Latest / Built In Real Life / Built In Real Life - Ep 1 - How Did We Get Here
Transcript
- Built In Real Life: Welcome to Bilt in Real Life. We own businesses together, we're raising family together. And most of what we have built happened while we were figuring it out in real time, kind of each day at a time as we went. So today we're gonna be talking a little bit about our story and how things go for us behind the scenes. So Melody, before we restorative existed, what did life look like for us? Crazy. Yeah. Chaos. For sure. Right. I was working sixty hours a week in the corporate world. Mm-hmm. Having multiple babies, COVID. Right. We ended up having so many babies so quick that we got no pair. Yeah. Which was chaos in and of itself. Yeah. Yeah, you know, just to kind of sustain what life was like for us then, you know, we didn't really have We had a lot of ambition, but we didn't have a lot of clear goals of exactly what we wanted to do. For sure. and then also in the midst of having children, that's expensive, right? Yeah. So having kids and and starting a life and starting a family realistically, shortly after we got married. I mean, our first kid came two years after we got married. So, you know, the ramp up for us was pretty steady. It was gradual and it was but steady at the same time. And Once we started having kids and getting busy and stuff, so too did our careers kind of start to blossom. Yeah. Right. So like two separate parts of our lives started to develop at the same time, both professionally and personally. And it's a lot to juggle. That's before any of this even existed. Yeah, but I think that's what ultimately gave us the motivation for where we are today. Right? Because we were working so much, you were you know, most weeks I was working like what, sixty to seventy hours a week on average. Probably more. Yeah. And we realized h hey, what are we doing here? Like our au pair spending more time with our kids than we are. We're not raising our own kids. Yeah. Yeah, that's where I was kinda going with that and like all that is to say, the au pair kinda became necessary. You know, like at the same time you're working those hours, I'm also working that same amount of hours, you know, an executive at a healthcare staffing firm and you know, through that helped grow that company through COVID and everything. It had grown into like this powerhouse organization. Both of us just spending time doing all of that. you know, I mentioned to you earlier, like the it was a struggle. It was it was a big how do I say it? It was a big transitional time in our lives too. Kind of like relocating, raising three young children. Again, this is before restorative ever even came about. you know, needing that support from someone else to take care of the kids because like I said, those two avenues There's two avenues of our life started to kind of blossom in different directions. I'm the I'm a hand talker, it's gonna happen. and so we just needed more support. We we realistically we needed support in both areas, but really we need a lot of support in the childcare aspect of things. Then I remember we kind of just looked at each other and we're like, We this isn't sustainable, we can't keep doing this. And it wasn't the first time we had looked at ourselves, looked at each other in life and said, This isn't sustainable, we can't keep doing this. In fact, at that point maybe three or four other times in life we had made big life decisions saying like, This isn't the way we want our lives to be shaped. This isn't how we want it to look. You know, we need to kind of forge a new path. And so it didn't happen immediately. I mean, it happened very s gradually where we started that transition out of what life looked like into what we wanted life to look like. You know, we took time that we were pouring into other people's success. And like I said, it was a means to an end at the time and it At the time the struggle was the struggle and we didn't realize, like I said earlier, it was paving the way for what we have now. You know, everything builds on top of where you came from. if you wanted to, if you let it. And that's kind of what we just stayed focused on was just having that ambition I was talking about earlier, not really having a defined goal yet, but knowing we're working towards something, and then little by little, once it started to kind of, you know, take shape or or kind of the picture of it started to be jot down on a post it note about what a goal could be, then we started to kind of think about how to divert all of that time, effort, energy, attention, financial resource into making our dreams come true instead of supporting somebody else's. So Yeah, and to that point we didn't even well, I definitely didn't even know what that could potentially be, right? I'm a nurse. I always knew hospitals. I just ended up in like a work from home job. Sure. And I felt like I wasn't helping people anymore. So I'm like, how do I start helping people? 'Cause I was even on my own journey, which, you know, I was struggling internally with, but I was thinking like, how can I get back to helping people? Because I feel like I'm not I'm not passionate about what I'm doing anymore. I felt like I was actually doing the opposite thing. And I think that's where really I started praying and saying, like, you know, where where should I be? Where God, you know, where God, where do you want me to be? And That's when I just I didn't have the idea at all. and it's actually funny how it all came about, but like it was so Like I just had no vision. I had nothing, but I knew that's not where I was supposed to be. Well, the one thing that's always been true to your nature, it's just inherently intrinsic for you, is to want to take care of people. Yeah. Like you've always had that drive. And so in that moment when you had that conflict, it's like it wasn't resonating with who you are as a person. Yeah. So tell us a little bit how you came back. Like how did you steer back from okay, we've been working hard. We're pouring all this time into not sure what. Somebody else is taking care of the kids most of the time because we just need to be so focused on what we're doing. We're in this big transition point in our lives. Now here you are thinking about another transition. It's probably what, maybe a year after we had moved to Pennsylvania. It was probably Yeah. About that. I mean our youngest was born in twenty twenty one, so twenty twenty two? Yeah. is when it really kind of started for me. yeah. Yeah. So you actually went on a business trip. I did. I did actually. that's kind of crazy. Yeah. So Just to rewind very quickly, Melody had mentioned she's always been a nurse. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but I do know that I've always wanted to, you know, kind of lead people and help people develop. And, you know, business leadership and management's kind of been something that I've always been passionate about. I've always been kind of the person in the room that wants to raise their hand and say, like, okay, everybody, let's get organized. Here's how we're gonna do this. So I wound up in business administration for years doing different things in different industries. And so right before COVID started, it was actually May of 2019, my background in hospitality had me start a catering company. Yeah. my gosh. I loved. it was great. That like really took off too. It was very successful. I started it in May, and by December I had already had two weddings booked for the spring, multiple graduation parties, like all sorts of stuff happening. And I was knee deep in orders, November 2019, when you looked at me and you said, Hey, there's this good company that is that needs some help. And I'm like, what? I'm like over here slicing lunch meat. And I'm like, what are talking about? and you were like, Yeah, they only need somebody like ten hours a week, just like a little bit of at home help. You know, what do you think? And I was just like No. you were totally against it. I was like, no, absolutely not. It was just and I was like, just conceptually, I was like, there's no way I can do that. And then I was like, eventually you wore me down. I'm like, so what's the company? I'm good at that. And you're like, So what's the company? You're like, it's called it's a healthcare staffing company. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like I don't have any background, like it was completely a no for me. Eventually you wore me down again and I was like, All right, well who do you want me to meet with? Anything is worth a conversation. It's true and that's still true to this day. But I was like, Well who do you want me to talk to? You're like the CEO and the CFO of the company, like you've got to be kidding me. I don't So like you're putting me in front of these executives for an industry I've I know nothing about, for a job I've never done, and it was just like a lot in the middle of everything else that we had going on. I'm like, This is not realistic. Meanwhile, I'm like You're like, just talk to them. I'm like three months pregnant too. Yes, very pregnant. And so, sure enough, take the meeting. They're my people, Jersey people, good kind hearted, hardworking folks. And I was we kinda hit it all from the start. and it was very much a startup company. And so I started with them these ten hours a week. My job was to work in QuickBooks and put invoices in. Ten hours a week. That's all I was doing, just inputting data, and that was all. but for this small company I said, Hey, you know, there's some other things that I can do to help you And they were like, really? Like what? And it was like human resources related stuff and business administration related stuff. I also have, you know, a sales acumen. I wanted to be able to help them grow and talk to people and stuff. And so I started and it was like late November, early December of 2019. Well, as we know, by February of twenty twenty. COVID COVID came, the world came to a halt, I lost the weddings that I had booked. graduation parties went away, everything just disappeared on me and the catering company just overnight. It felt like I started getting these calls and people were like, we're gonna cancel, cancel, cancel. And I'm sending deposits back. And like I myself didn't know what was going to happen. I'm not gonna pretend like I like, no, we'll be fine. Let's go. I was like, okay. Like it was fine. And it it just never came back. Yeah. Well here I am, you know, three, four months later, and I had this side job that somebody made me get. You're welcome. And I you know, through just a lot of hard work with the leaders of that company, was able to kind of help that company grow and blossom. And so, man, what a time to be in the industry of sending travel nurses to hospitals to need extra at the very beginning of COVID. And so that company went boom we blew up and you know, it was great. but eventually we wound our s wound up in that same impasse like we had described, and you know, that's kind of how we got to this point. Well While I was with this company and had the opportunity to go on a business trip to Washington, DC. And it was actually the Nurses March that we were down there supporting for you know, nurses' rights and and all sorts of stuff, higher pay and everything. And as a nurse staffing agency, we went down there just to show a little love. We just wanted to be down there and, you know, pass some things out and get to know some folks. Well, the co-sponsor for the nurses march was a company that helps nurses kind of start an IV, a mobile IV company. It's kind of like a plug and play, you it's a turnkey operation. You go through their training and you know, you need to be a nurse, of course. You need to be able to provide injections, things like that. But if you've got the medical clearance and you start the partnership with the company, they do marketing for you, they set you up with your CRN, they really do everything, you know? And so that's kind of how it got started. I I really hit it off with them from a n travel nursing standpoint because they're like, hey, we're a company that needs nurses. I was like, I got nurses. It never really worked out with them on my end, but it wound up introducing the concept to you. Yeah. And I sometimes forget about that's how and why we're