593: Building and Letting Go with Nicole Packin
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How do you know when it’s time to transition your business—or even your life? In this episode, Nicole Packin shares her incredible journey through selling two successful pet care businesses, moving across the country, and preparing for her next adventure. She opens up about the emotional and practical challenges of letting go, creating healthy boundaries, and finding new passions after nearly two decades in the industry. She discusses the evolving pet care landscape, the pressure entrepreneurs put on themselves, and the importance of taking space to breathe and reflect. Whether you’re thinking about selling your business, refining your services, or simply looking to reclaim your time, Nicole’s story offers valuable insights and inspiration.
Main topics:
Selling and transitioning businesses
Work-life balance and boundaries
Evolving pet care industry
Marketing dog walking services
Personal growth through change
Main takeaway: “I think sometimes when we work in our passion, you can lose that excitement—and every business owner, every athlete, every musician, every actor, anybody that has a passion, that happens.”
That quote from Nicole Packin really hit home for us. When you build a business around something you love—like pet care—it’s easy for that passion to become work, and for that work to consume every part of your life.
It starts innocently enough: you say yes to every client, answer every late-night text, and spend your weekends planning the next big thing. Before you know it, the excitement that once got you out of bed starts to feel like a weight you’re carrying around.
That’s why stepping back on purpose isn’t quitting—it’s resetting. Sometimes, you need space to breathe, to reconnect with why you started in the first place, and to remember that you are more than your business.
Nicole’s story is a powerful reminder that taking a break doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re human—and it could be the first step toward falling in love with your work all over again.
✨ If you’ve ever felt like you’ve lost your spark, this episode is for you. Listen to our conversation with Nicole Packin on Pet Sitter Confessional wherever you get your podcasts.
About our guest:
Nicole Packin is a seasoned entrepreneur and industry innovator with over 18 years of experience in pet care. She founded Miami Pet Concierge, a full-service pet care company, before launching The Packin Method, a mobile dog fitness service in Dallas. Nicole’s passion for canine health and wellness led her to develop unique services focused on physical fitness for pets. After successfully selling both businesses, she is now launching Healthy Hounds Fitness Club in Colorado, combining her love for adventure and pet wellness. Nicole’s expertise spans pet sitting, dog walking, canine massage, and fitness training, and she is a sought-after voice in the pet care community.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pet sitting, business transition, adventure hikes, physical fitness, dog care, entrepreneurship, work-life balance, business sale, personal growth, industry changes, mental health, self-care, business planning, career pivot, professional development
SPEAKERS
Collin, Nicole P.
Collin 00:00
Music, welcome to pet sitter, confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter today, brought to you by our friends at time to pet and the National Association of Professional pet sitters in business, we build, we work, to grow our business, to sustain our business, to innovate in our business, there will come a time, though, when we need to let go, when it's time for us to transition in our business or in our personal lives to something else, a new adventure. But how do we walk through that? How do we do that with confidence and not lose our cool? Today, we're really excited to have Nicole packin back on the show to talk about her journey into her next adventure in business and in her life. She walks through the challenges of letting go while she sought after, creating healthy boundaries and found new passions as she's connected with what's really driving her. Let's get started. Moved twice, you know, since, you know, you started Miami, you went to Dallas. I moved to Colorado and and the other thing that I really it's interesting, you know, in Miami, you were full service pet concierge. Dallas, you were the exercise mobile gym. And now you're doing, was it you're doing just adventure hikes, you're going to be doing something or not? Not sure, in Colorado,
Nicole P. 01:19
you know, I'll be honest with you, I, I, you know, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I do have a business idea. I am working on it, but I just, I think I need a little break for a little bit. I've been doing this for so long that I feel like my passion is dogs. I am a dog person. I love dogs. I'm a dog nerd. But I think sometimes when we work in our passion, you can lose that excitement. And I think for a little bit, I found that. And I think every business owner, every athlete, every musician, every actor, anybody that has a passion, and they do well in their passion, that happens. So the goal is to open up a third business focusing on an adventure hikes and mostly physical fitness for the non pro athlete dog, if that makes any sense. So Kevin, for instance, my guy, he loves to hike, he loves to swim, he loves to do all that stuff, but if he sits home Monday through Friday and only does it on the weekend, now he becomes the weekend warrior, where he gets injured, and he sleeps Monday and Tuesday, and his body gets out of alignment, and it just creates a cycle. So I want to focus on that for the people who are themselves athletes and incorporate their dogs into their weekend activities. But when I'm going to do that, probably not for a couple months. I need a break, but that's the goal. Well,
Collin 02:52
because you, you had been in business since what, you started in 2007 around, right around in there. So I,
Nicole P. 02:58
yeah, I started in 2007 and then sold Miami in December. So December 31 and then I've owned the packing method for three years, and my last clients are next week. And then that I sold off. And then I have two weeks of the first time being unemployed since I was 14. And I'm like, it's funny. I don't know what to do with myself. Like, I don't have to look at the phone. It can actually stay
Collin 03:27
off on the weekend. I know it's weird. Seems weird.
