Episode 47: Beating to Her Own Drum | Chelsea Levine | Entrepreneur Behind Seavine & Marching Arts Innovator
Chelsea Levine turned a middle school hobby into a thriving business that’s changing the marching arts world. As the founder of Seavine, she designs niche products for cymbal and horn players while funding scholarships for young musicians. From performing with elite groups like Rhythm X to manufacturing gear used by drum lines across the globe, Chelsea has built a life centered on creativity, independence, and giving back. In this conversation, she shares how growing up in Atlantic City shaped her drive, why she dropped out of college to pursue performance, and what it takes to turn a niche passion into a full-time career. You’ll hear stories from the worlds of Drum Corps, Winter Guard International, and even the Macy’s Day Parade, plus her insights on entrepreneurship, lifestyle design, and doing work you love.
“Everybody asks you what you want to be when you grow up, but nobody asks you what type of lifestyle you want.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
00:00 Meet Chelsea Levine
04:10 Growing Up in Atlantic City and Early Independence
08:25 Joining Band to Beat Boredom
12:15 From High School Grad in 3 Years to Drum Corps Performer
16:05 Dropping Out to Pursue Rhythm X
20:20 Choosing Lifestyle Before Career Path
25:15 Building Seavine from Idea to Global Brand
30:40 Teaching and Mentoring the Next Generation
34:55 How Seavine Gives Back Through Scholarships
39:10 Highlights from Drum Corps, WGI, and the Macy’s Day Parade
44:20 Lessons from Performing with Cirque Du Soleil
48:35 Transitioning from Apple to Full-Time Entrepreneur
53:10 Why Reading and Learning Are Always Worth It
56:25 What’s Next for Chelsea and Seavine
Nobody, everybody asks you, what do you wanna be when you grow up? But they don't ask you what kind of lifestyle you wanna live.
That's Chelsea Levine and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something, and the extraordinary to come and share their story. I hope that you'll be left, entertained, inspired, and moved. To take action towards living your most powerful life.
One of our commitments on this podcast is to highlighting people who are living a life of their own design, the people that you may not have ever heard of and whose businesses you've never heard of. This is where we find the hidden gems that we want to share. The people who are living the life of their dreams most often, totally under the radar.
Chelsea and her story adds another level of the biggest world you've never heard of. By having her business be part of the drumline and marching band world, a niche industry that is so off the radar for most of us that I find it fascinating. There are so many big names, big businesses and people doing amazing things in the world, in niches, industries, and scopes that most of us have never heard of nor pay attention to.
On this episode, Chelsea shares with us how she got into the drum line marching man world, how she started her business, and how she and her husband are living a life that they completely love of their own design, all that, and so much more coming up. But first. This episode of The Powerful Ladies is Made Possible by our Patreon subscribers.
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Chelsea. Welcome to The Powerful Ladies Podcast. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. I would love to start by you introducing yourself, who you are and what you're up to.
Okay, my name is Chelsea Levine. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey. One of the few people who actually grew up there.
I currently run my company, sea Vine, full-time out of Nashville. Yeah,
and then insider information is that we met because you are married, Tomas, who is the, man behind all the magic that happens on our website.
That's right. He is a talented fellow.
He is. And I got the pleasure to meet you guys for a hot second when you were out in Orange County on your way to San Diego and that was fun.
Oh man. Yeah. Traveling out to the West Coast is a nice little change of pace from being out here. We had a great time.
I would love to tell people more about what cine is, how it came about. I think that story's fascinating, which is part of the reason why I wanted to share you with the world. So what is C Vine?
C Vine is we are a company that essentially manufactures products for marching bands and drum lines and the proceeds of those sales. Go to fund one of our scholarships to help specifically marching symbol players March Drum Corps and WGI, which stands for Winter Guard International. Our primary focus is marching symbol players and marching horn players.
But we are slowly expanding out from there as well. And our niche products that we really focus on are specifically gloves for symbol players and horn players. And why do they need gloves? So the gloves have been around really since the marching activity began. Mostly based al of tradition of the uniform.
It's, it has military roots in nature. The way that I specifically came up with our first product, which is the symbol gloves. I was teaching at a high school, Centerville High School, up in Dayton, Ohio, and I was teaching the drum line, specifically focused on the symbol line. And if you've ever seen a marching symbol player, which no judgment if you haven't, they I'm very aware that this is a very small target audience on a daily basis.
