Just everything from the biggest questions to super granular one-on-one contact, we’re insatiably curious and the idea that there was a way that you could make a living by indulging that and taking that further than just day to day was like always super exciting to me. So that was the first thing that, that I started to do in my career. Was journalism in print, 

Courtney: like right out of high school, college, or like?

Billy: Yeah, no before, so a lot of stuff in high school, like when I was in high school, I was writing for the alternative rock magazines in the, in the, in the town. And you know, going to shows that I was too young to get into and talking to folks who, to me were like the biggest rock stars on the planet, like the Ramones, you know, like I just adored and being able to spend time, follow them in their tour bus to their hotel, and then hijack them on the way into the hotel and then have them like hang out in the parking lot and talk for three hours was, you know?

Courtney: This was in high school? You’re not the coolest person in high school then?

Billy: Even with the Ramones on my side, I was far from the coolest person. That’s cool, but I was having a great time and like oh yeah. This journalism thing is, is amazing. And so in college, I was doing the same thing and doing a lot of freelance writing and then ended up at the News and Observer as a features reporter. You know, daily papers are still wonderful things and everybody should read their newspaper and support their newspaper.

Back when I started doing it, it was really like a golden age. And let this be a lesson to you and to all the viewers at home that you don’t know that you’re in a golden age, you know, until it’s gone. Right. Isn’t that, it’s things about life. So try to appreciate every moment, cause it might be as good as it gets, but this is like a golden age of journalism and to knock on any door and call anybody and have them call you back and be interested in talking to you was fantastic.

So, had a great time doing that and then wrote, was writing kind of stories that were very visual and had a lot of attitude and we’re very much out to entertain, really enjoy entertaining. I enjoy being entertained and if I enjoy it, then I feel like I would try to give that back and like be entertaining. And so I was trying to do that a lot with the journalism. That sat well with some folks and then other folks were like he doesn’t really seem like a newspaper person. You know, some of the old school folks. 

And so I had an editor, and everyone needs to have a mentor like this. Somebody who supports you and, and then can tell you things straight up. You guys obviously have those folks in your life that have done all the things that you’ve done, but she’s Mary Ann Gregory. She was a tough talk and newspaper woman. She’s passed away, but she was always smoking, you know, if you want it, if you want it to buttonhole her and you didn’t see her in her office, you knew she’d be outside having a cigarette and you can go down and you could talk to her and she’d be like more relaxed than she would be when she returned to her office.

One day, she said, you know, these stories are just getting wilder and wild, or why don’t you go to Hollywood? Why didn’t you go out? What are you doing here? Go to Hollywood. So, Mary Ann was right about everything. So when I got married to my wonderful wife, Lucy, who had been a writer too, and then was just out of law school, then we went to Los Angeles. That’s where I started working in cable television, mostly for E Entertainment Networks. And this was another golden age 

Dana: I know, 90’s cable. I think it’s still there. 

Billy: It’s still there. It’s different than it was. It was so good back then. So great in the nineties and you had E, you had VH1 MTV, big in the 80’s, continues to be huge in the nineties.

It was a great wide open wild west to be creative, and I was super lucky to be at E because, you know, my job was kind of like make up new shows and launch new shows and then try to make up another show and get that launched. So it was just great. It was so fun. While I was making up new shows as also working with Joan Rivers on the red-carpet fashion shows.

Courtney: That sounds amazing. 

Billy: It well, especially because I knew nothing about fashion, I was the like least fashionable person in the fashion industry. I saw you look at what I’m wearing. You can’t work with Joan Rivers for eight years on fashion and not be like brow beaten in trying to get some sense about it. But she was, she was a great boss. She always just went for everything she wanted to do. She, she went at its full blast and so I thought, oh, those are, those are good lessons too.

Courtney: What did you do for Joan? What are you doing at that point?

Billy: Yeah. Good, good question. So for Joan, I was a producer and, and then later an executive producer and then a writer too. So I started out in cable as a writer and that meant it was totally different than writing for print. So especially like writing for Joan is like, we were writing one liners and jokes and like, you know, we’d, we’d watch the Oscars and how we would do the show is, Joan would go down and do the red carpet, like in front of the Oscars, right? What are you, who are you wearing? Who you hang out with? You know? And hopefully she, she said something that was a little odd to one of the celebrities who would react to it, you know, and people tuned in to E and, you know, big, huge numbers to see that happen.

Then we would, Joan would leave the Oscars once it got started and the red-carpet thing was over and we’d go to a hotel. And we watch the show itself and we’d see all the fashion again. And Joan and she had these two writers, one of whom had created Hollywood Squares. You remember Hollywood Squares? And then another one who has like, had written for all like the great comedians of that era. Joan like Phyllis Diller and David Brenner and like, you know, all the, all those great comics then, and the E team me and, um some other great people Alex Dudah, Amir Chung, others. 

We would sit around and just make fun of all the celebrities, you know, when they shot him in the, and they shot him in the audience and they came on stage, you know, I’ll be about who could like gang up on them with the zingers. And then, so we’d leave there probably with I don’t know, 17,000 jokes that were all recorded on a little tape recorder. And then we would transcribe all the jokes and we’d have a meeting the next morning and say, okay, now we’re going to do our fashion review special. And then, so we’d cull down those 17,000 jokes into an hour of jokes and zingers, which was probably, I don’t know, like maybe 200.

And then we’ll go on television and then, you know, the calls would start coming in. Like, I can’t believe you said that about that wonderful Gwyneth Paltrow was adorable for Joan to have said that about her is terrible. So as a producer, you get some of those calls, you get routed to you, so. 

Dana: I mean, I felt that sometimes some of the things I was like, I don’t agree with that.

Billy: Yeah. I mean, that was the, that was sort of the point, right. That’s right. And that was like a big lesson, was that, I remember one lady called and she must have been related to the president of the network, cause I don’t know why it was so important that I was like, he, I got flagged that was on the hallway and they said, go back to your desk and I’ll send you this call. So I called, it was like a lady from Iowa who was just outraged about something that Joan, Joan had said. She said during the call toward the end, she said, and that’s not the only terrible thing she said. She was saying terrible things about everyone.

And I watched the whole two hours and it was all terrible. She watched the whole two hours! So when you saw something, you disagreed, it wasn’t like. Oh, that stupid fashion show on E I’m going to turn it to VH1 or, you watch it. You watching, you get mad at it and then it comes on again and you’ll be watching it again when we do the Emmys or the Grammy’s or whatever. So it was a marketing lesson and yes, it would be great if everybody loved you, but to get everybody to talk about you.

Courtney: I mean that wasn’t Joan like that wasn’t ever her mission to get it, 

Dana: was that, but I guess the question is, was that really her, like, was she really someone who was as controversial as she was, or was that kind of like what you said, a marketing move a shtick for her to, because she wanted people to talk about her and you’re absolutely right. To get someone to talk about you, you cannot be PC all the time. You cannot be the get along person, everyone necessarily loves you, everything you say. There has to be some controversies, like stuck in there, safe controversy, I should say. 

Billy: Well, so that’s, that’s a thread, the needle that everybody has to thread, especially today, like we didn’t have social media in the nineties and Lord,

Courtney: that was a golden age that we didn’t know. 

Billy: That was kind of a good one, right? I mean, that’s a great point. So you, you know, authenticity is a big deal, right. And Joan was, was you know, pretty much always Joan, you know, she, you know, Yeah, she’d be going less at, it wouldn’t be machine gunfire all the time, you know, but she was, she was always shooting off zingers and she totally understood the value of the buzz and as did like the whole network. 

Dana: Yeah, that sounds like a wild time. 

Courtney: So what brought you back? 

Billy: Well, we well, we started with the babies. My wife, Lucy and I Lucy had a great law career going out in Los Angeles.

She had been on Court TV, which was another cable explosion. And she was having a great time. And then we were blessed with having kids and LA was going to be a tough place to raise the kids. So we came back to Raleigh, which we have both always enjoyed. 

Courtney: So what year was this? 

Billy: This was like 2002. And came back and I got it. You know, coming back to Raleigh. I mean, obviously there’s a big need for like a red-carpet producer of zingers in Raleigh, huge market. 

Courtney: Walked right into that job, very individually tailor made for you.

Billy: So I leaned into journalism, but I didn’t necessarily want to become a reporter again, although it’s a fantastic line of work. I felt like I had done that, and so got into public relations and marketing, which also involves like lots of storytelling. And that has been very gratifying and exciting and fulfilling because of the stories, because also because at least when you, in your client’s world, you have the right to go in and ask questions to nose around, to try to understand things that you go into the account not understanding, need to understand, and then need to help some audience out there understand. 

So again, you know that, that that curiosity. I worked with Rocket Burkhead and Winslow, which was a, an agency that’s no longer around, but it was a terrific agency with lots of good creative people. Then over to Cap Strap, another public relations firm, then onto a wacky startup called Zoom Culture.

Courtney: Not related to the current zoom that we know today.

Billy: Right, and not related to that, not related to the kid show, which was super cool from the seventies or eighties, if you remember that. But our, our idea was, this was early 2000’s that we would take cameras, small little cameras there. There was some advancement in cameras, not like the iPhones today, but like there was some advancement in cameras. They were cheap. They were high quality. We would send them to thousands of college kids, zoom directors, across the nation who would then record the things that they found interesting in their lives, 

Courtney: it sounds very dangerous. this sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

Billy: We would take their content and make it into TV shows.

