Episode 101: How to Have an Extraordinary Relationship and Business | Chris Grubisa & Aleks Lason | Co-Founders of Chrilleks
Chris Grubisa and Aleks Lason are married, parents, and the co-founders of Chrilleks, an international multi-experiential marketing agency creating both digital and in-person brand experiences. They’ve built a thriving company while prioritizing communication, trust, and shared growth, proving that it’s possible to succeed in business and life together. In this conversation, Chris and Aleks share the mindset shifts and daily practices that help them navigate marriage, parenthood, and entrepreneurship without losing sight of their values. They talk about building Chrilleks from the ground up, staying connected as partners, and why continuing to grow is the root of everything. This is a must-listen for anyone running a business with their significant other or looking to strengthen their personal and professional relationships.
“The energy from our relationship spills over into our business. It’s magical. I have the coolest life partner.”
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Chapters
00:00 Meet Chris Grubisa and Aleks Lason of Chrilleks
04:15 How They Met and Started Working Together
08:40 Building a Multi-Experiential Marketing Agency
13:00 Balancing Marriage, Parenthood, and Entrepreneurship
17:20 Why Communication Is the Foundation for Success
21:45 Staying Aligned Through Growth and Change
26:10 Lessons Learned from Running a Business Together
30:30 Building a Company Culture That Reflects Their Values
34:50 The Role of Trust and Respect in Business Partnerships
38:20 Favorite Books and Tools for Inspiration
42:40 How Their Personal Relationship Fuels Their Business
46:15 Advice for Couples in Business Together
50:00 What’s Next for Chrilleks and Their Family
When we say like, live your the best life adventure, curious, or, or creative or courage or clarity. It's just start in the smallest little ways. Yeah. That's how we've really started. It has been a such a wrestle. It's been so hard. It's been frustrating at times, but then it starts easing and going and flowing and that boom, and now we're at this point where it's like, it just becomes that magic.
That's Chris Grubisa and Alex Lassen of Acrylics and this is The Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and in this episode I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of my favorite power couples, Chris Carisa and Alex Lason. They're married, they're parents and they're co-founders of acrylics in international. Multi experiential marketing agency. I am amazed at how they work together, their personal relationship, and how it's possible to have it all.
You're going to love meeting them. Before we jump into this episode, I wanna remind you to come and join my Powerful Ladies Thrive membership. The best way to ensure you live your dream life is to have a community and a coach that will help you get there, and that's exactly what Thrive is for. Join us today.
Go to powerful ladies dotn.co, and jump into our twice weekly group coaching sessions to kickstart everything that matters to you and transform your year. In February, we'll be discussing how you can discover your business love language, and use that to create your ideal career. And business that you spend as much time as possible working in your zone of genius and aligned with your purpose.
All right guys. Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hi, how are you? We missed you.
Thanks
for having
us. Thanks for having me. This is
Yeah, of course.
Um, in the past, so thank you. Yeah.
Well, you technically were in the room too. You were like a silent member of that last podcast.
I'll just do that again with this.
I'll do all the talking.
Well, it's funny because you were in the room with us and you're taking photos and we've had other, you know, partners or husbands come in, but usually they're either like in the lobby or they're like, we're gonna go get a coffee, or they're in the sound booth. But you were like, no, I'll just sit here quietly.
And you were so good at sitting there quietly, like I was very impressed.
Silent mode. So the shutter wasn't yet clicking, it was just,
yeah,
yeah.
Well, let's begin. Please introduce yourselves and let's tell everybody what you're up to.
I'm Chris gta. I am a co-founder, CEO of Acrylics.
And I am Alex Lessen.
And I'm the COO of Acrylics.
And we're married to each other.
Oh yeah. And we're married. We're married to each other. Yeah. This is, this is my life and work partner,
life partner, everything. Yeah.
Yeah, we got, we, there was one time an article written and they were like, they're partners, but then Brackets Put Life.
And I was like, I love that.
Acrylics is a, is a multidisciplinary creative agency specializing in, in digital and in-person experiences for those who don't know, um, and what I'm sure we're gonna get into all of that in just a second. So
this gets right into it.
No, I love it. Definitely CEO mindset. I appreciate it.
So part of why I wanted to have you guys on, and I've been invited a couple of my favorite power couples on is because for my whole life I've been obsessed with couples who are in romantic relationships and in working relationships. Mm-hmm. Um, partly because the romantic in me is like, that's the dream life.
We just do it all together. And then also because usually they're the most creative, interesting people that I've read about or I know and interact with. So to have like a real life power couple in my life and now on the podcast, like I'm very excited about this. Does your life feel as glamorous as it occurs to me?
I don't, I don't think I look at us as a power couple, but in a way we're, we are.
Yeah. I just
tell it to me. So I was like, it's been like you don't have a couple, but like a team
to just,
we're always just a team at everything.
Yeah. To get really like real and, and, and like kind of into it. It's like that's all we knew.
That's true. We started
this way. We met in film school very like we were friends
young,
like early twenties.
Mm-hmm.
Actually even teens. Actually I was
in legal drinking age Asia in Canada when we met. Yeah. So Chris's, Chris's first like boyfriend duties were to take me to a bar when I turned 19. So
when you're 19 was like a good year.
Yeah. And he was like, he was like,
how have you not experienced? Like he was, you know, already a year older and embarrassed that what was happening. But anyway,
the whole, it's been the whole twenties together of just that. Yeah. It's been building of
Yeah. And we were friends when we first met. So, and in film school, you.
You rely so much on your team. Mm-hmm. And so we got, we got brought up in this environment right away where we had to rely on each other, um, for productions. And then a spark happened and we applied that into our personal lives and worked at it. Yeah. Yeah. And we worked at it. I mean, it's not, it's not easy, that's for sure.
Mm-hmm. Um, we've gone through things where our business was at home and we realized that, you know, that's not healthy and had to split it. Then we, you know, divided it and was nice. Um, and now we're back in, but now we know so much better of working from home that it hasn't felt like what it did a couple of years ago.
But then also when you meet someone in your twenties and you're growing up, like you're, we're literally growing up together. So that's been every
Yeah. It's been a, a buffet of everything.
Yeah.
Including the appetizers and the dessert buffets.
Yeah. And sometimes the bad customer service.
Oh, it's been, yeah, it's been, yeah.
You're saying, as you're saying all this, I'm like relaying the years and the montaging in my head. Yeah.
It's not until I think about two years ago where we really started finding a really good flow, I would say. Do you disagree with that?
Yeah.
Like we started getting like a really good flow in the last,
what, couple years or
two?
I would say like about two years. We've really like nailed this fly.
Because I think that also comes with like, I mean, you're expanding in your own, being in the relationship together on the personal side, and then you flip it to the professional side of the career. It's like there's been times where you wanted to go a little bit left, and I go a little bit, right?
And then how do you meet in the middle? And then finding even that dynamic, I think all of our. Wants and needs and everything, et cetera, is coming. Just alignment.
Yeah.
Because you're doing a ton of work now that's not with me. And then you're splitting your workload with me.
Yeah. On the
other side. And I'm doing the exact same.
So finding even a balance is like, yeah. Takes time.
And it's interesting because if we were asked, how did we make it work a couple of years ago, we would say, oh, well Chris is doing the creative and I'm doing the administrative business side. And now it's, no, we're actually very much merged. That's blended now.
It's total. Yeah.
It's, we. 'cause now
we, instead of focusing just on production, now we're now, we've become a multidisciplinary agency. So we're doing so many more different departments that Chris and I have become like, I would say the best way to identify as like actual partners. Yeah. And making decisions together rather than, okay, here's a project, it's split in half.
Mm-hmm.
So it, yeah. It's been, I hope that answers your question, but it's definitely been kind of like massaging it for the last 10, 12 years. Oh yeah.
I imagine it would also, I mean when, whenever you're business owners, the roles and needs and everything changes, right? Because at first you have to do everything yourself.
So dividing, conquering is a survival tactic even more than like, is this how, how we work best together? Right? And now you guys are at a place where you have a whole agency. So you have contractors and freelancers and team members. And so what you, you have the power to delegate. So you guys really get to choose now what do we actually like doing?
So the fact that you've were together kind of went apart and come back together actually makes total sense to me is like how a business works,
right? Yeah. It's been, yeah, it feels like you have breathing in that sense. And now we're like the lungs, you know what the lungs are and you can inhale now you can do breathing exercises with like your company just
mm-hmm.
Yeah. It's insane. It's cool.