But essentially the instrument, the symbols are strapped to your hands with either leather or nylon. And what that does is those straps ultimately rub against your skin, especially when you're playing or doing different visual phrases that you might see a symbol line do. And so one of my students at Bel High School.
He was pulled out of his math class because he had all these scrapes and cuts and bruises on his arms. And his teacher was genuinely worried about him and said, is everything okay at home and blah, blah blah. And yeah, everything's fine. I'm just in the marching band. These are just the battle wounds, battle scars.
And at that point, the band director said, okay, is there any gloves that we can get them? But the situation was enough because all of the gloves on the market really stop at the wrist, which is where the symbol straps also sit. And that's where I had the idea to create something that would be specifically designed for symbol players and.
Ultimately the design hasn't changed much since the beginning. I knew from the start that the gloves had to be long, so instead of sitting at the wrist, which would ultimately do more harm than good with the symbol strap, they go all the way up the forearm. Instead of being made out of cotton, they're made out of a spandex material.
So they're very sleek. They reduce friction. They help with consistency when you're, sweating and yeah, just in the thick of rehearsal or performance. It helps with efficiency. And yeah, so I used them for my high school, similar line that I was teaching and I was still performing at the time and brought them to the drum and Mule Corps I was performing with.
And it didn't take long for people to just start asking me like, Hey, what are those? Where did you get them? Oh, is this something I'm making? And fast forward about two years and I decided that with a friend of mine, we were gonna. Try and start a scholarship for marching symbol players.
And he had this connection or somewhat of a symbol fraternity at the time so people felt connected to his organization. I had this product and so we joined forces, ultimately decided to sell the product, to fund the scholarship. And within two months we raised $1,200. So it was at that point that I knew that we were onto something.
I have so many questions, and partly I have so many questions because I am the farthest person from knowing anything about drumline drum core. Like I enjoy watching it and I think it's fascinating. Anything drumline, I'm like, yes, this is so cool. But that's like as far as my knowledge goes.
The first question I'll start with is, most teachers don't be end up becoming entrepreneurs, let alone becoming product designers. So what gave you the confidence to say, I'm a teaching right now, but I can totally make this product that I know we need.
Oh man. So to be honest, teaching was actually a side hustle and passion of mine.
And I was working full-time for Apple, so I would work from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM at Apple. I would drive an hour up to Bel and then I would teach from about six to nine and then drive an hour back home. And I was in and out of school at the time as well. So I think it really just came down to the fact that I realized that there was a problem and I wanted to figure out a way to solve it.
I ultimately tackle a lot of things like that. The answer is just that's just the way it is. Yep. When I can see that there's room for improvement. And just to shed some light on the marching activity in general, the best way that I can describe it is that it's the biggest thing that no one knows about.
Yes.
Because if you're involved in it, there's, people who are famous within the activity. It has its own jargon. It seems like it would be impossible that you wouldn't know about all of this. But ultimately you could go your entire life and never cross paths with a drum corps or a winter percussion group.
Where are they hiding? Where are they hiding? Man, they are scattered all over the country. Every, you, it's pretty safe to say that. A large percentage of high schools have marching bands. Yeah. And drum corps is just marching band on steroids.
And
then the whole WGI, indoor percussion activity is essentially percussion theater.
It's certainly not as common as indoor, but for percussionists. And there's also a color guard circuit. And a winds circuit. It is a time where you get to show off, your instrument of choice in a way 'cause you're not hitting behind, an entire marching band.
And it sounds like they keep getting more and more physical, athletic and dramatic.
Like a marching band is like pretty, you're marching and you're playing your instrument and you're all wearing the same uniform. It can be pretty standard, like what at the Macy's day parade or from high school. And then drum cores where you get to have more fun and have more flavor.
And there's more. Dancing and choreography and crazy outfits. And so it gets more dramatic and theatrical. And then it sounds like the indoor winter one, is another even beyond that from as you called it, theater approach.
Yeah, I mean there's acrobatics, it's very physical.
There's acrobatics Hold.
Sorry, what?
Yeah, I mean it's really, they try and capitalize on whatever the memberships, talents might be on top of drumming. If they find out that someone can juggle, then they're probably gonna have a kid juggle in the show. So now I'm
picturing like a mashup of marching band and Cirque de Soleil, like you're hanging upside down in some trapeze something and drumming at the same time.
