Episode 322: The Art of Event Planning with Tiffany Bishop
Tiffany Bishop is a wedding and event designer based in Naperville, Illinois. Her journey to her current career has been anything but linear, with stops in fashion, real estate, and even a stint in the UK earning a master's in business. We discuss the challenges and rewards of pivoting between different career paths and how these varied experiences contribute to her success today. Tiffany shares valuable insights on event planning, from managing client expectations to the logistics of large-scale events. She also talks about the importance of tuning into what truly lights you up and the power of courage and resilience in entrepreneurship. Whether it's organizing a luxurious high-rise event or creating intricate tablescapes, Tiffany's story is a testament to following your passions fearlessly.
“You have to be willing to take the risk and trust your intuition that this is the right decision for you.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
00:00 Introduction to Success and Creativity
00:47 Meet Tiffany Bishop: A Journey of Passion
01:47 From Real Estate to Event Planning
03:59 Challenges and Triumphs in Event Planning
04:35 The Art of Table Scaping
06:32 Client Stories and Unique Requests
11:28 Career Reflections and Personal Growth
24:32 Navigating Entrepreneurship
37:50 Balancing Professionalism and Empathy
45:16 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
I feel like being crazy is half the battle to being successful because you have to be willing to do what other people won't envision, what other people don't see, holes that people don't see, and be ready to take advantage of that. Yes, it might sound absolutely crazy, but I promise I'll figure it out.
That's Tiffany Bishop. I'm Kara Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Time and time again, I see two major roadblocks that we self-impose because of societies or other people's opinions about how things should be. The first is that success is a linear process. The second is that you can't make real money doing what you love, or often how we hear it, especially from those we love, is you can't actually make money doing that. Today's guest is Tiffany Bishop, a wedding and event designer based just outside of Chicago. Her path was not predictable. She had many careers before finally saying yes to what she really loved, and the success that she's finding now feels so vindictive because of that. May this episode be a reminder that jumping between career paths and maybe even jumping across the pond doesn't mean you're lost, you are simply seeking what truly lights you up.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Let's begin by telling everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
Absolutely. So I'm tiffany Bishop. I live in Naperville, Illinois. I also run my event design and planning company out of Naperville. So I used to live in the city of Chicago. Prior to moving out here I worked in real estate and prior to that I was living in the UK to get my master in business.
How did you make the leap from fashion to real estate and now event planning?
So naturally I always had to work with what the world gave me. And so trying to get a visa in the UK as an associate was rather tricky because I was just starting out and rather than breaking the law, I didn't overstay my welcome and I came back.
I was looking for a job still in fashion, but I moved back to Chicago and in looking for apartments, I. I was like, I, this is something I could do temporarily. Like I can be a leasing agent for sure. And when I took it on as a temporary role, it turned into an entire six year long career. So I started out as a leasing agent on the rental side, and then moved over to sales.
When I was still doing rentals, we had to do weekly events for our residents along with one large quarterly event. My colleague at the time hated anything to do with events or setup or the pressure of dealing with it. Since that was one aspect of the job, I get it. We had like over 900 residents in that building.
It's a luxury high rise. It was high pressure for customer service, for getting rentals and then throwing the events on top, but it was something that always just came naturally to me, and it was a lot of fun coming up with the different concepts and decorating in different ways of. How to bring the community together.
So over time, my family then started asking me to do different bridal showers and baby showers and gender reveals birthday parties. And I became my family's in-house event planner. Yeah. One thing led to another. It always had a special place in my heart. I guess the anchor of all of those things would be that I really find a lot of joy in.
Bringing value to people's lives in different ways. So whether that's making a special occasion meaningful to them, finding them the right home, like those are all things that are incredibly personal. And it just really warms my heart and fills my cup to know that I'm able to facilitate that for them.
And event planning is a no joke business. There's. As you mentioned, a lot of pressure, a lot of customer service components. And then on top of that, you have to be a multihyphenate if you are not just planning the event, but also being the vendors within the event as well. And I hear that you are known for your table scapes.
How are you juggling all the hats that. Are under the event planning umbrella, and which ones are you doing versus which ones are you partnering with vendors to fulfill the whole vision?
