From $0 to $25M Jewelry Events: Reinvention, Resilience & AI Storytelling w/ Theresa Bruno - #225

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Speaker B: So the next day, I was at my desk in my office, and my assistant walked in and he said, I don't know how to tell you this, but the White House is on the phone. Mrs. Obama's assistant is on the phone, and she said, Mrs. Obama saw your pieces on the front on in the Times yesterday, and she has a dress, and she has no jewelry for the dress. She's wearing it to a state dinner in Chile and wants to know if she can wear three of the pieces that were in the article. And I was so excited. Of course she can wear my pieces. And she said, Mrs. Obama can't wear those. She can't borrow from a private citizen. It has to be from a company. And I said, oh, you're telling me I have to incorporate so that Mrs. Mufamble will wear my pieces? And she said, basically, yes. I said, how long do I have? She said, till tomorrow. So I went home and I said, hi, let's incorporate. Let's start this business somehow. We'll figure it out.

Speaker A: It starts with just taking that leap, man.

Speaker B: You have to work hard. You have to be incredibly smart.

Speaker A: Choose something that even if it fails, if it fails, you are going to be proud of. It doesn't matter how badly you got beaten in battle.

Speaker B: Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.

Speaker A: Become a better person, a better leader with a better business. Go through that foreign. I'm Samuel Donner, and this is Finding Founders. Can you state your full name in three or four sentences about who you are and what you do?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So, my. I'm Teresa Harper Bruno, and I am the host of the Soul Talks podcast. I just authored the book He's Not Coming Back. Rewriting Life After Loss. I'm a speaker and a coach. Cool.

Speaker A: Uh, so there's a lot to, uh, cover here, from going to. From a concert piano career to jewelry designs to lots of people close to rebuilding after that. And we're going to do our best to cover it all, but I'd love to start with just growing up in the south about your family, some of your early influences, especially, like, around arts and music. Yeah, just like what was early life like?

Speaker B: I did not come from a happy home, and there was a lot of angry noise in the background often. And I did not come from a particularly cultural home. Um, and I. It's one of those things I don't understand. My family didn't understand it, but I began to just hear music in my head as a little kid. And my parents were rock and rollers. They had never even heard of classical music. But it was what I heard. It's what I gravitated towards. Maybe I heard it in Muzak on an elevator or something, I don't know. But I began to beg for a piano, and they just shushed me for about four years because they were going through all their own, um, traumas and separating and divorcing and all those kinds of things. But the biggest influence in my childhood, bar none, was music. And that silenced the noise because the second I got that piano and began learning to play, the sounds were so beautiful to me. I think it allowed. And it also allowed me to play out the pain of a child struggling with an, um, unhappy home and a mom who had mental illness. But when I could play, none of that was there. So I. I've often asked myself the question, I think I totally talk to you about this briefly. Was I actually prodigious or did I just play so much because I needed to play to survive? But I practiced a lot very early. Like youngish, ages 9 to 10 or 11. I was already practicing three, three hours a day. Wow. Yeah. And by the time I got to high school, I was winning a lot of competitions at that point. And so we had an arrangement with my high school that I only went from 8 to 12. So I went and practiced all afternoon. And then once I got into undergraduate school, it's the same thing. And you can listen to that and say, oh, wow, that's really cool. She was so disciplined. And it's true, I was disciplined, but I didn't need the discipline. I loved it so much that I just want it to be there.

Speaker A: I'm curious how your relationship to music, uh, and piano changed from a kid that felt, uh, like it was a coping strategy to deal with all the noise that you had in your family home. But then as you developed a relationship, I imagine it blossomed into something potentially different, or did it stay the same? I'm curious how the relationship changed.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's complex relationship. I don't think as a child I knew it was a coping mechanism, uh, in looking back, I can see okay, absolutely. I hid in the music and being in the music, I couldn't hear. The crazy around me where the relationship with music was so impactful in my youth was that my teachers were so validating. I didn't have that validation at home, but my teachers were validating. And also, and it's something I rely on very much today and it's something I use to coach. My teachers understood the power of words. They treated me and they talked to me as though I were already a concert pianist. When, uh, I really believe that your thoughts become your life. And bar none, every single teacher I had treated me with that kind of regard and respect and validation. And when you're in that shortlisted club of kids who are really trying to get in big schools and not do pedagogy but perform, I think as a rule teachers take you in as family. A lot of times you're away from your home, you're traveling, you're performing on the road, that kind of thing. So I just had so much validation, love and care from, um, teachers and I think it absolutely changed the trajectory of my life.

Speaker A: So going towards college, you mentioned the prestigious schools and on a track to that. I'm curious, like, when did you start to know how good you were or know you had a shot? Because it's, I think there's a, there's like a, usually, ah, a process and when you're good at something, maybe you're like good at school or good at music, good at sports where you're like, oh, like I'm the best in my area but you don't necessarily know if you're like the best in the country and there's like this increasing perception of your own ability and then usually like a stark realization of, oh, maybe I'm not as good as exactly like that. That happened to me in college. I thought I was smart in high school and then I went to UCLA and I was like, oh, wow, I'm not as smart as I thought I was and I'm curious, uh, but I feel like you had maybe the opposite experience of, wait, no, I'm actually really good. So yeah, I guess like your, your thoughts about like your ability as you got closer to college in this career path, as a career, a musician, like, yeah, like when did you know you were good or like how good you were?

Speaker B: Um, maybe never. The thing that happened was I was in a small southern town just outside of Orlando and I was so fortunate to be placed with A fabulous teacher when I was. I had. I just kept outgrowing any teacher I got with. They teach me for a year, and they'd go. We don't really have anywhere else to go here. So my. My mother found this teacher through the Steinway dealership in Winter Park, Florida. And he was getting students into just the best music schools. And so he became my lifeline. And what happened was he would enter me in all these competitions, and it just wasn't hard. I guess I would say that. And I would dress up in my pretty little dress on Saturdays or Sundays and go somewhere and play for all of these wonderful older patron ladies that were judges, and. And it just wasn't hard. But I did. I never thought I really was just having a good time, and I loved the sounds I was making, and it's all I wanted to do. I just wanted to be on the stage and I wanted to play. But I don't know that I knew really seriously that I had a shot until after undergrad.

Speaker A: Okay, so I guess let's go towards undergrad school or undergrad. What, uh, what were the list of, like, colleges that you were applying to? Or was there a list? So, like, what. As you were ending high school, you were doing all these competitions. What did you think of higher education?

Speaker B: I thought I would probably be at Oberlin or New England Conservatory. Those were the two that seemed the most natural for me. But at the same time, my family was absolutely falling apart. And in my senior year, it became very apparent that there was going to be no financial help at all. And though I got scholarship everywhere I auditioned, I had to go somewhere where I was. It was everything. It was everything that it wasn't just, oh, we'll pay for your tuition. You got to do all the rest. So, interestingly, I went to a very small Southern fine arts school, Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi. And I went there for a particular teacher. His name was William Avra, and he had studied with a famous composer, Bella Bartok. And Bella Bartok wrote and played in a way that was antithetical to the way I played. He was gutsy and ballsy and played the hell out of the piano and wrote that way. And I needed to learn that. And so studying with William Averill was a dream. It was an absolute dream.

Speaker A: And I guess was that hard for you to adopt that new style if it was so, like, antithetical to. Yes.

Speaker B: I'm not a very big person. I'm five two, probably in undergrad, I might have weighed 105 pounds. And I have little hands, but I like to play these huge. This huge repertoire of romantic music. And fiery enough to go, yeah, I'm going to play like a guy. I'm going to have that much sound. Because you play with your body. If you're 145 or £50, you're going to put all that in there and it's going to make this big sound in a concert hall. And so I was working hard to make a big sound.

Speaker A: And, um, how did you get to be able to actually make that big sound? Or were there indicators that you had achieved the sound that you were trying to.

Speaker B: I guess the answer to that is a funny little story. When I auditioned at Juilliard, I was playing a Scriab in Etude, and it's big. And the woman on the other side was a very famous teacher, said, you ate your Wheaties this morning. I could get a pretty big sound by the time I got to graduate school. It was fun. It was really fun.