But what I hear is you guys are talking about your relationship together and how you work as business partners. There seems to be some fundamental agreements or commitments that you guys have to each other. Are there any of those that you wanna share with everyone listening?
Um,
like I imagine being committed to, like you guys as a team, as a relationship before a business would probably be one of 'em.
Relationship before a business. That's what I got you. Yeah.
So, okay. You do? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Because I, I was, that took me that, that took me a little bit. 'cause I feel like it just naturally happens, but I know that we did make agreements.
Sorry. Agreement.
And so my, the first that came to my mind was the, like hard outs at four or 5:00 PM at the day. Is that what we're Yeah, yeah.
So
like boundaries in that sense. We'll start with these like, simple fundamental ones that, uh, when we were in the studio every single day. Pre COVID, um, the sign would go off.
Oh yeah. We had had a sign on a timer.
Yeah. We had our neon sign in our agency. We put on a timer and those were our hard outs and hard ends of, you know, we try to actually, we, we pretty, we nailed it at 9:00 AM always in the morning. It was great, but at 5:00 PM would go to six and seven Uber Eats would've be at the door by eight, nine and then move on.
So those boundaries of just the bookends of the day, which gave the week, which gave, you know, the freedom for date nights in the middle of the week, um mm-hmm. Things of that nature. That's the most like fundamental that came to my
dinners together. No tv, no cell phones. We actually cook dinner together, which has been really fun because we'll find recipes that we've maybe never cooked or excited to try.
So, uh, doing that together, we,
cooking is like the best. There's no, you, we would like print it off or just find on your phone and what I, and put music on and just maybe even a glass of wine and that was it. Yeah. We just like went at it. No one could tell us. What you do and how to do it and dah, dah, dah.
There's no tips or anything. We just did it. And then at the end we get to again, enjoy it, enjoy it. And then I'll also have a conversation through that meal as well. So, mm-hmm.
Um, being okay, uh, being honest with each other and yeah. Taking ownership at, in certain situations too. But, um, to me it's amazing because why I think we've worked so long together and,
and well,
and well is because of we share the same values.
So at the end of the day, we always go back to our values. I think that's sort of the key to every relationship, business or personal, but also I'm able to say things to Chris that might be hurtful, but there's also a massive understanding there of, I'm bringing this up because we have to, so there's these difficult conversations we're able to have with each other that I don't think, uh, most relationships can, and that's why.
That's, that's been, that's worked really well. And during dinner while we're cooking, those conversations slowly starts, um, coming out because you're in a commerce day and you're not just exploding. Mm-hmm. You know, this is, this is how I'm feeling. You may, you said this, it's more of a casual thing and
it's really, and it, I mean, if you can, you can be upset.
I don't, like I see. I don't know either. Um, on the other end of working with other, uh, at like, just being an employee, like, you can keep work at work, but this really goes into our dinners and at night. Yeah. So there's like the boundaries of, there kind of is no boundaries, but you have to set the boundaries, I think we've learned over the years.
Mm-hmm. And it's, it's not necessarily, like the other thing that came to mind was your, uh, if there's an issue, it gets brought up at dinner, but it's not specifically about that client. It's about the, that you care.
Yeah. You know
what I mean? And then we start talking about caring and then it get Yeah.
It's.
It's a whole dynamic. Interesting. The interesting thing's gonna be once our son can actually join us at dinner, and then we have to really limit that time having those conversations, because that's where I think is like our next challenge, especially communication, is we don't want him to know the frustrations that we have at work.
Not all of them. I want him to know that. Yeah, yeah. But with each
other or whatever. You don't wanna be bringing up all, you want him to be able to talk too. And so it, so it's gonna be an interesting sort of phase where it's like, well, where do Chris and I get our time to communicate? So yeah. Challenges I, we've done like this.
Yeah. Yeah. But I, but it, it to honestly, we always say that number one is communication for
us. Mm-hmm.
Above all, it's, and we used to think it was respect, but it's really communication. I feel,
and I feel too, like you, you guys probably already have like, no, we respect each other. Like that's just a given now.
Mm-hmm. Like before it was like, I don't know, let's make sure I do respect you. And now you're like, no, no, I actually do. Like, you've impressed me enough. I respect you now. So now I have to just talk about it. Yeah. But you know, I think underlying what you guys are saying, and I don't know if you guys even see it anymore, but there's such a clear commitment to each other and to making the us of you guys work that I don't think you, neither of you have said, but it's been underneath everything that you have said.
So I just think that's really beautiful. And I'm impressed when
we, when Chris was like, okay, we should start this. We were going through all the legal stuff. I, I said to him, above all. It's us over this company. Yeah. If this company falls apart, like if our relationship is falling apart, we're prioritizing this relationship over this business.
And there have been times where we just said, shut the door on the business. We're not talking about it. We clearly have something to work on between each other. And
Yeah.
And that's, that's the, like Chris will be like, get in the car. We're going a weekend away. We need to like clearly talk. Something's wrong, something's going on.
Um, you know, you know, we don't, we didn't always get that kind of luxury 'cause it was like we actually took our very first digital detox vacation. Or a week This, yeah, this, this
2021. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple, like a week ago, uh, two weeks ago. But yeah,
so it, it's like
that was a pretty, that, that was even us,
us in a relationship above anything else.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's, and you brought up the, our son at dinner table. That's like the new chapter. Yeah. I, I literally, I had my phone away from me for days on end this break, and I was like, this is a refreshing, new feeling. And I just, I let it go in areas of mm-hmm. Let's explore that space. Let's not be on our phone for like a good, you know, people were calling me and emailing my phone bad.
I was like, I'm sorry. And they're like, that's, but
you gotta turn it off. Yeah. Yeah. I have some clients that will text me 24 7 and the, and I have to just not respond.
Right.
That's all I can do. I wish there was a way to like block certain people over the weekends, but, um,
that, that's interesting to me too, because there are boundaries with us where not our clients don't have our numbers.
So I wonder like how you and Jesse do that too, because you, you are so close with your clients, there's such a personal relationship there. Mm-hmm. Even with our coaches, we are noticing what you mean. We're noticing we're crossing that line with them. It's like, it's like how do you Yeah. How do you have that conversation or how do you, the fact that you say like, I have to make a boundary and stop.
It's great. And I think that's where it starts. 'cause we'll find a lot of, uh, partnerships that don't do that. Mm-hmm. And right away Kristen and I are like, whoa, we know what that hill's gonna look like.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's one that we're, that we still work through. Right. Right. Because I'm, for me, if I wanna do something, I just start doing it like I am.
A highly self-motivated person. So if I'm, like, if I decide it's just decided we, we implement it.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm like, all right, no TV after this time, or like, no phones and Jesse's like, why? And I'm like, mm. So I have to, he's always looking at me and telling me I have to be more enrolling in my pitch, but I'm like, okay, fine.
Here's why I think we should not be using our phones and here's why I think we should not have tv. So it's like this whole thing. But he and I definitely, like, I just got earbuds for uh, Christmas. I'm a plugin like earbud person until recently and actually I'm returning them and getting a new set 'cause they didn't like them, but we are literally talking all day long.
And not to each other. Like, we're usually talking to other people. Mm-hmm. And with this pandemic, it's been crazy because we've been sitting across a table from each other and I think he's the loudest human on earth. And so I'm like, okay, we can't, like I'm now like talking, like you were saying earlier, like I'm, I'm talking in my closet or I'm hiding.
He's like going for a walk to do his phone calls. Yeah. And we were, um, walking around the neighborhood the other day and we, I, I have my mask on 'cause I was a few days behind him. So he's on the phone with his mom and he's like screaming like we've both tested positive and I'm like. Why are you yelling this in the neighborhood, not the place.
Just, yeah. Like what? So, um, but it's, it's, I think it's really interesting because you guys are so well established in your relationship, both for business and personal. Mm-hmm. And it's, I, for me, it's really, um, inspiring to watch you guys like where you've been and where you're going and just what's next.
So talking about what's next, you guys have made some big changes in the past couple of months.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is kind of like the first, uh, by the way,
thank you for that compliment.
Yeah. Thank you. I don't think
we, we don't, we don't sometimes hear, hear those nice things, so Thank you. That's the thing too, with this,
with this new chapter.
I think it's interesting 'cause we welcomed the sun seven months ago. And Kara, as you're sharing and speaking now with, with your situations, it, it. What I'm gathering from it is, it is a lot of, uh, patience through all of it. It's, it's, I used to do the exact same, like TV's off at nine, and it was,
it would frustrating because I wasn't done watching my program.
