Your Joyful Order With Leslie Martinez

#116-Leading Yourself to Dream Big with Polly Payne

• Leslie Martinez • Season 5 • Episode 115

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Polly Payne, CEO and founder of Horacio Printing, takes us on a transformative journey exploring how true leadership begins within. From her early days as a New York City sales director living a chaotic, unfulfilling life to the divine moment that sparked her entrepreneurial calling, Polly reveals how intentional self-leadership changed everything.

"The greatest work of art we will create is our life," Polly shares, recounting how this mindset prompted her to see her existence as a canvas requiring deliberate brushstrokes. This perspective shift led to creating the Christian Dream Planner and eventually helped countless others bring their product visions to life.

Throughout our conversation, Polly offers practical wisdom about discerning God-given dreams. She challenges us to examine the condition of our hearts—"If you have a scared heart, you'll have scared dreams"—while reassuring us that sometimes the purpose of a dream isn't wild success but rather how it builds us. This liberating truth frees us from perfectionism and fear of failure.

The discussion moves beyond inspiration into actionable strategies: creating dedicated "dream blocks" in your schedule, recognizing when to ruthlessly eliminate commitments, and embracing the paradox that productivity sometimes means doing less. Polly's approach balances big-vision dreaming with practical daily disciplines that make dreams sustainable.

Whether you're feeling stuck, uninspired, or simply ready to approach your God-given dreams with fresh clarity, this episode offers both spiritual encouragement and concrete steps forward. Discover how to craft your life with intention, lead yourself with confidence, and discern which dreams deserve your wholehearted pursuit. Your next season of purpose and joy may be just one decision away.

Connect with Polly:

Website: https://www.dreamprinting.co/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/horacioprinting/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/polly_payne/

USE CODE: LESLIE100 for $100 off Print School Registration

Sign Up For a FREE PRINT SCHOOL WORKSHOP:
https://www.dreamprinting.co/Dream-Printing-Workshop-With-Polly

Connect with Leslie:

Follow on IG: @yourjoyfulorderstyle

Website: https://www.yourjoyfulorder.com/

Email: lmartinez@yourjoyfulorder.com
to schedule- Speaking Events, Interviews or Life Coaching Sessions

Shop my SOAP the Gospels Journal on Shopify:
https://shopjoyfulorder.com/

Watch this Episode on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXoAYIM2mfclNtYiaOzIUw

Shop my Journal (Gratitude, Goals & Prayer Journal) on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/09Djvaw

Book a FREE 30 Minute Discovery Coaching Call: https://tidycal.com/joyfulordermedia/30-minute-meeting

Speaker 1:

Welcome back, friend. I am so excited that you're here for today's episode. Now, today's episode is all about leadership, but not just the kind that happens on stage or in a boardroom. We're talking about the kind of leadership that starts within Learning to lead yourself with courage, clarity and vision, so that you can dream big and live boldly. Today's guest is someone who has, like, really truly impacted my own journey to creating a dream. Her name is Polly Payne, and she is the CEO and founder of Horatio Printing and the visionary behind the beloved Christian Dream Pl planner. Since 2014, she's been helping Christian women reignite their dreams and design lives of purpose and, personally, polly is the woman who helped me bring a long dream and piece of art. I call it art because I drafted it. I created it, which is my soap journal. She helped me to bring it to life. She is an amazing woman that I can't wait for you to meet Now.

Speaker 1:

My intention for this episode is to stir something fresh in your spirit. I want to be able to help you to rekindle your God-given dreams and to remind you that influence begins with yourself and it starts with how we lead ourselves. If you've been feeling stuck, uninspired or just unsure of your next step, then this episode is for you. I'm Leslie Martinez and you're listening to your Joyful Order podcast. Each week, I will bring you joyful stories that will motivate and inspire you and, at the same time, bring order to your everyday life. Let's just say the show will be a mixture of preaching and teaching, with a kick of motivation from your girl here.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to your Joyful Order podcast, polly. Welcome to the podcast. I am so honored and thrilled to have you here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. So, polly, I just want I introduced you to the audience as basically my dream maker. You helped me to create a dream that I had and I want to just share some of that wisdom with the audience today. But first, if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you led yourself to create your dream business, yeah, so hi everybody.