Speaker A: Can you tell? Because I feel like when I think of Juilliard, it feels like the Harvard of music. That's just like the. I feel like the perception in pop culture. What were. What was your understanding of it as you were going into these interviews? Is that how you thought of it or. And like, uh. As you get, I guess closer to actually being able to be in an institution like that, what did you learn about it that maybe is different than the outside or like the pop culture impression?

Speaker B: I think the pop culture impression is absolutely correct. And I think it's. It is at least the Harvard or Oxford or whatever you'd say, music schools. And the experience can be. Can open every door for you for the rest of your life. It can also be daunting. I think it requires a mental stamina and health. That is for those who are really trained to be in something that is. Has that rigor and has that pressure. My experience was probably a little bit different. I had taken time off between undergrad and graduate school because I wasn't ready for Juilliard. When I got through with undergrad, and I knew it, I had applied to a ton of schools, gotten it.

Speaker A: Why were you ready?

Speaker B: It was technique. I needed more, needed a bigger technique still, and I needed a bigger repertoire too. And so I had applied to a ton of schools and gotten in everywhere and. Except the one I really wanted. And I hadn't applied because my teacher and I both knew I wasn't ready. So long story short is I ended up studying with this wonderful woman who lived in Macon, Georgia. She'd gone to Juilliard and gone on to be fairly famous pianist in Europe. And she was courting gifted Southern students for Juilliard. Uh, and the reason that became a different experience for me was that she walked me into the back door. Like, I began studying with a teacher at Juilliard before I was accepted into Juilliard. So it made everything easy. And I studied and I took my lessons in her apartment on the Upper west side. And then didn't have money. And being in Manhattan and being at a school like that, you're just so darn poor. Um, so that in and of itself is something you have to deal with.

Speaker A: What does it look like? And because also, going from, like, a small town in the south to Manhattan is probably one of the biggest transitions that you could have. Ah. What did. Like, what did you think of the city? What did you think of New York? And, like, going back to cultural perceptions, I feel like New York has this. This world on, uh. The world stage is just like the city that never sleeps. It's just this. Its constant pace, it burns people out. It makes them cynical sometimes. But also, there's so much beauty in there, too.

Speaker B: Energy.

Speaker A: Yes. So much energy. But it's. I feel like, uh. Like I think of New York as, like, this amplifier where if you're feeling great, it amplifies greatness. If you're feeling like crap, it amplifies the crappiness.

Speaker B: It just. Yeah. Where. Takes all of your soul out. Again, I had an unusual experience because I think people, especially women, who are patrons of the arts at that level, are so generous with students. And because I was with this teacher who was very beloved in that community, I practiced in various people's homes. I was often invited in for dinners and just had this, uh, kind of very nurturing sort of experience. But at that point, I was practicing. Most days it was 10 hours a day. It was just 10 hours a day. I mean, so I didn't experience New York. Like, I. I didn't play at all. I would go to concerts, but I practiced all the time.

Speaker A: Wow. And it was because you had this, like, dream, like, you want. You wanted to go to Juilliard. That was the mission.

Speaker B: No, the dream was to be a tonsor pianist. The dream is to be on the stage and producing the most beautiful sound I could, to move audiences.

Speaker A: And Juilliard was a way to get to that.

Speaker B: Uh, it was a way. It was a way.

Speaker A: When did you actually take a shot at Juilliard?

Speaker B: I was 23 and a half maybe.

Speaker A: And what did it look like? What did you do? You just, you just sign up and do you apply? What does the application process?

Speaker B: Yeah, you apply and then you get a, ah, chance just like you would to any art school and then you get a chance to audition. And I was auditioning for a teacher I already was studying with. So again, a softer experience.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so what were you nervous for?

Speaker B: Yes, I'll tell you a funny story. The first time I played for her, I wasn't auditioning for school, I was just getting lessons. And so I was taken by my teacher from making to her Upper west side apartment. And the first thing that happened was being Southern. I thought the prettiest thing you could wear in the winter was a beautiful off white coat. Little did I know that it's ridiculous to wear it off white coat in New York. And the first thing that happened as I walked to the audition was Taxi came by and just mud all over my coat. Yeah, so that was a learning lesson. But so I, you know, apartments are tiny in New York. She's in the living room. I don't even remember how we got in the door, quite frankly. But anyway, she was doing another audition and I'm standing in her tiny little kitchen and I'm listening to this young woman play. And I thought it was so beautiful. And so I started getting really nervous. I was like, oh, I don't play like that. And so when this young girl finished, and this is not a nice thing to say about this teacher, and so I won't say her name, but she said to the girl, she said, dear, you need to go home and learn how to cook. It was the most eviscerating, damning, demeaning comment you could ever make to somebody who had worked their whole life to get to that one moment.

Speaker A: Brutal.

Speaker B: You could not get away with saying that today.

Speaker A: Brutal. And so then, uh, why do you

Speaker B: think she said that she had that side? She had a very critical, hard side. Yeah, but. So yeah, I was a nervous wreck by the time I said them. I was just a nervous wreck.

Speaker A: And you're like up next.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What happened when you played?

Speaker B: She said, I must have had my Wheaties because I did. I played big that day and I had never really had. And I think this is normal matriculation of age where fear comes in probably in your early 20s or so. I don't know where a therapist would say you begin to feel fear in ways that you felt fearless. Younger. Because I had prep. Felt pretty fearless in performance. I just had. I just Had a really good run at not having too many times when I forgot or where things just didn't work out for me. And so I was, I was until that point pretty fearless. But I felt a lot of fear there.

Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like with performing, like other sports or music, that it's like this, uh, it's usually one moment that you have, there's not like retakes. There's a lot intense pressure. But you did make it through, did make it through. You did get into Juilliard. What was it like being inside that institution? Did you believe that it would help you get to this dream?

Speaker B: It, it did and it didn't because the pressure was so enormous. Uh, and it's, uh, like you said when you went to ucla, all of a sudden everybody is at the top of the game. Everybody's amazing. It was easy to stand outside of other people's practice rooms listening and go, what in the world am I doing here?

Speaker A: And, um, how do you get over that? Do you collaborate with other people? Like, what do you.

Speaker B: Playing the piano, unless you're playing a concerto with an orchestra, is a very isolating experience. You're not playing with other musicians too much. You're almost always in a practice room by yourself, and then you're on a stage by yourself. I think we all collaborate in listening and in learning and playing each other's pieces and those kinds of things. But it's a very singular kind of road. And in looking back, and I'm jumping to the punchline here, I did lose the use of my left hand M in my second year and I did not complete school and I did not get to become concert pianist. But in looking back, it's that very thing that it was like the universe looked out for me. God looked out for me. I think I would have been a very depressed, miserable person ultimately, because it is such isolating.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I really wanted kids and I really wanted a relationship and it, it was hard to have that even in the pinnacle of youth.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell me about the hand injury?

Speaker B: Yeah. It wasn't. I had, I had no warning that wasn't like, I'd been having some problems. And then. And I was. It was early on a morning, a weekday morning, and I was practicing the coda for a Chopin Balad. It was hard. It was a really hard coda. And like I said, I was learning the physicality of playing as a small woman on a ten foot grand on a stage in front of people who were used to listening to stereos at home. So they expected the enormity of sound. So a lot of my practicing was about literally just dropping my hands down onto the keys and finding ways to produce big sound. I didn't know that was injuring me, but I was practicing that blood and it felt just this incredible searing pain in my left wrist and immediately it froze and I could not bend it from the wrist. It wouldn't, it didn't bend anymore. And of course went to a doctor and then went to a hand specialist and had every X ray going and it was, it was from, from overwork. I imagine today students in any kind of major school and path like that probably are taught to play on mock keyboards and to do a lot of things that don't abuse the body as you're learning scores for hours and hours a day. But I was put in a cast for about a year, left school, school, everything faded, scholarships faded, teachers go on to the next best student kind of thing. And then after a year, the hope was that it would stabilize and the cyst would shrink and that I could go back to playing. And that's not what happened. I had surgery, took out the cyst, but also it required taking out part of the wrist bone. And so there's very little mobility in my left. I've tamed.