Nicole P. 03:35
No, I'm telling you, the first couple of days I would, we would, you know, at night, you get into bed and you're watching TV, and usually I would look at my last emails or whatever, and now I'll look
Speaker 1 03:44
and I'm like, oh, there's nothing there. What do I do
Nicole P. 03:48
with my time? I'm actually paying attention to television. My poor husband doesn't have to rewind things 80 times because I'm like, Oh, I missed that. I missed that. I was scrolling. So that's the I think that's a really exciting part of it is just kind of being a little bit free,
Collin 04:05
yeah, well, and having that, that space to recollect. And I don't think we really appreciate that space until we get it, I'm reminded of this. There's so there's in Arkansas, there's this cave that you can go hike back into. And we used to go into this one. It's a really tight fit. Fortunately, you can stand up for most of it, but it's a real tight squeeze. And I've actually came out one time with a bat on my shoulder. That was kind of fun, but that's kind of cool. You go through this, this really tight squeeze all the way back, and it's, I mean, it's pressing against your chest and your back, you're crouching, stuff is above your head, and then all of a sudden, it just completely opens into this massive cavern on either side. You can't see the ends, and to come out that and then, like, just how amazing that openness feels. It's like, man, I was out there on the other side when I came in, and I had the whole world to me, and I didn't appreciate. Some amount of
Nicole P. 05:00
space, right? I worked really hard and got through this narrow space, and now I'm like,
Collin 05:06
so I can imagine, you know, since the early 2000s being in this, and being in kind of this, you're in your passion, and it's not like you were, it was begrudging. You know, they're hard times. But now to have just an openness to to possibilities, and some of that possibility is to not have to turn your phone right and to not have to be feel like you're on all the time almost. It's it's an
Nicole P. 05:30
adjustment. You know, I have two other friends that had businesses that were the size of mine, one in North Carolina and one in New Jersey, that both have sold their businesses over the last few years, and I met them through our groups, and I remember them saying to me, it took me a couple months. It took me a couple months. I felt really lost after this. And, you know, I can remember a couple weeks after selling Miami, my husband saying like, do you miss it? How are you feeling? And it's not a matter of Miss or nostalgia, because I still, I still talk to the person that bought I just was on a zoom call with her, helping her with doing some stuff, but it's being able to actually take an inhale and breathe and have a conversation with an old friend, or sleep in on the weekend, or watch a television program or just live without feeling like I'm married to my phone,
06:26
and I know now
Nicole P. 06:27
moving forward with another business, I can't wait to implement the years of books I've read and conversations I've had and converse and podcasts that I've learned from and be able to implement the stop at the end of the night and not be a slave to the business again. Because I think sometimes we do that, we become a slave to it. And I don't mean it in a negative way, but that's it's our passion. It's our baby. So we need to look we need to look at the text, we need to answer the email. We need to answer the calls at midnight and the text messages. So that's what I'm excited about. But at the same time, I'm really looking forward to the break from it, because
Collin 07:11
it's all consuming. Yeah, I mean, this is the the second time you've made that transition with the business you sold the you know, the concierge moving to to packing method. How is this different than that first time that you that you made that transition? So
Nicole P. 07:26
when I transitioned from Miami to Dallas, I still owned Miami for the three years. Yeah, and that transition came relatively easy for me. Thank you, COVID, because we had so much extra time on our hands when all of us had to close our businesses down for such a long time, I knew probably back in about 2018 19, my husband and I wanted to be in Colorado eventually, and so I knew it was going to take a couple years and a lot of planning to get there. And so during COVID was when I really started planning and executing that first piece, which was, how am I going to make sure that all my processes, it processes and procedures are are functioning. If I could give this booklet to someone, would they be able to run the business? I started working on my blogs. I redid everything during that time so that once we came out of it, because I knew we'd have to rebuild like everybody else, that once I rebuilt, would I be able to honestly have something that was, was was great, that could sell, that was worth something, and the intention was to sell it closer to When we moved to Dallas, but like everybody else's businesses with COVID, you know, I was at 35 employees down to two, and in one day, we lost 300 services. So I had to rebuild that during that time, it was great, because I had the three years running it from afar, building the second business, but also grooming My managers, because I split my role in half. I had one doing customer service and one doing day to day operations. And in that we got the groove down. And then in the last year with Miami, I pretty much was hands off, almost entirely, except for phone calls, checking in on Slack, things like that, but the idea was I wanted them to be able to do it and solve issues and problem solve without me, so that if I did sell it, my heart wasn't going to be fully broken. But it was a well oiled machine. And then I got super lucky Collin, because I was able to sell it to my manager. So the transition was even better. So in the last six months, I pretty much groomed her, and now she and her husband run it on
09:45
their own. Yeah,
Collin 09:46
what a wonderful way to do that transition too, right? And I know that that's kind of as you approach that cliff, I'm sure that gets a little scary, of, how is this transition going to go? How's this take over? What's going to happen? How are they going to come in and to have somebody built up? Internal that can then take over, like, what a huge blessing to make that go well for your clients too, right? That you had all these relationships with and worked so hard on and to make it easy for everybody involved.
Nicole P. 10:11
It was, you know, there were, don't get me wrong, there were other offers for the business in over the couple years, and a couple of them seemed like they would fit. And I know, I now know I didn't know this before, but when you go into buy a selling a business, you have to put your heart on the side. You cannot go in with emotion. You know, just because it's my baby doesn't mean that you are going to come in and buy it and do the same things that I did, but to be able to nurture someone who a I've known since preschool, B, lives across the street from my brother. C, was a client of mine for 12 years, and then worked for me. It couldn't have worked out better so and I knew, most importantly that for my clients and their pets that she wasn't going to change it to the Uber of pet care. That was one that came to me, someone wanted to change it to Uber of pet care. And I was like, no. So I know that my baby's going to continue with her vision, but it wasn't going to
Collin 11:15
be destroyed. That was, yeah, well, I know that that's private equity, private investment, is moving a lot into into pet care, and more and more of those offers are being tendered not from within the industry, but from outside. And I think that there is the possibility for a lot of cultural change within the industry, within that once that starts happening, I know we see that in the veterinary side, right? Just go talk to your local vet about how that industry has been impacted by that. So there's a lot of those concerns now more than ever, as we look to going, what's the next? You know, 30 years look like for this industry?