What does that mean? Nine o'clock end, nine o'clock end for me. So I, so I negotiation,
I started to do, like, I started to, you know, start at finish my day at nine, and then I started, I, I, I was like, well, what do I do at nine? Like, and I started this nightly ritual and then you can see that. Mm-hmm. It's just, if you start doing it, Alex gets magnetized or you know, and it's like you mentioned before it was the enrollment and mm-hmm.
You can't just go and do things like I used to. And I think, and that comes with growth and the business, the relationship, everything of that nature. Yeah. So,
but those changes came from a lot of, I think, personal changes and then clearly the world changes and we were told, uh, by my coach that we thrive in crisis.
I, where I feel like I personally shine the most is when we have a massive emergency and I'm able to be like, okay, like here we go, here's, here's the plan. Here's this, here's what we're gonna do. And um, the whole working from home is really funny to us because we've done it before. And Chris, even Chris even said, um, he's like, wow, a lot of you must have never worked with your wives before shows.
Yeah. Because we, because here we're, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, we were back at the same table. The company started at literally the same table. The company started that
different state and different country and
Yeah. And it's Chris's grandpa's table from like, there's pictures of him in like a baby seat on that table.
And we're just thinking like, grandpa must be like, what? Just not Ner either has
us. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. I get like with all of that working into, we really whittled and worked the way at and massaged. I would say more importantly, these like, what do we really want to do? What is our, our purpose and all that?
So we, we always shot and always framed our, our head space in that YouTube frame set into that, you know, that vertical of your, uh, your cell phone and now we're really pulling that back.
Yeah.
So we expanded into new services and experiences and all that. Yeah.
We started asking ourselves back to. Oh, kind of what you, you always ask is what's your why?
And we kept thinking to ourselves, well, why are we doing what we're doing?
Oh, hello. Sorry. Brisket's joining.
Oh, hi brisket. We keep, uh, we keep asking ourselves, why are we doing what we're doing? And, um, I think I was the one that admitted to you that I wasn't, I wasn't happy with where we were headed with the company.
Mm-hmm. And something needed to change. And we started really figuring out what that was. And it goes back to having those difficult conversations and having a partner that you can have those difficult conversations with. So we broke down. What is it that doesn't make us happy? What is it that would make us excited?
What is challenging? I felt like when it comes to the production world, we've hit a ceiling. We're capable of doing all these productions. We've proven it on massive campaigns with incredible clients. World. Yeah. Worldwide. Well, yeah, we're, we we're able to produce a production for in four days in Europe.
Like, right. What else can you throw at us that we can't manage?
Yeah.
We started talking about, well, what are the things that make us really excited? We were, we were saying, you know, um, content strategy and development, so clearly there's a strength there. But getting in there and actually strategizing the content, not just getting called and saying, Hey, we want you to come in and do a video.
This is what we need. This is the video. Mm-hmm. And then we just provide the team. Um, what really gets me excited is we're now, um, starting to work with partners on brand activations. So instead of the whole idea of this, like acrylics 2.0 or 2.1, 2.1, 2.1 we're saying is that, um, we just get to be a part of the launch from the idea concept already, and we get to build with that team and take it from digital to in-person experiences.
Um, that could be as simple as graphic design, website, app development, media buying. So, um, it's all things that I think scare us, but also very much excited us. And then as soon as we started having those conversations, it was like. Brand activations, oh my God, we could be doing this. And now we're pitching to our current clients what we think they should be doing right now.
And they're saying to us, where the heck were you a year ago? It's, um, it's quite, it's been quite fun. I
think I, and I know this, I know what to wrap all of that into a beautiful present. The, it's, we wanna change and impact our clients' lives and as well as people's lives. So we can do that. Yes, with an avenue of Netflix and videos or, or social content.
There's a huge power and pull into that. Um, however we want to, I just use all these like weird terms, but like, we want to cook outside of that as well, because if we can feel the texture in a frame, I can feel the texture in, you know, the, the backdrop at a, at a live event or. I, we always think of on the creative level, for myself personally, it's always trying to bring dimension in life into like a product or something of that nature.
Well, why can't I take my headspace and expand farther from that? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So there's, you know, we, we shared this with our small community. This is the first time doing it, like publicly. Thank you Kara for that. And it's like, imagine it's, it feels great to just even release that. It really does. And, uh, anyways, yeah, I shared it to our small bubbles and they were like, well, how are you gonna do in-person experiences?
And I was like, that's exactly why I, I, I was drawn to it. I don't know if it's the skateboarder in me in where, thriving in this crisis mode, or you can't do this, or there's parameters that you gotta work outside of that box. Mm-hmm.
Um,
and it's just a, it's just a crazy cool resistance that I love. I love swimming that upstream, so,
yeah.
Perfect. Alex too. I'm
speaking a lot on myself, but Yeah, I knew me mutually feel that, so Yeah.
But that was, that was not easy to admit. To say, you know, we're not happy where we're at. I keep bringing it to business and
No, you're perfect. I just, yeah, I wanna make sure,
I wanna make sure we talk about the relationship too.
I just, I just have this thing where I'm like, business, business, business, and I need to slow that down.
Uh, not at all. That's, that's why we are friends. Yeah.
Just let it go. That's why when we're hanging out, you start coaching us all of a sudden
let it go. Or, I feel like it's a, I feel like it's a mutual like, uh, peer coaching experience every time, but like, so, you know, when I think about how I love spending my time, like I, I think we talked about this on our, when we had our Zoom dinner date, but my love language really is making stuff with people.
Mm-hmm. So if I can spend 24 7 making stuff, whether that's talking about idea, or developing idea, or literally like cooking, doing this, doing that, setting up the studio like. When I'm hanging out with people, like, it's really hard for me to like just sit and like drink. I'm like, can we do something? Like, I'd rather come over and like, paint your house.
Like
I'm with, I'm, so, yeah. I'm on, I'm on that. Yeah. To the point sometimes I'm like, just gotta like, ease into it. Shake it off. Yeah. Because it's,
yeah. So either I'm the one like doing dishes at the party because I'm like, just give me something to do. Or I'm the one, like, I'm just gonna go home. Like, I'm so lame.
And, um, I'm apparently it ties into like your sign and your Ayurvedic profile and your Enneagram, like, all these things say like, this person can't sit still, like, doesn't have a DD but like, refuses to like sit around.
What number are you?
Uh, I think I'm a one. Hmm. I, I'm
pretending like I know what that means.
Yeah.
No, I don't. I have a lot of clients who are very into it and I'm like. I need to probably do more research on it, but I'm definitely a, uh, was it a Vata? I think in Ayurvedic things,
you lost me there. Whole other world that I'm, yeah. Just stepping into now.
It's all right. But, so I, there you guys said some amazing things that I wanna go back to.
The first is one, how did you know that you didn't like your business anymore or where it was going, and how did you have the courage to be like, time out? We have to talk about this.
Like, again, the first one would just be like, we kind of like, you know, you not slugging the work, but you're like, okay, today is another day. Like, let's go. And then we, it just started to like
bad habits, compound habits. I feel with me it was bad habits were starting to form. Mm-hmm. And then that's really hard for me to admit, but definitely seeing bad habits rolling out of bed five minutes before a call.
Mm-hmm. Not really interested. Not very excited. Yeah. The pull, you could tell. It started affecting our personal relationships during making dinners. I wouldn't talk.
Mm-hmm.
So it was something, something clearly was going on. And we've put so much work into our personal selves that I think when, when I start noticing something, I'm very open to Chris saying like, look, I'm feel like something's going on.
I'm totally off. I don't know if this is just like a one time thing, but I, we were at Summit, um, in LA about a, in November, last of last year, November. And I said to Chris, I feel like there is something much bigger about to happen to us. I don't know if it's acrylics or another version of acrylics, but something bigger is about to come.
And then every time after that, a little thing would pop in, I'd be like, oh, right. We're meant to be doing this. Oh, we're meant to be doing this. And so my focus was constantly out of acrylics and, uh, just trying to come up with a, I was bored. It was so clear that I was bored. And, um, I, yeah, I, that was, that was kind of the first thing is just noticing bad habits.
Mm-hmm. And then being very in tune with myself where, okay, like clearly something's happening. And then being able to sit down with Chris and having that conversation. But I think you were already starting to feel it too. Like, we're much bigger than what we're, what we're doing. We're so much capable of so much more.
Why are we just, it felt kind of coasting and we don't coast, we challenge and it just felt too simple.