sitting here right now, kinda like the seed that got planted that day. So Yeah, I literally literally remember you coming home and you're like, Hey, I'm at this, this is gonna be like a great opportunity. I'm like, wait a second, tell me more about it. And then as you started telling me more about it, I was like, my goodness, this is it. Yeah. I was like, This is it. Yeah, trying to find like a pathway out or some some way to make side money or just you know at the time it was less about financial means 'cause again, we were both like busting our butts trying to get everything going. I mean we had paid off debt, but they get then again, not knowing what our goal was at the time, you know, of course wanting to buy a house. Yeah. All that hard work was leaning towards that this whole time, you know, and it really wasn't any time wasted. in like an interim. That's what I mean. Like everything was very progressive. Every part of our lives has been like, okay, what's next? What's next? But organically too at the same time, we've ever like forced anything. So so okay, so getting back to it. So you get started with this company and you know, you start driving all around your county, tapping people in the arm with IVs, but I mean you're driving more than the time it takes for you to give I Vs. Yeah. I mean I got to the point I was doing it after my corporate job. Yeah. So like what, five to nine at night and then on the weekends, obviously. and just kind of built it up. And then the opportunity came, I had a couple of nurses approach me and say, Hey, you know, we would love to come work for you. started talking to them. They're like, Hey, we also are like Botox and filler certified. Is this something you would be you would consider for like a concierge service? And I was like, Ugh, I don't know because it wasn't really my original mission. Like I didn't necessarily view it as an option to really help people, I don't think, because I was thinking more of like a holistic approach. True in okay, let's try to address maybe like, you know, vitamin deficiencies, help people feel better, things like that through hydration. A lot of it was hangover, like acute illness type things, but like That's when I really started to think and I started looking at the numbers and saying, hmm, is this something potentially it could do? And then as I'm like, yeah, it is, I got back to them and like, okay, how can we start doing this? And then I'm, you know, seeing other family members in business, they consistently had to cover for their employees. So it was like, okay, I should kind of know how to do this too. Like just in case, because I'm the fallback. Yeah. so I went to a training and six hours later, three injections later, I was trained. You were certified, trained, ready to go. 100%, yeah, sure. They're like, good luck. According to them. Yeah. But so I did it, and then I'm like, as an IC, you're nursing like this can't be it. There's no way, because I'm trained to say, okay, here's everything, here's everything that can go wrong. Right. So How do I try to anticipate that and then hopefully prevent it from happening, right? So like if you look at an ICU patient vented, sedated in bed, like my my goal is to sustain their life ultimately. And if I see something happening, their blood pressure's dropping, their heart rate's spiking, you know, whatever it is, I have to fix that, right? So in aesthetics, how am I gonna fix that? Hmm. And I had no idea how. Sure. Right? Like there's so many things in aesthetics that could go wrong, but like this this can't be it. So then I just started like deep diving. Like I got on Facebook groups. I found some really great people to train under. I spent thousands of dollars in training. I wanna ask about that. not about the thousands of dollars you spent. I'm well aware of those. boy Who came up with the n the name restorative? that's a great question. I actually don't remember. It was you. What? It was you. I don't know, I feel like we tossed so many things around and I do think that that was like a really hard time in my life because I was struggling so much that honestly I don't think I remember. Yeah, the the issue at the time for both of us was capacity. Yeah we just didn't have capacity. Yeah. I knew who came up with it. It was me. Yeah, I know you said that was me. Yeah. Yeah. We were driving to Lancaster to celebrate our birthdays. We had gotten some child care. And we were driving. we were going for dinner. We were going for dinner. And I was like tossing around ideas. And we kept talking about stuff, talking about stuff, knowing that it was an IV company. Yeah. I wanted something that ended with like Ivy, something unique. So we came up with restorative. And it wasn't restorative health and beauty, I don't think, at first. I think it was just restorative. It was just restorative. And a mobile IV. The IV used to be capitalized because it was restorative. We're the IV company, right? Yeah. But you know, there's a few different it happened organically, but the return on investment in driving all over the place to just do a couple of I Vs at those crazy hours just again, we looked at each other and said, This isn't sustainable. What are we gonna do? Yeah. and by that point I think you had started to kind of like pop up in other businesses and start to kind of like offer services there. And I think that there's still some patients you have today that, you know, know you from back in those times and still stick with you, right? So you had OGs. You got some OGs. you had a really unique business opportunity that I don't know that a lot of people have in the early days. you know, you had the opportunity to test a couple of different markets. So you wound up doing pop ups. instead of being on the road doing IVs, you would go do pop ups at other people's companies or businesses and you did them in Lancaster, York, and Camp Hill. Yeah. So it was really cool that you got the chance to kind of test all three of those markets and when it came time for you to decide, okay, where do I want my business to get established? By then you had already kind of determined Well, I had enough data too to make the