Nicole P. 11:53
Yeah, I think that it's, I mean, it's definitely changing, and especially with, you know, the larger the vets being purchased out by the larger vets, you know, the VCAs and the and the thrives. But, I mean, I've seen, I don't know the name of the company, but I know there's one in New York City that has literally gone from small businesses, small business and pet sitting, and they're just buying them up. I did. I had somebody from Europe who wanted to move to the United States and own a small business. And I thought that this person would have been amazing. Loved animals, had a lot of experience, but was insistent, I want, literally, verbatim, I want this to be uber of pet care. And, you know, I had people in my life saying, it doesn't matter. You just want them to buy it there. For me, it was no this has been 20 years of my life, and my my clients would have been mad, and I, I just, I couldn't do that. So I wanted it to be, I wanted to be, you know, Claudia is a part of my family, and Claudia now is running the business. So back to your question, the transition. The transition there was helpful because my managers were in place. The transition was easier because I forced myself to take a step back, because I know how important I mean, Miami was my my baby, and I knew that if I didn't start separating myself emotionally, it was never going to happen. The reason, the reason why I sold here was my husband was finally transferred to Colorado, and I I could have run it from afar, but because of the high liability of working out dogs on treadmills and the just the liability of it. I wasn't going to leave it here without my supervision. I considered bringing it to Miami, but I just didn't want to do that. So I was able to sell it to someone here who already had an established business.
Collin 13:57
Again, finding those opportunities, you know, and we have to understand what we like, what you want, ultimately, excuse me, of there are these, you know. Okay, well, if the business is running without you, you know, well, just hang on to it, right? Why sell it off? Or, if you could do things, why? And I think what a lot of this is just like, What do I want my life to actually look like, right? What stresses do I want on me and we That's it. That's something we have to answer for ourselves, right? And just go, absolutely, what do I want the next 20 years to look like? What do I want to be waking up to in the middle of the night and worried about and going, do I want that is this, you know, you talked about that kind of loss of excitement, or this, this passion that's there. Like, how are we balancing that with, with where we want to be and where we want to go. Have you heard of time to pet Chris and from raining cats and dogs? Has this to say?
Speaker 2 14:47
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Collin 15:13
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Nicole P. 15:24
You know, I, I think I can speak for many people in the pet care arena, and maybe even you too, that I think that a lot of us start our businesses for more reasons than we care. To admit, sure you'll hear, Oh, I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to set up my own schedule. I wanted to be a provider for my family. But I think for a lot of us, including myself, it was one thing in my life at that time that I could control, and that was 100% mine. And you know, I come from, I come from a great family, but we all have our hiccups in our family. And you know, for me, my childhood was great. There were hiccups in my childhood, but being the youngest of four and my brothers being, you know, Ivy League students and Google executives and attorneys and prosecutors, I didn't feel like I ever competed and that I wasn't smart enough or good enough, which is silly, but it was my outlet. It was my ability to control something, to make the rules and to have something that was just mine. Also, at the time, being single, without children, I was like, Oh, I'm going to create something to be able to take care of myself. Because I always, I was always taught, like, make sure that you can balance your checkbook and change attire and do all those things for yourself. But now, you know, I just turned 51 and I've been doing this since I was in my 30s, and I don't need that control anymore, and I don't need to feel like I need to have the power. And I just felt like I needed to find myself and actually love what I'm doing again, versus doing it because I have to. And I don't know if I'm making any sense, and hopefully somebody hears this and identifies but I just I needed to take a step back from it, because Collin, how often have we missed birthday parties in Christmas and noche buenas, bar mitzvahs,
Collin 17:32
trips, hundreds of
Nicole P. 17:36
things that I said no to, because I used my business as a as a crutch for myself, for for personal reasons, and now I'm I feel free. I'm like, okay, I can do this, and I can be happy, and I can be myself, and I don't have to have any fears. And now I can run my business and actually implement some some guidelines to not get sucked back in. That. Does that make sense? Yeah, especially
Collin 18:01
when you talked about the like, the one thing that I can control. You know, a lot of people go, Well, I left my corporate business, or I left this other life because I wanted to. In a lot of cases, it's I wanted to be able to set my schedule. I wanted to control my day. I wanted to. And sometimes it's out of chaos. It's well, everything else was going on around the world. I just needed something where I could I felt better. The more I obsessed over my calendar, right I have. I felt better the more I futz with my website, because it's the one thing. Everything is and, and, and we we take that with us, and it can march alongside or it can be, it's who we are. The more I do this, the better things get. And it's my little world all of a sudden and to realize, well, I'm, and, you know what you said, they're like, Well, I'm, I'm not the same person I was when I started my
Nicole P. 18:55
business. I'm not, yeah, I mean, I was, and, you know, I had left my my life in Los Angeles, working in the TV business and a lucrative fun 20s, early 30s. But I found my calling when I was, you know, volunteering with these helpless dogs from East LA. But when I started this business, I was 32 years old, and I was single, and I was going for it, and now I'm married, and I want to have, you know, in the first 10 years of my marriage, I've been going, going, going, and now I have the opportunity to slow down a little bit. But it doesn't go without having the best 18 years of my life. It's just now we have to, you know, we have to reorganize the way with that we view things, I think also we tend to identify ourselves through our business. And for many years, that's what I felt like. I am Nicole Peckin. I am the owner of Miami pet concierge. I am a pet sitting company owner, and I'm very proud of that, but I didn't have anything else because my life was so much a. Work, and I forgot my hobbies and I forgot those things. So I don't know maybe I'm having, like, a midlife crisis, but I think it's just about I did the one thing. I did what I had to, and I'm moving on to do something greater, I guess, yeah,
Collin 20:16
when under the identity thing is huge. I know a lot of people really suffered with that through COVID, because, oh yeah, yeah, no, I am a dog walker, and I'm not dog walking anymore. I'm sitting at home. So who am I? What am right? What value do I have? What all is this, and to recognize that it creeps in in every little way, and that we have to kind of be, not kind of, we're not. Kind of have to be. But like being okay with with with ourselves, right? I am is a complete sentence, like you, you are you, are you, and you don't need to add any you know things on the end or the beginning. There's no amount of letters that you can make to make you any more than what you are. And that's comforting, but it can also be unsettling, if we've never really sat with that for a little bit.