I think something that you brought up that's really powerful and, and we're talking about this right now in the Powerful Ladies Thrive community. 'cause the whole month is about. How to organize your business to double your sales or just double what you're achieving.
Yeah. And I had a conversation the day with the group on one of our calls about what are you doing based out of fear? And what I just heard that I wanna bring to the group next time we talk is, what are you doing out of boredom? Right. Because, because fear and boredom are powerful in two ways. One, it's gonna show you like, hold on.
Like I, I'm doing that for the wrong reason. Yeah. And boredom is great because it can be both things. You can start saying yes to projects that you don't really want because you're bored, but you can also revolutionize what you're doing to the right way. So how did you kind of go through that evaluation of, am I bored and doing this 'cause it's different?
Or am I, am I bored in choosing what's really. The next step for me
showing up to one of your Thrive classes. You asked that what you were like, you, we were talking about, uh, strategy planning for the next year. Mm-hmm. And you were like, are you coming up with new services because you're bored or because you like there's room for them?
I remember you brought that back and then I brought that to you being like, I
need to find, we need to get. I post a note right in this conversation. We need to get more like dude groups like this or blend us in or something because Alex brings all this back to the dinners that we cook together. I love it.
I'm like, where I'm searching, I'm continuously finding. Yeah, so, or looking, and
it's funny because it's, you'll be getting an email tomorrow, Chris. I literally have something ready just for you. Custom made. Love it.
Chris is like, top of the year, let's do it. Chris is like solo having like, you know, conversations with other CEOs and everything and I'm in these like incredible groups of women.
I know they're out there. I just like trying to balance. I have like, like, you know, one here or there and I'm like, I can literally feed off of, oh, you got, or bounce ideas off of all these women who have the experience or we can, I, so. See the value in it, and I wish you could experience what we're experiencing.
No,
and I, I see it, it's coming. I know it's, we're warming up to this whole, a new turn and growth with everybody. Yeah. The other, i, I, I don't know where this fits in, if this answers, but even from my perspective, I, how I see it was like I was in, I was shooting, I was capturing, I was producing, I was directing and it could have been like per project basis.
So one time I was shooting, the other time I was directing, et cetera, kind of floated in these positions. And, 'cause I was, I think at this time too, reflecting on what happened over the last couple, six, eight months year, was that I was just kind of doing them 'cause I was floating in my space of not knowing, you know, there's a few times where I oversaw and directing and mm-hmm.
And then figuring You're
filling in the gaps.
Yeah. And I was trying to like, maybe find something and now that like there's this new edge of me that. I didn't realize that until I'm like way out of it and until I realized it was with the communities and the groups and sharing my talk. And I don't know if that all lines up verbally what I just shared, but it, it works in my head and how I see it.
And it's, I really didn't notice until I look back.
And that's why it's really good to have your community who can sort of just flat out ask you, well, you're not, it sounds like you're not happy, what's going on? Mm-hmm. And then you're going, oh, is that what I'm putting out there?
Mm-hmm. Well, and that's what's so many, it doesn't matter what you're creating.
Right. A relationship, a, a family, a business, a personal project. I, I am. I don't wanna do anything that's not meant for me. Like I just don't want to, like, there's so many amazing things I wanna do. So it's like, how do I stay focused on what is intentional and a choice versus just like going through the motions.
Like if I can, that's the number one defining factor, probably why I create things, why I do things. If I'm not living a, a life that's fun or optimized or those things, I just, I don't know, like why am I doing it?
Like, and with I Kara, I real, a giant like wave of realization came over me over this last break probably, maybe 'cause I've separated myself from the phones, et cetera.
And this chaos is that if we can always, we've designed everything in our life. Like
you're right,
us and even actually everybody Sure we can go to that extent.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. But for what we've designed. Why would I design and structure something that I would be like, oh, I gotta go to work today, or I gotta go to work with Yeah.
X, Y, or Z. Like, we can create everything we want. You can wake up late, you can start your mornings late, you can work into the night.
Mm-hmm.
It's amazing. It's really that simple. What I'm really came to kind of understanding. Yeah.
And, and, uh, I am baffled that, um, there are people out there that don't know it's possible.
So like, were you guys just born with like, we can make this happen? Or was it your curiosity that kept you on that path? How did you realize you could actually design your life any way you wanted to?
A lot of it was, uh, taking it off the chin and like scraping. And
I feel like I'm very failing
and finding, think
this is like my massive challenge is I constantly go through things being like, oh, it has to be nine to five, it has to be 40 hours a week full time.
Uh, we need an office and all this. So I, I think Chris is really good at being like, it doesn't have to be a 6:00 AM start. It could be a 10:00 AM start. You can go for a walk in the middle of your day. And so I'm starting to really like. Still, I'm still learning that. Mm-hmm. Because it's been so many years of a certain way thought.
Um, so I'm still, I'm still working on that. And it is funny. It's really nice to see like Chris being like, okay, break. Like, let's go, we're leaving. And I'm sitting there being like, oh, I still have like 10 other things to do. And he's like, Nope, shut it down and so do I. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
It's, uh,
yeah,
it's, it comes back to the patience and it's also, for me, it's just owning it.
Yeah.
This morning I kind of like, I slept in for 20 more minutes than I had to, and I was like, fine, I needed it. I need to listen to my body. It's clearly telling me I'm tired and that's fine. And I moved on with it versus, I used to sabotage and
Yeah. Get
my, like, not hit myself, but like in internally, uh,
beat yourself up.
Yeah. Abuse. I don't know if that is that to that extent, but Yeah. Beat myself up about it and I'm like, mm-hmm. Just own it now. Like, yeah. Our car broke down yesterday for a perfect example and then the guy had to boost it back up and he said, you probably shouldn't turn it off right away. Go drive in that drive.
I found a park, et cetera. So you make,
but we ended up spending the afternoon as a family. Yeah,
you make works and then at the end of it, it all falls into place and it's owning it. So
yeah. Have we have, we talked about the eight spheres of life that I coach people through ever. Oh no.
Yeah,
so there's the amazing book Designing Your Life.
There's also a workbook. It's, it's came out of uh, two professors at Stanford who, uh, I think it was like a psychologist and a designer combined it. 'cause they really wanna get into this, how do you design your own life? And the four categories they look at are like love and relationships, career and business play and like health and wellness.
Those are their four. And I was like, okay. I was using their four method to like figure out things in my life. I'm like, there's so much missing in this group of four. So I added four others. Which are learning Curiosity. Discovery, and then finances. Because they
Wait. You say you added those four or they added, yeah, you added,
yeah.
So I have my sphere of eight that I coach people through because I needed those other four. Like money was an easy one. Like if that's not working, there's some issues. Right. But then in learning curiosity and discovery, like the discovery part is what you did yesterday. Yeah. Like the car broke down. You just went with where life was forcing you to go and something else showed up.
Yeah. And we don't give ourselves permission to do that very often. No. No. And the other two, the learning is pretty obvious, right? Like if you, how do we keep learning new things? But then the curiosity part is like, when do we give ourselves permission to go and figure something out? You know, like you talked Chris about doing a bunch of things, trying to find the hole, right?
Like so often. People come to me and say, I don't know what my purpose is. And then they, I'm like, well, what are you doing? And they're like, nothing. I'm like, no, just start doing things. Yeah. Yeah. You have to just start doing like you, like literally, it's like if there's a peg board, you're like, where does this fit?
Yeah.
And suddenly, sometimes you'll like realize, oh, I'm off the board. Cool. I'll make my own board. Then other times you find the hole, you're like, oh my gosh, it's right there. It was right there. This whole time
that's like popped in my head. I have to say that the powerful ladies ET group is, I am getting ideas from our little son now.
Yeah.
And I'm like, I can't wait to take whatever he is gonna show me one day, the simplicity of whatever he is playing with a car. I'm gonna throw that to a car client that we have, and it's gonna be like, well, where did you get this crazy idea from? Like inspiration from my son, because I'm always like, I just, I think I put on those, those, I don't even have goggles at this point.
It's just living and being of like, where can I learn?
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
And like it's right there. It's right there. We have all the tools we need. Right there.
I wonder if that's why giving myself permission to like explore potential other businesses and everything when I was going through that. Like I'm bored.
Mm-hmm. Giving and you know, like I'm so thankful that you were like, yeah, sure. Try it, look into it, figure it out, plan it out. And you never like came in to gimme your 2 cents. You were just like, no, when you're ready, like, we'll talk about it and we'll figure it out. And it was like, I never brought anything to him because I was like, well, it's not exciting.