Speaker 2:

So my background, let's see a mom of two, wife working from home, mom and I started my business in August of 2014. So over 10 years ago feels like 100 years ago sometimes, and sometimes it feels like three days ago. So I've always had a passion for planners and paper and all that kind of stuff and I definitely had a drawing to like want to have my own business and my own thing. I just couldn't kind of nail down what that was going to be and that summer it was definitely a summer of searching. And then my career at the time in New York City. I was a senior sales director and I was just kind of all over the place. My job was taking people out and you know, I was just kind of just doing all the things and doing way too much and my life was absolutely just a mess. I was partying too much and taking clients out and it was just like every night of the week was something and anyways.

Speaker 2:

Finally I was going to church and an incredible speaker came and spoke. His name's Erwin McManus and he has a book called the Artisan Soul and the whole concept is that your life is your canvas and we're all artists because we're created in the image of God and we really have to take our life and look at it like it's a work of art, because the greatest work of art we will create is our life. And I realized, if I really took a hard look at my life, it was a mess and I wasn't paying attention to it, I wasn't being intentional with it, I was just kind of like doing all the things whenever I wanted to. However, I wanted to like very impulsive, I wasn't being intentional and like growing the kind of harvest I wanted in my life, and it was a lot of discord, a lot of discontent. I basically, after reading his book and really being inspired to craft my life and be intentional with my time and where I'm spending my focus, I realized I need a planner. I need a planner to help me do this and to dream, and so I got out a sketchbook late at night I have the sketchbook down here in my cabinet and just sketched out this dream planner about who I want to be and what I want to do and what I want to have, and refocusing on God and what do I want to let go of and how to incorporate that in my life and in my schedule, and so that's kind of how it first really began.

Speaker 2:

And I really felt in that evening, as I was kind of mapping out all the things I'm doing with my life, just kind of a huge brain dump of everything I'm spending my time on and where I'm investing my time, because whether you are aware of it or not, you're prioritizing something.

Speaker 2:

And so I mapped it all out and I just felt the Holy Spirit say that the career I've chosen, which my career, part of my job was schmoozing clients. He said I'm taking your gifts and talents and turning that into ministry. And I remember just being so in awe and so taken back that A God would even dare speak to me, let alone want to use me and for his glory. And it was just wild, it was a big wild revelation that night and that was really a turning point in my life and in the start of the business really a turning point in my life and in the start of the business. And so from there we designed a planner and launched it in three months and bought a thousand of them for way too much money and was living on a prayer and we sold them and so just kept going from there and tweaking the process a lot along the way from lessons Wow, and that like nudge in your heart or in your spirit that you got from God that just doesn't go away.

Speaker 1:

I want to say, for me personally too, that's where I felt that my dream goals that I have, that where it starts it's just when you realize you're not going in the direction that God intended you to go, that God intended you to go, and God starts to stir your spirit in a way that this desire or this dream, or this product or this business just doesn't go away. You keep thinking and thinking about it. So how do you lead yourself, holly, on a day-to-day that allowed you to just even go for that business? Like what were some disciplines that you had to create? Not only did you have to make the choice to leap out in faith and quit your job and start this business. You took that leap of faith of investing in those first thousand planners. But what does it look like day to day for you to lead yourself in fulfilling your dream?

Speaker 2:

In the early days it looked like cutting back time anywhere I could. You know, I'm not going to say yes anymore to all these other things. I kind of needed to go under a rock and like birth the thing, and so I was definitely in like a flow state creatively that night. I probably stayed up that night till three in the morning and I just let myself run with it. You know, when you have that dream and it's so clear and so bright, like run with it, let yourself stay up late at night, let your dream keep you awake for a little bit, like it's kind of like a newborn baby, you know, just like let it, let it be what it is and then on a day to day I just kind of would carve out time to do it. Let it be what it is and then on a day to day I just kind of would carve out time to do it. I saw it as a precious endeavor and I was excited and I just did whatever I could to kind of keep that momentum going, and a lot of it meant saying no to other things and other habits. Like I didn't watch TV probably for a month and a half or two, you know, just practically speaking, I wasn't partying, I was like, no, I'm just going to stay here in this space and create this thing. And also I looked at my timeline. You know, creating a dated product and learning about that my first year it was like, oh wow, it's August, like I've got to get started. And now I get started, you know, in December of the year before and January the year before, with creating a dated product. But back then I knew, oh my gosh, I'm under the gun. I kind of let that pressure move me.