Nicole P. 21:03
It's incredibly unsettling. I mean, the most unsettling part now, Collin is, what are you going to do next? And I'm and I literally had this conversation this morning with someone where I said, you know, I I love what I do. I love working with dogs. I love the anatomy. I love learning about gait and all that stuff. But when I find myself scrolling and not answering questions anymore on Facebook and not helping and not even wanting to read it, that scared me a little bit, because my interest is there, but I just my passion was, was just kind of, I just felt very, very heavy. So, um, I think that getting rid of both at this time was a perfect, a perfect segue for me, also to be able to, as we talked about when we first got on here, all of those credentials that we work so hard to attain, and half of us never put into use. I'm like, I will be damned. I will put these into use, because there are some that I put into use a little bit, but that's where I want to kind of gravitate towards, and maybe on a smaller scale, instead of having so many staff and all that. Maybe just doing something that's something smaller. For a while, we'll see.
Collin 22:26
Do you think that push to do the the what next thing is that A, is that an internal thing you fought? Is that an external expectation that people typically kind of placed on you, or kind of where, how does that work
Nicole P. 22:37
out? You mean, like, what am I doing? And now that I've sold two businesses, yeah?
Collin 22:41
I mean, I even guilty. I came on, I was like, What are you doing? Nick, what are you gonna do? Yeah,
Nicole P. 22:46
I think that it's, I think it's a natural thing for someone to ask us, because we are entrepreneurs, right? So that's the first thing people say, is, okay, I am Nicole Peckin, what are you I am a sister. I am a wife, I am a daughter, I am a knee, i Aunt, I am an entrepreneur. So instinctually, we think, what are we going to do next? And I'm happy people are curious, because, you know, I know that people want to see great things. I am putting the stress on myself. I cannot. My brain will not. When are you going to do it? When are you going to start going to start? What are you going to do? How are you going to do it? But I am trying to set a boundary for myself of saying, just be for a while, just be like this week, I've cut my runs down. I don't have a van anymore. We don't have any vans. So a lot of my clients here bought their own machines so that we can so my I have a staff member here, so we've been running their dogs in their homes, and I've been teaching some of the more advanced clients how to do certain workouts for their dogs when I'm gone. I don't know how that worked out, but they all the second I told them we were selling. A lot of them are like, listen, we don't want to do this. So it worked out for me that way.
Collin 24:05
But the couple days that I have off, I'm like, What do I do?
Nicole P. 24:12
Wait a second, I can go get a manicure in the middle of the day. I could do that before. But I didn't feel guilty about it, because I was like, Wait a second. I'm the owner of the business. I'm working. If I want to go get a manicure, I will, right? But
Collin 24:23
no, now I'm like, you know, I don't know.