Like I, like I actually know like it's not a good idea or I'm trying, but it's, something's not making sense here. And then coming down and being like, Hey, we have this house already built. Why don't we just like fix the rooms in rather than like crash the entire house and rebuild. And then after it was like, Hey LICs 2.1.
Like what is it that we don't like? What is it that we like? Let's fix it. And over the
years,
don't a lot of like give yourself some credit for that. Have partner can like life or, or work that can. The time to explore, because there has been times in the business where I've disappeared for four months and tried working in a totally different industry to see if it's like what I want, and it, I would come back, Torys being like, no.
Mm-hmm.
But I would take the learnings from that to rebuild what we had. But now it's like, and like nobody would let, like we were living in California and I moved to New York for four months trying to start, I kept calling it, uh, a potential social media like Department of Acrylics. But what I was really doing was investing myself in really deep into another client.
Mm-hmm.
And leaving Chris completely solo to figure out acrylics. And it was like lack of lack, like, lack, like we lost so much in those four months. You
in that moment, but you gained so much more on the back. Yeah. And, and
you remember coming back in April and being like, I'm never leaving again. Like, what, what that was, but, but you grew
through it.
That's the thing. It's not so
you were so kind and so patient and you were just like, she'll figure it out. But you're patient in the way too. He just knew, like, he's like, I was like, how are you not like grabbing me from New York being like, get your butt over here. He was like, because I, you needed to that moment, how many people will allow their significant other to do that?
Well, and, and honestly that's a, a recurring indicator of some of the power couples that I know, you know. Um, one of my favorite power couples is, um, my friends Maria and Emil, they're Chilean. They met through handball when they were like 16 and they've lived in different countries, most of their married life.
Wow.
Uh, so it's like, of course they're always battling to be in the same country, but. They also don't want to limit the shine that other person has. And that I think is so beautiful. Right. It's such an example of the true benefits of like, say nama stay to somebody. Like what do you need to shine brightest?
'cause if you are, then I know it'll, you know, that's really what I'm here for. It's like you shining the brightest.
Yeah.
I love that. Yeah. It's, it's finding, um, I'm sure this comes with age and wisdom and experience, but it's fine. Like even that sentence you just shared, I don't know, the, the couple and
mm-hmm.
It's, it's amazing that just cap like capturing that.
Yeah.
You know, just like understanding how difficult that is that mm-hmm. Friends or how, how difficult that is.
Yeah. You know,
and, and I don't know if it's gonna go into cancel culture and all that. We want things like instantly we get it. We were instant.
But I think of that more that you pull back and really understand, like, you know, it's just so special to just meditate and marinate on. On these little moments. It's, it's finding too, what we were just discussing is, is, is popping out in my headspace. I'm like, you can find any person to be your partner in this world.
There's a ton of people. Mm-hmm. I find it the same with business. There's a ton of clients, like our, our industry roster varies from food and beverage to clothing and lifestyle. Automotive, we have skincare in there, we've got powerhouses, we've got the smallest team. Mm-hmm. It is wide open. We made it that way.
We designed it that way. And now we're trying to just find like-minded and health-minded, uh, healthy teams and forward-thinking teams like that as well. Mm-hmm. And we can work with anybody, but it's specifically who we are working with.
Yeah. And I
think that goes with who I chose as well as a partner.
Vice versa. Mm-hmm.
We built, we've built a health score for our clients and it's like, well, if that's our health score for our clients, we should live up to that too in our and and
are you willing to share that health score? I'm curious.
Yeah, it could be, uh, trying to think now, it's just, it's, to be honest, it's just coming organically and it's becoming, uh, just a way of just casual conversation now.
But we started off with, it was like the, the bare minimum of fundamentals of like 20 k following minimum. Uh, do they have a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars or 10 grand or something? It was like a number of
how big is, uh, like a cap on their team. Mm-hmm. How small the team can be, how long they've been in business for.
Yep.
And what are their values?
The massive
one is because if we can't stand behind, what they want is what they are and who they are. We can't. We won't work with them. Mm-hmm. Um, and then there's the, like, you know, the, like Chris said, the financials, but it's like, do they, do they make us look good? Do well, can we make them look good?
Mm-hmm. I guess their hope there, um, are
they on the small and again, is are they even on social? Do they understand social? Because you start putting those, like, I would say like the, the barriers and the, the bookends much like the, the work that I mentioned before, uh, boundaries, that's the word, the guardrail.
Mm-hmm. Of uh, just kind of like setting boundaries, like Yeah. Your, your, your framework together. Yeah. So you don't have to, they're not on social. Then it's like you have to discuss to 'em why you have to be on social and we're not there. We're already,
our process now too is we'll take the intake call and then the next call is, let's have hard discussions.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
We come in, this is what we plan on doing. Are you comfortable with this? Like, are you ready for this? Because if you're not, then that's okay. We'll take time. And we've actually just landed a, an annual contract with a team that has been trying to work with us for two years, but we kept saying, you are not right.
You're not right. Because it just, and
it didn't work for us at times. It didn't work for them at times. It's, and
now, and now we're coming together, being like, they're ready. We're prepared. And, uh, it like now it's the right fit. They're where they're, they're, they're mentally where we needed them to be when we're ready to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, that was like a really fa that's a massive win's.
Huge.
Yeah.
Because we're not, um, you're, you're kind of like crafting your client the way you want them to be accepted. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
To, to how, how it works. The
bottom line is, I don't wanna be doing work just because, and that's like a, you know, like you are only doing work to survive.
And I understand that we have an oxygen mask and everything too, but I wanna be able to wake up really excited to serve the clients that we're serving
because you go forward. Yeah, before we've, we've done the just do. So. Yeah.
We wanna be, we don't wanna just do
Well and you wanna align with, like you said, you've values have come up multiple times already.
And so how do you find partners who share a value, who let you step into your value at a deeper layer? Because again, why else are we here? Yeah. Yeah. There's a, you mentioned the moments and, um, my, my web guy, Tomas, he just sent me this book, the Power of Moments, and he's like, it's the best book I've ever read.
His wife recommended it to him, his older brother did. He's like, I started reading it and changed my schedule to finish it and I'm like, Ooh. So I just started it last night. I dunno if you guys have heard that one, but it, I would highly recommend it. 'cause it ties directly into your, um, the new experiences that you wanna be creating.
The power of moments. I'm gonna write that
down. The, the example list he's like added to. I do too. What's your, what's your number for this year? How many books are you gonna read?
Yeah. You've inspired up myself over the last, uh, the Christmas call. 12, 12 a year. Uh, yeah. Once per month. 12
for this year.
Mm-hmm. I like it.
I, uh, I think it's doable. I think it's, you you also mentioned too, Karen and I call you, like, when I go walk the dogs or get outside, you put your EarPods in for audio books. I'm like, that can count too. You're right.
Yeah. That, that's what made I, I find reading books so such a struggle for me.
Jesse's the same way,
but I love learning and I love when I get into it, I really get into it. But then there's such a big pause that I feel like I have to read, read the first page, couple of pages again, and I'm like, well then why am I even if I can't finish, what, what's going on? Mm-hmm.
I,
the book's not interesting.
Whatever. And when you were saying you can just walk and listen to them on, uh, audio books, I was like, well, that changes everything. And so now we're like, now every book we buy, we need to buy an audio version for it too. Like, because you want the physical copy. You like, go back and write your, I don't know about you guys, but like, we'll write notes in it.
Mm-hmm.
Um, or reference it and Yeah.
Could cost a lot of money. We can bounce. So I read one, you read one we flip
every month. Yeah. Well, like, uh, Jesse and I share our audible account, so Yeah. Yeah. We, that's, that's super easy. 'cause we can put books in there often. I'll listen to a book first. And then I'll go, and if it's good and I'm mad that I didn't have it to write and take notes, I'll buy the hard copy, find the things I needed, flag them or whatever.
And then I have it as like my reference guide on my shelf. Yeah, I've done that with like two books that I listened to and I was like, no, I need that hard copy. But some of them, especially business books, you don't always need the hard copy because like you get it. And I'm also trying, I had a couple clients who came to me last year that are information hoarders.
They don't have a lot of stuff, but they're always keeping like their bookmarks or their links or their other things. And I had kind of, I have another client who's a Kaari consultant, and I started thinking about why are we keeping these things if we aren't gonna use them? Or why are we so panicked that like, oh, I need to save that for some.