Absolutely. So table scaping is my specialty for sure. I really try to make every event as custom as possible, so always consulting with the host vision, but ultimately making sure that I guide it so it shows up even better than what they envision and adding in like different sensory elements.
So I know where my strongest roles are, and I'm only one person, so I usually begin my outsourcing from there where I'm like.
My team and I can take these on, but then we're spending X amount of time here, so the caterer's really gonna have to handle the food styling component because we still only have a certain amount of time to set up. So it's really about just envisioning everything and knowing how to delegate it and where your strong shoots.
Suits are, I always say let shoemakers make shoes. So if there is an opportunity to use a florist, yes, I can make floral arrangements, but I will always let people who are like their A game. So that's who I wanna bring in. So that's how I make that decision.
What are your favorite types of clients to work with?
That's a great question. I don't think I have a particular type of client that's my favorite. I always love a challenge, so anyone that's like very OCD like I am or like wants to be incredibly hands-on, like that adds in another layer of I really wanna get it right for that. Like I always will do my best and.
It's nice to have that there where it's no, their bar is really high, so you gotta surpass that even, and that's definitely my favorite type of client combined with clients that are incredibly laid back and let me and my team do our job.
Well, and I know Naperville as a. Higher income suburb of Chicago, which, and usually when there's more affluent communities, it's tied to higher expectations, but also bigger budgets for some of these events. What are some of the craziest requests that you've gotten in expectations, either from a detailed perspective or an over the top request?
Okay. There's two that come to mind. One that was a really big challenge was one of my clients did not like having multiple items of her serve wear out at a time. And she wanted it used throughout the duration of a six hour event, but when we were actually trying to sample it and walk through it, there couldn't be more than one thing on the countertop.
So like every time we had one thing out, we had to put everything back in the cabinet and couldn't actually see the day of the. That was a little high pressure only because I typically work with my own inventory, and so if I'm gonna lean on somebody else's, I like to see it in advance so I know how to work with it or manipulate it if needed. And that all needed to be done essentially in the moment. So that was definitely a tougher one. Let's see. This is probably one of my favorite clients, but I did her wedding and she wanted a Christmas, but no Christmas wedding.
It's, that's such like a brief to give a designer, make it big, but make it small. And you're like, what are you actually talking about? So how did you decipher? Make it Christmas, but not Christmas.
So Christmas, but no Christmas to me and there needed to be a Christmas tree. Mind you. When I first heard it, I was a little bit thrown, just like oxymoron in the room. That's a lot. And I sat back and okay, there are elegant ways to incorporate holiday and refinement without it being straightforward like jingle bells, because you don't want everyone to just show up to your wedding and it looks like they're showing up Christmas party or holiday party work.
So after touring her venue, she was very clear on some of the elements that she wanted for sure, and did not like florals really at all or any type of greenery. So again, one of my favorite clients, though I promised she was the best, and as I was working through it, she really wanted cranberries and she. Saw some that were floating, but when you float cranberries and water, they all go to the top.
And I didn't really care for the look of that, so I used Orbies to incorporate them throughout the length of the vase, combined with the floating candles, so it wouldn't look straightforward, like you just threw cranberries in a vase because that is direct setting up.
One of the trickier things about that was just again, envision like the most gaudy Christmas element, but then refine it back so it met with minimalism and we were able to achieve that by using the candles, just doing some amaranthus run through the VAEs. So she still had the touches, but it just could not ever be too heightened. And it was, yeah, high pressure, because it was. 300 plus custom centerpieces and we had 45 minutes to flip the room and set it all up. So success.
How did it look in the end? What, how would you describe it to people listening?
I would describe the reception for Allie and Mitch as like very sexy, moody, vague. It just felt so comforting and very regal as well, because all the lighting was incredibly dim. So when we did the flip, a curtain went around and no one saw it, like other than the chairs that were there for the ceremony. So she was really the only one that knew what it was gonna look like. Cause I only did one mockup of table for her. And when we pulled back the curtain. All this audio is playing in the background, but then you're now looking at 300 something candles all illuminated and the lighting is low and you have all the table settings there and champagne. There was almost like an audible gas that was behind because they did not understand how we moved 200 chairs out, 50 tables in and got it all done.
