The Founder's Edit: 7 (Hard) Truths I’ve Learned Since Starting Alchemist + Co.
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Time to read 6 min
What building this brand taught me about presence, capacity, and becoming myself.
Starting Alchemist + Co. was never just about candles. It was about rebuilding myself from the inside out — nervous system, identity, inner child, all of it.
Entrepreneurship has a way of holding up a mirror to the parts of you you’ve avoided, rushed past, or learned to silence. And while I thought I was building a brand, the truth is: the brand has been quietly building me.
These are the seven hard truths that reshaped how I work, create, receive, and stay present with my life.
Table of contents
1. Nothing bypasses inner work — not strategy, not aesthetics, not success. 2. Perfectionism is the slowest way to stall your life. 3. If your nervous system isn’t regulated, visibility feels like danger. 4. Hustle culture is a trauma response, not a personality trait. 5. You cannot grow beyond your capacity to receive. 6. Your inner child runs the entire creative department. Honor her. 7. Start with strangers — that’s where your real growth lives. Here's what I want you to know.
1. Nothing bypasses inner work — not strategy, not aesthetics, not success.
Your unhealed patterns follow you into every room you enter — including the ones you build yourself. Shadow work (or inner work) isn’t separate from business; it shows up through business.
It affects everything:
how you operate
your creative and strategic flow
how you show up in your business
how you show up online
how you talk to yourself throughout your day
how you handle slow seasons
how you handle the high seasons
how you navigate relationships (customers, vendors, family)
Editor’s Note: Research in somatic psychology shows that unprocessed experiences shape our nervous system responses, influencing how we handle stress, visibility, and decision-making. In business, this often presents as avoidance, shutdown, or overcompensation.
Entrepreneurship didn’t let me hide from myself.
It confronted me with myself — and I had to learn to stay.
2. Perfectionism is the slowest way to stall your life.
I used to think preparation would save me.
If I got things “just right,” then maybe I’d feel safe enough to show up.
But perfection is just fear dressed in clean typography.
What I’ve learned is this:
Momentum builds clarity. Clarity doesn’t build momentum.
You grow by moving, not by overthinking.
Every product, every post, every launch… I had to learn to release it while it was still imperfect. Because waiting for perfect kept me waiting for permission.
And permission was never going to come. At least not from me.
3. If your nervous system isn’t regulated, visibility feels like danger.
Before I ever created a candle, I had to learn how to be seen.
Not in a “look at me” way — in a “I’m safe to be myself publicly” way.
But I didn’t.
Not at first.
I built the brand, but kept myself small inside of it. I stayed behind the camera, behind the captions, behind the work — believing that if the products were strong enough, maybe I wouldn’t have to be.
I’m healing that now.
Visibility still stretches me, but I’m learning to stay regulated while being perceived.
Editor’s Note: The brain often codes visibility as vulnerability. When the nervous system interprets exposure as threat, it activates protective responses — procrastination, shrinking, perfectionism, or overworking.
Learning to be seen is still an active practice — a slow, steady choosing.
And honestly?
That is its own form of inner work.
4. Hustle culture is a trauma response, not a personality trait.
Millennials were taught that success requires:
overworking
self-sacrifice
neglecting rest
tying worth to productivity
But urgency doesn’t build sustainability. It builds burnout.
I had to unlearn the idea that exhaustion is noble.
I had to rewrite my belief that taking breaks meant I was falling behind.
The truth?
A regulated business grows slower…
but it grows cleaner.
With fewer breakdowns.
With fewer “why am I doing this?” spirals.
With far more joy.
There is no prize at the end for who suffered the most.
There is a life you get to live while you build something meaningful.
"Every misstep of my founder's journey was rooted in my inner work that was neglected. Avoidance? I called it hustle. Fear? I called it simple anxiety. And the failures? My brand, my flow.. was being used as a cover-up of all of the parts of me I needed to explore."
5. You cannot grow beyond your capacity to receive.
This was the hardest one.
Every time we hit a milestone — sales spikes, launches, new opportunities — I would somehow collapse inward. Not because I didn’t want it… but because part of me wasn’t ready to hold it.
Here's what you need to know.
- Receiving requires safety.
- Receiving requires identity expansion.
- Receiving requires letting good things stay.
Editor’s Note: Studies in self-worth and neuroception show that the nervous system often rejects what feels “too good” if past environments taught that stability is unpredictable. Capacity building is not mindset — it is physiological.
Once I learned to expand my capacity, the growth that once felt overwhelming started to feel possible.
Not easy — just possible.
6. Your inner child runs the entire creative department. Honor her.
Every idea, every aesthetic shift, every product concept…
It all comes from the youngest, most imaginative part of me.
When she feels safe, the creativity flows.
When she feels criticized, everything shuts down.
So now I include her intentionally:
I let her play.
I let her choose colors.
I let her explore concepts without immediately monetizing them.
I let her have a voice.
She is the spark behind everything.
Without her?
Alchemist + Co. wouldn’t exist.
7. Start with strangers — that’s where your real growth lives.
When I was a realtor, we were told to start with our “sphere of influence.”
I did the opposite here.
Intentionally.
Friends and family see an old version of you.
They project who you were, not who you’re becoming.
Strangers?
They meet you exactly where you are today.
They choose you because they resonate — not out of obligation or familiarity.
If I had waited for people I knew to validate my work,
I would have never started.
Here's what I want you to know.
Building Alchemist + Co. has been less about entrepreneurship and more about remembering who I am underneath the conditioning, the urgency, the fear of being seen, and the pressure to grow fast. It’s taught me that sustainable business is not built from strategy alone — it’s built from nervous system regulation, presence, and self-honesty.
The deeper I go into this work, the more I realize that creating a brand is not separate from creating a self. They rise together. They unravel together. They heal together.
If you’re walking your own version of this path — whether you’re in the beginning, rebuilding, or finding your way back to yourself — I hope you remember this:
You don’t have to rush.
You don’t have to be perfect.
You just have to stay with yourself long enough to grow.
Your business can only grow at the pace your nervous system feels safe – Visibility, creativity, receiving, and consistency are all regulated from the inside out. Not through force or strategy.
Inner work isn't separate from entrepreneurship; it's the operating system behind it – Perfectionism, hustle culture, capacity, and creative flow all trace back to somatic patterns you can heal.
Sustainable success comes from presence, not performance – When you stop trying to prove and start letting yourself be seen — slowly, gently — your work finally has space to expand.
Tiffanie – Founder of Alchemist + Co.
Tiffanie is the founder behind Alchemist + Co., where scent meets self-connection. A mother, creative, and lifelong student of inner alchemy, she crafts rituals and fragrances designed to anchor presence in a world that rarely slows down. Her writing captures the real-time truth of becoming — the shadows, the softness, and the beauty found along the way.
Q. What made you start Alchemist + Co.?
A. Well – this is always a hybrid answer for me. After my youngest child was born, I started dealing with headaches from my favorite candle at the time - Palo Santo by Bath & Body Works. That opened the door for me to start making them myself (it was also during the pandemic). I knew I wanted it to be different, I knew I wanted the science of scent to be an integral part, and through natural flow and alignment I incorporated overall wellness. Not just Instagram ready self-care products.
Q. What was the hardest truth for you?
A. If I had to pick one, it would be my fear of visibility because of the lack of shadow/inner work. I'm grateful for the process, but I often think about how much more growth I would have had in my business if I had done the inner work first.
Q. What can I expect from your founder posts?
A. An honest truth that doesn't make the cut on our brand socials. The true behind the scenes that aren't curated for content. I like to consider myself growing along with the brand, and my way of healing my fear of visibility is to do it right here.