Speaker A: When did you. Was it like a slow realization that you wouldn't be able to play the same way that you did, or was it all at once? What was.

Speaker B: I think it was. I think I held out hope that year and I kept practicing with my right hand and I kept taking lessons. And yes, I definitely held out hope that year. But then when the surgery happened and it wasn't successful, it was just, okay, I'm 24 years old and I gotta move on.

Speaker A: So what year is this right now?

Speaker B: I think it'd be 82, 83. No, that's not right. 84. 84.

Speaker A: So you're in New York. You now are coming to this realization that you can no longer play.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: The way you did. How do you like, rebuild? Because I think the thing that's so hard, but also I think so, uh, inspiring about your story is like you have these multiple shifts of identity that are just so different from each other that I think like in hearing it, it's, oh, you can really start over and still have massive amounts of success. But it doesn't mean that starting over isn't hard. And um, at this moment, like, what are you thinking about yourself? How are you feeling? And how are you thinking about how to rebuild your life into A life that you enjoy. Music was. Is, I imagine, still such. Such a big part of you, but it's like you just can't express it in the way that you did. And so it's. What do you do with that desire to still express and, um, make big waves into the world, but maybe in a different way, I guess. A short answer like, how did you start thinking about what to do next?

Speaker B: It definitely wasn't that organized. I. I don't think at 24, I even knew how to think like that. I was thinking about money a lot and how I was going to eat and what. All the dreams were gone. I wasn't going to sign with a recording agency. I wasn't going to go on the road playing. I was no longer scholarship to a school kind of thing. But I. But all the people who had helped me get there were by my side and they all stepped into help in different ways. I had spent in Alabama studying with two teachers who had gotten students into Juilliard before I went to the Macon teacher. And they were so kind. They immediately. And they were teaching for the University of Alabama. They came in, offered me a position teaching. University of Alabama at Birmingham offered me a position to teach. They had just started a program for. University of Alabama at Birmingham is predominantly a medical school. Lots of. And it's a research institute. And so lots of doctors and professors and researchers from all around the world were moving there with kids, kids who were smart and they wanted them to have the greatest cultural experiences. And so they were building a program for those younger kids and asked me at first to come in and teach them and to also teach on the college level. And so I did that maybe for the better part of a couple of years, but I was really miserable. And looking back, I would also say I didn't have a therapist. Nobody said, you probably really need to talk to somebody about this. This. Your whole life just went away. And I didn't do that. But looking back now and having had a lot of therapy, I know that I had to have been, at the very least, very depressed. Uh, and maybe I took time and went to a place in the mountains I had loved as a little girl and walked and cried a lot for a few months and then tried to put something together together. And we've had a place to live and talk for a while. And I love to tell this story of, um, I was teaching this just amazing little boy, Asian boy, and he was probably 8, and he was phenomenal. And he was also tight. Like, he didn't even come up to. He barely came up to the keys. You had to help him up on the stool kind of thing. He was so good. And all of the university and the people in town who knew were connected to the arts could not wait to hear this little boy play. So I was teaching him, and I was having the hardest time because he just couldn't get the fact that you bowed graciously at the end of playing to thank the audience, he would stand on the side of the piano and just parallel with it and just bop down and up. It was just hilarious. And there was something that happened in teaching him to bow. When I realized, I can't do this anymore. I'll never bow again on a stage. I'll never get to take my bow. I'll never get to go, uh, wow. I gave that audience something so gorgeous. And so I thought, I got to do something else here. I got to pivot. This is. I can't keep doing this.

Speaker A: Is it. Because it was just, like. It was too close. This is, like, what I want to do. And it was, like, hard seeing other people live that, ah, dream.

Speaker B: I think it was that in part, it was just hurt so badly. Also think. I don't know how to say this exactly, but I had a lot of ego about what I had wanted to do, uh, what I had been good at, and I just didn't. It's not a very noble thing to say, but at that time in my life, I didn't want to teach.

Speaker A: So it seems like it's like a. Maybe this is part of the slow realization. It's like you have this dream of being a concert pianist. You have this injury that says, okay, I can't play anymore. And then you're like, all right, maybe I can still teach. But then, uh, it's too painful to emotionally to teach anymore. And so it's retreating from. I feel like it's like a further retreating from the identity as, like, a. A musician or like a. Like a concert pianist or like a piano teacher. It's like a retreat from that identity. Like, in the. In the wake of that, what do you do? Because that's your skill.

Speaker B: Skill.

Speaker A: That is everything that you knew how to do. So, like, I think that's so hard. I think people usually build careers off continuous improvements in that base skill set. And it gets, like, better and better, and they may get more, uh, positions over time. But. Okay, now I'm gonna. I need to do something completely different. It's not something people do very often or, uh, definitely not something people do without kicking and screaming. So, like, how did you. Yeah, like, how do you. How do you do something completely different?

Speaker B: I think the thread, the common thread in my life, and I have had a couple of pretty big shifts and almost identity shifts. The thread was that I really understood, I deeply understood myself as a creative. I knew that and I understood because I'd been around the arts at that point, since I was deeply around the arts since I was 8. And so I've been exposed to painters and I've been exposed to singers and. And I understood that when you have that creative thing inside, it doesn't have to just have, um, one. One output, one outflow. And while I was teaching, I made friends with somebody at university and she took me to what was called at that time an Addie Awards. I knew nothing about marketing or advertising or any of that. And I was just. I was just keeping my eyes open. Where can I go? Where can I work? What can I do? I don't like what I'm doing. And so I sat there watching that awards show and watching film commercials, not long format, not anything glamorous, just commercials. And I thought, maybe I can make a living doing that because I could write the music. It was just that kind of, let's try this. So that was the next step was I did go to sizable agency and sat down with the owner and said, I'm really over educated on paper for anything that you could offer me. But I'm so also completely under educated and could I just work here for a while for free and learn this business? So that's how I got into the marketing business.

Speaker A: And that is not an like that. That creates like, uh, a. I feel like that's a level of egolessness to do that. It is. It's not easy to be as pedigreed as you were and then be like, all right, I'm ready to start an entry level position. But, um, we'll also. But you were broke and you offered to work for free. Like I think. And I think that's what is difficult about learning a skill like that is often you will not get paid while you're learning. Often you have to pay people to learn. And I feel like that's like a, like an important lesson. If you're trying to change, have a career, shift the career trajectory, you cannot get paid the same amount that you were from the career that you left, at least not initially.

Speaker B: For a long time.

Speaker A: For a long time. How did you go about learning? Like, how do you go about learning everything that you Needed to. Within the company. What were your strategies for that? Or is it just, I'll do that job, I'll do that job?

Speaker B: I had no strategy. I didn't. I. I just watched and listened and said, I'll jump in, I'll jump in. I'll take this, I'll take that. And I was. They put me in the department that was called trafficking. I, uh, literally was just moving ads from a creative situation to wherever it was going for the client. There was no creative in it, but I learned a lot. I learned a whole lot. And then I got to go on some film shoots and they had some pretty big clients and it was just learning.

Speaker A: Was it exciting to you? Was it boring? What did you think of it?

Speaker B: There was some excitement. I can't say. I don't think anything in my life has ever met the level of excitement as being on a stage and performing. I'm very happy where I am now and I have a lot. I feel very purposeful and that I. There's so much creativity around it and I love that. But there is something about live performance that it just uses all of you. If you're. If you are focused in such a way that you want to give you. The whole reason you're doing it is because you want someone in that audience to feel what you feel when you're playing that score. And no, it wasn't exciting like that, but I had to work.

Speaker A: So when did you start to get paid for that work?

Speaker B: Pretty soon. And he actually I didn't work for free for very long, but then I did work at the very bottom rung for about six months and then matriculated up a little bit and then matriculated up a lot. And I went from that agency to another agency that was quite large. And then I went to be the advertising manager for Regions bank, which I was not qualified for. It was a huge leap and I was working on really big sets, doing film commercials and having a voice in the creative. And that was daunting and fun.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure. What year are we in now? What year are we in now?