Speaker 2:

Now, when it comes to just managing my day-to-day now, pursuing my dream, that's changed a lot over the last 10 years. I've tried all different sorts of things, especially once it became my full-time career. You know I've looked at other CEOs or different business people and talked about their schedules. And you know some people they do all of their creative work in the morning and they take all their meetings in the afternoon. Some people say I don't take any calls on Mondays and I think it's so important as we get stuck in our life and go, oh, this is terrible. It's important to remember like, wait, I'm building this.

Speaker 2:

I was an active participant in. Whatever the situation I'm in currently Now, I'm sure there's certain things that are obviously out of our control and you know I don't say that to cover every single circumstance or every single situation, because there's things that you know. There's situations out of that purview, but for the most part, when you look at your life and the way it is right now and how it's structured and how you're living it, you built it, you know, like you kind of built it. And I remember looking for a place to move when we were leaving Florida and trying to decide between Chattanooga or Nashville. We're looking for warehouses in both places and it was like here's the warehouse but it's 30 minutes from any sort of place we could live safely. So I would have to drive 30 minutes to get to this warehouse where all my products are, and 30 minutes home.

Speaker 2:

And the question I think in my head is is this the life I want to craft? I get to choose this, is this what I want? And not just taking things like okay, okay, okay For so quick to make decisions and being impulsive. We end up creating like a house of cards or creating something that's like that we didn't want, or creating our own prison, you know. So it's like what's the life you want to craft, taking that ownership of like I'm holding the paintbrush, I'm not handcuffed to this life, so good, polly.

Speaker 1:

You. I love the fact and I think this is like just what drew me to you. I mean not just that you were helping me to create a product, but you are so practical and I say that with some people might look at well, what do you mean? I'm practical, I'm not boring or stuff like that. Like people can look at practical as being very, not as a compliment, because I know people have told me that. I tell you that in the highest respect, I love it. Okay, good.

Speaker 2:

If things are practical, I'm like what is it then? It doesn't make sense. What is this elusive thing? I cannot stand that. I remember so many times and I don't want to hate on the church at all, I really don't but I remember so many times as an 11-year-old, in church with my journal, taking notes, and the pastor would say I'm going to share with you the key to a happy life. And I'm like key to a happy life, Like I'm ready, Like tell me what to do, what are the steps, you know? And then, and then I remember at the end of it, I remember being like he didn't really tell me, Like obviously, there's the things are. You know, trust in the Lord, read your Bible, keep coming to church, blah, blah, blah. And those are great things, All of those are fantastic things. And as I've gotten older, I've realized like the truth of like stay in God's word.

Speaker 2:

It really it's not just an elusive thing, it really is life changing. But how you know where's the practical, where's the real practical, like read it and then write this and consider that, like. Anyways, I love practical, that's my love language. Please explain this in a practical way. I don't want elusive things that make me question everything. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

And that's why I was like attracted to you, in that I think this woman can help me to create what I am looking for, because everything that Polly created in her print school is very practical, and I just love the fact how you were even considering how far your warehouse was from your house. And is this practical? And a lot of people don't think in that sense, especially when we're on the topic of leading yourself. Well, you have to learn to start thinking of those things. What challenges, what roadblocks can I have? How can I avoid them? How can I not put myself in a predicament where I'm now going to dread the dream Because you don't want to dread that. You have to drive 30 minutes back and forth and things like that.

Speaker 1:

And that's where I think. A lot of times people chase the dream and they don't think it all the way through and then it becomes more like burdensome from them. So here's my loaded question for you, polly, and even just going back, how you were saying how your pastor was like this is how you create a wonderful life. Now here you're looking to create a wonderful life by creating a dream business. How do you know when a dream is actually from God?