Courtney: So you sat down in front of somebody, they said, hey, I have this idea. You should be a part of it. 

Billy: I didn’t come up with the idea. I was just saying, and I thought it was a good idea. I thought there was something there. Let’s try it. 

Courtney: But these are small discrete cameras. You could take anywhere that you’re giving to college students so they could record their day to day lives.

Billy: And, you know, for all these kids have grown up now into elected officials and things, if went back into that file, we’d have a lot on all of them. But we tried to organize then like, okay, you’re going to you like kind of extreme sports or you like, you know, sports so let’s do like a jackass kind of show, goofy sports you like to party, that was kind of like all of them let’s make a show about college kids partying and we’ll position it as like low budget party. Like how to have a great time on have no budget. Let’s do a hip hop show. You know, let’s do like a punk rock show. And as my job to, to supervise the content being created, take this crazy content and turn it into 20-minute episodes that were actually for the theme.

Dana: Was this the height of Real-World reality tv. It’s a less produced, it’s a, it’s a real, it’s actual reality. 

Billy: Real, street life, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Cops, the old show Cops, on the street, you know, different than watching like Colombo that’s what we were trying to do. And you know, we did land some deals with NBC and VH1 and, but to your point, it was just way too like top heavy. Like you could never get the legs under that premise. When you have all these zoom directors you were supposed to manage, all this footage 99.5% of which is unusable. 

Courtney: Did you get the releases for all the people on these cameras? Like how do you go back? 

Dana: And like, I mean, it was probably super loose back then. I would assume. 

Billy: No, not really, but legal was not my department. So, we got, we got some deals in the company was a float for like maybe two years or so, but it wasn’t, I mean, it was a great, another wild west sort of adventure of how, how far can we push the limits and, and what can we get out of it? And then big lesson in investors, like when I was a journalist and when I worked at E, I never went and talked to the investors, but to have to go and present on a, 

Courtney: People invested in this concept too? 

Billy: Yes. And I’m not going to mention who they are, but they, they still are very active investors in the market.

Dana: It’s super interesting about story, and it kind of segues a little bit into it, what you are doing now and kind of where, like, when the story we were talking about earlier was really your approach to journalism is you’re putting yourself, you’re not just telling a story. You’re not just interviewing somebody.

Right. You are definitely having those conversations. But what you like to do is actually go and like, for a day in that person, like what, your example, you talking about being a drag queen for a day, or being in the nudist colony for a day. And like, and having that experience it’s, you’re taking that concept of walk a mile in my shoes almost to a whole different level.

Can you talk a bit about like, where did that approach came from and like where that kind of spark of inspiration came from? 

Billy: I love experiential journalism, first person journalism, where you find a topic that you want to investigate through your own eyes, with other people who are involved in it, because you want to tell their stories. But also like, share like what that was like. And so I’m super lucky to have supportive publishers, like the folks at Walter Magazine, they published the nudist piece that you talked about, and the, the drag piece, the one and done drag diva for a night, a piece. And the, when I became a pro wrestling manager they have done all those things and, and gotten a really good response.

So, so people are interested in, in the same way that I’m interested in. It goes like, kind of goes back to that, like curiosity, like, so I’ve lived a few decades. Yeah, I kind of know what I like. I have my routine, but is that all there is to life. There’s other people, everywhere I go, who have their own passions, interests make them super happy.

I don’t want to live in a nudist colony, but some people do. Why? And what does that feel like? And, and is there something like deeply gratifying about it? Like, I don’t know. I won’t know until I try it, and then I can share that experience with other folks. Let’s see if they’re interested. They’re always interested, you know?

So what’s it like to be a drag diva? Like how do you, how, how do you come up with that persona? Because right, they’re so bigger than life, and how do you muster that out of your personality and then how does it physically all like come together and then when you do that show, how does that feel like to do a show in like heels?

I don’t know because I couldn’t master the high heels. It was very, it was very perilous that five minutes when I tried, or, you know, being the thing about the pro-wrestling part was I always loved pro wrestling, I always thought what an insane life. I mean, anybody in the south knows Rick Flair. Right? All those folks. What a crazy life, even though, as you can see, I’m really built. 

Courtney: I was thinking this was, this was your jam. 

Billy: I didn’t think, I decided not to actually wrestle despite my physique. I’m kidding, but what, what, who else is involved with wrestling? Like the managers and like the managers are always bad guys.

Yeah, and then, so the story became essentially about was my job is to get up in front of all these people as a bad guy wrestling manager and get everyone in the crowd to hate me to the point where the security guards like have to intervene to keep these folks from like straddling me and strangling me, like.

Yeah, everything about that. Like every day we go about our lives, I’m going to make people like me. I’m going to say nice things and I’m going to be polite. And at the end of the day, I hope I make new friends. Right? 

Courtney: That’s how Dana lives her life. Just joking.

Billy: It’s true. But, but to have the license for night to be like, I’m going to make everyone hate me. I’m going to say, I’m going to craft these crazy things that I say to these people and I’m going to do terrible schemey things. 

Courtney: That must’ve been a lot of fun. 

Billy: Well, yes. And it, it may be it unleashed corners of my psyche that I had like put back in the box. But it, it is an interesting experience in terms of exploring who you are, and then in addition to figuring out, oh, who other people are, and then maybe becoming a more empathetic person. And it’s been good for that. It’s been good for like my wife I’ve been married to for like 30 years. I think I try to be like more like, oh, let me get into her head space. What does she really have to deal with every day?

She’s a judge and she lives a very different life than I do. What her day to experience as a judge, why it’s so different than mine. That must make a difference than when we finally get back together at the end of the day at six o’clock. 

Courtney: You guys would have an unlimited amount of things to speak about because these are very two very different experiences.

Billy: Yeah. Well, of course she would tell you that as a judge, she gets to see all these people. And when you come to court, you know, that’s maybe one of your lowest moments, you have to appear in court and you, you know, you have to listen to both sides and all that kind of stuff. I guess by way of what you just said, like that, that curiosity and, and our success day to day, and our ability to be happy, depends so much on being able to hear other people really see other people certainly in the marketing business with your clients.

Dana: Yeah. I love that, and I think that is so needed right now, like in our world, like I think, and it’s weird because I feel like because we have an abundance of information, you would think that we could relate to people in a, like, easier than we did maybe, you know, in the nineties or whatnot. And I feel like it’s just, it’s actually becoming more of a division.

Right and I love the fact that it’s not just, okay, let me tell this one person’s side of the story, but let me immerse myself into it and let me come up with my own opinions about it. As well as understanding this group of people that I’m interacting with. Because I, I think that’s just what’s lacking in our world is, is that empathy and that connection and that realization.

We both can be right about something because we both feel passionate about something. This is just because I live a different life where I believe something differently. Doesn’t make me a bad person or a wrong person or anything like that? 

Billy: Yeah, I think that’s beautifully said. Right? So, so you take some of the folks who visit the nudist colony up there in Reidsville, or are part of this club in our region and Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill region that goes house to house. And it has these naked parties, yes. And there, the reaction could be, oh, that’s just wrong. It’s just not right. God made us to wear clothes. So, but then like, well, you know, who cares? What I think about that? What, what, what is the experience like?

And w in the experience, what do I see happening in the eyes and face and demeanor of the people who are like, you know, part of it like with some of these great drag Queens that I worked with on the drag story, Kayla LeShea, who performs in the triangle all the time and Emory Star, they’re just so talented and to engage them in a conversation.

Okay, how, how do I do this? How did you do it? You create this persona, you know, how their, their face would just light up just that is it’s so such a privilege to be part of, and then to have them tell their story and you get to go back in time with them, but then to actually see them do it like transform from Brandon into Kayla LeShae like the superhero and how that process happens and what lessons you can take from that in terms of like, oh, you all kind of are building a persona. What are you, what do you want to put on physical reality or metaphysically today that makes you the person you want to be? And can you, how deep can you dive to find the courage to be the person that you want to be. 

Courtney: Yeah, it depends on the day. I love that approach to journalism, like the approach to trying on something different in an attempt to like, understand that possibility, like understand that lifestyle or just to try something new. Because I think that, like, I think that, I think very accidentally often that it’s like, everyone’s kind of like in this little bubble and these bubbles that are happening, like at a simultaneous time.

And like what’s important to you has nothing to do with this person, but what’s important to them has nothing to do with you, but yet it’s equally as important. Do you know what I’m saying? And it’s just hard to wrap your mind around this happening, billions of times all over the planet at the same time, you know what I mean?

So it’s very interesting approach to journalism to be able to like, hey, let me leave my bubble. Let me enter your bubble and experience what’s important to you because just fact-finding better understanding, like maybe future possibilities. I don’t know. Maybe you have a future in that. I don’t know. It’s really interesting.

Billy: I love that entering other people’s bubbles. And then there’s this frontier of possibility. 

Courtney: There is a frontier possibility. Yeah, absolutely. 

Billy: That was very poetic. I like that. I’m going to use that. Bubble bubbles and merging bubbles and all that. And the judgment thing is really important because like, I have a, like doing these stories of Walter and Our State.

I have a reaction to it, right, based on whatever, being gone to Catholic school and being raised in Chicago, you know, blue collar and then, you know, being in Los Angeles. So I have a take on it and to keep out my take on it. I mean, I haven’t taken, but I don’t want to have a judgment about it. I guess I can explain how I feel about it, but it’s not my business to say whether it’s good or bad, good or bad, it can just be the labels again.

Yeah, exactly. And like it’s interesting to like bounce the, what my going through at that time around with other people. Chiefly with my wife, but like friends to editors. Like when I went to the first part of the, the nude story was going to the house parties in the triangle, the photographer. 

Courtney: Now I’m like, what are the cleaning protocols here? That’s the first thing I’m thinking about is like, I’m really confused because is there like a strict cleaning policy? Do you stay on your section of the sofa? Like what happens? 

Billy: You have to have a towel. So the only garment, the fabric, you know, that you’re supposed to have with you as the towel, and that allows for you to like to move around and that sort of thing.

I went to the house parties and then I was supposed to go, the photographer, Brian Regan tonight. Brian’s a fantastic photographer. And he does the morning views on Facebook here in the triangle every day, where he gets out and takes some kind of stunning shots. And he’s great, but then we had to go to the nudist colony and your Greensboro.

And now I just was not into that. Like, I just didn’t want to go so I can write the story. I was at the naked party. Like I don’t have to go to the nudist colony. And Lucy was like, well, sure you do! It’s going to be totally different. Like, you know, being in a little, in a room with some people in that situation is going to be way different than being out, like where they live.

Yeah outdoors, at lake, mosquitos, sporting activities, it’s going to be totally different. Of course you have to go, you know? And so, and then we, then that’s we went and that’s kind of what unlocked the story was. The people we met there again, I was like, I had been out there for like a couple hours and I was like, there are mosquitoes.

I didn’t bring sunscreen. I’ve been out naked in this field for a long time. And there’s was like, you know, I told the photographer. Okay, we’re leaving now. He said, well, okay. But I just took a picture of that couple right over there and I didn’t think I saw you talk to them. So maybe you should go talk to them.

It’s like, no. Let’s just go. He’s like no, I took a really good picture. So could you please go talk to them? Okay, fine. So I go over and talk to this fellow and his wife and his name is Dwayne. And you know, I’m tired and I’m like, well, so Dwayne, you know, what do you do when you see. Oh, I’m a long-distance trucker.

And I said, okay, well you know, must be kind of a drag, you have to be dressed. You know, you, you got to get dressed and being your truck for weeks and weeks, when you would prefer to be nude. I don’t get dressed in the truck, I’m naked in the truck. So, you know, that becomes the lead of the story.

How’s that not the, you know, here’s the guy and he’s driving his truck, perhaps right past you on I 95 in nothing but his tattoos. And then we talked some more and, and I’m like, so have you always been the naked trucker? No, I was the Sheriff’s deputy for decades. Really? So now I’ve got someone who’s at, whose become a nudist, who comes out of this legacy of law abiding.

And as establishment as you could get, the police force. So then how did you become a nudist? Because when I would get home from being a Sheriff’s deputy, I had seen so many terrible things day in and day out. I saw people in terrible situations. I saw people doing terrible things and all day long, it would pile up on me.

Like it was a physical, like every bad thing was another physical thing I had to carry. And when I came home, I started taking off everything as soon as I got home and I didn’t want to put on any, I want it to be released, everything, have everything that uniform meant to me. I want it to be gone. And I was started being at my home without any clothes on.

And then I realized, this is how I’m happiest. Wow. I had no idea that I was going to find that I was so happy I found that and was able to share that with other people that everyone who comments on that story. Well, there’s like three or four questions, as you can imagine. That he’s always in there, like, God, that was so touching about Dwayne and it made me see law enforcement in a different way.

God, these guys, I mean, maybe that cop right over there, it feels like at two in the afternoon, he’s seen enough that he’s got like, you know, a mountain he’s carrying around. 

Dana: Right? Yeah. I can only imagine that. And I think it’s so relatable. Like even though I don’t necessarily want to go live in a nudist colony, but sometimes you feel that way and it is it’s, it is very, there’s like that I can, like you’re saying, and I can like visually see like that pile on. Like when you get home, you just like, you just take it off, right?

Courtney: Yeah. It’s very freeing there in that Greensboro nudist colony, the probably was very different. I imagine like a different comfort level than a Raleigh house party, cause you’re kind of changing your persona when you walk in that door and here they’re just kind of, you’re walking into their atmosphere. There’s just them. You know what I mean? Like it’s very different, I would imagine. 