Speaker B: We're at the very end of the 80s. We're about to hit 90.

Speaker A: Okay. You're having all of this like, uh, career success now, but was there. And I, ah, feel like the ideas of like, entrepreneurship back then were much, much less marketed and prolific. Yeah, no, it wasn't really like a thing that you talked about. What we talked about was like, oh, get a. Go to a good school, get a good job for a long time for 40 years and then retire. I'm, um, curious where, like, where did you start to hear about business owners or, like, running a business? Or, like, where did the idea, like, start forming in your head that may. Maybe I could do this on my own.

Speaker B: So I worked at two agencies and then went to Regions, and it was a large regional bank at that point. It's now pnc, which is a global bank. And I did not let it. And again, I was working directly with the president. I was flying on the private jet to all these different banks, and they were saying, you could be our first female president. And I thought, that is the last thing in the world I want. The corporate environment was not for me. The structure of it wasn't for me.

Speaker A: Because it seems like you were successful within it. What do you like about it?

Speaker B: Probably structure. I just knew that climbing the corporate ladder, even if I was doing well there, it just wasn't me that I wanted to. I wanted to do it on my own, my way. So I left the bank after a very. Not even two years and started my own company.

Speaker A: I want to focus on this transition because I feel like. And, uh, maybe this was just easy for you, but I feel like this is something that a lot of people struggle with, where they see the freedom, maybe that. Or they like. Yeah, maybe they see the freedom that something like. Like an entrepreneurial journey could give them. They see that they could show up as, uh, their more authentic self. There's these promises that they hear about, but the comfort of a job and of a consistent paycheck is. It's a hard bed to get up out of. Uh, and it takes, like, courage and. Yeah, I guess, like, uh, how did you. Maybe if you could go a little bit more in depth on the moments and months leading up to you actually quitting and starting something on your own. What did that take? Like, how did you think about it? How did you plan? Did you need a plan? Just like everything that comes around, that decision. Because it's a big decision.

Speaker B: It was a very big decision. And yes, there was a lot of planning. There was getting an investor, and I would, uh. The first company that I opened had two partners, and so we were doing it together. And that gives you a lot of courage. You thrive on each other's risk. And how much are you willing to risk? How hard are you really willing to work? I think there's another thing, and it taps directly back to what I was telling you in my early years. And at that point, yes, I'd lost the use of my hand. But I didn't see it as a failure because of the way I was taught as a musician and the way I was treated, the words that were poured into me. And I walked pretty. I walked quietly at that point in my life. I'm a lot louder with my opinions and my voice today than I was at, ah, 28, 29, but had so much confidence. I just thought, I really want to do this. And I know I'm super creative, and I know I can line up a couple small clients to start this business with, and let's do this. We can do this. I can make this work. Just had that kind of. It was stupid in a way. You just don't know what you don't know.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, but in the not knowing, I just went for it.

Speaker A: So it sounds like you didn't necessarily have proof that it would work. Besides, you had investor. You had people that were crazy enough to take the step with you. But besides those two things, there wasn't much of a plan. It was like, all right, I could get clients. I've been in this business long enough.

Speaker B: And we had. We had a few clients lined up, uh, one decently sized one. And we knew we had enough from this one investor that we could. We could cover ourselves for a year. So it wasn't like we didn't jump off the diving board with nothing. So we. We jumped off with a little money and two small clients and one pretty decent one.

Speaker A: So how do you even, like, how do you start serving those clients? Like, like, what are the. What's the beginning process of the processes of that business?

Speaker B: I love the beginning process of working with any client. So still today, and I do. I don't have a marketing agency anymore, but I teach and coach a lot in business. And one of just the. It's one of the things that just. It just makes me tick. It makes me happy. I walk away just smiling from ear to ear to sit down with a client and they're telling me the woes of their business. They're saying, oh, my gosh, we were at 3% growth last year. We have no growth this year, and had to fire all. It's just every business has its issues. I really love digging deeply with a client to understand first his or her, because I think these are linked, uh, personal core values. And to drill it down to three and then see how those align with what are the business's core values. And then to start asking some questions that feel pretty invasive, I think, to see if you can work with that Particular client because I like to really understand what they want from their business and what the dream is for the business. And why do they have that dream? Is it just a monetary dream? Or does this dream align with their passions? Does it align with their spiritual pursuits? Because all those things are ingredients for whether you would have success or not. So that's where the beginning of work with a client happens. In marketing, what were some of the.

Speaker A: Because you had your other co founders, like what were the roles that you guys took on and what were some of the early difficulties that you had?

Speaker B: Getting along as partners was the hardest thing. So I was creative director and that, that felt good. Another partner was, she handled accounts, account services, account rep, and the other partner was in charge of sales.

Speaker A: And when you say it was difficult getting along, what were some of the things that started coming up?

Speaker B: Two of us, the male partner and myself, when we were exactly the same age, uh, we just fought. We just did not find commonality in the way that we did business and the way we spoke to one another. I wish I had had some training at that point. Again, it's something I coach now, you know about the kind of respect you in any culture in order to make what works or doesn't work, even if it's not working for you, you can still work in it if you learn to create a culture of respect. We were young and heady and hungry and so there was a lot of combativeness. And then there were some great times too. You get a new client or you win a great award, or you bring in the most amount of money you could ever dream of bringing in early on in. Those are really good times. You never get those again that, those firsts.

Speaker A: Can you tell me about some of those firsts? Especially like the, like the big like monetary wins and, or I guess also what are, like, what were some of the most meaningful wins that you had as you like went through building this agency?

Speaker B: They're linked. They're absolutely linked. And it completely changed the trajectory of my life in a personal way and as well as a, uh, professional way. I, I think we'd only been in business about a year and a half and I've always been motivated by philanthropic work. And so I asked my two partners, I said I'd like to go to this school that's in an underserved part of our community and just sit and talk to the kids and maybe just create a Christmas card from those kids wishes, try to raise some money for them and sit down, send this out to our other Clients. So I spent a little bit of time in this elementary school, a few days just sitting at the desks and listening and talking to the kids and taking notes and asking them what they wanted for Christmas. And then went back to the agency and with a really gifted art director and copywriter, we came up with this piece that ultimately won a national Addy. That doesn't sound like much. And I didn't even understand.

Speaker A: Also, this is like a kind of a full circle moment. The Addies were what got you exactly into this thing. And now here you are winning the award. Not that like a late later, but not that much long. Like not that long after starting your business. And, uh, and you were at the pinnacle that you saw at the beginning.

Speaker B: And it was so crazy because Birmingham, Alabama is not a very big town. So I think maybe only one other national Addie had been won by any agency in Birmingham. Um, at that point could be wrong about that. But I thought it was just one. So it won locally and then it won regionally, and then it won nationally. So it was a big deal. There was this group of businessmen, my last name now the Brunos, and they were first generation Italians, and they had started with a tiny little grocery store and within their generation had turned it into a very large publicly held company. And the space spin off from that was a second company that is, that was a drugstore company at that point. I think they had about four or five hundred stores, also a publicly held company. And so the CEO of the drugstore company heard about. I thought of myself as a girl at that point at 30, who had won this national Addie. And he asked for a meeting with me. I did not have any idea. I, uh, just wasn't steeped in Birmingham or money or I just worked a lot. And of course I knew everywhere I went there was one of their stores. But I didn't really understand how cool it was to get asked to a meeting with this man. And he was probably in his early 60s at this point. His name was Anthony Bruno, and he ultimately became my father in law. But he just sat me down. He was so nice, and he wanted to know about me. And he said my sales are flat. He said, what could you do for me? A really big company. I didn't. Had never even heard of marketing budgets that big.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I said I had the knowledge and the acumen to ask some smart questions. But anyway, I said, can you give me a little bit of time to think about it and I'll come back to you. And so when I came back to him. Um, I said, I think from my perspective, and it's probably not something you want to hear, but you started as a family business before it became this huge, colossal, big public company, two public companies, and everybody in the community loved you, and they understood your story. And your drugstore sat on every corner. And, um, the pharmacist knew the dog that got tied up outside, and you knew the prescription before the person would come in. And then you've had all this growth and you're in. You're in cities, you don't even know anybody. And I said, you were at the drugstore around the corner, and now you're not. You've lost your brand. And he said, okay, I hear you. I can't remember the budget he gave me, but I felt like somebody had put a whole bag of gold in my car. But he gave me a really substantive budget to come back with a creative solution, and I did. And his sales grew right back where he wanted them. So that was a. That was the first just ginormous big account win. And in the process, I met my husband.

