I'm gonna buy something secondhand. and really try to stop the bleeding of what's happening right now with fast fashion. I, that would be incredible. If any one of those things happens in the next five years, I will be overjoyed. So

Adam Coelho 46:27

very cool. Very cool. the second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started? Sorry. Cancel. So the second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Angela Arwady 46:41

Yeah. know your numbers. Know your numbers. What does it take, what does it take for you to feel good at the end of the day, before you would make a jump? What's that number? How much is your mortgage? How much do your kids need to go to school? What's your daily average spend look like? do you have any big trips coming up? Do you have anything that you really wanna continue to do? My husband's recording an album. It's costly to do things like that, right? knowing what your numbers are, I think gets you to where you're going. Again, it's that mindful consciousness. How can you be mindful of something if you've never sat down and discussed what your end number needs to be? And for everyone that's different. I truly believe, some people can completely live on, a couple hundred thousand dollars and be completely fine in total and quit, have that saved and be done. And some people need a lot more to retire, especially if you live in the Bay Area. it just, it really, again, really depends what you're looking for when it comes to financial independence.

Adam Coelho 47:35

Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. It's really, it starts with awareness, right? You have to be aware of what your life costs, how much money you're making, how much money you're spending, totally. How much you, what your financial independence number is. without that, you're flying blind and

Angela Arwady 47:50

Yeah. And your spouse has to be in on it too. If you're partnering with someone, your spouse has to be in on it too. almost with anything, if you're gonna start a business, your spouse has to be aligned with you. If you're gonna having a misalignment there. I can't imagine doing any of this without having a partner who is not only supportive, but actively rooting for my success. And actively knowing exactly what it is, and us having agreed upon all these different standards of living that, that we have, that's extremely important. That mismatch, causes all kinds of trouble.

Adam Coelho 48:20

Absolutely. All right. The third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Angela Arwady 48:28

Ooh. it doesn't have to be completely silent to be effective. I think your brain is such an interesting thing. And, for me personally, there's always little things coming in. Every time I try to meditate, oh, did you get this for tj? Did you remember to fill out Tyler's flyer? Did you, and it's not necessarily about quieting that as much as it is just acknowledging that it's present. And letting it move past you. and that takes a lot of practice because it can really throw you out of whatever it is you're doing. If you're like, oh no, I gotta go do this thing. so really just being, feeling, being confident in that, that ability of It's okay that it's a little loud. I'm not doing it wrong. that's gonna happen and it still happens to anyone who meditates on the regular, like I do. I use singing bowls now. That actually helps quiet my brain a little bit. so for anyone that is really struggling with that, sound bowls are great. I'm actually getting my sound healing certification too on the side. Oh, nice. so I'll be a certified sound healer hopefully by the end of the year. But, yeah, singing bowls really, changed the game for me, and have really helped me quiet my brain.

Adam Coelho 49:30

Very cool. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's all about awareness again, right? Awareness of what's going on and not. Getting caught up in it or noticing when you are getting caught up in it and coming back. it's it that's the thing that unlocked it for me was expect your mind to wander. Yeah. Expect thoughts to happen because that's what the mind does. It creates thoughts. So when you expect that, you're not thrown off by it. You just notice and come back.

Angela Arwady 49:57

Yep. Exactly.

Adam Coelho 49:59

Alright, and the final question, Ange, is how can people connect with you online, learn more abouta, and where can they find all the cool stuff that you're doing and. Come into your world?

Angela Arwady 50:10

Yeah, absolutely. we are on Instagram, it's Shop paca, S-H-O-P-U-N-P-A-C-K-A. you can also find us@www.unpacka.com, both areas. And we do have a LinkedIn, it is not nearly as updated as the other two those are our three social profiles. but yeah, follow us, like us. if you ever have any questions, you're more than welcome to reach out to me. I typically respond within 24 or 48 hours about any items or inquiries. and yeah, as we grow this year, if you're an artist in Chicago or in Seattle, we're looking for you. I would love to hear from you, tell me that you're on Adam's podcast because it would really make me smile. but yeah, we're looking for you. and we're starting those cohorts right now. We're gonna probably have, I would say, about five to six-ish artists in each area, before launch.

Adam Coelho 50:54

Amazing. Very cool. We'll go check all of that out and I'm going to check it out as well, see if I can dress a little better. turns out, if you just dress with clothes from Costco all the time, you just feel like some, I saw some lady post something on, LinkedIn and it the hook was you are not a rotisserie chicken, so why are you buying all your clothes at Costco? And my comment was, I am a rotisserie chicken. Wrong. Yeah.

Angela Arwady 51:20

Hey Costco, sweet drip. Costco does have some pretty sweet drip. And look, if you're buying something new with intention, because you really need it different, little different than doing this, I've seen online, these mass halls from like Shean and people just buying$300 worth of clothing and

Adam Coelho 51:37

Yeah.

Angela Arwady 51:37

it's that, that to me is gross. If you need a new jacket and you find the right jacket and you're gonna wear the heck out of it. Yeah. Very different, but yeah. You aren't a rotisserie chicken Adam. I verify that even though you've lied and said you are. I

Adam Coelho 51:51

feel like I am. I'm just kidding.

Angela Arwady 51:54

In the great scheme of life, are we all That's right. I'm a

Adam Coelho 51:56

$4 and 99 cents chicken. They do call me the chicken man. They do. So that's a story for another time though. Except for podcast. That's right. The Chicken Man podcast. Exactly. An thank you so much for being here and sharing your experience and wisdom with the audience. I really enjoyed it and I think people are gonna get a lot out of this.

Angela Arwady 52:15

Adam, always a pleasure to see your face. Your family's beautiful and you guys are just some of the most wonderful people. So honored you asked me beyond this. It's been a great time. And any time

Speaker 2 52:26

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this. This just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindful fire.org/start and download my free envisioning guide in just 10 minutes. This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free@mindfulfire.org slash start. Thanks again and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast.