Dana: I know. And you’re just like, I’ve rather talk to one more person. 

Courtney: I know. You’re like, I’m going back to my room. I know 

Dana: I thought she gave some really great advice, but I, I think what I took away the most from her and I think is very valuable and true is that to have a business, to start a business, entrepreneur, you have to like, believe in it yourself.

And it sounded like she had a very natural path where she’s like, I had this idea and it took her like what, five years? Yeah, five years before she started, she bought the URL. Yeah. And which is crazy. 

Courtney: The five years of what she said was dreaming out loud.

Dana: And especially with cocktails. 

Courtney: Yeah. Especially when she had a cocktail. Yes, and she’s like, all of her friends and family were just tired of her talking about it at that point. Yeah. Were like, you need to take the leap and do it. Yeah. And I wonder like how many things get stuck in that like dreaming out loud phase. 

Dana: Yeah. Well, so there’s two questions. There’s two thoughts here that I was thinking about when she said it one like what don’t I dream out loud because I, I believe in that fully, once you say it on the atmosphere, it has to happen. So like, what do I hold in? Because I don’t want to dream out loud. And then who was it that said you have to do this, like in our life that heard us say it enough.

That was like, okay, you have to do this. Like her husband said just to be shocking, cuz he was super conservative.   you know, so I guess those are my two, my two thoughts on it, like made me think about it. 

Courtney: See, I get in a lot of trouble, verbal processing. Like literally, like I will have like the infancy of an idea or like a feeling or whatever, and I verbally process it and then sometimes people hold me to the fire or not hold me to the fire or misconstrue what it is that I’m saying.

So I do tend to, in my older age, keep things in more   because when I let them out, sometimes it causes trouble or ends up in multiple businesses. Cause I think to your second point, I feel like it was always me. That was like, we have to do this.   like, it was very, I was very self-motivated, and steering this ship, like I was gonna row it to the finish line. You know what I mean? Like, I felt very strongly that this was something that had to play out in our life. 

Dana: Yeah. And I think that that is a very accurate statement so much so that like, even if you were to ask Sam yeah like whose idea was it or who drug you along? Like everyone jokes like oh, Courtney did or whatever, but there certainly like starting the business, like when you’re talking about like the venue, you’re talking about planning, but I feel like there was a point in this next phase of our, hustle, gather whatever, like podcasting or whatever.

It wasn’t like this. Oh, we have to do it. I don’t, I don’t think either one of us was like the driver of that. No, it was just kinda like, oh, this seems like another natural, like phase of things. And I remember I kept talking about it and it was, and Sam did say, he’s like, I think you need this.

Like, I think you need an outlet where you’re like coaching or helping or consulting. It’s like, you always love teaching. You always love blah, blah, whatever. And I think it was then me getting fully on board. Cause I don’t think I was fully on board for it. Yeah. And I’m still not a hundred percent on board with a lot of things that we’re doing, but like to be truthful.

But sometimes it is that person to push because he’s like, you’ve talked about this at like a lot, like you’ve talked about how you feel about this and he’s like, and you may, this is what I’m hearing you say, even though you’re not outwardly saying like, I wanna be a venue consultant. Yeah, cause like I’m hearing you say these things and this could be a path to like fulfilling that or whatever.

Yeah. I don’t know. I just, I don’t, I firmly believe if I say something out loud, I have to do it. So I, do you think you believe that don’t say a lot of things out loud, like ever. Yeah. I just keep it really, really in until it’s like, for sure happening, like until I have half of it done, I’m like, oh yeah.

Courtney: Also I think we’ve been surrounded by people. A lot of our life that say they’re going to do something or like, this is the next big idea, or this is whatever, and then it ended up going nowhere. Do you know what I’m saying? 

Dana: Yeah, but I think that it kind of feed into that, I think anything we’ve done it’s because it’s been slightly outta fear of someone doing it before us. Yeah. And she said that, what did she say? She said, what if someone does this very idea? How would I feel? Yeah. And there have been a couple of times, actually related to the podcast. 

Courtney: Oh, really? Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about. 

Dana: Like where I was like, oh my God, what? Like, we’re like, we’re about to launch something or like, we were about to launch it. And we had this like all secretive thing. And then other people were like, oh, this big surprise. And like, what if they’re launching a podcast? like, we’re like two weeks too late, you know? it happened multiple times, but it didn’t actually happen that. Yeah at all. 

Courtney: It didn’t   we did not have our ducks in a row. I felt like we had like the podcast idea, like at the infancy of podcast, but then not the time where the bandwidth to do it. 

Dana: Well, yeah. So right when Megan came out with Weddings for Real, we had talked about doing a podcast and she came out and said, oh, launched weddings for real. And I remember, I was like, Hey.

I like, totally excited for you, but just so you know, like we were talking about doing this and I don’t want you feel like we’re like copying this idea. We didn’t sit our podcast till three, till three years later. Yeah. Like it was three years. So we got our shit together, but we had thought about it at that point.

But no, I’m talking about, it was the other times when I was worried someone was stealing our ideas, it was actually had nothing to do with anything. It was just my fear of it and that, and that honestly pushed me like, okay, maybe I really need to try this and do this. Yeah. Because I’m fearful of someone stealing the idea. I don’t know. 

Courtney: I felt that way about the venue.

Dana: I did not feel that way about it at all. No, one’s gonna steal that idea. 

Courtney: I, I felt like, and I think it’s like when, when you get a new car, right? Like for example, like we got our Audis. I started seeing them everywhere. Like I swear to God, everybody has an Audi.

But I didn’t notice them until I had an Audi, but I remember when we were like building the Bradford and like getting ready to open it. And there were felt like at that time there was all these venues that were beating us to the punch by like one in two months before. And I was like, why are all these people opening venues at this particular time?

You know what I mean? But I think it’s kind of like that thing when you buy the car and you’re like, maybe it was always like that. And now that I’m in the middle of it, this is what it feels like to me, but it’s 

Dana: always like that. I mean, right. No, I agree too. I think you did. We did notice it more before, but like ever since the venue, I mean, there’s a new venue every three months that opens up easily.

Courtney: Well, yeah, but now I, I don’t think that anymore. I’m on the other side of it, but when we were getting ready to open, it felt that way, right? Yeah. Like you’re stealing my thunder. Like everyone was gonna just be on venue pause for the like literally two plus years, it took us to build it. Right?

Dana: I like to say you did not actually answer the question of what are you afraid to dream out loud?

Courtney: I think that there is like some sort of like book 

Dana: you wanna write a book? 

Courtney: Yeah. That, I think that there’s words and thoughts. 

Dana: That’s super bizarre. Not so that that’s not what I was gonna say, but I’ve had that thought before, but you don’t like write a lot, 

Courtney: I write some, yeah.

Dana: I mean, like in a secret place that nobody knows about?

Courtney: In my purse right now, so I’ll, I’ll jot things down or thoughts, but I am very like ADD in my thought process. Like I’m still very much myself when I’m writing. Like it’s, kind of one-off thoughts. Like I, and I think, I, I think like that

Dana: So what do you feel like your words are trying to say? Like, what is it that you’re saying that like, you feel like people need to know, well, what are you writing down in your purse? 

Courtney: when they’re writing down my purse, the things that are happening in my life, or like a-has that I happen to be having   I feel like. I don’t know. I think that my book is more about not motivational, like Tony Robbins, but like, self-belief like whaling against the norm. Like I just hate the construct of what everyone else thinks you should be doing around you. And then how people just kind of like fall into the norm.   because that’s the norm, right?

like, I just, we’ve been sold a false bill of goods, and there’s like this lack of individuality and there’s all this judgment and preconceived judgment and the way that your life should go. And I just, I don’t know. I just, I rail against it. 

I don’t think that there’s any concise title or topic for my book, but I think that it’s something related to that kind of living your life outside. the norm, whether that’s social or your own preconceived notions of the norm. Hmm. Something like that, but just like giving people the freedom.

Cause I, I, I think one of the most powerful things that you can do is to empower somebody else.   so I feel like a lot of my life’s purpose in general is to empower other people. whether I want to be empowering them or not. Like I find myself in situations where I need to be empowering.

And even if I’m begrudgingly, I’m like, that’s just kind of the role that I like to play or I fall into in general. And I think that giving words to how, because I, I believe I firmly believe that I am very unique, but I am also like the number, like one of very many. So if I’m feeling this way or I’m thinking this way, there’s gotta be lots of other people that are thinking and feeling this way that maybe don’t have words for that.

Or maybe don’t feel courage to think in that direction. Or maybe there’s just something missing. And this is gonna be the thing that gets into that next step or that next hump. I have a really good friend, Krista that I verbally process with a lot. And one of the things that I love about our relationship is when I’m talking to her and I’m like laying out these things, she’s very concisely can put words to like what I am saying.

Dana: she can be your ghost writer. 

Courtney: I, I told her that, but she should, I literally did tell her that because she is an author. But she is so good at that, but it’s so powerful just to. to validate the way that I’m feeling with a sentence. That makes sense.   do you know what I mean?

So to be able to give that to somebody else, I think would be amazing. Yeah, I agree. What’s your thing?

Dana: Dreaming out loud. Well, I think it’s two things. I think I’ve always dreamt and wanted to foster kids. I’ve always felt strongly about it. I think I’m really afraid to do it. I’m afraid to do it badly. I’m afraid to give up some freedom of life. I think, yeah. There’s a little selfishness wrapped up into that, but I think it would be hard. And I think, I think being, I do think me and Sam would be great at it cause I think Sam loves anybody and anything that comes across his path. 

Courtney: I think you guys are great parents. 

Dana: I mean, I just, I think we just love kids and we love people or whatever   so, I’ve thought that, and I think the only other thing was probably not similar, but I’ve always wanted to get more into like a political world, but I am like terrified to do it.

Courtney: Yeah. There there’s too many social media pictures of you out there. 

Dana: there’s not any really bad ones, there’s probably one questionable one.   that? One’s gonna go try to find it., no I think it’s more of I’m not a perfect person. I’m so, so, so imperfect. And I don’t necessarily like subscribe to like one specific group.

I’m very much a middle the road person, and I can see both sides and I have a lot of grace and humanity for both sides of people for both sides of like our political world., even though sometimes it makes me super angry. I can still see a human behind a lot of it.   and I don’t know if that makes it, I just.

I don’t have thick enough skin for it. Like, I think I would internalize too much of the attack on who I am, cuz it’s not, it’s different in business. Like I can handle negative reviews, whatever   because it’s an attack on my business, not me personally. Right. You know?

And I can like separate the two, but when you get into that political world, it’s who you are. It’s like what your beliefs are and your yeah, and attacking that. Like, I don’t know if I could handle.

Courtney: I think you could, I don’t know. 

Dana: Yeah. But then I don’t even know what I wanna do. Like I, it’s not even, I don’t even think I wanna, that to me is like, how do you even start that? But I don’t, I don’t even think I wanna be like a state Senator or anything like that. Like I want to put my myself behind something, an organization of some way, shape or form and be a voice for someone who can’t speak. Yeah. You know, not what that is. 

Courtney: I don’t know, the two could be connected. I mean, your path could be through foster care. Yeah, I don’t know. Those two dreams could be connected. They could be, you haven’t thought about it. No, I, I hear you. And to me, like, I think there’s definitely times that I feel char, I mean, who hasn’t felt charged up in the last couple of years of something. Like, I mean, if, and if you haven’t, then I think you need to take your pulse.

Right. I mean, cuz you should be and it’s always like, okay, well where do you get started? And I think about these career politicians and I remember at some point you went to school with someone whose boyfriend who maybe became a husband, went to school to be a politician. Yep. Yeah. And I, he is right now and I don’t agree with that.

  like, literally one it’s like on one hand, I’m like, oh, well that’s the only way like these people are like, they know the game, they know the rules, they know the ins and outs. That’s, that’s what a politician is, a politician. Right. But then at the same time, I’m like, I have severe doubts about somebody whose sole goal is to just go into politics and they didn’t go into politics because something prompted them to do it.

Like, because they wanted to make a change, which is why I think people should go into politics. It’s like, oh, I’m going to make this better with my business prowess or my compassion or my ability to see this problem that’s gonna help humanity. Right. So it’s like, I feel very conflicted about politicians in general.

Dana: Now we’re getting all political on here, but whatever, back to Julie’s episode. I think what I love about Julie is that she takes something where I feel like I struggle with sometimes is she says, like she loves parties. She loves the industry. And it is so hard to say that out loud sometimes. Cuz it feels so superficial when you say it.

But her talking about it and understanding, like, not only are you like bringing people together, but even talking about in the corporate world, like you’re creating a culture, you’re creating a mini family and that requires gathering   that requires experiencing something amazing and really cool together.

And it’s like, it almost gives me an empowers me to like, not be like, oh, I work in events like, oh no, I work in events. Like, it’s amazing, you know? 

Courtney: But events as you know, because we teach about them, I mean, go back as beginning of time, right? Like all the politics were ran through events. Yes. You know, swap and eating and clothes or ran through events.

Right. Like education was ran through events, like events are as human as being human   as like going to the bathroom and eating and breathing right. People have to gather. Right. So, I mean, I feel like while it seems frivolous, it’s actually seriously significant contribution to humanity. 

Dana: Yeah, I just thought that was, I just, I just loved. I dunno. She said so much joy. Yeah. I, 

Courtney: I, I love her joy in general. Yeah. And her, which I think is so like aspirational to it is be a CEO that has that much, so much joy, joy, and enthusiasm for what you’re doing.

Dana: I know cuz sometimes I all the time don’t feel the joy   I mean, I feel like happy, but it’s hard to feel like enthusiastic all the time. Yeah. And not like get bogged down by the list. Yeah. Of things. 

Courtney: Well, she talked about like a little bit, I mean, when she talked a little bit about like employees and mm. Kind of that, you know, having a hard time and not everybody kind of fits the bill or fits the mold or doesn’t believe in your vision, 

Dana: isn’t on your bus, it on your bus. Come up a couple times. 

Courtney: Now I know this bus keeps coming up. I know the bus is apparently very important. Yeah. Cause it’s not the first CEO that’s talked about the bus.

Dana: Maybe it’s like in some kind of CEO, both, they talk about people on your bus, should figure that out. 

Courtney: But I loved how she was talking about how, when an employee is not working out and things are just diff difficult or whatnot, that she does a walk around the block, she walks them around the block and kind of has them come to their own conclusion, which I thought sounded great. I mean, I love that, but have you ever had a situation where you’ve walked someone around the block? Yeah, and we just could of complete the square or the conclusion was not come to. 

Dana: So yes and no, I think, yes, we have, obviously we have the same experience, so yes, that has happened.

But I also wonder if we did it right. like, did we walk around the block correctly or did we like go down one and then like turn around and keep going? Cause the key was she said to be quiet and we are not quiet people. 

Courtney: I know, I know it was like saying this statement of like, how do you feel like it’s working and you seem unhappy, and then just be quiet. And she said that was the hardest part. 

Dana: It is. Sometimes I like had these out of body experiences when we’re like in these meetings and I’m like, man, we talk so much. Like, and it’s like, and we’re like driving a point to the ground. Like, it’s not like you have to say the next thing you’re saying, but like, it is like verbal diarrhea. Like I can’t help, but I gotta say it to prove my point even further. I’m like, just shut up. Like who cares?

Courtney: Yeah, I think that that should be like one of our goals for the next time we have to walk somebody around the block.

Dana: I know. I, well, I feel like we should have our employees have like a bell and just be like, we get it. We don’t need anymore. that’s right. We’re done. You’ve beat it to the ground. Ding, ding, ding. Got it. 

Courtney: You’re just gonna open your mouth and they’re gonna ring the bell, is probably, all right. Fine. 

Dana: No, but I loved that. Yeah. I thought that was great advice because I do think I I’ve, unless they’re completely dense, they feel it. They’re not stupid. Yeah. You didn’t hire a stupid person. Like they get it. There’s only probably one person that we had to force around the block. It was, it was like one of our very first office managers that we hired and she just thought she was doing this most amazing job ever. And we had performance reviews.

I remember I was, and we, we were trying to get her to come to this conclusion that this was not, you’re not doing a good job. Yeah. Like you’re not efficient, none of this. I don’t think she came to the conclusion of it. She just found another job and realized that she could make more money doing something else.

Yeah. And we were like, that’s great. Wonderful. Cuz you were literally about to get fired. But she was so clueless. She was just like, what? Yeah. And, and we had another employee. We’d only had two employees at that time. So the other employee was doing great and we had to, to make it fair.

We were like, we’re gonna do a performance review. And she’s like, is everything okay? Am I doing okay? And I’m like, no, no, this is just a farce, like, you’re fine. I need to just send this meeting and fill out this paperwork. So we could have a real meeting with this person. She was like, oh, okay.

Courtney: I love a little bit about her, like one of the things that intrigues me and we talked about this a little bit with the Rock Paper Coin episode is this idea of starting a business by pitching something to venture capitalist, who then give you money.   for A series, B series, C series, whatever.

And I’m like one, how much are they getting? Like, is it in perpetuity? Is it just a certain amount of time? Like how does it all work? Just the whole realm of that. 

Dana: Yeah. But what I found really interesting, which I thought I got more from Julie about this piece of it. Yeah. Is that she’s, there’s definitely like some people that automatically, like, this is a bad idea, or I don’t wanna invest in or whatever, but really what pushed them over the edge when maybe got that second, third, and then then finally signed was that they believed in the founding team. And it wasn’t that they believed in her, but they believed in the founding team.

Like they believed that she had set herself up with the appropriate people and that they would be successful. And they believed more in that team than actually the product itself. Yeah. Which I think is true, which I think is super interesting. And like, and I don’t know if our founding team was believable.

Like, we didn’t have like a solid team behind us. We just had this idea. We knew nothing about it. Like. We knew, we knew about the events world and we always felt confident that we could like sell this thing. But when it came to like building the actual venue, like knowing how to navigate, permitting and all that, all the planning department, all that stuff, like, I don’t think anyone would have invested in it.

Courtney: Well, we did not have anything snazzy or pretty, and I think about going through the permitting process now just to build a residence that we’re gonna live in, not that thousands of people are gonna trace through every month, which seems like it would have more like, at stake. If it doesn’t   work as to like what we submitted for permitting.

Like even like we didn’t have any water flow, we didn’t have any like erosion control we had this thing that you made on Adobe illustrator   that had like blocks of color where trees were gonna go yeah. Where the house is gonna go, how far it was gonna be from the line where the driveway was gonna go. And that was it. 

Dana: Well, that wasn’t actually, it, there was like literally almost a hundred pages of things we had to submit like a whole full well. Yeah. Yeah. 

Courtney: But I’m saying, like I’m saying, just in terms of like the site survey and like what they require now for a site survey or erosion control or, you know, land disturbance permitting and all of that.

Like, and I think through how much we didn’t know. And how again, it’s I think it’s one of those, like, timing was like, so on our side   it was on our side, like how easy that process was at that point. Yeah. And I don’t know if it was because you’re coming off of 2000, 2008, 2009. So there wasn’t like a ton of building going on.

Like everything was pretty wide open for them to help you. Like everybody’s pretty available. 

Dana: I think that, but honestly, truly, I think it’s cuz it was old farmlands. Yeah. So there was no, like it’s not like you’re removing, we weren’t removing, we removed no trees. Nothing. Like we literally didn’t disturb anything other than the farmlands that were there.