Speaker A: So. Yeah, how did you meet your husband?

Speaker B: So that same man, Anthony Bruno, I think he. I think when he met with me, he probably was matchmaking a little bit, but his son James was living in Atlanta, and I guess James was 28, 29. And he brought James into the meeting where I presented my concept, and there were no women in the room. It was the largest boardroom I'd ever seen. And so I presented this concept of big B drugs right around the corner. And I don't know if you ever heard of a man named Hal Riney. He was like one of the greats in the ad world. And he also was one of the biggest voices in commercial work. And so I had hired Hal Riney to do the voiceover work for it.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And that was so cool working with him. But anyway, I presented this concept, and James was at the very end of that long table, and I was standing there going, everybody else here is kind of old and a little bit round looking, and here's this really great looking young guy. And I had a very embarrassing moment in that presentation, and I went in alone because that just has always been my style, to go in with a lot of people and a lot of support. Because I think if you really believe in your concept and you understand what you're selling, you don't need all that stuff.

Speaker A: The concert pianist in you going solo

Speaker B: and then going in solo, baby, it's just make it or Break it. So I was standing there and you had my little blackboards. And back then you didn't do anything digitally. And, um, and moving boards around on easels and trying to show this concept. And I had on very corporate. Little red suit, wraparound, tied up the waist, fake gold necklace. I'm still poor.

Speaker A: And

Speaker B: my necklace came undone and just fell into my cleavage. And it's one of those things where you go, room full of men, 27 men in a room.

Speaker A: I.

Speaker B: There's just. Everybody saw it. You couldn't not see it. So the choice was to just go, sorry, guys. Reach in, pull it out, and keep going. And choose not to be modified.

Speaker A: Um, how did the rest of the pitch go?

Speaker B: Got the business.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And started dating James.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Yep. Year and a half later, we were married.

Speaker A: Wow. Quick. I guess, like, how did your relationship and the business grow from there? Because that's a huge client. I imagine that gave you a lot of momentum, but also at the same time getting married as this business is growing, are you thinking your life is going to change in any way? Are you thinking. You mentioned earlier, oh, family, kids. That's something that I was also thinking about. Did that life change how you were thinking about your trajectory?

Speaker B: Honestly, no. I just. I was definitely on the feminist side, would. Would do it, you know, in a quieter way. But I was like, no, I can have it all and I'm going to do this my way and I'm going to do it differently. And I was like. And James was so supportive, I have to say. James. And I'm married into an Italian Catholic family. I was not probably his mother's dream for him. I was not Italian, I was not Catholic, and I worked. And it just. I don't think there was another wife in, uh, his family at that time who worked and worked hard. So it was a very different looking family to them. I didn't have dinner ready every night. I did hire a nanny. But what we did was we bought a townhome as our first home that was literally four minutes from my office. And I was very determined when we had our first child that I was going to nurse and nurse a long time and that I was going to come home every four hours and I was going to take the baby back to work during lunch hours. And I was just going to have this fluid life, even if it meant, yeah, I had to work later at night after I put the baby to bed, because I had hours in the middle of the day with the baby. I just made up my own rules and I did have partners. They. And I don't think they were thrilled about it. So some of the time I never missed a meeting or anything like that. But I would take time in the middle of the day to go home and be with my baby.

Speaker A: I think that's what's cool about a relationship, uh, and motherhood and parenthood. It's like you don't have to choose the boilerplate version of what you're supposed to do. It can really look like anything. And as long as you're as you are happy and healthy and the baby's happy and healthy, like, the details, I feel matter less.

Speaker B: It was new ish in 92 to do it that way, certainly in smaller, kind of more patriarchal sort of town. But it worked for us. It worked for us as a family. And James and I co parented, I would say 50, 50. There was M. Rarely a day from the time the children were in preschool all the way through, when they could drive, that one of us didn't pick them up. It was rare that we really worked our schedules to work and to be with the kids all the time.

Speaker A: That's awesome. It seems that you almost provided more stability for your kids than someone who is working a traditional 9 to 5. Because again, you're like, all right, I still have. I might be working more than a traditional 9 to 5, but I have these spaces in the middle and like, end of the day that I can, I can be there with my children. What was like the next big transition after that? Because the company was growing, your kids were growing, what was the next big transition that you encountered?

Speaker B: And let me speak to what you said earlier. My youngest son, Andrew, is with me for about, uh, another month. Right now he's going back to Rutgers to start his Ph.D. and we've got. Had a lot of time together to talk. And he talks about the very thing that you were saying, the grounding and the structure that he and his brother had. And I took these kids with me everywhere at one point for about four years, I think I had an office in Toronto and rental homes in Toronto and the kids were there five, six months out of the year. And then I moved the film business to LA and we did the same thing. They had a really interesting life and they learned a lot and they saw a bigger world.

Speaker A: Then, uh, on this note of. I'm curious what you think about stability when it comes to raising kids. And I've talked about this with a few entrepreneurs. You see the gamut, right? People that stay in one area their whole Lives the kids are raised from. Ah. And then you have people that I was talking to, someone who raised their children in a boat or just going to a new city every day. I feel like something I've heard is you want to provide stability for your kids. There's different ways to do that, but I feel like also having small moments of instability is also good. Like, some of the most interesting people I know are people that lived in another country for a few years and then came back and. Yeah, I guess. Like, to what level do you think, like, children should have instability, slash, stability? And then also as a business owner, how do you do your best to create that over time? Especially as things have you. You move. Like, you mentioned Canada, California. Like, what? I guess. I guess this is more like a philosophical question on. On raising kids and how you thought about that, but I was recently having this conversation, so I'm curious.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I think the tact we took was as long as one parent was always present, how we did it. So if I was traveling, James was there, and vice versa. I loved having my children with me. And, um, they were in film studios and music studios and on film sets all of their lives. And I just. It never occurred to me not to have them with me. I was fortunate enough to always have a nanny, but they didn't. Yeah, the nanny was there so that I can make meetings and do all that sort of thing. But the kids were often in offices and on big film sets and right there beside me. Stability, I think, is not, though, just about time spent. It's not just about being physically in the room all the time. I think so much of stability for a child is emotional stability, and it's that feeling of no matter what, no matter where, I am deeply loved. I'm, um, supported. That kind of thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, I like. I think, like, presence. If you can have presence with your kids while you're there, it almost feels like you're there more than you might be actually physically in the room, because that emotional stability has momentum that carries to the next moment.

Speaker B: And I just thought my. I just fell in love with my kids. I just thought, these are the coolest humans I've ever been around. I'm sure they weren't to anybody else, but I found them more interesting than most dinner partners. So I just. I loved having them with me.

Speaker A: That's awesome. So, yeah, tell me a little bit about the moves that you did. Because you said you eventually went to California. What prompted that?

Speaker B: Tax credits for filmmaking. So I first took the portion of the Business, the filmmaking part to Canada, because I could get almost twice for the money for a client at that point. And I can't remember who enacted those, um, policies. And I didn't move full time. We had a full time residence. But I tried to take the large clients work and bundle it from April to October basically and do the bulk of all the film work in that time period. And so the kids had to travel back and forth a little bit in spring and in early fall. But they were mostly 100% either in Toronto or in LA with me.

Speaker A: And what was LA like for.

Speaker B: Oh, we had a ball. We loved it. Yeah. And we lived in various different places. We started. My dream was to be in the Malibu area, to be able to be on the beach every day. And of course isn't it everybody's dream? But didn't realize going up Sunset took an hour and 10 minutes to get to play.