I would thi I would say it's honestly more like Cirque than it is marching band. Interesting.
In a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Okay. We are de you're gonna have to send me some links because now people are, so I'll send you some link curious about what the hell this looks like and what's really going on in, in this world.
Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned that you are someone who doesn't like to be told that's just the way things are and move on. Where did that come from? Is that something fostered as a kid? Have is, have you always been this way? Do you remember a turning point when you suddenly were like, no, like I can change this.
I feel like it was ingrained in me from a young age. I have separated parents which that's all good and dandy but it did force me to be very independent from a very young age. I also grew up in a city, so being independent is in a lot of ways necessary, but also easier. And my parents always had this role. They trusted me enough. And it was ultimately, if you can do it yourself, then you can do it. If you wanna join this activity and you can find your way there and do this and do that, then it's fine by us. So I maxed that out as a child. The WGI group that I was in first, for example, I was 15, turning 16.
I said I wanted to do it. They said, okay, if you can pay for it and you can get there, then you can do it. So I would take a train up, wait in the snow for another staff member or a member to pick me up, gimme a ride the rest of the way, I would be there all weekend long and then, come on back. I took that freedom.
I, yeah, I took that freedom as, as best as I could, and. Tried to expose myself to really anything that interested me at the time.
And when did you fall in love with music? Because obviously all of this is found, is founded in the, a passion for music that just can express in different ways.
I think a lot of kids join music or band in.
Middle school, elementary school, because it's just a way to get outta class to be honest. And that's really what I did. I was bored in school. I, so where I grew up, Atlantic City, it's very diverse. I was actually a minority growing up. So school was easy for me. There was still a lot of people who were learning English as a second language.
And yeah, I just wanted to get involved with anything that I could to occupy my time. And band was one of those things when I just kept going and, doing it from year to year. And zoning change happened when I was in eighth grade. And basically they were redoing the middle school, so they were gonna send us uptown to a, not a safe school.
And I ended up moving back in with my mom for what was supposed to be a year. And during that eighth grade year before going into high school, they were doing these drumline sectionals for the high school band. And I started to go to these and I really liked it. I was having a great time and it, so I realized in that oh wow, this is for next year.
This is for the high school. So if I don't stay, then I don't get to do it. And essentially just begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go to high school out there where the marching band was well known and competitively successful. And that's really where I got hooked. I don't know, I just, I felt like I had to do it and I did, and I wasn't really the best at anything when it came to it.
I don't have a good sense of. Timing or rhythm and just enjoy doing it and try and work as hard as I can to keep up. And that's what made me start doing independent ensembles when I was in high school because my high school didn't have an indoor percussion group. And so I just remember coming back from a marching band championship and asking my drum line instructor, how do I keep doing this?
I don't wanna wait till next marching band season to drum again. And he said, oh, you could do this group. And sent them an email. I took the train up the next weekend and that was really history. All of a sudden I was, 16 years old drumming with a bunch of college kids on the weekend to do this activity that I just fell in love with headfirst.
And are you you did, has drumming always been your instrument or have you, like how many instruments can you play?
It's percussion in general. Yeah. Okay. That's always been my route is percussion.
What does percussion mean for those who are musically illiterate?
Percussion. When you're in, middle school and high school, you can picture a concert band and it's the kids standing in the back playing a big bass drum playing crash symbols, playing a xylophone, maybe a marimba.
That's, impacts some melody. And then when you, percussion can be drum set, percussion can be drum line, which is, my forte personally. Yeah. Hitting stuff.
And then did you play in college as well?
I did not. Because I started doing college age groups when I was in high school.
By the time I got to college I just didn't really wanna be in the college marching band. I thought it was lame in comparison to the independent ensembles I was already competing with.
And I
wanted it to be competitive. I didn't wanna just be the halftime show Yeah. At a football game.
And I actually never finished college. So I went to Temple University for a year and a half. And then ultimately left to, because I auditioned for and made a top WGI group. So I moved from Philadelphia to Dayton, Ohio when I was 19 years old. And that's a pretty pivotal moment as well.
Dropping out of school, going to perform with this group. We ended up winning the World Championship. The group is called Rhythm X. All the staff from Rhythm X taught Centerville High School, and after the season ended, they asked me if I wanted to come teach there. And so I did.