decision. I felt like, yeah. It was gonna be Camp Hill for sure. Yeah. Do you ever look back on that and think, Man, I wish I did Lancaster, I wish I did York. Were you happy with Camp Hill? No, I love Camp Hill. Yeah, Campbell's great. Yeah, I mean, but being in Camp Hill, it's also funny because Like I didn't do any of the like regular market research. I never really paid attention to competitors. It was just I always felt like I was led into this. Right. It wasn't something that I'm like, this is what I want to do and I'm gonna do it. And that's like I didn't start out with a fourteen page business plan, a thirty page business plan. Like everything has just happened so organically that that's kind of what makes it fun. Do you remember the decision point to say all right, like I think it's time for me to have a brick and mortar, like I'm going into an office now for yourself, not in somebody else's. Yeah. Tell me what that decision felt like when you're when did you make it? I was scared. I was definitely scared. I was definitely looking at the numbers and thinking like, Okay, if I'm gonna make this a thing, you know, I need to do it. I wanna be my own brand. I wanna do my own thing, I wanna have autonomy, which you know I love Being independent and making my own decision. Anyway I'm an independent woman, don't need no man except you. So I I you know just was looking at everything and it was one of the scariest decisions things, but it was something that I had to do because I really wanted to just I believed in myself and I'm a very determined person anyway. I am if you tell me I can't do it, come hell or high water, I'm doing it. Double time. Don't don't don't try to tell me that I can't. Right. Well, I think that's especially true of things that you want to do. Yeah, one hundred percent. I don't think you aspire to build a house. But if I look to you right now, I'd love to. Yeah, somebody else is building it. Yeah. But if I looked at you right now and I said, I bet you can't go install a toilet and I told you you can't install a toilet, I guarantee you within the next few hours there'll be a toilet in there, you're gonna have the tools, you'll be figuring it out and like your drive to get it done. You have no aspiration to do it. But when there's something that you want to do maybe not the toilet. Not the toilet. Maybe not the toilet. but when there's something that you want to do, like it's there's that intrinsic like yeah drive, like this is it, regardless of somebody telling you that you can't you're gonna do regardless. I also love learning new things. Yeah. I I don't think you're like knowing how to do things. Yeah. And it that's like maybe part of independence too, but like I do genuinely love learning new things. Yeah, so you learn to kind of Go out on your own, you wound up in the you know, the shared salon suite thing, and yeah, you know, that worked well for a while. It was that's really where like restorative started flourish, yeah. One room, and I say this sometimes because now that we have a second location for restorative, and I tell people it's nothing like our main location. Yeah, there's a reason why I started. It is the exact same way that you started up here. It's one chair, one room, one melody, and that's it. Yeah. Now you might refer out for different services, you might send people up here for the equipment that we have here, lasers and stuff, but that's how your second location started. But your first location started the same way until really it didn't take tremendously long for you to say like I need a little more breathing room here. Yeah. And you wanna get in the unit directly across the hall. Well it just started it started to be too much because remember I'm still working in the corporate world. Right. So I'm still doing this after hours. I'm booking people starting at like five thirty. And working till nine on the weekends, right? So I'm really trying to build this business. And that's where I really started to, I think, struggle because, and I don't even know if I've ever really shared this with you, but like I struggled because we were very financially comfortable. Yeah. Right. And I knew that I would probably never leave the comfort, that financial comfort and stability, if something didn't happen. Right. And that's where again I started praying and saying, like, if this is what I'm supposed to do, show me a way out. Right? And boy did he. Right? It never happens in the timing we expect either. No. It doesn't. Sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast. No, but we're talking about like all of this was happening in July, and by December I was out. Like, and not only was that door closed, he slammed it. For sure. He slammed it. So it was definitely a a a push. Like it was a There was a confirmation of your purpose there a little bit, I would say. One hundred percent. Yeah. And I mean to this day sometimes I even still like when I'm nervous about things or whatever, I'm still like, God please show me like this is what I should be doing. Like give me some type of sign. Yeah. You know, and that's ultimately why we're still here. Because every single time, not only is there a sign, there's you know sometimes Slamming the door right in my face and showing me, hey, this is where you should be. So in the journey and now we're up to December and you're all in at this point. All in at this point. Do you remember what like Not only were was I all in, you were all in. We bought our house. Yeah. You left to help me build the business. We bought our corporate. We fired our opair. That's right. We completely restructured our life. It wasn't sustainable. We had to change. Yes. Had to make a change. So not when they say if you're gonna do it, jump in. We we dove in. Yeah. like we closed on our house, what, three weeks later, you left your job. A month and a half later I left mine. Yep. And then restorative health and beauty at that point. By then it had become you had kind of branched beyond just And that's where health and beauty kind of started, right? That's why there's a differentiator. It started back in July. Well, I mean the differentiator being Health was your IVs and