Yeah. That must have been very rewarding.
For you. It was incredibly, it actually changed the trajectory of my career path. I wasn't sure if I was going to like weddings at all. And I had an a plus ride, a plus couple. They were amazing. And I had only focused on like non wedding related events prior, but someone referred me to her and said, you need to talk Tiffany.
She needs to do your wedding. So I was honored by that and I'm like, okay, I'll take it on and see what I think. I always tell her this I know it was your wedding, but that was one of the best days of my life. I had so much fun. My team, like they were just, they had a great time, even though it was extremely high pressure.
And something about all those elements coming together and the level of planning that went into it and how much I enjoyed it showed me like, okay, you're ready to take the next step. So I did exactly that.
When you think about. Fashion to event planning. Like to me there's a lot of correlations because it's a mix of the business side plus the creativity side.
Like I can see that bridge real estate in the middle was like a first entrepreneurial step. So I can see it's all starting to come together to make, you know where you are now. All makes sense, right? In hindsight. But when you think back to even like younger, you. Would 8-year-old, you have imagined that this is your life in business today?
Never at all. Not even for a moment if someone was offering me like half a billion when I was eight, to be like, what do you think you're gonna be doing? Never.
Yeah, never. What? What did you think your plan was back then?
To be honest with you, I really didn't have a plan and. I know that sounds a little bit scary, especially now that I have developed into more of a type A personality.
It's if a younger person told me that they don't have a plan, I'd be like, not myself. I did not have I wasn't just thinking, oh, I wanna be like a doctor when I grow up or do this. I really just always tuned in with myself and what was right in the moment of. My path was not the typical for someone who was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs where you go to high school, you know exactly where you are going to college.
You wanna get into a Big 10 or an Ivy League school like that was just not something that I found incredibly important. I always have wanted to live life, not feel like I was surviving it, and I'm not great with containers unless I've created it.
I hear that I am the same way. Yeah. Tell me what to do and I will rebel against it. Thank you.
Exactly. So with taking that path and approach into like my adult life, I really just had to go after things fearlessly. Like I've always worked since I. I used my associates combined with my work experience to go get my master's in the uk. And originally I was supposed to go to pharmacy school because I was studying computer science and I bailed on that the day of my orientation and had to call my parents and tell them.
The only thing I like about pharmacy school is a lab coat, and therefore I don't think it's right. Yeah. Probably a smart choice. Yes. So I really just had to lean into yes, it's not the most stable path, and it's not written. To me, it's arguably the most scary because it's not, you're not able to predict the outcome.
So I really have to rely on my own self confidence and resilience, and trust my intuition. Yes, this is a correct decision for you and how you're actually gonna find success in as well.
I think a lot of people listening want us to go back and have you clarify how did you combine your associate's degree with your work experience to get into not just a master's program, but a master's program abroad, because I think some people don't even know that's an option to do.
Yeah, so I'm happy to clarify. I was an international student, so I will clarify. Just there's a difference between studying abroad of when you leave your usual like college semester for a term and then go to another country, versus being an international student, you are actually living there. You are considered a temporary resident and citizen of that country.
When I first started working, I was working in a head shop and the owner of this head shop happened to be an art connoisseur, so he had an Ikea size warehouse of his own personal art. So just think like very wealthy hoarder because there's no reason to sell and you just. We're in an environment where you're constantly surrounded by like really cold vintage items and new, more modern art.
So the creative element was always there and back for me, and I was very supported by him and his family to become an intern of that business and work as his assistant and his son's assistant as well for his galleries. So I definitely got a lot of exposure to the creative side and while I was studying and getting. My degree in computer science, I was doing all this work. Outside of that, I'm a workaholic, so I didn't really feel it though because I was having a. When looking at universities, I was blessed enough to have my parents say that they would pay for my college tuition, but that's never something that I've just taken for granted and assumed like that I'm entitled to it.
So when I was actually looking into the cost of universities and looking at different fashion schools, I. I was realizing that most of the schools in the US were actually far more expensive than me fully moving and living abroad. That it would still be way less than me going to school in the us. I'm like, why wouldn't I take this opportunity?