Nicole P. 24:29
You might have caught me in a I don't know. I don't, I don't know. The answer. Collin,
Collin 24:33
no, well, you mentioned that that needing that space before you start doing something. And I think what a lot of that, what that space allows is for the dust to settle before we do so, especially if you're like, I want to do something different. And sometimes we can come off so hot from the old thing that our brain is still wired exactly the way it was whenever we were working in the previous way. And so when we try and think of something different and do it a different way, we just. Get caught right back into that same trap, and we see this getting right back. Oh, well, why am I doing this way? Well, so allowing that kind of cool off period, right? And we can do that sometimes with these small boundaries, of like, phone off at eight, wake up, refresh the next day. Have some weekends like, there are little ways to implement these resets, but sometimes it does take longer ones of like, you know, I don't know, and especially when there's going, I don't need to rush into something, let me, let me really soak this up so that I can make the so that this is actually useful, and this is actually good and beneficial to me. Yeah, I think
Nicole P. 25:38
that, if you know, I look and I there was a while where I thought, like, you know, maybe I'll consult, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. And I see all the beautiful work that our colleagues and our friends are doing in the community, and I know that there's something out there. And like I said, I have healthy hounds fitness club. Is my little next it's, that's what it's called, healthy hounds fitness club, and I'm excited about it. I just think that
Collin 26:05
for me,
Nicole P. 26:07
transitioning again, moving a home, selling my home, you know, making sure that my family is comfortable and that we're settled. You know, the last five or six years has been very much about my businesses, so I feel like it's turned for my husband to kind of make some changes. He's going to he's opening up his first small business, which is exciting. So there's lots of positive changes, but I'm probably going to take off a couple months before I do anything. Might even take a trip. I don't know. I haven't decided, although I did book a trip to I did book the three, the three people that I told you have sold their businesses already. Yeah, we are all going to Spain in August together. You know what? Let's go to Spain. So, yeah, three of us that sold our businesses in the last year, we're going to go together and just have a week of girls, so that will be nice,
Collin 27:02
yeah, that'd be a nice little reset, and little bit community moment there. Yeah, one thing that I when you've, you've made these transitions, I did want to just from a technical aspect of this sure kind of, you know, you change the kind of business you offered when you moved into Dallas, and then you're kind of thinking about something different when you make a next move. When you make the next move is, how do you go about knowing what you want to offer like is is it or like? Is it involved? Like, market research with this, is this just your gut instinct of kind of where you want the wins to go for you? Or how is that process been like as you refine your offerings each time. I
Nicole P. 27:42
love this question, because I think, I think this is an important thing that many of us in the industry have not done, and it's something that I have wanted to share, and I believe that everybody should find that one thing in the industry that they find the most passion about. For instance, Zara, in Canada, owns catcare Toronto. She loves cats, right? And that's all she does. Or you have I'm trying to think off the top of it, Janie Budnick, and she loves processes and and procedures, and you and you know you love this, and Doug loves staffing. You get the picture. I think that if everybody found their one thing, and then they just really researched it, and they grew on that, they could blossom into an area that may not have been tapped into. And what I found was, in year 2009 10, I went to massage therapy school because I wanted to differentiate myself. And I thought, okay, my father was an orthopedist. I was an athlete. I'm very in tune with the human body. I think it would be really cool to learn about the anatomy of a dog, how it functions, and what that could offer me to bring to the table of my clients. Well, at the same time, I went and got certified in water therapy, because when I'm in I'm in Miami at the time, and the number one reason dogs die is they don't know how to swim, 20,000 dogs a year would die. So, you know, dying pools. So I thought, okay, maybe I'll start teaching dogs how to swim, and then incorporate massage therapy and kind of do fitness. That was way before, you know, the Bobby Lyon schools and then in the north NC State and Tennessee programs were up and running, and then over the years, just through my certifications, I really enjoy rehab, physical fitness and making sure that our dogs are their bodies are healthy. And so I feel like, from pet sitting, I'm. Met my dog, Dorothy, who I started doing my rehab with, and then I did the mobile gym because my dogs, I needed something, because they're hunting, breeding big. I feel like just everything's morphed, and as I've kind of mastered certain skills, like I don't, I don't,
Collin 30:20
I guess I became a pet sitter.
Nicole P. 30:22
I learned how to pet sit, I mastered how to pet sit. I did this, and I kind of started building that. It's all led to now being able to incorporate all of that into something fresh and new. And I'll tell you whether it was Bella vasta 15 years ago or Kate MC Collin, who still to this day, or or Michelle Klein, who have said to me, always, find your niche. What do you love? Find your passion, and, in a sense, expose that to differentiate yourself. And that's kind of where my heart has been. So I hope that answered your question. It was very long. I'm sorry.
Collin 31:03
No, it's fantastic, Nicole, because again, like when I looking through your history, again, it's like, there's this big, all encompassing, like, does everything, pet care business, and then there's like, this hyper focused, like, dog exercise, little therapy business. And then there's going to be whatever comes after this. It's been really, it's really neat to see your own thought processes worked out in the businesses that flow from them. And I think many times we get stuck in where we start and think that that's where we have to end.
31:35
And I agree with you, right? And I absolutely agree with you, and I
Collin 31:39
think many of us would actually benefit from maybe, what if you have to close out your business and move across the country? Like, what would you would you do the same thing? And that's a question I've asked Meg, and I ask ourselves a lot of if we were doing this from the beginning, knowing what we know now, would we do it this way? Correct? Right? And absolutely, one
Nicole P. 31:56
of the most terrifying questions would start from the beginning. You would be like, wouldn't do that. Wouldn't do that. But I do. I think that, you know, when we decided originally to move we were coming to Colorado, it was at the 11th hour that we decided to detour to Texas. And we detoured to Texas for a family so when I came here, I was like, What do I have to lose? I had planned on opening the mobile Gym in Miami. I had the vessels there, COVID hit and we were moving. So I figured, okay, why not? I also have been the type of kid and adult through I mean, you can ask my family from a kid, no, was never an answer for me if I wanted to do something. And I mean that not in the sense of like I want to go get high and jump off a roof? No, no, no. I'm saying, if I set my mind to it, I will do it. So for instance, in college, my parents would say, Listen, if you want to go on spring break, if you want to be in a sorority, if you want to join the soccer club, you're paying for it, get a job. So I did. So that was kind of how I've always functioned. So coming to here, I figured, okay, I knew Dallas was going to be a three to five year stop. I knew we weren't going to be here forever. I just didn't share that with many people, because I didn't, you know, I didn't want to freak anybody out, but we knew we were only going to be here three to five years, so I knew, Okay, what can I build fast? What can I turn you know, what can I do that I can build quickly, that is it going to break my bank, and that if I do build it, I can sell it fast, because, and it was just, it worked out really well. It also answered a lot of questions for me, I will never do mobile dog gym again. Oh, no, if it was on a bigger scale, but, you know, being in a van by yourself all day long, it can be daunting. It's a lot. And I realized that I I like being in the field, but I didn't, I didn't love doing the mobile thing. That's okay, though, because I don't have to do it again.