Speaker A: Traffic is a, uh, little bit difficult

Speaker B: to get to where I was working on Highland Avenue. And so then moved closer and then ultimately got a place in West Hollywood.

Speaker A: I want to, I want you to take me up to your jewelry dare. So if you could walk me through. Just tell me like a couple of the, the steps that got you up to that point.

Speaker B: So being in LA in the summer with my children who were relatively young, and this was the thread of my life, yes, I had started marketing business. Yes, I was doing film work all the time. But I still wasn't as creatively fulfilled as I had been in the music world. I was still always looking for that other thing that just used more of me, used more of my soul, used more of my m. Just my intrinsic ability to create. I, uh, wasn't trying to create another business. I was trying to create jewelry for myself. I was very inspired by my grandmother's style and she's a beautiful woman and had great jewelry and she's conservative though. And I wanted to have that, but I wanted it to be edgy. So I spent. It was about two and a half years. Every Saturday I would drag Andrew. He was like six to all the jewelry stalls in LA and the jewelry district, trying to learn how to buy pearls and ultimately diamonds and to learn how to do interesting time methods. And so I, over a period of time and then found a craftsman, a wonderful Turkish, Armenian craftsman who we did. He had very limited English, but we got, he got me artistically. And so we made some very beautiful pieces. I thought they were beautiful pieces. And so that summer, that third summer, I made about 30 pieces for myself and Again, nothing between my ears ever said, I'm going to create a jewelry business. Just was doing something I wanted to

Speaker A: do for me, which is like the best way, something.

Speaker B: So start.

Speaker A: It's just from the purest of intentions. And it's not like often, I think there's this idea that, you know, we. You have to force your creative endeavor into the box of all right, what will make money and what will be the. What will be sustainable. And like, with you straight starting with that, just how can I create? I think that's how the most beautiful things can blossom.

Speaker B: I totally agree. Because you're not looking at spreadsheets, you're not doing a financial plan, you're not looking at certain investments. It was just for the love of jewelry. Truly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I came back to Birmingham in the fall with the kids, and I had a friend who ran just the most beautiful jewelry boutique in Birmingham. And so I was so excited about my 30 little pieces all wrapped up in a ratty piece of velvet in the bottom of a very old Louis Vuitton tote. It was just also comical when I think back on it. And so I called her and said, hey, how are you doing? How was your summer? Has something I want to show you. We have a glass of wine with me. And so she did, and she was looking at them and she said, okay, I think you got something. I. I've worked with this woman in New York who is basically the tastemaker in rolling out some of the best jewelry designers in the world today. Will you go have a meeting with her? And I'm, um, at least two glasses of white and probably three. And I am really bad to this day about taking a dare. And she dared me. She said, if I get the meeting, will you go? And I said, I'll go. And so I did. And I had no idea what I was walking into. This wonderful woman, Janet Goldwyn, she and her husband actually were responsible for the regentrification of soho. And so I get to Green street and here's this fabulously redone building. I go up to whatever floor and this beautiful model looking girl opens the door. And I knew before I even got in the room. That was way over my head. And it was funny. The young girl who greeted me, she said, do you need some trays? And I said, I have no idea what I need trays for. And she said, that's how you show joy. Uh, you show them. And I said, I got my velvet. I'm all right. And so I sat down at this table and rolled out my pieces. And Janet Goldwyn came in. She didn't speak to me. She just came over to the table. She did not sit down. And she was very austere. And at that point, I was feeling extremely intimidated and just ridiculous, basically. And she looked at the pieces and she had the spray. She said, dolly, you have a made hand. I didn't know what it, you know what it means, but you don't know what it means. I didn't, uh, know those words, but I thought, she's telling me I got something. And she said, can you get me 50 more pieces in a couple of weeks? And I said, I need to apologize to you. I said, I came here out of total ego because I wanted you to tell me I was good. And I'm not incorporated. I have no idea how to get 50 pieces made. And I'm just so sorry. I'm just so, so sorry I wasted your time.

Speaker A: What did she say back?

Speaker B: She said, no, you have something I want to represent you. Let me help you, that kind of thing. And I said, I have a really successful business. I don't need another business. I like.

Speaker A: I'm sorry, where was the business at this point? You know, what, like, what kind of clients did you have? What was your revenue? How many people? Like, like what? Like, where were you at this point? Because, like, it had grown. You've been working on this thing for a while.

Speaker B: Yeah. So what happened was that I ultimately separated from my original two partners, and I was a solely owned business at that point. And I was doing great. I don't remember how many employees, but it was a really beautiful business. No debt on it, it was making great money, and it was a really good, very busy business.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's with emphasis on busy. You're like, how can I create something else?

Speaker B: So I left that meeting and met with a friend of mine who was a PR person in the fashion. On the fashion side. And I was just so embarrassed at that point. I'm just like, what in the world did I get myself into? So I met with my friend. She said, hey, I'm at the New York Times building. I'm having an interview over here. Meet me and we'll go get a drink. So I did, and I walk in, I'm disheveled, I'm mad at myself, I really need a drink. At that point, I just want to get out of what this mess I've made for myself. And so there were these two lovely young editors, and they were like, what is wrong? And I explained my story And I said, I just was inspired by, um, my grandmother. I just wanted some cool jewelry. And then my ego got in the way.

Speaker A: I didn't want another business.

Speaker B: Yeah, my ego got in the way, and I just embarrassed myself in front of a room. Really amazing woman. And she said, this young woman said, I'd like to write your story. I thought she was going to as a blog because that's what people were doing then. She's going to write a blog about it. I said, okay, that's all right. And two weeks later, that same woman, Karen, who had dared me to go to New York, called me on a Sunday morning. And she was screaming in the phone and said, oh, my gosh, do you know that there's an article about you on the front page of the New York Times Sunday style section? And she said, and it's not small, it's a quarter of a page. And it says, not your grandmother's jewels. Well, yeah, that's one of those things. Like right now, today, I could hire the biggest PR firm in the world and tell them my goal was to have a cover on the style Style.

Speaker A: And you could did it active. You did, accidentally.

Speaker B: Yeah. And so the next day, I'm sitting in my office, I still. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. But I really don't know what to do with this. And people were calling our house all day going, what are you talking about? We didn't know you had a jewelry business. And I said, I don't. This is all an accident. So the next day, I was at my desk in my office, and my assistant walked in and he said, I don't know how to tell you this, but the White House is on the phone. Mrs. Obama's assistant is on the phone.

Speaker A: It's so crazy. It's happening so fast.

Speaker B: And I said, put the golf room. And she said, Mrs. Obama saw your pieces on the front on in the Times yesterday, and she has a dress, and she has no jewelry for the dress. She's wearing it to a state dinner in Chile and wants to know if she can wear three of the pieces that were in the article. And I was so excited. So of course she can wear my pieces. I'm so naive. She said, oh, no, they're not your personal pieces, are they? And I was like, yeah, they're my personal visas. And she said, Mrs. Obama can't wear those. She can't borrow from a private citizen. It has to be from a company. And I said, oh, you're telling me I have to incorporate so that Mrs. Wear thesis. And she said basically, yes. I said, how long do I have? She said, till tomorrow. So I went home and I said, james, what should I do? I don't know what I'm doing here. He said, let's do do it. This is pushing you. Let's incorporate. Let's start this business somehow. We'll figure it out.

Speaker A: It's beautiful that he was so supportive too, because I imagine this is a lot to handle.

Speaker B: He was always so supportive and I was often out over my skis. Truthfully, I just took a lot of risks and sometimes I left a lot of debris in my wake.

Speaker A: M. What do you mean, left a lot of debris?

Speaker B: I'm definitely a visionary and I never think it's going to fail, so I'll start a business. And started a lot of smaller businesses. Some made it, some didn't. And I just always expect it to be extraordinarily successful and you learn along the way to do things a little better and a little better each time. But yeah, I sometimes get out over my skis.

Speaker A: You incorporate. But that wasn't the, the Obama thing. That wasn't like the last of the press releases that you would get. And also like, I really want to take us to like the multi million dollar jewelry event that you would eventually do. But uh, yeah, can you lead me through some of those, like big wins?