Maybe it's a sense of girl math, but I'm like, not only is it a better location for fashion. I'm able to use like my work experience because it's what they laid out as options for the uk. So I can't speak on every single country if they allow that, but definitely look at the requirements of what you want and usually there's a plan A, B, or C about to get there.
So yeah, it was more factoring the cost, location, and the path of least resistance, even though it sounds.
No, sometimes the easiest option is the one that is maybe more intimidating or unknown. Definitely. Yeah. 'Cause it's, yeah, you talked about tuning into what you're feeling and what makes sense and if we really listen to ourselves, what makes the most sense, sometimes sounds the most ridiculous to other people and. That usually gives me a sign like, oh yeah, I should do it for sure now, but
it's usually every time with me that I get a sign that I'm like, I feel like being crazy is half the battle to being successful because you have to be willing to do what other people won't envision, what other people don't see, holds that people don't see, and be ready to take advantage of that.
And yes, it might sound absolutely crazy for me to call my parents and tell them, yeah, I only like lab coats. Sorry, I'm not going to pharmacy school. I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I promise I'll figure it out. And they're like, okay, Tiffany. Usually when you say that you do, and now that I have a little bit better of a track record with them, they usually believe me the first time, whether it sounds really crazy or not.
I was able to then sit back and like you'll get little nuggets along the way. Like for whatever reason that year, someone happened to give me like $500 for my birthday, which was shortly after this orientation. I took the $500, got a ticket to London, but through a student airline website. So I flew as a student, even though I wasn't, so I could get a really cheap ticket and then stayed in a room in an Airbnb.
Didn't have cell phone service. Just told my parents again last minute, this is where I'm going. And yeah, I was out of there. So yeah, as soon as I went to visit, I'm like, this feels like a home. It feels supernatural. Like the first thing that I did when I got there was go to the grocery store and it was like as if I was just picking up a life that I already lived and
Yeah, this is it. So I took a look at the schools and then started narrowing it down from there.
Does it, make you want to go back someday to London. Do you think that's in your future?
I could definitely see it. At one point I really could not see myself living anywhere else, and I think it was because I was fortunate enough to live in London through the eyes of a student and not someone starting out on their career path.
Because it's incredibly expensive and it can easily become depressing because you are surrounded by very large amounts of wealth and luxury. So things that everyday people in the UK make seem very accessible. It's not, and it can almost make you question like, is it me? Am I doing something wrong?
Like I see not budgeting the. They make it look really easy. So I could see myself going back, but definitely a little bit later on in my career, I would love to go back and do like fashion brand launches there.
Yeah. Yeah. With your, with this business you have now, what are you most proud of and then where. Have you had the biggest either struggle or frustration point? So
I'm definitely most proud of the fact that I didn't give up and listen to the noise around me because there was a lot of judgment on me for. Wanting to do event planning or people not understanding the styling component of it. And then once people actually saw the product and the result, it's oh, we get it.
That's really beautiful. But for me, having to sit back and turn that into a business that can sustain my life is a completely different story. So I took the first, like four months out of the year and just started throwing things at the wall. On TikTok to see what's what would end up sticking, because I worked on a real estate team and I was not ready to walk away fully, and I wanted to make sure my process was bulletproof and the strategy was bulletproof.
So I had to come up with really cost effective ways to do what I was best at, which at the time was organization and decorating, but I did not have it within my budget to. Set up mock setups of tablescapes that cost thousands of dollars, like enough to put out content every week. That just wasn't within my personal budget, but what I was able to do was what's now coined as fridge scaping.
This was something that was part of my real estate job. We had to decorate the refrigerators and the model, over the course of time, every time I would go to do the fridge, I love to do it. When I was working in real estate, I'm like, this is such a fun task. It's so random. But then when I would go home, I thought my own fridge was like garbage.
So slowly but surely, I ended up becoming more organized with it and adding more adornments and flowers and little things. So when I posted that video, it blew up and went. Viral, I guess with 900,000 views and everyone freaked out, but in a positive way. Yeah. And I was not expecting that reaction.