beauty was your detectables. That's where the whole around this time that formative concept started to kind of divide because ultimately you've always had this goal of being like the one-stop shop, right? Like you want people to be able to come in, look good, feel good. And I think now at our main location we're, you know, developing all of that for everyone. But early on, that was just a concept you had of how you wanted to help people, what you wanted, you know, things to look like, because you were always trying to redirect back to that purpose. You again, even as you shared, you didn't know and that's kinda went away off on that tangent earlier, but like you didn't know or or feel or understand how aesthetics or injectables could help somebody, how it could benefit them, how it could make them feel good or realistically change their lives. Now here we are years later. And I've seen you change so many people's lives before weddings and, you know, before their children's weddings, like all sorts of stuff. And it was really incredible to see the impact that you're now getting back to that purpose. Like you're getting back to feeling even more so expansively on the health side as well, because the way that you're able to impact lives there for somebody that maybe is a little bit nervous about getting a needle in their face. You know, a lot of the things that you work on on the health on the beauty side might start on the health side too. So there's a lot of opportunity to help people like you had originally said in the beginning from the ground up, treating root causes and stuff instead of just symptoms. So do you remember your first big win with restorative? What was the first thing that you said, like, I'm doing it? Like, like that was huge for me as a business owner for the first time, your big accomplishment. I'll never forget the first time that I sold a package. Okay. What was a package of? She doesn't remember. She'll never forget that she doesn't remember. I I just remember it being like a big deal that my success manager at the time like reached out to me and was like, my gosh, girl, get it. Like you killed it today. and I remember like they put it on their care credit, but it had to be like a facial balancing thing. It was a lot then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So That was like the first one and like, okay, like that was huge. Yeah. And I think it really helped me start seeing kind of like the potential in this because not only was I excited, the patient was excited. And we had just come up with this whole plan together how we were gonna transform you know, not only how she feels when she looks in the mirror, but she's gonna walk out more confidently. And it was so exciting to see that over that six month plan that we had created, that every time she would come in and she was happier and more confident. And because you're not just changing sometimes the way someone looks or like restoring their natural beauty. You are reestablishing their confidence. And I think that's the most exciting thing about what I do is you're helping them in so many more ways than you are. Yeah, for one thing that I've noticed since day one, since before and when you were doing the pop-ups and everything and some of those OGs that are still still sticking around now. Most of your reviews say the same thing, like they continue to come back to see you. Yeah. Like they love you, they trust you. And you know, you might set aside an hour to meet with people each time that they're here with you. Maybe 10 minutes of that is actual injection work, but you're spending 40, 50 minutes getting caught up with somebody that you love and loves you. And I think that, you know, there's value to those relationships. One thing I've noticed from day one is that you've never really changed how you approach those relationships because you're always just you. Now your knowledge is expensive. expanded, the ability for you to discuss certain things has certainly changed, but you're still you. You're still just as excited to see them. Your personality hasn't changed. The way you appro you approach a new patient with the same curiosity that you did from day one is the same way you approach it now. You just know there's different questions to ask. Stuff like that. So I think that being so genuine is what really draws people, not only to you but to the brand because I think creating trust with patients is a hard thing to do. There's so many options out there right now, not only in our space, but with everything, you know, with where we got this paper from, there's 8,000 places I can buy the same exact piece of paper. But, you know, people now, especially in consumerism, are looking for that differentiating factor. And a lot of places say, Well, we're different because we do this. But then there's five other places that say, Well, we're different because we do the same exact thing that that person's doing. Yeah. what do you think that we do so differently here that continues to kind of build that trust with our patients? That's a loaded question because I think that we do a lot of things differently, but I think that those genuine connections, like my patients are number to me. They're not a fifteen minute slot to me. Like, I c a vitamin injection is the only thing that's a fifteen minute slot. And that's it takes me ten seconds to do, but I still have what 14 minutes and 30 seconds so I do that month, right? Nope, but that's okay. Okay, perfect. Wait, wait, what? You said how long does it take you to do that? 14 minutes and 30 seconds. It takes me 30 seconds to do. Okay, I did say ten. Whatever. Okay. So It takes me however many seconds to do that, but then I still have that time to sit there and talk to them, catch up with them. because I do know everybody that walks through the door. And if I don't, then it kinda makes me like nervous. Right? Because that sometimes happens. But like I wanna be like, Hey, how are ya? Who are you? What do you what do you do? What are you about? What are you coming here for? Yeah, that curiosity is there. Do you get a little nervous meeting new people for the first time sometimes still? Sometimes, but I think it depends on the setting. I think this is like my space. Yeah. And I think this is where I flourish. If you put me out in like a networking group, I'm definitely a little more shy. Right? 