Collin 34:00
This episode is also brought to you by our friends at the National Association of Professional pet sitters for naps. So while their amazing 2025 conference has wrapped, there's never been a better time to connect naps offers year round resources networking and support to help you grow your pet care business from educational tools to a nationwide community. They're here to walk alongside you at every stage. Visit pet sitters.org, today to get started well. And I love how you said, you know, you found those parameters around the business that you were going to build. And I think that is that's so beautiful, right? Okay, what can I do in five years that's easy to get in and out and scale, and it's not going to train wreck me along the way. And I think too often, like we don't have enough constraints on ourselves, a lot of times, like there isn't, there's there's a huge bonus to having no constraints and just going possibilities are endless. I'm just going to sit here and soak it all up. On the other hand, applying some sort of constraint actually. Helps, at least me be a little bit more creative in what I come up with, and especially with bound with things around, like personal boundaries, I think that's one of the first constraints we can clamp down on our businesses, right of like, what if I ran a business where I wasn't available 24/7 to my clients? What if that? Let's just throw that constraint out there. What would that was like? First
Nicole P. 35:19
thing that came to mind, Collin, when, when Julian, my husband, and I, were like, Okay, we're going to Dallas. What are we going to do? I it was called Dallas pet concierge. I am Dallas pet concierge, doing business as the packet method. I was coming here to do a peck, setting business. And then I and then we said, you know, why? Just bring the van. But I agree with you that if you, if you, you know, put some constraints on yourself. Um, it. I just lost my train of thought, but I, I agree with everything you just said, bear with me, because my brain sometimes I'm just, I lose my train of thought, but I now I know, okay, so skip that. For your thing, I'll answer the question, yeah, okay. You said something about constraints. And it was, it was literally, it was deliberately designed that okay, if I start a dog walking or pet sitting business, that's going to take some time to build, and by the time I get to two or three years, and then it's connected to Miami. What do I do then? And I purposely left them separate, because I knew that if I did sell one offer the other, the other one wasn't going to be affected, plus that i There were people who were interested in both, but because there's a learning curve of the van, I never felt comfortable doing that.
36:46
So I feel that
Nicole P. 36:49
that was in my best interest. Was okay, what can I do? What can I set up? What is not going to break the bank? But it did come with some sacrifices. For instance, I didn't own a car for three years because I had a van, I chose not to have two cars. I chose the van. My husband had a car. So, you know, I would go grocery shopping in a van. Free marketing, but there's a point where, you know, driving an enormous van every day got old.
37:15
Not a big complaint. But yeah, that was
Nicole P. 37:17
one thing that I was ready to get rid of. Hashtag,
Collin 37:19
Van life,
Nicole P. 37:22
you know, it's Yeah. I mean, when your husband's about to put a porta potty in your van, because you're, you don't want to use your, you know, public bathrooms, and you're, yeah, I'm like, Okay, I think it's time.
Collin 37:32
This is going in a direction that I think is not okay.
Nicole P. 37:37
I mean, we considered van life. We almost did that. We were considering selling our house and getting an RV and starting in Alaska and driving,
Collin 37:46
but we're going to put that on hold for a while. It's still on our bucket list too. There are places where you can go and you can rent them for like, a weekend or two. And I'm like, we need to do that just to, like, we got to just a couple times, thanks. And then we gotta go, right?
Nicole P. 38:04
We thought about it, but I, you know, then I thought like, Okay, well, how do, what do I do if I'm doing that, you know, could I blog right? Whatever. But the great news is, you know, with where we're moving, into Colorado, with the second, with the new business, I just learned the coolest thing, we literally are a block, like, three doors down from the largest open space in the in the state, it's 400 and like 25 acres of open land, dog friendly, off leash,
Collin 38:36
gated. Well, I know with the lake. I'm like, wait a second,
Nicole P. 38:44
it was handed to me. So yeah, I see where I'm going with this. Yeah,
Collin 38:49
okay, but it's part of that too, is just going what opportunity being adaptable in those situations. Because if you come in, locked in, in a plan, without fully, like, getting a feel for things. I think that's where we get tripped up. Because then we do we then we go reverting back to, well, this was my first plan, so I just have to stick this through. And I gotta grind through this, right? I gotta grind. And there does come at there is an important aspect of that grunt work and that stuff that you've got business takes grinding. Sometimes I feel like too often, we're down here grinding in first gear because we can't find it. We should just skip over to second right and move on and move on in, move on it.
Nicole P. 39:28
That's kind of like, that's how I'm gonna do it. I mean, like I said, next week is my last runs, and then I think I have two and a half weeks. And, you know, the marketing, the branding, all the fun stuff is done. It's just now growing it, which, to be honest with you, I think I'm just, I love writing blogs. I know that's weird, but I like writing blogs, so I figured, and this is what I did during COVID to rebuild Miami, is I just spent time writing and writing, so I think I'm just going to write a little bit. I'm going to take some time off, and then once I get there, really narrow. Throw it down, especially to see where the hikes are going to be and things like that. But then also, you know, I've had a couple job offers. Now, do I think I'm going to go back into corporate? Probably not, but there are options, and I don't know,
Collin 40:13
yeah, yeah. I'm sure. Again, you mentioned it's kind of your first time being unemployed since you were 14. I'm sure that does feel a little little wayward, but also very, you know, optimistic too, about just making anything you want at that point.