Billy: Very different. 

Dana: So I have a, kind of a, maybe a hard question, but what would you say is your biggest like personal growth you’ve had like starting this kind of experiential journalism? 

Billy: I think it is how wonderful it is to put aside what I think about something, what my opinion is. When, when I was in Los Angeles, you know, we did the Joan stuff. I mean, you know, that was all about having a hot take on Gwyneth Paltrow’s outfit or that crazy tuxedo that Brad Pitt wore that year. You know, it was all about hot takes. And to a point that you all have made, the culture has become more about hot takes, like to say, God, there’s something so sacred about people and their souls and their hopes and dreams. My hot take has nothing to do with that like it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter one bit in the universe compared to trying to reach someone and like, and figure out what makes them tick. So that, to me, over the last five or six years, when I really started doing a lot of this. God, it’s been wonderful. 

And on the marketing side with GBW strategies it, it comes in super handy. That, that kind of like being able to put away my hot take because in marketing and what I do in the PR side of it, to be able to see all the sides of things like, you know, I have a client and our client feels super passionately that say ride sharing is the future going back and going back a decade or so, like, it feels like no matter what the regulations are, no matter what people think about, you know, taxis is the way that you, you get around. If you don’t have your own vehicle or the bus. 

Courtney: Oh, I remember how I felt about Uber early on. I thought that was the craziest thing I had ever heard. 

Billy: So, you know, you have a client who feels strongly that ride sharing is everything that it’s good for people just to get from place to place. And it’s good for the economy. Okay well, I’m signing on to tell that story to the world, but I have to like, think about like,

Courtney: do I want my daughter to get into this car?

Billy: Exactly. That’s perfect, perfect. Do I want my daughter to do it? From a regulator’s point of view? Like wait a minute. Well, whoa, I’m a bureaucrat and whose job it is to keep millions of people safe like, wait a second.

So to be able to say, my client’s hot take, or more considered take over years and years, whatever their take is important. And we’re going to tell that story. And we’re going to tell that story more effectively because we’re going to understand the whole universe of other opinions. And in the stories that we choose to tell with the content and the tone, we’re going to be able to address people’s concerns what their wants and needs are before they’re able to accept this idea. 

Dana: Yeah. It is such a hard skill. It is so hard to do that. And like, even just, even in like where, what our industry is like in hospitality, you have to be able to look at all sides of things. You know, like we have many, a conversation, like we’ll do something, we’ll make an improvement at the Bradford.

And 95% of the people love it, but then 5% don’t like it. And Courtney’s like, I don’t understand why, it’s better. And she’s like going off on a rant about it. I was like, they had this idea in their mind, right. And they’ve already picked the flowers. Like maybe it’s a type a person, maybe it’s somebody who has been planning this for two years and they had this vision in their head and you’ve just changed their vision.

In our mind, it should be a better vision because we’ve made it better, and their mind you’ve just like F-ed up their whole wedding, right. So you have to approach it from the other side and say, okay, like, I understand where you’re coming from. And I get that, this isn’t exactly what you wanted and here’s how we can fix it, or here’s what we can do or whatever the case may be, as opposed to just saying like, this is like how I feel like you should fall in line because I feel this way, you know?

And it’s, it’s hard because especially when we’re talking about something personal. And we were talking about a business and you’re like, well, why doesn’t everybody love this idea? Like, everyone should love this idea. It’s a great idea. We were like, well, but you’re going to have these people that are going to have all these concerns and have all these feelings and emotions behind it.

And you have to be able to look at that. And it’s one of the things that we’ve on the hardest hiring people, because they don’t understand that multifaceted thing. Like all they can see, especially when you’re talking about, you know, not, I mean, we love. People our employees and not to knock young 20-year-olds, but 22-year-olds have a really hard time standing outside of themselves and saying, this isn’t about me.

Like, they’re not talking to me. Like they’re not mad at me. There’s all these other things that are going on around them. And I have to be able to look at that and say, this dad isn’t upset about the cake. He’s just upset that he’s giving away his baby girl. 

Billy: Right, beautiful. That’s, to be able to see the truth in the emotion. Well, so that is really interesting. How do you must spend some time. With the clients like getting to know them, like, so you understand that vision and, and the sort of the emotional underpinnings of what that vision is. 

Courtney: Sure. Like as a planner. I think that’s our, our job is to put practicality to somebody else’s vision and make sure that it get as close as possible to accomplishing all the goals that they set forth for whatever that event might be.

Dana: But it’s also just like fully understanding who they, who they are too. And not, and it’s not just the clients a lot of times it’s whoever their stakeholders in it. Right, so a lot of times the stakeholders are the parents.