Speaker 2:

Would I like to go back to. There's a couple ways to answer it. I, from my experience, and the way God spoke to me in that moment, it was just undeniable. I mean way God spoke to me in that moment, it was just undeniable. I mean, and the Lord's realized, revealed to me that it was the Holy Spirit speaking. I always say what God said but, like truth be told, it was the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 2:

I just wasn't used to hearing him. You know, like I was so in left field in my life and I wasn't in tune with him, but I was going back to church, I was in my prodigal daughter journey back to him and I was, you know, on that path and I'm so glad I picked up that book. You know, and it's important, when God starts to leave breadcrumbs, like you're listening to this person and you love, you kind of like go buy their book. You know, like keep following the breadcrumbs of what God is showing you because he has something to say. He wants to spend time with you, he wants to speak to you, but we can't hear him if we are always scrolling or only praying in a way that's us talking to him. We have to also have time to sit in stillness and listen. One of the best books I've read recently is a book called Silence and Solitude, which is hard for us. When we have silence and solitude, we pick up our phone. You know if we're waiting in line. We're going to pick up our phone. You know if there's any sort of gap, and I think the devil loves that, anyways. But obviously the Lord can just totally speak to you, like he did to me in that moment.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes you know, a dream business. It's maybe the God's will, isn't that? It's wildly successful. It's that it builds you. It builds a whole new layer of skin for you. It builds a whole new strength for you.

Speaker 2:

You know, because the businesses that I was in before my planner business all came into play. You know, but my previous job wasn't the end, all be all. But like everything you're learning, it's really more about how it's growing you. So sometimes it's like you just need to go figure this out and fail, because the failure is going to grow you period. You know, whatever it is like, that's kind of a hard pill to swallow. Well, like I've had situations where I've dealt with like the near death of something and it's like, oh well, at least it didn't die. But I had a near death experience, which is just as painful and it's traumatic. But what it taught me was like that isn't the end-all, be-all in your life, and like I actually needed that near-death experience to grow and to remember to surrender, and that I'm not actually in control as much as I want to be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which is frustrating, and hard and terrible, but it grows us right. So back to the question how do I know if this is a God dream? I always go back to your heart, out of the condition of your heart, like your words are right, like everything is born in the heart, and that's why the Lord says, above all else, guard your heart, everything you do. And so the condition of your heart will determine your dreams. If you have a scared heart, you'll have scared dreams. If you have a heart that is stuck in scarcity and lack, you will have scarcity and lack dreams. That's why these doomsday companies are doing great right, the bunker building business is booming, because people are in fear and their heart is in fear, and so they're buying things out of fear. That's, their dream is based in fear. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and we can have evil dreams based off the evil in our heart. That's why, um, you know, we have just an awesome ability to create, as humans, awesomely terrible and awesomely good. And that's why some people dream terrible dreams and terrible schemes and terrible wars and terrible human trafficking rings and how it all processes and how they're going to have all those billions of dollars doing it. The condition of your heart is what matters. Condition of your heart is what matters. So, if you can go back to the condition of your heart, where is this dream coming from in my heart? Is it because I saw someone else do it and I want what they have? Is it like a lustful dream in a way, or coveting dream? Or is it something I'm just really excited about and interested in and it makes me happy and it lights up that fire in me and I've just feel pulled to it.

Speaker 2:

I think when you have it, the ladder, it's perfectly healthy to go and try to go and do like and surrender it to the Lord. Hey, lord, I'm going to go, try this, redirect me as needed. Bless it if it's for you, if it's if it's if it's for me. Bless my sales and literally the wind in my sail, you know, and also my sales of the business. But like bless it and like bring in the mentorship I need, bring in the resources I need, like continuously lay it I'm holding an Easter egg. Sorry, it's so weird Continuously, continuously lay it at his feet, you know, and let him bless it or redirect you.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So often we get so stuck in, like, well, am I supposed to go two inches to the right or two inches to the left? And there was this great quote in his book, Dallas Willard called Hearing the Voice of God, and I will admit that I've only gotten through three chapters of the book because it was so rich. I'm like I really got to finish it, but it's like, oh, but in the first three chapters he talks about how stressed we get about hearing the voice of God and how God's like a parent. He compared it to like when his kids are outside playing in the yard.