Courtney: Yeah. But I, I definitely don’t think we had our business plan went nothing how we thought it was gonna go, 

Dana: oh no, not at all. We were on like template Z at the end. It was like, oh my God, I have to redo this one more time. Yeah. But no, it definitely, I mean, it’s definitely different now. I think they have different perspectives of how it should go in general. Like, I don’t know. I think that they just care more now than they did then about all the little things. 

Courtney: They care a lot. They care a lot about lots of stuff, things they care a whole lot, but yeah, no, I definitely don’t think we were believable, except for to ourselves. And I feel like because we were the ones funding it, that was the most important.

Dana: No, I agree. But I, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if Sam ever doubted us, but he had, he had worries. Yeah. He was worried for sure. He was worried, I think he was more worried we weren’t managing the money. 

Courtney: Which there was really no money to manage. There was just money to spend. 

Dana: Yeah. But it just, I think that’s what was, yeah. Nerve-wracking is that there was no money to manage yeah for it. And he used to get so open arms about clients who got mad about things. Like I was like you just for, I think for like two or three years and never talk to him about stuff, because he would just get so upset about it. He was like, tell her to get over it. I was like, you can’t tell bride to get over it. That’s not how that works. 

Courtney: Yeah. But I definitely think it would’ve been very, very different situation like with the stress of just building, building something, but also figuring out how to fund something would be like two very compounding things that I imagine would, would be a lot of stress in the, yeah.

Dana: But I don’t think there’s a lot of venues in our area that came from like a venture capitalist. Like we just know of one, but it was their family, right? Yeah. Like their father was a venture capitalist, which is how they got the capital to build it. Yeah. But like everyone else it’s. No one’s going in and investing in a, in a venue.

And I’m curious, like, to me, like, wouldn’t that be kind of a neat next step of like, if you were, if you’re like, okay, I really wanna build a venue and like, you go going with like three or four, like business, like industry people, yeah, to build this venue, like, would that end well, or would that end so badly would blow up in your face?

Courtney: I tend to think the ladder cuz of who’s running it, who’s like steering the ship. 

Dana: I mean, you would have, I mean, you would have to like, determine what that would be. 

Courtney: Yeah. You’d have to trust somebody you’ve to trust somebody. It’d be very interesting. It’d be very interesting, but I think there’s something very empowering to say, like I have this idea, obviously she built it out very nicely on PowerPoint and presented it.

  and then gained her first round when she said like $5 million. $5 million of money associated with money. I know. Wanted to invest in this idea that wasn’t a thing yet.

Dana: I know. And I find this so interesting too, cuz she was talking about how, like she didn’t feel like there was overt sexism and like I was so intimidated walking into that space maybe because she knew enough about digital marketing and background that she had like she knew how to speak the language or whatever. Right. But I think about, you know, like, Nora and Elizabeth, like not knowing the tech world and being like, oh, invest in this or whatever. Like, and how I always, I, I may be a cynical part of me. There had to have been like an unbelievable quality or like a dock of that because they were female.

Courtney: I don’t know. Yeah. Well, all in all, I thought it was a really good episode. 

Thanks everyone for gathering us today to talk about the hustle. For our episode with Julie, we are drinking a margarita. We hope we get the chance to make it this week in cheers to dreaming out loud. To learn more and connect with Julie, you can visit Party Slate on Instagram at partyslate, or visit her personal account on Instagram at Juliepartyslate. Make sure you check out the website by searching partyslate.com. 

To learn more about our hustles, Visit us on the gram at canddevents, at thebradfordnc, At hustleandgather, and at anthem.house. And if you’re interested in learning more about our speaking training or venue consulting, head to our website hustleandgather.com.

Dana: And if you love us and you love this show, we’d be more than honored If you left a rating and a review.

Courtney: this podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Courtney 

Dana: and I’m Dana. 

Courtney: And we’ll talk with you next time on hustle and gather.