And so it’s, it’s understanding like what do they want and, and what does the client, the couple want and sometimes those clash. So, how can you make this an enjoyable experience for everybody, you know? And it’s, and it’s just, it’s trying to think, and it’s, it’s been helpful being a parent, right? Cause I can put myself in the mother’s shoes, like ok, this is my daughter.

Like how would I feel in this moment? Like what, what are some things I want to make sure, like, I always make sure that if the parents are out, like I go get them, say, hey, they’re going to cut the cake in 15 minutes. I know you’re probably going to want to see this. Where, as opposed to just saying like, oh, it was on the timeline, you should’ve just known, like, you know, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s understanding the whole, the whole picture of it and it, but it’s, it’s a hard skill. 

 Mean, it’s definitely, it’s not, sometimes it’s teachable. You can teach them key things like you can teach people like these are things you can look out for, but a lot of its experience, it’s understanding other people and being able to put yourself in other people’s shoes and have that empathy, which I think not everybody has. 

Courtney: And also like for, especially when you’re talking about hospitality and weddings in particular, it’s like this business transaction that’s wrapped in emotion.

Right. It’s all, everything’s very emotionally driven at that point. So I think being able to you know, navigate what people are saying through emotion and being able to understand the emotional state, but not necessarily kowtow to it. Sometimes I think it’s important. 

Dana: Yeah, but I think marketing can be really similar to that though. I think marketing’s emotional. We are, that’s what you’re doing is you’re trying to play on people’s emotions, whether it’s happy, sad outrage or whatever, 

Billy: I’m trying to get that, trying to, trying to work there. In that, in that response. So that there there’s that emotional connection to your product or your service or you as a personality. because if it’s just about pros and cons like a cold clinical list of pros and cons. That’s just an intellectual exercise that evaporates as soon as the product or the service meets, whatever. 

Courtney: Well, you must’ve done a great job with that Uber, cause I mean, I felt very strongly about Uber when that concept first came out, I was like, I am not getting in the car with a random stranger. 

Dana: It’s the same thing as a taxi it’s not any different. 

Courtney: Like they’re insured, and it seems like they have like, you know, corporation behind them and like there’s some kind of tracking device and retribution if something were to happen. And that was just the way that everyone knew. Like, that’s just how things were. And Uber has had some issues with some random people driving that were, you know, did not turn out well. 

Billy: And then you have to get, when that happens, you’ve got to be right there to address it. Because, because you don’t want folks to deeper into a suspicion. You want to be there to acknowledge what happened and say, we’re going to do everything to make it right for this person.

And we’re going to do everything to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We’re working really hard on it. Here is how we’re working really hard on it. So to, to show your work, to show, to show your feeling of empathy, and then to show your practical hard work about here’s, here’s how we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Dana: Yeah. What do you, what do you say, like inspires you? Like, how do you keep that creativity going, thinking about like these? Like, how do you think about what’s the next thing I’m going to immerse myself into like, what gets you going?

Billy: I think like, probably like you guys, because you’re doing this podcast, like you have venture after venture. I just hate to be bored. Like and that not necessarily, like, I need to be out doing things, but intellectually, like, I just want, always want to be thinking about something different and learning something new and having something really interesting to talk to Lucy about, or my parents about, or my kids about, because the world just seems so big, so big and beautiful, and like all the bubbles out there to your earlier phrase, floating around and all the colors and cultures and traditions, and like, 

God only have, like, I don’t know, maybe hopefully, maybe 80 years or something to experience all that. I don’t really know what’s next. You know, I am interested in that. Like, what’s next? Like, that’s something, maybe it’ll be a story, but I only have like maybe 80 physical years to, to, to experience all of these. And like, oh, how can I just got it? 

Courtney: I feel that so deeply. I do. I I’ve told Dan before. I’m like, sometimes it’s like, and especially at this area in our business and we’ve been presented opportunities, it’s kind of like this, like smorgasbord in front of you. And you’re like, what am I going to choose to do now? You know what I mean? Like, okay. I did that. I did that. What’s the next thing.

Right. And we recently we’ve talked about some of the podcast I’ve started teaching a class, at Meredith college. And I remember like when we were talking to the director and they were like, well, we’d love for you to teach this class. And it all came through and I like looked at Dana and I was like, what is this life like?

Literally like not in a million years would I have thought that there would be an opportunity that’d be presented that would land me as a college professor in some, and I have a degree in biology, so that’s even more strange and Dana has a degree in chemistry that it’s like, life’s amazing. Like if you just open yourself up to the opportunity, like keep that curiosity going. Yeah, choose the next thing, you know, I think it, you just don’t know where it’s going to end. And I, I feel that deeply, like only have this amount of time, but I want to experience it all.