Nicole P. 40:31
You know, thank you for saying that, because I feel like I have the most supportive spouse. He's just the coolest and he's the best, and he tells me that every day, babe, it's okay. You're You're fine. It's you're gonna, it's gonna work out what your the world is your oyster. It's the pressure that we put on ourselves. Because the second the the ink was dry on Miami, I was like, Oh God, what am I gonna do next? What am I gonna do? Oh God. Instead of just being like, hey, embrace this, celebrate what you've done. Enjoy it. You know, you, you know, I was able to put a little bit of money away. Congratulations. Just enjoy it. But I see all the wonderful things people are doing, and I'm like, You got to get back in there. But I think that sometimes, if you, if you learn to listen to yourself, take this step back. You're not going to miss out, you're not going to get FOMO, you're just going to be better, you know better the next time. So this is an adjustment for me. And one, I'm not taking lightly. And one, I just it's, if you can tell I'm like, Ah, but I won't be panicked.
Collin 41:42
I won't I won't be panicked. I won't be I'm not panicking. No, yeah, and I think that's just again, because many times, and this is I felt the same thing too, of each time we've had to, like, just like in little things, like even just stopping a service, or like, not servicing a particular service, or like this crops up in so many different ways of I think anytime we close off something in our life, that's where we start, I start to get real big heartburn over something, because I just don't know what's on the other side of this and and am I going to be okay? Because this is all I've known for such a long time. And I this is, this is unknown, and we're just, we're hardwired to not like, to dislike the No we
Nicole P. 42:29
are hardwired. I had someone recently say to me, you know,
Speaker 1 42:34
why don't you list everything that you can do, from hiring
Nicole P. 42:39
to finances, to social media and see what's out there. And it's weird because Collin, if I were to go apply for a job right now, I don't think I've applied for a job since 2002 like, I don't even know what that means anymore, you know, like, I just wouldn't know how to do that. But that's the beauty, is that now I get to just kind of explore, but we are hard on ourselves, and that's the one thing that I know I do to myself all the time, is I pressure myself to keep going and to get it done, and instead of taking a step back, and we need self care, and we need to take care of our mental health, and we need to take care of ourselves physically. I mean, if I counted the number of injuries between my shoulders being pulled out and an implant in my ankle and knee problem, all from the dog stuff, you know, that can make you feel like your next step is, you know, sitting behind a desk answering calls at, you know, I don't know, an insurance company, not a chance. But you know, I'm saying,
43:47
Yeah, I don't know. How
Collin 43:49
was it translating over, you know, 20 years in the pet care field into a resume and CV with all of your skills and stuff.
Nicole P. 43:58
Um, it's interesting, because if you look at my resume right now, of my jobs in my TV credentials, it's like, you know, it's written out nicely. And then you get to the dog section, and you're like, What do I say? I mean, you know, CEO and founder and but it's, it's, it's weird. And to be honest with you, I don't think I want to go through that process. It just seems kind of a little barbaric and just awful.
Collin 44:24
It seems intimidating. Yeah, well, and like, you had that little blinking cursor there, and it's like, what did I like, not gonna say, like, not in a like, what did I do? Like, was it all for nothing, but in like a, how do I, where do I even begin to put this into words what this has been like, right? And what exactly my my role is. How do I succinctly state this in any capacity?
Nicole P. 44:50
Well, let me tell you something. What I did notice, which was, it was kind of a eye opener for me, is, I. You know, as you go through this, or as I'm going through this, there have been a couple companies that have reached out to me for job offers, and although I likely will not take a corporate job, it's you have to go through with it, because it's a learning experience, and you never know. What I have learned through this process is that what we do doesn't necessarily translate to the corporate world perfectly. You need a little help. So we are the masters of all trades, right? We do finance, we do HR, we do marketing, we do customer service. I mean, we are the jack of all trades. But in corporate I'm finding that, are you good at that? Are you master of one? Are you okay at everything? And so it's different because we come in being but no, I know how to do that. I know how to do that when they're only wanting one thing. And so that's kind of an intimidating thing.