And so to myself, I took that as data where I'm like, you can do this with a refrigerator. Then by far you can scale that out. This is a very constricted space and like you need very specific products. So from that point, I was then. Referred to a caterer that I still work with now to this day. I adore her.
I did the Tablescape for her photo shoot, and I did not realize who she was at the time or anything like that. Someone then put me in their hands and shout out to them for doing so. I did her tablescape and I didn't wanna charge. I was like, let me just get this right, like I'm glad I.
Yes, I care about and do naturally in life, but now like I actually get to go try this on my own and not connected to a property management company or anything like that. Yeah. So she really liked the work and referred me out to her customers, and I did not realize she was one of the largest caterers in like the Chicago land area.
So again, that was another one of those things where I'm like, the universe will give you tiny little things. I'm like, she has seen a lot. So if I'm able to impress her again, that's reason to keep going. So in my very limited time off in real estate, we usually be taken off for events. I looked back when I took a break finally at the beginning of this year, and I had worked over 414 days straight because anytime I took off from real estate, I was doing events.
Yeah, yeah, that's probably not the healthiest. I wouldn't recommend it like just from a work life balance standpoint, but it was definitely a necessary step and my path of deciding what works and what doesn't. House of Bishop kept operating. I've peeled back some of the organization, showed more of the table scaping, started doing tutorials, smaller setups, decorating other things like my bar card with self-care products, and just having fun and really tapping into my inner child and like nurturing that part of my mind.
And the ideas are limitless. It's more of like, where's the opportunity to showcase them? That was that.
I wanna go back to what you were saying about working 414 something days in a row, because I think that when people are making the transition from their day job to their passion job or their side hustle that they're starting, I get a lot of questions as a business coach about how, what should that look like and when do I quit my job? And how much money do I, all these things about like how to do the transition. And I think it's so personalized to who that person is, because if you're someone who wants high security, high assurance, it's gonna be a more intense and longer transition period because.
You're like, as you mentioned, like you're proving it to yourself, like it has to work, it has to be showing ROI. It has to be bringing in money. You need to like, there's a high expectation that for you to be like, yes, this is worth my time. And then I have other people who call me and they're like, okay, so I quit yesterday.
And I'm like, okay haven't sold anything yet, but I love your enthusiasm. And it's just completely different, like risk and reward type of people. So I think that there's so much room for people to design that bridge that makes sense for them. And I agree with you, like I wouldn't recommend anyone working 400 days in a row.
But I think sometimes in entrepreneurship we have to give ourself grace about when are we doing a sprint versus a marathon. And there are sometimes it is super intense and we're in charge. So yes, we chose it all, but like we have to go, there's that basketball like hard in the paint. Like we just have to for a period of time because the opportunities are showing up.
We're a yes, we're excited, we have the energy. But we have to know when to dial it back. And it sounds like you've found that dial it back space now. So how are you viewing your business from then to now? And do you still have the same sense of security?
From then to now, the way that I view it is right now, it's currently being rebranded, but because I knew I wanted to do that and take that lead.
Anything that did not resonate or seem to stand in my way or try and make me smaller or question my, there's already enough self doubt in this process. And so anything that kind of went against that wave of running with me, I hate to say it, it's a very vicious thing to do, but it had to go, whether that was friends, even family members not being fully cut off, but just distancing even from certain activities because.
As you mentioned, like you do really have to front at times and to do that in the most stable way, like you have to be very clearheaded and very sharp. Otherwise, you're gonna be sprinting an entire marathon before you know it. And that's not okay. That's exhausting. Exactly. That should not be taking place.
So what I've been telling people recently is I did not. Walk away from my job to work more hours, I walk away from my job to run my company because at times that looks like 15, 16, 17, 18 hour days. Yeah. And then at other times, I'm able to warehouse rest and know that I have properly vetted the vendors and agencies that I work with, that I can leave certain things in their hands because. Ultimately, if I get burned out and my creative mind goes blank, the whole business is bankrupt. And that kind of defeats the point by running the company. I'm always very protective and just cognizant of that. So once I was more sure of, yes, this is it again, anything that didn't fit, had to go.