Speaker 2:

Some are in the sandbox, Some are playing hopscotch, some are doing jump rope. They're all playing and they're all in his will. Yet they're all doing different things and like we're allowed to play in that you know, like, have the freedom to play and tap into our individuality and tap into our creativity and tap into what's working and fail and fall down playing hopscotch and get better at jump rope. And like you know, you don't have to be awesome the first time you try something for it to be God's will in your life. You know like you can be terrible at it. People are just scared to fail.

Speaker 1:

They're scared to try. And especially I know I'll speak personally former perfectionist here that everything had to be perfect before I started it right, and especially things like dreams that God put in my heart. I felt, well, if this is for God, it has to be perfect. I have to get it right because God is putting this in my heart. I can't fail at this.

Speaker 1:

But you brought up such a good point on how things aren't always. What God puts in our heart are not always intentionally meant that it's going to be big success. It's to grow us, it's to stretch us. And I definitely think, once I have kind of gotten past that where I realized some things are even heart challenges, so to say, where God is like kind of testing your heart, what direction is your heart going to go in this? And as I have matured in my walk with God, I have started to see how so much of the dreams that God has put in my heart have been more for my personal growth than anything, even just this podcast, polly, like having conversations with people like you. It's growing me, not just my listeners. I'm able to sit here and do I have like the number one rated podcast in personal growth. No, I have great listeners, I have a great community, and that's where God put it on my heart.

Speaker 1:

Leslie, I don't want you to focus on the numbers. I want you to just focus on the one, the one person that's going to listen, the one person that's going to be impacted by this, the one person that's going to pick up your journal and read the Bible for the first time. And that's what shifted my dream from focusing on numbers and notoriety and being famous or having a platform. It's like no, who am I impacting? Because that's where the real dream is. Now, polly, I want to start wrapping up a little bit here. I know your time is so valuable and Polly has to go pick her little girl up soon, y'all. So we're going to get wrapping up here. But this one question that I do want to ask, because you've already given us so much just powerful insight on this topic but I want to talk about, like, how would you say that productivity has a big part into this dreaming? What does it look like practically to be productive on your dream?

Speaker 2:

So I dream in a big way, at least once a year. You know, I really sit down, I do the vision board, but first I write down my bucket list. I have a whole method for it in the planner. But going through questions on all areas of my life who do I want to become and what are the big things that God is like just kind of been bubbling. Sometimes I write things really small, you know, trying to think I want that, but it's like be careful what you write down and my exercise at the end of that is just to surrender it. And then on the flip side I do a personal growth wheel where I assess how I'm doing in all areas and then I write down the core action I want to take to fill my cup. And usually there's parts of the wheel that are low, like there's a nail in the tire, so to speak. And so my vision board becomes a mix of those two things who I want to become and like my big bucket list-sized dreams, and then the middle of it I it's all surrendered. So that's kind of like my, my, um, my fun, creative, dreaming part of it. But in the day-to-day life, when I sit down to craft my schedule. I add in those little actions that I'm doing to fill my cup in all areas, to pump air in the tire so I can be the best person I could be, and that's just these little you know we call them fundamental needs that I'm putting in my week to make sure I am doing something spiritually and I'm pouring into my marriage and making time for a little extra in my motherhood. That's intentional, beyond what we normally do day to day, and that's really helpful. When I'm accomplishing a big dream like, okay, I really want to, let's throw out there, write a book Not doing that right now, but let's say it's very tiny on my bucket list I would create a dream block in my schedule that is blocked out for that dream. And when I get to that block, that's where I would start to map out my outcome and what I want to do and make a plan and work backwards and start biting that first bite you know, that first bite of the elephant and taking my first step. It's also where I might do some research around mentors and coaches and programs and whatever it is. So that's kind of how I go about my dreaming, but a lot of the you know it's a balance of.

Speaker 2:

You can't just dream all the time and not take action. You know you can't just take action all the time and not put your head up and look and see where you're at and take a bird's eye view. There's so many times where I have something and then I'm like you know what, this isn't the season and you have to like kind of step back and realize how many things have I committed to? And sometimes the dream being productive in your dreams is really getting ruthless at what you need to lay down. Yeah, I say yes to way too much stuff, admittedly, and I'm like, okay, what do I need to lay down? Because everything carries a weight. No matter how great it is, there's still weight. And so if you have too many things you've said yes to, it's impossible to be productive. That's so good.