Speaker B: It was so otherworldly and so crazy because Mrs. Obama wore those pieces at that time. Fashion bloggers wrote, um, constantly about that sort of thing. And so a lot of bloggers wrote about that event and they were like, who's this designer? What's going on here? What is she wearing? Where did this come from? And sort out. They sorted out this brand new LLC and so tons of stores just within a week or so. Mrs. Obama wearing the jewelry had stores calling from all over saying they wanted the line. What was still a very funny story because there was no line. There were still just those 30 pieces. That's that there. There was nothing. So I, um, very quickly had to say, okay, I'm going to commit to this. I'm going to ramp up. I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to learn inventory control, I'm going to learn manufacturing, I'm going to hire a team.

Speaker A: All while still managing the other business. Did you not think this is going to be stressful or like hard or a lot of work?

Speaker B: Probably didn't think it through. Truthfully, I just started running at it.

Speaker A: Yeah. Tell me more about how it progressed.

Speaker B: It was so hard. I can't even tell you how hard it was. And the team who was working with me at the time, they also worked in the marketing business. And then they would leave the marketing business at 3 and run over and work in the jewelry business. And it was really a uh, hard uphill climb learning manufacturing, inventory control, the business of jewelry. Designing jewelry was not hard because yeah,

Speaker A: like you had the artistry down, but the jewelry business is from what I've heard financially a lot less predictable and a lot more. You have to buy the jewels. Like those are expensive. Like the capital needed to do this is a lot different than the marketing company that you created where you can kind, you still have to do shoots and stuff, but feel like you usually get commitment from clients before doing the shoots.

Speaker B: Where it's exactly, you're exactly right. You never pay for anything in the marketing industry that a client or I didn't, I always. It's pay as you go. The client is paying for what you do for them. And I never, that's why there was never even any debt on it. Never needed an investor. Jewelry business. And I would still say this today and I would think many of my peers and colleagues in the business at that time would probably agree with me. It's a broken business, um, model. And that started in 2008 and the banking collapse happened. And the reason it's a broken model is that the designer becomes the bank because what you do. And I was creating 18 karat fine jewelry, diamonds, precious stones. So if a company wanted a line, if Sachs said, yeah, I want to carry, you know, your line and I want it in. And this actually happened to me and I want it in 15 stores. Each store would cost me 150 to $200,000.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: But you don't know when you're going to recoup any of it because that jewelry is going to sit in a case for three months, six months, a year, two years. You have no idea when you're going to recoup your investment. So all that time you're trying to grow your business and continue manufacturing goods, but you're not getting, you don't ever know when you're going to get that

Speaker A: money back or even if you're gonna get that money back. Yeah. It doesn't seem like a guarantee.

Speaker B: Uh, it isn't.

Speaker A: And you uh, like also. It seems like as you grow, as you grew in the, like in like your notoriety, it feels like you also. And maybe this is wrong, but do you have to like make like grander pieces. Is that uh, is that true too?

Speaker B: No, it's not true, but I did

Speaker A: and that's why because that feels like you're just like sinking more money into. Why do you do that?

Speaker B: Some that. Well, a lot of it was driven by the clients I had. I was fortunate enough to land well in Houston with the high end market there. And Houston is still a town where there's a black tie event, I don't know, a few times a week and everybody wants to have a brand new gown and brand new jewelry. And so I started doing a fair amount of bespoke work, one of a kind work. It was very high end work. So that began driving pretty much what people saw from me and what they wanted from me. Yeah, I uh, was dealing with some pretty pricey stones.

Speaker A: Can you tell me about the multi million dollar jewelry event?

Speaker B: Yeah, that was in Houston.

Speaker A: Lead me up to that. Yeah.

Speaker B: So I had opened a salon in Houston because I was doing so much work that there and was beginning to get dip my toe into investment diamonds. Diamonds that people would buy, not necessarily to wear at all, but as something that was an investment that could be passed down there. It's. Diamonds aren't necessarily traceable after you purchase them. And so I was beginning to get pretty knowledgeable and I had a friend in the, in the investment diamond business, especially colored diamonds, blues, pinks, that sort of thing. There was. We threw an event for a number of just amazing buyers and people in Houston. And we brought in at that time it was the only 50 carat diamond in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's huge. How big is a 50 carat diamond? Like in terms of like your.

Speaker B: It's big. It depends on the depth of it. But she was about like a.

Speaker A: So that's like what. Like bigger than. Almost like it's 2/4 or like a 50 cent piece, if you know what.

Speaker B: Yeah. And then a chalk just deep like that.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, it was beautiful. And then we brought in, I think at that time There were probably 40 blue diamonds in the world and we brought in several of them. And I could have my number wrong on that. Don't quote me on that. And I think we had over 25 million in diamonds at that show.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: It was crazy fun.

Speaker A: This is like a huge moment.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: But again it's uh, like you said, the financials are very difficult and also this is, we're getting towards like a very difficult moment in your life and. Yeah, I guess I'm curious if you could tell me some of uh. Yeah.

Speaker B: Go into that so the jewelry business, I think the thing that I look at in my life and I look back, try to look back very responsibly. Why did things happen? What did I contribute when things go wrong, where was my contribution and where was my responsibility in it? The jewelry business was hard to run. I was on the road a lot. I was the creative nexus for the jewelry business as well as for the marketing company. And I was working all the time and thought I had really good, strong teams working in both businesses. And I did in the marketing business. But it turned out, and I didn't see it, my accountants didn't find it, that I had fraud happening in the jewelry business. And by the time we found, had been going on about two years. So it was deep. The way I found out, I was on a film shoot for the marketing company. I got a call from American Express and said, hey, you need to pay your bill. And I was like, are you talking about, I, um, don't have much of a bill? And they said, oh, no, you've got $250,000 that's due today. And I said, I have no idea what you're talking about. So you have five cards and two credit lines. And I said, no, I don't. I've never signed for those. And I said, we have your signature. So that's where I began to uncover the fraud was deep. It went. It went through adjusted QuickBooks. So I thought bills had been paid and they hadn't been paid. It was just a falsified. It was running. The business was running on falsified numbers. And when we were able to really pull it apart with lawyers and accountants, my choice was to bankrupt it. And it's just not my DNA to do that or to pay back some of it was pennies on the dollar. But to pay back all the fraudulent cards, all the credit. Credit lines, and to shutter the business because I couldn't do. I couldn't create new lines and pay back debt. And so I chose to close a business that I deeply and dearly loved. It was heartbreaking and the closure took a while. It was from. It started happening in August of. And I actually shuttered the second store in February of 2020. So it took a while and I. It was a really big I. It was the first time I felt like I failed, just absolutely failed in life. I was. I carried so much shame of. How could I not have seen it? I've let down all these stores that believed me, all the press that believed in me, these clients who've bought My. My designs and my investors. I just, uh. It was the ickiest, worst thing that I'd ever felt inside myself. So I was really low. And then the next month, Covet happened. And then a month after Covid was announced, on April 19th of 2020, my husband, my best friend, took his life.

Speaker A: How do you, like, how do you process all of that happening?

Speaker B: Uh, five years. Five years later, the anniversary is in a couple days. You don't. My life shattered. Everything. I knew my life to be, what it was, built on things. My grounding, my marriage, my family. This man I loved so much. He was. He called us peas and carrots. We did everything together. We were that kind of couple. Just everything that I thought I could count on was my identity as a business person was really poked at hard. I was isolating at first because of my shame, and then everybody was isolating. So I didn't have community and friends coming to the house and to help. And Samuel. Takes a long time that when you. When life shatters in that way, it was pretty pervasive. Takes. Takes a really long time even to figure out how to walk out.

Speaker A: Uh, what are like. And I imagine everything else. You don't know what to do initially. There's like, uh, there's not much to. To do.

Speaker B: You definitely go. I went. I'm sure you go into shock. I had some. I had my mind around me a little bit in the first few days. Like, I made some really good decisions in the first few days. Predominantly.