It's a hard lesson in detachment. Yes, it's the best thing that you can do as a business owner. Maybe some people can balance it a little bit better than I, but I take that pretty personally.
And I just, I think that at least my approach to entrepreneurship, how I'm coaching people, the women who are part of this Powerful Ladies community and podcast.
Yeah, there's an element similar to what you mentioned of like we're choosing freedom. And it might be just freedom of choice. It might be freedom to follow our passion. It might be freedom to listen to ourselves more, be more in alignment, let alone time, money, location, freedom. And when we're choosing freedom, it falls so much into like, how can we have it all?
How can this be extraordinary? And. I think we're forced. There's something about step saying yes and stepping into alignment with where you know you're supposed to go, even if you just know the first step. You do not know where this journey ends, but there's something about it that forces you to get real honest with yourself.
And if it doesn't fit in this new space, it doesn't mean that it's a delete forever, but it's certainly a not now. And I've been really impressed with women who. You ask them how they start their business and they go for a whole year I stopped drinking and I stopped watching TV because those were two things that were just, taking away energy and resources and time that I didn't want to basically throw in the garbage can anymore.
Like it had to go to what I was creating. And then there are other women I've talked to who like their, because they said yes to this business opportunity or this project opportunity. Like you, they've had to vet out friends or, suddenly they're breaking up with partners because oh my gosh, like I am going into this new level.
You don't wanna come with me, it seems, or you can't and so I, I think it really is the courage of being an entrepreneur. Is usually not what people think. It's not the saying yes to the dream, it's the then vetting everything else that's in your life for that dream. And that comes after you say yes.
I don't know that everyone's always said expecting that, oh shit, now I have to change my whole life. And didn't know that was gonna happen too.
Absolutely. Like I can say that for myself, I was not. Expecting to need to do that. But yeah, it takes a lot of courage because it's sad. You don't want to, but you're forced to operate in that way if you actually would like to survive and.
What I compare it to is like one, you need the courage. And I think it was Bethany Frankel where she said maybe I in fact do know it all. That's the energy that you have to step to these challenges with. Admit, no you don't and you're always learning and ready to absorb any information, but also be ready to let somebody know, yes, I do in fact know it all and you're dragging me right now.
You can't be afraid to do that because I've definitely seen people be more of a hindrance like to themselves, and I don't want that to end up on me, like as selfish as that is, like I need all my guards up at this moment, and that's definitely a really difficult thing to do. It's really emotional.
It leads to a lot of solitude and you have to. It and able to sit with it and not look back like, oh gosh, did I like just ruin all these relationships and now like, how am I gonna rebuild this again? You have to delete that outta your mind.
And you have is the new branding and the old branding, the House of Bishop.
So that was the old, okay. And but even thinking I'm often, I don't have the word House in any of my businesses, but I'm often thinking like how we have to protect the house. 'cause it's not just me, it's protecting the brand, it's protecting the team, it's honoring the people who are just a yes to creating this, d Lulu vision with you.
And so it's I'm it's bigger than me. It's like we have to protect the house. We have to. Always be pushing ourselves to honoring that space versus whatever the smaller version of us would be. And so a lot of people have asked me like, how do you know, how can you differentiate between what you know is the right thing to do versus having an emotional reaction to a work thing, to vetting, all the parts of your life.
Like how do you separate. What's like an emotional, temporary keeping you small feeling versus a knowing that is is you going into this bigger version of you?
So I would like to bring it back to the word house. Yeah. Because like you said, you have to protect the house. So for me, house of Bishop was a true representation of my home and What I was able to give as an individual and in that I do naturally give and I give a lot to my friendships and family relationships, and I felt like I was constantly oozing. So when it came time to rebrand and I knew exactly what I wanted it to be now and exactly what I wanted it to look like. I remember telling my hair technician. It's time to rip the house down to the studs.
Yeah, they take my name out of it. Take me out of it. It's a business that's now arrived. It's not me, the individual Tiffany Bishop anymore. It's the business that's here, the company that's front facing. And with that was like, okay, who understands that, first of all? And can be like, okay, that's not the most wild thing to hear, and I'm still with you.