Collin 45:57
That reminds me when I was applying to jobs 10 years ago, and someone told me a piece of advice, of, like, you know, customize the CV to the job. And this is exactly what that's talking about. Of like, Okay, if I were to stop what I'm doing now, we do everything, but I need to pick, like, the one or two things that I'm like, really, really good at. It's not that I'm not going to mention that I did everything, but I may just make those like one or two bullet points and not like 16,
Nicole P. 46:25
right? And that. And that goes back to when I said to you, before you said, How did you narrow down from being a pet sitter to the dog gym to this is now, when you do apply, if you apply, you can narrow it down based on those niches. But it does. It's I think the whole process is a little intimidating. Since I haven't done it in forever, I don't anticipate that's where I'm going to end up. I think that entrepreneurship is in my blood, and I hope that I've answered some of your questions. I know I I'm a good babbler. You absolutely,
Collin 47:00
you absolutely did Nicole. And again, I love the again, that trend that not not transition, but that, that continuum of finding and digging down into your passions as you go along and going, where's the next thing I can sink my teeth into, and where's the next thing and and that's there's that drive that I think all entrepreneurs have, of okay, I need to keep moving forward. But I think what's really important and is a good reminder that I'm, you know, I'm reminding myself here as I'm listening to you, Nicole, I'm going, it's not just skating along the surface. I'm not trying to go further. Sometimes I need to dig down a lot, and I need to get really knowledgeable about something, because that's really where we unlock those passions. Because you're right, sometimes you can master something, and then you kind of look around and go, Well, what else is there? And then a lot of complacency. Some people can get bored that we can get some burnout in there. It's like, well, just scratch a little bit on the surface. Go read another book, go do another seminar. Investigate one more aspect, follow those rabbit trails of information, because you don't know how that's going to apply. That's no idea, yeah, you don't know how it's going to return back to you, and how you end up utilizing that information.
Nicole P. 48:05
I remember when I was going to massage therapy school, and, you know, I had comments of all different kinds about, oh, what are you going to do with the dogs? And you're going to massage and all that stuff. And it seemed just kind of wooey at the time. And I know vets weren't really into it, and they were, you know, they thought it was just kind of like Kumbaya. But I do, I think it's the reason why I think it's important too, is because now where, at least for me and my journey,
48:36
Miami was 24 hours
Nicole P. 48:37
a day, seven days a week, all the time, right? Because your pet sitting, and you're and you're caring for pets. And that was fine at that point in my life, because I was single and I was up all night, and it didn't matter, and I didn't care if someone called me. And then as I get older, and as my life changes, and as my own role as a wife and I take my marriage very seriously, like you do being a parent, a parent and a husband. To me, it was, it was intruding. And sometimes, like, there would be times where, you know, my husband would be like, you're working again, you're working again. So being able to transition that into the van was amazing, because now I could pick my time. I could work from 10 to five, I could work from 10 to two. I didn't have to work. I still did, but I was able to kind of tighten it a little bit more. So now moving to the next one, with the help of Michelle who
Collin 49:29
Michelle Klein, thank you.
Nicole P. 49:31
I flew to her. I flew and I spent a weekend with her before I sold Miami, and was like, and she helped me so much just getting someone else's opinion on what you're doing, because we're all so consumed and going to this next business. Now, I want to work Monday through Friday, from 10 to four. I don't want to work weekends. I don't want to work nights. I want to do this and this and be able to turn it off. Because, you know. I want to do Collin my husband, and I want to be in the mountains on the weekends with my own dogs. That's what I want. My goal is the mountains, hiking, camping, canoeing, all the good stuff. And so that is, that is one part of the business that I've been slowly, slowly, slowly shrinking, is,
Speaker 1 50:19
how can I work less, but work really
Nicole P. 50:24
hard in that smaller time frame and put out excellent work, charge really high, make money and love what I do. So that's kind of my that's I want to shrink, make money, work less
Collin 50:37
and spend time in the mountains. That sounds beautiful. I'm, I'm Nicole, I'm, we have guest
Nicole P. 50:44
rooms so you're can come visit. No one would visit us here, no one. There were no doubts. I don't know even our family was like, well, we've been there. Everybody wants to come to Colorado
Speaker 1 50:55
now. We're very popular in our family, very popular. Well, Nicole, I'm,
Collin 51:03
I can't tell you how excited I am, and we are for your next your next leg, and your journey and everything that you've got going on. It's, it's very inspiring, and I'm very thankful for you coming on and sharing that with us today and encouraging us to find those boundaries and re dig into that passion. For those who want to follow along and see what the next thing holds for you, and just, you know, get in touch. Nicole, how people? How can people best do that? Sure. So
Nicole P. 51:25
right now, believe it or not, you can reach me on my Gmail account. Nicole.packet@gmail.com, but honestly, it's healthy hounds fitness club. You can find it on Instagram and Facebook, websites being built, and I think that, you know, probably April, May you'll start seeing me pop up here and there again. But Collin, I really, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I'm Italian. We are talkers, so I know I babble, but if anybody ever needs, you know, some advice or some help, if they want to buy and sell their business. If they're thinking about transitioning to another state, if they're thinking about opening up a dog gym, I'm would be more than happy to help if I can.
Collin 52:11
Yeah, no, that sounds wonderful. And I'll have the Gmail in there and start to start some links to the healthy hounds fitness club too, so people just get a taste of what's more to come there, Nicole, this has been so much fun, and I'm so thankful to get caught up with you today with everything going on. So thank you, Nicole, thank you. Thank you. Have a good one. Sometimes when we work in our passion, you can lose that excitement. I think this key takeaway really helps understand why it's important to stay connected to ourselves and our business, not so that we can feel like we just never get away and we're always doing something in our business, but so that when we change, when our excitement levels change, we can look at our business, we can look at ourselves and figure Where the discrepancy is. We can start trying and experimenting new things, and sometimes, yes, we have to admit to ourselves, it's time to step away. It's time for me to do something completely and wholly different than what I've
Speaker 3 53:13
done before. And that's healthy. That's okay. We
Collin 53:17
hope you can take some time this week or this month to make sure that you are in alignment, that you have that joy, that excitement about your business, and if you don't start trying some new things and see where you go, we want to thank today's sponsors time to pet and our friends at the National Association of Professional pet sitters for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon. You.