So I've been playing a lot myself about. Probably also being an in information hoarder or find it very romantic, like the professor with like the room full of books. I'm just like, oh, that looks amazing. Um, like, why do I need it? Because if I get what I need out of that book, maybe I don't need the hard copy.
I do that, but I also write in mine,
I do that with, uh, I actually did that in the past with photo and video. I just was like, I'm gonna, you know, store this for later at a, for a different time or et cetera. And I was like, I, I, I'm just not making video edits. And then when I mm-hmm. All this great footage of all the places we travel in the world or behind the scenes, I was like, what am I doing with this?
And then I got this guilt of, I'm not like implicating this, I'm not putting this anywhere. And then I, it's a weird, yeah, it, it like caused the problem in that sense, so.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
yeah, I recommend reading Big Magic then. Have you either of you read that book? No. Oh no. It's you. You have to, as creative people, you have to read this book.
What's, it's definitely one you can listen to. It's by Elizabeth Gilbert.
What was the name again?
Big Magic. It's the number one recommended book on this podcast that tells you anything about this book. Like so many people are like, oh my gosh, this book, I
got two, I got 10 more now to fill in. Yeah.
I am your person.
I could, I could have you reading for years. Yeah. As a library.
You should do it. We should do like a entrepreneurship library.
Powerful Ladies as a library. Just
send it around.
Yes, yes. Um, so I would love to get back to the fact that you guys used to be down the street. And because we're so busy, I only got to see you in person like three times.
And now you've moved to a different country, which I'm excited for. You guys excited for my ability to visit once we're allowed to again. Um, but it's a big move, right? You went from Toronto to LA and now you're in Vancouver. Mm-hmm. Do you think you guys will keep moving? Have you now found your place and why did you end up in Vancouver?
Um, don't say that we, I
do have to say something about the continuing to move. We keep joking about Europe.
Oh God. Yeah. It's coming,
but still like, like, oh, it's gonna happen. Uh, no timeline on when. Yeah. But it, it's just funny how we're like, we, we'll try it, we'll see. But whether that means a permanent move or like a temporary one, who knows?
But yeah, we're, we're pros at this moving thing
and I know. Yeah. Now we're pro, I know now we're pro. I know how to do it now. And
we, we would do this totally differently next time we move. And then we did do it totally different. It was way smoother.
Love to do like a video on that or something to Yeah, because there's, there's some good, there's some good tips in there that you can really lighten your, like, stress load of every, like mental.
Mm-hmm. Um, I just wanna share this because it's hilarious, but we were in LA and you, we went on the beach for one day, uh, when we first were like thinking about it and you were like, it'd be crazy to like live here one day. And then within like six months to the year we were li living there and we did that same thing with moving over here to Vancouver.
Same. It's a dangerous singing.
We don't know. I know, I, I know maybe one person, Carrie actually connected me with two others in the last little week. It was great connections. But I know one person here, maybe now two. Um,
oh, I need to connect you to Spencer. Spencer Hamilton skateboarder. He's an too, yeah.
He
gets, apparently where I cut my hair, he's now there. So it's like, it's gonna start happening and that's it. But it's, it's just a
weird time to meet people too.
Yeah. Everyone's like, we don't talk. You're meeting people down the street on Zoom. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
It's, it's worked for us in the past and now we're continuing that trend and For sure.
Yeah. I don't, we just landed, so I don't really wanna be like, now we're gonna move again, but it's gonna happen. A
year ago we were celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary and we were like, complete digital detox, like, we're ready for this, we can do this. Let's go. So we decided to go to bc. We could have gone anywhere in the world, and we decided to go to bc.
Spent some time in Tedom. Same thing was said, I hope we can live here one day. Wouldn't it be fun to live here one day and then a year later, almost to the day,
yeah,
we're in dc. Yeah. Yeah.
That's how my whole life has started businesses. Yeah. You know where I live. Wouldn't it be fun if it's my favorite question?
Favorite statement?
Yeah. I, A lot can come from a weird saying like that. I continue to ask myself last year I wanna do That's
acrylics started though. You were like, wouldn't it be fun if we started our own thing and made this simple? Yeah. And then
that, it's like the easiest mantra statement you could ever do, or manifestation statement.
You just say it and the world's like, oh, that would be fun. Let's make that happen.
I'm gonna start living that way. And you don't realize, like, you now when you like you
already are.
I know. Thank you for like, reminding me of that, of those moments. Because every time we say that and incredible things are happening,
I wanna continue saying, I ask myself, how did I get here?
I've done that in multiple times last year in my head of like, how did, how did this come to be? And yeah, continue that because the, because
this move was massive for us on so many different levels. Risky, massive, scary, um.
Right. Timing. Yeah. Everything. Yeah.
LA was a smart move in the sense of business growth.
Mm-hmm. Community, community growth. Yeah. Just growth. Growth. And then BC was a smart move for our personal lives. So when we talk about business and personal and all that, we needed a space where we needed to be able to get away from the crazy and just be together as a family that was safe, healthy, um, allowed us to escape.
And maybe we have to escape to like the extreme measures where we have to go away on a hike where there's no cell reception and you can find a lot of that here. Mm-hmm. Um, so we call it our oasis. Like we came here and we think smarter when we're on calls, we're approaching business from a different perspective.
'cause we're away from the chaos.
Mm-hmm.
We were in California, it felt overwhelming, like it was just too, too much all at once. Um. And there wasn't, there wasn't, I don't, I think we were starting to see those like unhealthy, um, habits starting to come back up. Yeah. And it was sort of like, what do we need to do?
And we have a baby now and he needs our attention. How can we divide that, you know, our position's changing too. So maybe to an extreme measure, if we pulled me away, I can't always show up and control every situation, so. Mm-hmm. It, it's a really good practice for us, for me. Sorry, I don't wanna talk about you, but Absolutely.
For me, it's a massive practice to, um, step away and just let go of certain things and see the success of it when I'm not involved too. And so it's, it's been, it's been very beautiful and I think, um, bottom line is we came back, we came to BC. Family first. Mm-hmm. Whereas when we were going to California, it was only business first.
Yeah. And then you get into, you know, we also threw on the pros and cons list of like, it's a forward tech city over here. It's, yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. Lifestyle brands like Lululemon and our TerraX are up here, that we really would love to be in those bubbles as well, because that's, you know, that's part of the health score that we were talking about before.
Yeah. But it,
there's gonna be a mag, there's still a, a pretty, pretty good pull, I would say, for myself as well as a little bit of Alex and the company to be, we're still active in Los Angeles. We're not, we're not anytime getting rid of our Long Beach office. Mm-hmm. But I think this whole thing too, is it stretched me, it, and I use it as stretching.
'cause sometimes, like I stretch every morning and there's sometimes where I'm like, I regret it. And like, I'm like, I gotta do it. But it, it just, I love that release and that's, that's what we're in, that's what we're living in. Mm-hmm. Sweet and sourish. So
yeah. We're, we're still in California. We. In a home here, but the business is very much still active throughout all of COVID.
Our business in the US has been doing a lot more contracts than business in Canada.
Mm-hmm.
But we're physically here, so it's sort of, I don't know. And it, it made us, so when it comes to hiring new staff for these new departments we're building and how you don't really need anyone, just 'cause your office is in LA doesn't mean you need, like, this person needs to be in LA And it's been so fun.
Yeah. Not at all. Like, Hey, we can hire people from England, we can hire people from Texas. Like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Now it's just talent. Mm-hmm. Right.
The pandemic. In my opinion, shattered those Lego blocks that everything that we've built down this, like, you know, we want to build this big team and this big, get the studio, et cetera, go up.
And I still have dreams for that. It's just, it's shifted now, but I really think the hammer came down. Just all the Lego pieces came. Mm-hmm. Now we're sifting of like, oh, these were never really used. We can save them for later. And then build in this sense. And it's,
yeah.
Yeah. It's, it's so, it's refreshing.
I love how it actually, you know, it's funny too, at the top of our, um, pre COVID, it was, we were jumping on video calls. A lot of our clients had just phone calls. Yeah. And now video calls are norm, and that helps everybody. I'm talking people from, who can't really necessarily move to Los Angeles right now to physically be there.
You don't have to.
Yeah. Yeah.
You should be in those bubbles. You, you, it's more accessible now.
Yeah.
And I
think there's so much power of having, having, choosing the best people no matter where they are in the world. And I was lucky to. See that happening working, you know, in Reebok, in the Audi world and also in Puma, where you literally would have offices around the world and people that weren't from there were in those offices and it made such a cool environment.