Like those are gonna be like your top 10 go to. Being able to differentiate from like when it's more of just emotional. I like to look at the patterns in the history of that relationship, like is this a one off thing or has there been other signs of this behavior in that individual already, and have I tried to address it?
Once I'm able to answer those things for myself, I can usually make more logical decision and a more sound. Confident at that because I'm never here to be messy or make anybody feel bad about themselves. We all live life, I'm sure. I live recklessly at times and don't realize and wish people would call me out on it and so I can do what I can to fix it.
So you do need to give grace, but ultimately, if you sense a pattern in someone and just an overall knowing that like this isn't right, or there's an undertone there that you're not comfortable with. You don't necessarily have to go full block city on somebody. You can put some distance there and give it some time so you can then observe solely, but surely, and more importantly, on your own time.
Like when you have space for it, sit back, think about it when you don't. Great. Keep working on you. So I think that's the best way to do it. I don't know if that's so straightforward because one is very extreme and then the other is very gentle handed.
And I do, I think that the world of entrepreneurship lives in those dichotomies of extremes because my team laughed at me the other day because somebody missed a deadline and gave a reason why, and I said, I understand why, and it's still unacceptable.
They all started laughing at me. They're like, how can you be understanding and also cold and heartless? And I'm like, it's not, I'm not being cold and heartless. I'm just like, the excuse doesn't actually matter. There are, I think, times to give the reason why something didn't happen. You were giving birth unexpectedly.
You were in a car accident, like when major things happen that shift your whole life over. Yeah. Then give people context clues to like what's going on. But in the general scheme of things, it's like traffic's not an excuse. My alarm not going off. It's not an excuse. Like most things we have to do for.
Professional reasons. They did, we didn't find out 20 minutes ago that they had to happen. Correct. And it's, I like, I think there's the, you can be understanding. You can be empathetic, but at the same time, we have to be holding the expectations where they need to be. Like it's okay to be both.
It's okay to be both extreme and sensitive. It's like there, I think we get, especially women, we get pushed so much into. Having to be in this like soft, neutral space where we have historically and it's, we are so much more multidimensional and there's so much more room for that version of leadership, I think to actually help us in our businesses and the teams than historically we've been asked to use.
So I totally get like the mix of extreme and soft and like you have to choose based on. One, your energy level, because there are some days when you're like, this is so ridiculous and I can't come at it with all my energy. And then there are other days where you're just, you're not tolerating anything and people better watch out.
Exactly. There's definitely a balance there. And I think one thing that I rely on is that I'm 31, but I've lived a lot of life just. Since being like Adultified as a kid all the way to current I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a perfectionist and make sure that I'm showing up professionally in a way almost overly professional because I was in a lot of work environments that I don't, I think people question me either from.
A jealousy standpoint or, oh, she's able to work me or seeing certain things where they tried making my voice smaller and I found myself just fighting to be heard a lot of the time. So when. I stepped into the, like a leadership role, I'm then able to look at and be like, okay, how would I have wanted to be handled in this situation?
And not that I'm holding everyone to the same exact standard, it just helps me be a little bit softer while remaining also direct, because like you said there, there really aren't a lot of excuses and I've dealt with a lot of grief in my life. Sadly so at the age that I'm typically, I do come in with a softer hand, a kinder way of going about things.
So if I'm at the point that I'm now needing to be very direct with you, I know I have given a lot of leeway and a whole lot of grace and patience to get to that point. It's not just something that just fires off. So usually I will make sure I have that backing before making a true. Like decision that's too permanent or saying anything that I might regret.
As we are wrapping up for today, I have some rapid fire questions for you. But the first one is where do you put yourself on the powerful ladies scale? If powerful ladies is zero, is average, everyday human, and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you rank yourself today and on an average day?
Okay, today I would say it's about. A six, an average day would probably be like a four or a five. The reason I rank myself there is not that it's low, I just know a lot of women that are true powerhouses and I will list a portion of my day to somebody and they'll be like looking at me like I've lost my mind.
And I'm like, but I am not productive. I don't think you understand. I think it's just how you weigh it, yeah. Knowing how much women can achieve and how much there is to do. I like to still be honest with myself and humble. 'cause even that six is probably a little too high.