'Cause I'm like, mm, but if you put me in my space, I'm like Hey. Yeah, you're a little more comfortable. Like you know, you know what to expect a little bit more, which is nice. Yeah. Stuff like that. Here's a good one. what is something in the early days of restorative that you spent money on? And I'll answer this question too. that you spent money on that you would never spend that money on again. gosh, there's so many things. I think never spend money on again. That's a hard one because I think that I would probably spend the money differently looking back, right? But I think in the early stages I bought into quite literally a lot of like salesy things and marketing companies. not saying that I would never do it again. but I've learned over time that finding the right partner is essential. And that's like a super deep statement. But finding the right partner is essential. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. And and along the way, especially in the early days, like even now to this point, you know, we've been able to learn and had a lot of mentorship from other people, other med spas. and there's a community, like there's there's genuinely a lot of people out there that want to support you and see you thrive, that own med spas, even competitors in our area that we have relationships with. And I think that's you know, that's a nice healthy thing. So early on, I think that, you know, without having the the roadmap and knowing what to do. Sorry, without knowing what to do and like figuring things out, It's easy to kinda like buy into those gimmicky things that promise you easy success. Like Yeah, that are like, we'll get so many people in your clinic and it's like, yeah, I don't have time. I'm working a corporate job, let's do it. Sure. And you're kinda like trying to ease the burden by hiring somebody, but you know, we didn't even know the questions to ask back then about how they could deliver the results. We were so focused on the results they promised. Yeah. Unfortunately we rinsed and repeated on that. we spent so four, five, six times and no, that's a a tough lesson to learn. Yeah. Yeah. But eventually you start to realize like, okay, maybe we should take those dollars and bring them in-house and start focusing on how to do that for ourselves. And I think we've started to do that with like a lot of different things too. Yeah. So one thing I would say we'll never spend money on again. Uh-oh. Do you do you have any idea? No. I love that you don't know. There was a time where Melody decided she wanted to add like a little bit more retail in her waiting room. She just wanted like some cutesy stuff. No, that wasn't in the beginning. Okay. It was far enough long that we're not gonna spend money on it again. No. She got all these retail items. I was like, what is this junk? All these Timu things. I'm thinking we're talking about like bigger. What is this garbage? I'm answering the question. Headbands and crunchies and hair clips and all this stuff. I called them gas station items. I'm like, you could get all this stuff at Sheets. What is it doing in the waiting room? She was like, No, it's cute. People buy it. I did sell some of it. Yeah, it's 70% off. It took so long to get rid of all that stuff. It took forever. Anyway. So we will never buy gas station items ever again. Next prompt, please. Give me the paper. It's honest answer. We're never doing that again. Anyway. Was there ever a point when one of us wanted to quit? Yeah, I think in entrepreneurship you think about quitting every day. I don't think about quitting every day. What I mean by that is Are you serious? I think so. Well it's just subsh so here's what I mean by that. I think that it's a choice that you have to make every day. I think that every day you wake up, you have to do the hard thing, you need to make the sacrifices, you need to prioritize your life and your day and your time differently. See, I totally disagree. I don't I find this like so exciting. I feel like I'm not Should we start it start at the beginning. No, I find this so exciting. I'm not working for somebody else. I'm working for my own dreams. Like I'm not working for somebody in an office that I've never met. I'm working for myself. I'm working for my children's future. I'm working now for other people's future that we employ. Like I honestly do not view this as work. That's great. But that that's great. I love that for you. Okay, we can agree to disagree. I just I think that I love that you are as positive and optimistic about it, but I don't want to negate everything behind the scenes that it takes to make the world go round, you know? yeah, one hundred percent. What do people assume about our success that is completely wrong? I think that's kind of an easy one and a hard one because I think people have seen me grow. So like I went from a one room place to a four room place and now you know, to the place that we're in and they're like, my gosh, you're growing so much. And a lot of it was actually economics for me, right? Because I was paying so much for one room that it was kind of a stupid business decision. I mean it wasn't great, but you learned. Yeah. But like in in retrospect, like I'm paying a minimal amount more for, you know, two thousand more square feet. Yeah, but the one thing I kind of with the financial aspect of that, it kind of created what I determine as like benchmarking. Like you felt comfortable spending this much. Ever even in the early stages, you knew that you could comfortably or even a little uncomfortably spend this much on your brick and wall yeah true so like moving forward you knew what your new benchmark was not knowing how much more you could be getting for your dollars but at least you knew comfortably okay the business can float this much and I mean how long do you think you were in that single room space? What like a year you were there? I'd say like a year, year and a half, yeah. So I mean again everything kind of leads