And I, and I think there's something about living in that global international community that changes things and lets you tap into that anything is possible concept. Because the second you realize location doesn't matter, you're like, well, what else doesn't matter, what else can I get rid of? That's limiting belief of what is possible.
Yeah, absolutely. We, uh, yeah. And it's so funny 'cause BC was a five year plan and then it went from a five year to a year to six month to as soon as our son got his passport, one month later we were mm-hmm. We found ourselves in bc. But then you think about the timing too.
Which is who, which is crazy. Dude, passport came
in at the right time.
We, we were in Canada, established ourselves at a time that was smart. Like it was a smart move on us from just personal and business wise, just timing. And then, yeah, it's just crazy.
If you watch the news and then put our story to it, it's like there could be a totally different, like misinterpretation of it all.
But really it's, it's been a lot of work and we said, well, why would we kind of wait right now? Let's, let's act on that.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And it, it was the right time in our business too.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I'm excited. And
how, how, like, you paused me la earlier in the conversation how like crazy and magical timing is that.
It's un it's un unreal. Unbelievable.
Yeah. And I'm excited to see what we can build as the Canadian company too.
Mm-hmm.
Um, when we, when we were first doing the move, something I I learned a lot later was, you should definitely get connected with the local economics team. And we've been talking to Vancouver and just finding out like, who's the leading, who's the leading people in the digital space right now, and why should we be connected with 'em?
Um, it, it's, it's just amazing the kind of research that the economics team was able to provide us with. So it helped us decide like, yeah, we're making the right move. Mm. And Long Beach was the right move for us at the time, too. Like, it just, it just works. Yeah. Yeah.
It always works out, right? If you're continuing to do all the things you're supposed to.
I think it does work out. Yeah.
All of our, yeah, our friends. DC right now, snowboarders and all that, they want to come up. So we're like, come on up. But yeah, the travel restrictions are still there. Yeah. They're, it's, mm-hmm. Play in our backyard. We'll play in yours. We'll do the same, have a,
and it, it was crazy though, Kara, we, we had the baby in the middle of a pandemic mm-hmm.
In a country that didn't allow our families to come down. The borders were closed. So when we came to Canada, it was the first time that our parents got to meet the baby.
Mm-hmm.
A seven month old baby for the first time. Yeah. It was like
with one car in the, uh,
yeah.
You took the car in that day when he was the hospital visit.
I couldn't get in. So you relied a lot on your community to pull you through. Yeah. And mm-hmm. And then even after, I'm laughing because it's, I had to share this too. We were pitching, um, oh, geez. What was he, he was like three months in or something and I was pitching and I had him in my hands for some reason.
Travis, our son. And then he just puked on me. But it was off the zoom call like screen and I was just like, yeah, no problem. And I was continuing to go. So it's, and it's, I think it's also understanding that you had like a phone call or something took you away at that point.
Mm-hmm.
And being that understanding of like, I have to handle business, but as well as pulled the family down for that moment.
'cause you're locked in with the pandemic.
Yeah. Yeah. So
you just make it work. And I wasn't mad at Alex or frustrated with you that you had to possibly like a, I don't know where you went and you had probably had a doctor's appointment or something, but regardless of what, at the end of the day, it's made it happen.
Yeah. It's just puke.
Yeah.
Yeah. You can clean it up now or you can clean it up in 15 minutes. Yep.
It was great. It was like in the moment I was like, okay, this is like insane. I'm frustrated, but like looking back now, I'm like, this is the greatest story ever. I was pitching and we got him in the end. Yeah.
And whole bottom half of my body is just covered in formula.
Yeah. Well, so many of us I think, felt that the pandemic made the world as big as it actually is, because even for myself, like my parents are an hour away right now. We're in the same state, which hasn't happened in 10 years. Right. And I can't see them.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like we haven't celebrated Christmas yet because I couldn't see them. Yeah. So, and I still don't know when we're gonna be able to, to connect and do that. Um, but it's true, like exactly what you guys are going through. We, we've, I think we're all going through a little bit of the previous immigrant story Yeah.
Of what it's really like to be on your own and have to figure it out with your neighbor and whoever's in your house. Then like, that's it.
Yeah. I used to ask my mom and dad at the beginning of all of this, like, how are you able to do this?
Mm-hmm.
And my dad always was just like, well, you just have to make it.
There's no other way. You have to make it work. We did what we did. You have to make it work. And we made it work. We still are making it work.
We lived a lot of by that your dad's, um, line there. Yeah. We we always held that one close. Yeah. And, uh, vacation is much different than immigration is another
Yes.
That this other one
that we live by. We live. Yeah.
I think everyone should live the expat life at least once.
Oh, oh. I say, I say to Crystal all the time, if Travis decides to go to college or university, not local, like get out, like go somewhere different because it's, it's magical what you can learn just by being away.
Culture by how much closer did we get because we put ourselves in that position.
Huge. Yeah. Yeah.
It was so healthy for our relationship too. Yeah.
That's what my
parents have always said,
had a conversation last week too with someone like, how's business in la? I'm like, I, I can't. Differentiate the two of the personal growth as well as the, the, the, the professional growth.
Yeah.
I, I mean it, yeah, it's, yeah. Late hours and long term and other logistics that are super mundane and boring, but like how to start an LLC in a different country and they require you to have certain amount of, I can't remember now off the top of my head, but it's like, you needed this to get that, to get that and get this.
Mm-hmm. And to just have like off a phone call every single time of like, okay, it's a little step forward, but we're actually two steps back every single time that builds something.
Yeah.
Yeah. Totally. I love it. Like I love it. I would, I'm an advocate to push people for it.
Yeah. It makes me think of the classic statement in Europe, like, to get an apartment in Europe, you need a bank account, but to get a bank account, you need an apartment.
And so you're like, yes. How? Who's gonna give me the first step?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Two driver's license are the best too. One of our friends, yes. We drove from Toronto across the nation that's east coast. For anyone who doesn't know six days of driving to California and only to get to the DMV in California to be like, yeah, so someone has to drive you to the DMV to sign off that you, that they dropped you off here or something of that.
Something. It was like what?
Yeah, because we technically didn't have the driver's license, so we were as like as of entry level. So it's like mom and dad had to drive us to the DMV sign you off. So we to say, to say, here's my legit full driver's license. I drove them here. When Ray Reality was Chris drove his car.
And that person was in the back seat.
And then, and then getting somebody in California where there's always fun things to do every day of the week because it's sunny every single day. Be like, Hey, can you come to the DMV for us
and wait four hours full
day, gone? And it's like, we'll buy you dinner and stuff.
But those are the moments that build us. But as well as our friends relationships, it becomes family all, it's just like a Oh man.
Well, I would love to know, Chris, I've, I've asked Alex in the past, but what do you think it means to you to be powerful and why does it matter to be powerful in your life?
Oh, man.
What does it mean to be powerful? It's a huge question. It's a great one.
Great. If you haven't noticed, she's great at everything.
Yeah, I know. I, the only thing that comes to mind off the top, I would love to prepare for that a little bit better, um, is if your, if there's like a, a fire situation that you have to put out, just be understanding, cool, calm, and collective.
Does that answer
the, the,
that's your answer. Yeah.
Like it's, there's
no wrong answers here.
Like, you can't just understand and understand that you are going through much, just as much as I am, we're together or whatever. You know, like you just be understanding of it all.
Forget the couple part. What does it mean Just to you?
Clarity, I think.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. What was the question again? Just the,
no, what does it mean to you to be powerful?
Just clarity. Yeah, clarity. Knowing what you want, going after it and understanding that there's, it's gonna take time with patients, et cetera, but having that clarity at the top is, okay. So this is step one to get to step 2, 3, 4, and then you're at the top of the mountain at one point.
One foot in front of the other.
We had a conversation about, what's your word for 2021 and minus clarity and Chris' Courage. And I had a disagreement with him because I was like, you can't say it's courage because you're very courageous. 'cause you do these courageous things all the time. And he goes, no, because now I'm going to be courageous to have like bold asks and like all this stuff.
So it was like a totally different perspective where I was like, you've done all the jumping outta airplanes and moving countries. What do you mean courage And like, yeah. So it's been, it's been really interesting. So it's funny that you took my word from your powerful definition.
I've never jumped out of an airplane.
You have.
Well, I also think it's great how in a couple we're so judgy about the, the new goals somebody else has. You're like, that's not good enough for you. You are 10 times bigger than that. I'm not accepting that. Try again.