When you think of the words powerful and ladies, how do you define them when they're on their own? And do their definitions change when those words are next to each other?
So defining power on its own. I think that comes with just how people respect you when you're in a space without needing to demand it. Or being bossy or thinking that you have, that's what power entitles they, that isn't it to me.
It's how people actually look to you and. I think the more power you carry, the less likely people are to like, try you like they're not gonna do the small little nonsense things like that, just No. 'cause it's gonna be met with probably just during silence and that's the end. So ladies, to me, boys together, able to carry, but also able to collect people when needed and still offering the ability to be soft, but knowing that there's like a monster within that's like ready to take over. And if you're able to balance those worlds and not have one come out more than the other, that to me, encompasses a ladies. So putting power and ladies together, it does make a difference because again, it encompasses two different things.
When, when you think about the mistakes that people are making, planning their own events and decorating for their own events right now, what is some, simple advice that you would love to give people who maybe are hosting a baby shower at this, their house this weekend? What are some things that they can do to make it easier for themselves and make it more beautiful?
Sure. Simple things. So get a checklist. Immediately, even if you don't think you need one, even if it's only 10 things, you need a checklist somewhere. And mental does not count. The other thing that I would advise to people, so they're not putting so much pressure on themselves leading up to hosting, is that no one knows what it's supposed to look like other than you, because you've only seen that in your head.
So you can go ahead and strip away of, oh, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Or if you made a mistake and you busted up your floral arrangements, or some of the balloons popped in the arch that you ordered. Take a deep breath. No one knows what that's supposed to look like. You've only seen it in your own mind, and that's just the perfectionist in you getting in the way because instead of focusing on what, what could look different, you could be coming up with.
Easy like that. This community is also powerful, supportive, and loves to help and pay it forward. What is something on your wishlist to do list? What would you like to put out to this group and see what we can help create for you?
So I would love to know of any nonprofits and charities that focus around like art supplies or creativity in general. I have a ton of inventory that ends up like being a hodgepodge, and yes, you can always donate it or give it to Goodwill, but I would love to be able to give that back to kids that are wanting to get more into the creative arts and explore just again, a different type of creativity that's not necessarily straightforward like painting or like beating, just yeah.
A way that I am able to give those supplies and hopefully provide like an outlet for youth to be more creative and have an encouraging environment for that. Because I think. Being a creative in this world, being a visionary in this world, it's oftentimes some of the scariest like paths because you don't have an answer to it.
And I think kids that wanna get into creative fields might end up getting discouraged, and it's only because people don't under understand it, because they haven't done it on their own. Therefore, it doesn't make sense. I would hate to see. Anybody that's considering doing something creative kind of shut themselves down before they give it a real shot.
So if there's a way that I'm able to give back or any like foundations that anyone knows of, that's something that would mean a lot to me because I would love to get involved.
Love that. For everybody who wants to hire you, work with you, support you, where can they find, follow and reach out to you?
So we are on Instagram and all socials under r SVP LX IV. So LX Iiv is the name of the. Event planning portion of the business. So you will see our Instagram there and our website as well. The website is under construction, but we're building something as beautiful as the tables because why wouldn't I build an entire 3D world versus just a standard website? So that is what's in process now.
It has been an honor to talk to you today. Thank you for sharing your story and what you're up to, and we look forward to seeing what you're up to next.
Yeah, thank you so much. I really do appreciate your time, Kara, and it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with a friend. Head to the powerful ladies.com where you can find all the links to connect with Tiffany as well as learn more about powerful ladies. Come hang out with us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and you can find me and all my socials@karaduffy.com.
This episode was produced by Amanda Kass, and our audio engineer is Jordan Duffy. I'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.
Related Episodes
Episode 131: How to Create a Creative Career & Design Based Business from Scratch with Jess Goldsmith
Episode 144: Special Event! Powerful Ladies x Women of Type x Kara Duffy. How to Be Creative, Successful & Fabulous
Episode 132: How to Spread Happiness Through Art & Earn A Living Doing So with Gayle Warfield
Instagram: rsvplxiv
Website: Rsvplxiv.com
TikTok: Houseofbishop
Email: Xo@acceptionale.com
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