Billy: Right. You know, I’m totally with you. What’s your class? 

Courtney: HOS320. Yeah, after this at two o’clock. 

Dana: So if you want to come along you can.

Billy: We can take an Uber.

Courtney: Yeah. We can take a neighbor. I have been in multiple Uber’s at this point, but I do remember at some point thinking I would never do that. I would never. So I am a product of good advertising and marketing. You’ve done your job. So we like to ask this question, just kind of winding down here, like in all of your fun, fun journey, did you ever have like an oh shit moment when you were like, oh shit, like, what am I doing? I’ve gotten myself into deep, like, how am I getting out, where I’ve made a wrong move? 

Billy: well, I’m going for those. Do not, not in my work. you know, when I’m marketing and when the PR hat is on I’m avoiding all those out, oh my God moments. But then when I do the journalism, like I’m kind of going for like, getting into that spot where I don’t really want to go to the nudist colony, like, well, I got to explore why I really don’t want to go. Doing the drag thing, you know, there was like a lot of moments where, you know, like now I could just be right, you know, doing a million other things then doing this. And so I had, you know, all sorts of moments when, when doing the pro-wrestling thing and it ended up in a fracas in the ring, you know, as it should.

And this one of the wrestlers, like a real wrestler, he like looked at me like he was going to come at me. I was like no, don’t come at me. You know, don’t do that. But then he started coming at me like low down. And like, you look like he hunched over, like he was going to like hit me in the stomach.

And I thought, okay, I could probably take this, I’ll bend with the shoulder. And he wasn’t coming fast. And you’re, you’re, there’s this big show going on around you is all these people who I’ve worked so hard to get mad and get screaming leading up to this moment. I can’t bail on it now. Like we have to see what’s going to happen next.

And then he comes into me and I still have like a cracked rib. Like I still, when I swim, if I swim too many laps, that rib that he hits, so gingerly, it still bothers me. So like, I I’m going for that. When I, when I do the story, like how am I going to get so uncomfortable, making an interesting story, and then how am I going to survive, like the cracked rib. But I guess maybe what I’ve learned from that is like, you know, it’s not so bad, like these terrible moments of like, oh my God, get through it and you end up sort of richer for it. 

Dana: Yeah. I love that. I love that you’re chasing after them. I think that’s a really neat thing.

Billy: Because life’s going to give them to you. I mean, you know, I mean, through all these like 22-year-olds that you’re hiring for all these late teenagers that you might be teaching over at Meredith. We, as older folks know what’s coming, life is coming at you like that wrestler and the face paint, man. So you kind of got to learn to lean into it and take, take the good from all of it.

Courtney: Yeah. I like it. It’s like the AJR song, that’s like a hundred bad days makes a hundred good stories. You know what I mean? It’s so true. It’s like all these bad days, I had some great stories from that. 

Dana: Is there anything coming down the pipeline right now, anything that you are super excited about?

Billy: There’s going to be some, a lot more of the first-person stories in Walter and maybe other places. So keep an eye out. Some, some fun stories coming in Our State magazine, which is beautiful magazine covers all of North Carolina. And God, it’s just so, so fun to look at it because of the colors and the stories and all that. 

The business is rolling along and we get lots of interesting clients all the time. A lot of them are in crisis management, which is always super interesting to work with. You learn a lot about people and about dealing with people’s emotions and trying to find a good outcome. The band, The Floating Children, floating shelter and the two fool for cool thrift shop glam rock, circus of sound since 1986. hopefully we’ll be back onstage soon. Tons of fun. And then my wonderful wife, Lucy Inman, who I’ve mentioned a couple of times, she’s a judge on the court of appeals. She’s running for the North Carolina Supreme Court. Look for Lucy on your ballot in 2022. In November 

Dana: In November. Okay. Yeah, very cool.

Courtney: I’ve never met a Lucy I didn’t like There’s something about the name. 

Billy: We’re going to use that in the stump speech, yeah. 

Dana: Thanks everyone for gathering us today to talk about the hustle. For or episode with Billy, we are drinking a mezcal Negroni. We hope we get the chance to make it this week and cheers to staying curious. To learn more and connect with Billy, you can find him on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at billywarden. And you can learn more about GBW Strategies by visiting gbwstrategies.com 

To learn more about our hustles, you can check us out on the gram at canddevents at thebradfordnc and at hustleandgather. If you’re interested in our speaking training or consulting, please look us up at hustleandgather.com.

Courtney: And if you love this show, we would be more than honored if you left us a rating and review, 

Dana: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Dana 

Courtney: and I’m Courtney, 

Dana: and we’ll talk to you next time on Hustle and Gather.