He does that to me all the time.
Yeah, no, but that's, I mean, I think that's so important in these, in these, um, partnerships, right?
Whether it is a business partner, a romantic partner, the people in your life that care about you. Yeah. The, to me, the best way that you can show someone love is by not letting them be less than what they're capable of.
Yeah.
And it's really hard. 'cause that does not mean being nice or being liked sometimes
from your, from your perspective, what makes a couple powerful?
You know, all the, the power couples that I've invited to come on the show for the Power Couple series we're sprinkling in, they all, um, have really great personal relationships together. And some of them are not romantic. They're just truly like business partners and like best friends. But the, the level of respect and communication is there that you guys talked about, like really being life collaborators and sometimes that collaboration equals a family.
Sometimes it equals this business. Sometimes it equals a brand or a specific product, you know? 'cause you can have a, you can have a life partner who isn't romantic, but that's just your person that you are bouncing ideas off. And that's where the creativity is the highest. So most of the ones I'm invited right now are also married.
Um, but they're just living their best lives and choosing what's best for them. Like, they know that them is number one. And so how do we maximize what we really want? Mm-hmm. They've all taken leaps. They've all been brave. They've all like pushed each other to do something different. Um, and. I just think it's really amazing to be in that space where you're continually pushing each other because you get to leapfrog in that way.
Um, you know, my FOMO is really different than other people's. Like my FOMO is like, I'm not living your best life possible. It's not like, you know, I had this conversation with Jess the other day, like, my FOMO is not missing a party or an event, or like, I don't care.
Yeah.
My FOMO is like, what? I could have done that.
So seeing, seeing couples who put each other first and put their best life first is what inspires me. Mm-hmm.
That's so cool. I, I like, you know, I'll take in, I'm gonna sit into that today. I honestly, for myself, because I, it's, yeah. To meditate on that, it's so cool.
I always say how lucky I feel that I have like the best life partner and it's just cool that I get to work with you too.
Yeah. I'm, yeah.
I think I said the last night too, I was like, how is it that you're just, you're just the coolest. You're the coolest.
You're the, everyone's the coolest. This is, I
wanna put the little heart over you guys, like the, like the kiss cam. Like,
well,
it's, it's also that like, that, that energy radiates as well into like the work and what we do. It's, it's, that's, and that's part of our health score. It's, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It's does it, is there Right fit and it's magical. That's it.
It really is. Like, yeah. And all those keywords we talked about, they're all pieces in it, right?
Like the respect, the communication, the courage, the clarity. Like if you're working at having the best life possible for you, for the business, for each other, like it really does create magic. Two of my favorite words are adventure and believe, and courage is my third. Courage and clarity are in my top five.
But for adventure and believe, like you have to believe it's possible before you can have that amazing life that's waiting for you.
Yeah.
And you know, so much of what I've create is to, is to stop people from saying I can't, or why me? And it's like, why the hell not? Like,
yeah,
quit, quit slacking off on yourself.
Like please. Yeah.
I love that. I, I think what took me a little bit is it's kind of one of those gym things where, you know, we shoot with Gym Shark, we capture with there the, the most elite athletes in the world as well as influencers and et cetera. And I'm like, whoa, this is very intimidating for me. And I'm still trying to like get into that gym space.
Um, I love it. I'm just about to get into that, but mm-hmm. It is really just breaking out of like when we say like, live your, the best life adventure, curious, or, or creative or courage or clarity. Um, it's just start in the smallest little ways. Mm-hmm. It real, that's how, and that, and that compounds. Yeah.
That's how we've really started. It has been such a wrestle. It's been so hard. It's been frustrating at times, but then it starts easing and going and flowing and that boom. And now we're at this point where it's like, it just becomes that magic.
Yeah.
And it's, it's really closer than you really think, and it's just mm-hmm.
The smallest things of, put your phone down maybe half an hour before bed and just Yep. Watch your face. Do a little bit of ritual. I saw someone recently said, high five yourself on the mirror every morning. Simple as that. There you go. We'll, do like, it's, it's really that's what worked for myself and which allowed me to be understanding of your situations and frustrations and challenges and not, and then that just grows.
So. Mm-hmm.
I hope is it a, a great phrase that, um, is from landmark education and it just says, this is it and it's perfect. Yes.
Yeah.
And if you can say that and be like, you know, you don't always believe it when you say it out loud. I think that's the trick of so much of this stuff. You don't need to believe it.
You don't need to know why. Just like, if you say it, what shows up? Just keep asking yourself why. And it can be overwhelming of like, why do I live here? Why this house? Why do I have that picture on the wall? And you can start having a little bit of a personal, um. Existential like analysis, but sometimes you look around and you're like, yeah, that is awesome.
Oh yeah, I am awesome. Like, one of the things that's usually in my office we're, we've redone it so I have to, to redecorate it, but I have that, uh, poster from when I went on the skate, uh, trip in Latin America that everyone signed. And I love it because it's such a ridiculous moment in my life that I'm like, no, I like the ridiculous moments are what make life awesome.
And what, like, I want a wall full of ridiculous moments.
Yeah. What power got Kara to go on a skate trip?
What power? Well, at the time I was head of, uh, like footwear, PLMs and all the regional merchandisers, so I went, 'cause I was boss lady going on that trip to like meet the accounts. Um, but it was like me and 12 guys and it was one of the best trips of my life.
That's the question of like, how did I get here? Like Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And like parallel to like having to go for work. I also, like, I'm always trying to see every country in the world. So every year I plan, I'd be like, okay, where haven't I been? How can I justify it for work? Yeah. And this all happened and I was like, what, three new countries?
Yes.
We have this thing where we're like, we would love to just go to France. We don't know why. Mm-hmm. I don't think we both are like actually caring to go to France, but we use France as the code word for, yeah. We wanna go blank, we'll go on. Mm-hmm. And work. Yep. And like things are still trending.
Mm-hmm.
Well, honestly, it's why I've made all of my businesses be able to be virtual. 'cause like I can't wait to live in Europe again. Yeah. And you know, I was debating for a while, do I go back for somebody else? I'm like, no, I wanna just do this and be sitting in again, fill in the blank like, oh, I'm in Barcelona on my rooftop office.
Doing my coaching calls. 'cause I can, yeah. Yeah. And if that means I'm working from noon until 8:00 PM like, do I care? No, no, no. I'll go to the beach in the morning and I'll have a great breakfast and then I'll just work later than normal.
Yeah, yeah.
Or kick all those clients out and make them come on early.
I don't know.
Yeah, you can. You design it and Yeah. It's
yeah.
Sign. That's
so cool. Yeah.
But see, so cool to have a partner that's like, yeah, we'll do it. We'll make it happen. Like that's, I'm, I guess, so excited about that.
Mm-hmm. It's been a lot of, it's so possible,
like you're always like, yeah, let's do it.
So easy.
It's special. I know human races out there, but the population, there's a lot of people, so,
mm-hmm.
You can find it. And I think it starts with you and then it starts with, what I've really learned over the last year is your, your words turn into your thoughts and then your thoughts or your reality.
Yep.
Simple, simple little steps have helped. Yeah.
So everyone who's now in love with you as much as I am, how can they find you, follow you? How can they support you?
Uh, we're all on, uh, social, but if you just put acrylics, you'll find Alex, myself and all the work. Then now we'll just umbrella down to acrylics is clearly Alec, Chris and Alex.
Yeah.
How do you spell it?
Uh, C-H-R-I-L-L-L-E-K-S. There you go. Acrylics. Yeah.
Perfect. Alex. Well guys, thank you so much. This has been lovely. Thank you. I could talk to you guys for days on end. I cannot wait to do like a team retreat with you guys and just do stuff like this for 24 7. All done, but right.
Good. New idea. We'll use backyard. You use our backyard and we'll do it.
Perfect. Perfect. But you guys are amazing. Thank you so much. And I can't wait to hear everyone's feedback of how, how much they got out of this, uh, podcast. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Hi, see ya.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. All the links to connect with Chris, Alex, and Curlex are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com slash podcast. There you can also leave your comments and ask questions about this episode. Want more powerful ladies, come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, where you can also find some free downloads to start being powerful today.
Subscribe to this podcast and help us connect with more listeners by leaving us a five star rating and a review. If you're looking to connect directly with me, visit kara duffy.com. I'd like to thank our producer, composer, and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. Without her, this wouldn't be possible. You can follow her on Instagram at Jordan K.
Duffy. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then. I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