Speaker 1:

So good, and it's creating those healthy boundaries around your dream, too, of knowing what is important, what to say yes, what to say no to. And you also touched upon looking for the mentors, as you have your dreaming kind of block of time where you're working on that dream, and I think it's so important and valuable for people to know that God does align you and bring other people your way. Kids, you know, I try to launch a journal, or I shouldn't say I try, I did. I launched, I self-published a journal on Amazon first and it just didn't go as I intended my dream product to do. You know, I was very limited on what I can do and I prayed about it. I'm like God, you put this in my heart to do this. Like I don't, I don't know what else to do, I don't know how to do it the way you wanted me to do it. And, polly, I kid you not.

Speaker 1:

Your ads started popping up on my Facebook page and I'm like who is this lady? What I kept seeing them of? Print school, print school. And I'm like what is this even about? And then finally I clicked on it, read your ad, and I'm like why have I never heard of this before this is actually a thing, and Polly became my guide, that I truly believe that God sent her my way, because the print school that I went through, everything was so practical, so proficient, so efficient that it led me to create this dream product, and it also allowed me to dream bigger.

Speaker 1:

So, polly, thank you for that. I mean your dream that God planted in your heart years ago has ignited and extended to all of us. So we're like the fruit of the seed that God planted in your heart years ago has ignited and extended to all of us. So we're like the fruit of the seed that God planted in you and I'm just so thankful for that. I truly am. Thank you for being obedient to God, thank you for pursuing your dreams and, just you know, being a trailblazer in it, really, because I don't know, I've never heard of anyone else doing what you are doing, but it's God ordained, which is very different. So, as we get to wrap up, polly, I want you to be able to share with the listeners where they can find you even throw a little blurb about Print School what you offer, your dream planner, all that amazing stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks so much. I really appreciate you having me on the show and I'm really proud of you and it's really special to get to have these conversations and see that, because you know on my end, sometimes it's harder to get to see all the fruit and really understand it, and the ways God's working behind the scenes is just so beautiful. So thank you for sharing that and having me on.

Speaker 1:

If you guys want, here's this fruit, here it is here, polly so beautiful, amazing.

Speaker 2:

So you can hang out and grab my planners at HoracioPrintingcom H-O-R-A-C-I-O Printingcom. And if you want to learn more about Print School and join Leslie and all sorts of other amazing Print School students, you can apply at HoratioPrintingcom slash Print School and I do have a free workshop if you want to come learn more, it's absolutely free. It's like 40 minutes.

Speaker 1:

I teach the method in that workshop and that's at teach the method in that workshop and that's at Horatio printingcom slash workshop Awesome, and all the links will be in the show notes, and I cannot highly recommend this even more. Polly, I just met a friend at lunch and she had a dream of creating a product and we were sitting looking on your website. I was showing her print school from my portal and what you all do. Sitting looking on your website, I was showing her print school from my portal and what you all do and to the listeners y'all, if you have a dream product, go do that. But even just taking the step of getting her dream planner to start creating your dreams is going to be the best next thing. So, polly, thank you so much for your time and for your yes, I would love to offer your listeners a tuition discount to print school.

Speaker 2:

Just, let's just do that, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my gosh, Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Polly. So let's, let's do the code Leslie 100. We'll get that set up and ready for airtime and, honestly, if folks come in through you, they can actually skip the application process and jump on in. So we're going to give you that link. That link will live below here We'll make sure Leslie has it and you guys can go ahead and get $100 off and get started. So I think that'll be really special and I'd love to just offer that to your dreamers.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, Thank you so much, you guys. This wasn't planned, this just came from, like Polly right now. So thank you, polly, so much. I'm going to go give that code to literally my two friends that I just showed like all of print school to. I would love that. Yes, now for my listeners. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. I hope that you are walking away with a renewed vision, fresh hope and just permission to dream again. Remember that leadership starts with how you stored your call and your heart and until next time, keep dreaming big and keep chasing joy.