to one thing but I feel like it was good to kind of create that It's almost like creating a budget in a sense. Like you knew you could budget this much every month for that. Yeah. It's a weird concept, but that's kinda like how I saw it. It was like if you know you're comfortable every month spending this much, you know At least it created the space for us to be able to do this here for just a little bit more. And if you think about it, we did the same thing on our home journey too, in our personal lives. Yeah, that's true. Spent a little bit more on a mortgage and we like quadrupled our space. Which is crazy. So now we're spending a lot more on our mortgage. Yeah, we're not gonna Yeah, it's great. back to the question though, like with our success, I I think it's also subjective. Like I I don't know at what point somebody else might have deemed us successful. Somebody may have looked at us in solo salons and been like, wow, look how successful she is. Yeah. And not realizing, you know, what was on the horizon or what even now, today, I look at us and I see us as successful, but I don't think we're there. You know, like we're so much more that we have to accomplish and and to feed this thing that we've created to help it grow. five years ago I wouldn't have guessed that we would be where we are now and I hope to say the same thing in five years from now too because it'll have grown so much and so will everything else. So Yeah. You know And I think to that point too, like just to kind of step back a little bit, like we bought our home, we both left our jobs. You weren't automatically in the business. Like No, after getting rid of the opair, I like, Okay, now here's where you provide the support. You like we made the conscious decision that you were gonna stay home because our youngest still wasn't in school. She wasn't eligible for school. So like you stayed home and you were like a stay at home dad. You like took care of our home, you took care like you were we got rid of our cleaner. We got rid of our opair, like we got rid of everything. And we just had to sit down and be like, okay, the core thing is our home and our family and building this business. So you were a stay at home dad for a year. About that. Yeah. And then that's really what helped me dedicate so much time to this business is that work that You did it home. Like you were like people at school didn't know me. You know, you were drop off pickup all the time. Nobody ever knew. Yeah, but then also at the same time you would the business obviously being smaller didn't have as much need as it does now. But there were still things that you would send my way, like, Hey, today while the kids are at school, can you get this done? You helped me make our new logo. Yeah, like back end administrative stuff and branding and things. Like there was always and I think we still do that to this day. Like even though we have clear roles in the business, we still overlap constantly, run things past each other. Like we communicate really well about all that stuff. And we were doing the same sort of thing then. So Yeah. But you left the business or you left your once once Gia went to school, right? You started you like became my front desk. Pretty much, yeah. Right. So it's like me and you. I remember the first time a patient ever came in. She's like, Who's the dude at the front desk? And I'm like, Why? What's going on? What did he say? Yeah, what what happened? And then it was like, That's my husband. She's like, my gosh, that's amazing. Now everybody like loves seeing you walk through like loves seeing you sitting there walking through the door. They're like, Is is Mark gonna be there during my appointment? I wanna come when Mark's there and I'm like, Calm down But Yeah, so you were in the business and then you stepped out of the business again because your job called you back. They did. They called and they're like, Hey, can you help me out a little bit? Yeah. actually the when I had stepped away in late twenty twenty three, I was responsible I was the chief operating officer of the company and was responsible for Theoretically kind of hiring my replacement. Yeah. It's kind of what it kind of training felt like and training then. It actually took you and replaced you two people. a little bit, yeah. There was a f yeah, a full time HR person, a full time business development person. anyway, so you know, that took a little bit of time to go back to. but I was covering my replacement's maternity leave. And when I went back, it was like riding a bike. Like I the team accepted me right back in and you know my capacity was a little bit different. I wasn't the boss anymore. but I was helping kind of like with the sales portion of things and did that for a while. because when she came back from maternity leave, they were like, You're not going anywhere and I was like, Ugh That wasn't the plan. It wasn't the plan, but I think it was super helpful for us. It was because there was a lot of ways. Still, you know, a need and the entrepreneurship journey is is definitely expensive. This business is expensive. Yeah. It definitely is. Yeah. You know, so both of those things compounding, you know, need on our end fluctuates. And yeah, it was like, okay, this is the the timing of it is right. Yeah. Until such point it got to where You called me back and you're like, Hey. Well kind of. Like you came to me and you were like, Hey, like I feel like I've hit my glass ceiling a little bit. I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn't know what was next. So I just like I'm like, Okay, what is it that you wanna do? And you start describing this job and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I cannot believe this guy right now. I was like gritting my teeth because I'm like, this is unbelievable. Are you joking me, right? Like you were just describing everything that you wanted to do. You're like, I love managing people. I wanna see something grow. I wanna do all of these things. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, are you kidding right now? And you were like, What? Do you not remember this conversation? You were like, what? And I think I blindsided you a little bit at that time and I was like, This is exactly what I need at restorative. Like I don't love managing people. I don't love doing all of these things. You're saying that you love it. You want to help a business grow. Why aren't come and help our business grow? It seemed so far. kind of out of reach just because of the role I was filling at the time, still doing kid stuff, still having, you know, this work from home job. Like it didn't seem feasible. Much like being needy the catering orders and you saying, Hey, go meet these people. I'm like, what are you talking about? It just didn't seem my mind wasn't ready to pivot and transition away from doing that. And it did happen fast. Yeah. You were I was like, I was telling you at the time too. I'm like, I feel like I really need like a practice manager or something like that. But it was always such a barrier for me because it's like letting somebody, you know, look at the most vulnerable part of you. Like I remember my mentor saying, like, yeah, it's like letting them in your panty drawer. Like they're looking at the good, the bad, the ugly, like everything, and they know everything about. your finances for the business and that's a very daunting thing for me to trust somebody. For sure. So especially when you're saying all that, you're like, I'm like, hey, like I kinda trust you with this stuff. Well you you know, anytime we've ever made big decisions, again, call back when we looked at each other and said, This isn't sustainable, this isn't working, you gotta figure something out. I didn't really feel that way at the job that I was at. But the business was developing like a pretty pressing need. Like things were changing quickly. It was hard for me to keep up for sure. Not only that, but we were coming up pretty closely to the end of a lease. We needed to move, like there was construction that needed to happen. Now in hindsight, there was no way I would have been able to keep working and dedicate time to doing all of the work that we did here. I remember you like finished on a Friday. Which is the same day that I got the lease, the keys to the space. And then on Sunday I was like, I feel so anxious. Like I there's so much that needs to be done. And then you're like, Okay, what is it? What do you want me to do? And I had you here that day knocking down walls. I remember You're hired. So I remember Sunday. I don't know if it was that same week or it was a couple weeks prior, but we talked Sunday. We're doing our usual like Sunday night meeting where we just get together and like kinda hash out the week. At the time it was different than what it is now 'cause we're together all the time. But at the time it was how are we gonna juggle what life requires of us this week? And we never really made financial or like business related, work related decisions, I should say, quickly. Like we never jumped into cutting off income or jumping into a new job. Like we always made the decisions very methodically and planned things out, consolidated some debt first, like squared things away before we made the choice. You made that decision on a Sunday night. You were like, I need you back. And I was like, what? I was like, Can I think about it? You're like, Yeah. I took Monday to think about it and I gave my notice on Tuesday. Yeah. Yep. And I think I finished I think I finished that week. That week. Yeah. I think it was just done. And then Yeah, I was in here knocking down walls and We did everything getting this space ready, but there's no way we would have been able to do both at the same time. Which is too much. So why are we doing this podcast now? I think that we're doing this podcast now because there's a lot of exciting stuff happening for us, for the company. one of the biggest things that I think we I think any business might struggle with is just getting the word out, like helping people know what it is that you can do to help them. just kind of raising awareness of things like that. So I think that's one big component to it is we want more people to know the different ways that we can help them. and I think that's a big driving factor is trying to get that out. figuring out how many more people that we can help. I think for me it's just like the name of the podcast is it's built in real life. Like nobody ever talks about the nitty, gritty part, the hard part. Like they only see the glitz and glamour. They don't see all of it that goes into it. Like you know, and we we'll get into this in the future, obviously, but that we're not talking about like the changes that it had at home. We're not talking about the changes in our marriage. We're not talking about, you know, the sleepless nights or, you know, I forgot to do this. Like it's not everything that people build it up in their mind. It's hard. And nobody talks about the hard parts of life. And nobody talks about the hard things. It's like having a newborn. It's, you know, everybody's focused on the newborn, but then the mom, it's like, I'm going through all of these new things too, and things that I've never experienced. And that's why that's really the root behind the name of the podcast is we're building this in real life. Like it's hard. It's not easy. Some things are easy, sometimes are not. Some things are happy tears, some things are sad tears. Like and I think the importance and so many things that are just talk about it. Talk about it because it's real life. It's happening to other people and it's everybody is so afraid to talk about things that are happening to them when in reality it's happening to so many people around them that if they just had that support. And we're like that goes so much deeper, but like just talk about it because it's real life. Yeah, we're not the only parents on an entrepreneurship journey. Yeah. We know other med spot owners that also have kids that are doing the same exact thing that we're doing. Right. and I think that's what we want people to get from it too, is like People see where we are now, but they didn't see the journey to get there. Well let's talk about it. Yeah. Let's build it in real life. I like that. Done. We're done, Mike. Episode one. my gosh.