Speaker A: What were the decisions?

Speaker B: So I found my husband. It was on a Saturday, and he was coming to pick me up to go to our lake house to plant some sunflowers hours. And he never showed up to pick me up. And so I went to look for him, knowing something's wrong. This just went to the grocery store because he's always in the grocery store getting food because he cooked. And I did. And he wasn't at the grocery store. And so I went to his office, and he was there. The first really good decision I made because he learned a lot of things that are really gruesome things. You don't find a body and then just call your family and they come and take the body and leave you. You sit and wait. It was five hours sitting on the floor waiting for the coroner and for the police. And of course, they were investigating me. Did I have anything to do with it? It was really horrible. But the first good decision I made was that I realized had two boys. And at the time, they were 22. And I think Jordan had just turned 26 relatively young men, one still in undergraduate school. And um, I knew that however I handled it, whoever I called first, however I said it, what measure of self control I had was. I knew first of all those moments for my kids would be remembered exactly as I did them. So I had enough sense to go, I've got to present to them with something that makes them feel we can go on now. Later they saw me up and cry and just completely fall apart. But in the first moments I realized I need to get both boys in one place at the same time. They need to hear about this. And they weren't in the same city. One was an hour away. So the first good decision I made was, I've got to see my boys together and I've got to hear about this together. And the second, the decision was somehow, by the grace of God, I kept my composure. And I think it was the first that it was a pivotal step for us as a family, that we could go on now in the following days and months and even a couple of years, it didn't look, it was raw, it was ugly, it was messy. I've never felt pain like that ever.

Speaker A: So when you tell your boys you like, some of the uh, composure that you are talking about seems incredibly hard to muster. But you did what like resources do you start looking for? Because I feel like, I feel like you. There's like books of grief, there's grief communities and like circles and yeah, I've obviously a family, but where do you go for support sport when things like. And this I think is like a question more for the, I guess like what if you were, are in the situation, like how do you help yourself?

Speaker B: I think my situation, my immediate situation was very different and I would advise differently because of COVID We were a month into Covid and everyone was terrified that nobody was going to come to my house and comfort me. Afraid of COVID And so the isolation was a really big thing. There weren't friends and arms around me and food being delivered and it was a, it was just a very quiet time. Yeah, there were texts and phone calls and those were helpful. But today I would say to people, the best thing you can do and for a long time is not to isolate. You may not want to be around your mom or your mother in law or your sister that gets on your nerves or whatever, but do it anyway. Do not be alone for a while. And this sounds a little bit trite and I definitely don't mean it as that, but it's Something that I've learned, and I'm still learning because I was used to always showing up as the concert pianist, always showing up on stage, always showing up polished. And that really doesn't work in grief. The more you can share the pain, the m. It lessens the power of the pain. It's almost as though the person you're sharing with starts to carry it with you. And I think it is so important when you are suffering betrayal, loss, depression, any of the. Because we're all surviving something. We really are. I don't think you get out of this life without probably some pretty big thing you're wrestling with, but sharing it. If it's with a therapist you trust or family member or a friend, I think it's so important to be able to start to survive.

Speaker A: When did you start thinking about documenting this journey of grief and rebuilding your life after a shattering. When did you start thinking about that?

Speaker B: Didn't think about documenting it until about a year and a half ago, maybe. Maybe two years ago.

Speaker A: Why was that the right time?

Speaker B: I had sold my marketing business. I wasn't working and I had always worked. So I had a lot of time to think. But I knew my spirit myself. I knew I was being pulled to something that was different. And another. All my values shifted based on Genesis. I was. I had been so driven for success. I had a perfectionist mentality. Yes, I. I tumbled and fumbled a lot, but I still was running for all the things that I guess my generation has defined as success. And those accolades and those big accounts and making a really good income just became, uh, uh. It just didn't mean anything to me anymore. I couldn't. I didn't want to run at it anymore. I loved my team. I loved predominantly women and young women who worked with me and had to live and walk alongside me those first two years. And they were incredible. But I began to want to try to make sense in the world of the tragedies that had happened. I, um, didn't know how to do it, but I hadn't found that I had come up with little tools of my own. They were just hard fought things that I would figure out worked for me. And I began to say, okay, I didn't have. I didn't have a guide. I couldn't quite find that guide. Yeah, now I know there's. I found so many great trauma therapists and so much incredible writing, but somehow it didn't come to me in my first two years. Joined a grief group and just couldn't do it. I didn't I couldn't make myself do it. I couldn't sit and listen. I couldn't. So I wanted to create a space where not so much about telling my story, being vulnerable enough to do it, but I wanted to create a space where others could tell the hardest stuff and feel like it's okay, and somebody else has walked along this pain path and she gets it. One of the things, I think it's just universal in our culture is that we just have no language for death to talk about it to another. We don't have any language, especially about suicide. Uh, we don't know how to comfort another. We don't even have. We just don't have a way of grieving alongside others. And in my one little way, I just wanted to put it out there. I'm living through a really rough story, and I know you are, too. Let's just talk about it. So I started the podcast.

Speaker A: What a, uh, like, what was putting out that first episode? Because it's, I think putting out anything, uh, of. Of your soul, like any artistic endeavor is scary, but it is so scary. The more raw and honest and also, sometimes, like, exposing. That hurt too, I think, like, often the scariest. And. Yeah. What were the mix of. What were the mix of emotions surrounding publishing that first podcast?

Speaker B: Well, I was completely unlike the woman I'd been before, who was relatively fearless in business and relatively fearless on stage. I was filled with fear. I'd been pretty eviscerated on social media. When I closed the jewelry business, a lot of people were like, yeah, you deserved it. You weren't really trained as a designer. And when the fraud kind of thing went around, I just. I had suffered horribly on, um, social media. So I was like, oh, I can't believe I'm going to tell in a social media format the thing that has hurt me the most. So at first, I didn't have my name on it and just called it this little talks. And it. You couldn't find my name anywhere. Yes. If you listened and knew me, you'd know my voice. And I did film it, do film it as a show rather than just an oral podcast. But I was very reticent. I think I shook pretty hard the first couple of episodes. Just. It's hard to put it out there.

Speaker A: Did it get easier?

Speaker B: What's really beautiful, and I can hear that you. You're a wonderful interviewer and your podcasts are so beautiful. I really admire your work. What I didn't expect, I thought I was doing it in service to the world. I thought, I'm, um, making sense of what happened to James and his life and our family by being able to be honest about it. Right. But it. It slipped on me because every time I would invite somebody in as a guest who had a survival story, I could feel myself healing, uh, just in sharing their journey and asking them questions about it and having a generous space to listen. There was so much healing. Still is so much healing in it for me, and I hope for the

Speaker A: people at your MV moving closer to today. Like, where is everything? Where's your purpose? Where's the podcast? What. What are you most excited about for the future? What are you most passionate about sharing?

Speaker B: It hasn't changed very much. I did write a book this year, and it's. I think it went up for sale on Amazon yesterday.

Speaker A: Congrats, Hugh.

Speaker B: The true launch date is next week, the 16th, right at the anniversary of Jane's death. It's called He's Not Coming Back. Rewriting Life After Loss. The path is pretty much the same. I'm continuing to do the podcast and. And now launching the book. My dreams are. I don't know if I think of them so much in terms of dreams these days, but it's really become my purpose to give every survival tool I've learned along the way just to teach that you can survive and then you can thrive. There is life alongside grief, and more and more, uh, as I talk to people and I come coach, I talk about the power we have to rewrite our stories when we are presented with these huge forks in the road in our lives. Dreaming is to, I think, be spiritually aligned and do good in the world. Sounds lovely, rhetorical, but I think that's where I am.

Speaker A: And where can people find your book?

Speaker B: Yeah, on Amazon. And I think it will also be up on the Barnes and Noble site.

Speaker A: What's it called?

Speaker B: He's Not Coming Back. He's Not Coming Back. Rewriting Life After Loss.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for coming on. I really, uh, appreciate it. It's a beautiful story. I hope people go check out the book.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. Truly an honor to sit with you for these hours.