It's just, it's so interesting to me because, I love hearing stories when people are like, you really can create life in whatever form you want to, like whatever path you want.
Like school, not school, like taking the risk. Was it a big decision to leave school and go or for you, was it like an automatic yes, that's what I'm doing?
It was fairly dis difficult. I was always very good at school.
And
getting good grades was important to me when I was in high school and I started competing with that independent group.
I remember I was going into my guidance counselor's office to schedule my, what would be junior year classes. And when you're in band, you don't really get a study hall which means you're taking eight classes a day every year, especially your first two years. There's just really not room in your, you're scheduled to add a study hall.
And so I was going to schedule my junior classes and my guidance counselor said, okay, let's see what you still need. And she realized, she said, wow, you have so many credits, you could be a senior. And I said, really? He goes, yeah, nobody does that. I'm like I wanna do that.
And I was already hanging out with College Ages kids anyways. And I didn't really wanna waste any time. And so I said what would I need to do? And ultimately I had to just write a letter to the board of education. Explain to them why I wanted to graduate high school in three years. I also had to take a fourth English class, which I took at a local community college, and that was really it.
It got approved pretty quickly. And so I went from going into my junior year to going into my senior year of high school. And yeah that's what I did. Graduated high school in three years and then went to Temple University and, like I said, saw an opportunity to perform and left school to go.
I didn't really know what I wanted to major in and yeah, it just seemed like an opportunity. I said I, I know for sure that I wanna perform and keep drumming and playing symbols. School was a drag. 'cause I already had changed majors two, two times from pre-med to marketing and nothing was really clicking at the time.
Yeah. So that's why I stopped.
It's a great example that you do not need to finish college or go at all, let alone be a business major to end up becoming an entrepreneur.
And I think the most interesting part about it is a lot of people ask you, when you're a kid, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
Yep. And I was interested in so many things. I thought for sure I was gonna be a doctor, an environmental scientist, all these things and they all genuinely interest me. And what I realized later on when I started, when I was starting the beginnings of SI Vine, was that. Nobody, everybody asks you, what do you wanna be when you grow up?
But they don't ask you what kind of lifestyle you wanna live. Yes. And if somebody, when I was, 10, 12, even 17 years old, going to school said, if you're a doctor, you're gonna work, six days a week and they're gonna be, 20 hour days and you're gonna get 10 vacation days a year.
I would've said, hell no, I'm not gonna do that. And I think that's the light bulb that went off eventually for me was just, yeah, I wanna have the freedom. I don't wanna, sit in a cubicle or go to an office five days a week and be told, you have to sit here and eat lunch at this time, and you can have 10 days a year to go on vacation.
No, that did not interest me. Does not interest me. That is my hell. There is working for someone.
So what is your day and week really
so my day and week we don't set an alarm and we basically, my husband and I, he also, as is self-employed. So we, and we both work from home and so we ultimately go to bed around midnight, generally wake up about eight hours later, between seven and nine hours later.
And either jump right into work if we're not hungry or we make breakfast every single day. We work till the afternoon around 12, 12 15. Go to the gym if we're lucky. Come back. Eat lunch and work until dinner time or until we have a social obligation. And I don't know, it just depends. Sometimes we work after dinner.
Sometimes we'll work till midnight if we're feeling it. Or if we got behind on a day before because of, a social obligation or traveling and rinse and repeat that group that I won the world championship with and left college for, I actually teach that group now with Tomas and we're there basically December through April.
On the weekends we drive up from Nashville up to Dayton and we're teaching drums on the weekend, which kind of a job, not a job. It doesn't really pay, but it pays itself back in other ways, opportunities, and helps justify the business for sure. Because it's that group who is a top performing group uses our products.
That sort of legitimizes it well, I'm sure it also fuels your hobbies and passions and interests and you're wanting to give back. There's a lot of things I hear in your share that it ticks those boxes, right? Like the things that we do for being a contribution to society isn't always for monetary purposes.
No. And I honestly care about that a lot. A lot less than most people. I try and give away as much of money as much of the cine money as I can through our scholarship program. So we've given away over $25,000 now towards scholarships and I don't know, I just think it's important to give back.
And
how come,
ah, man, I think I was always had, I always had to be so independent growing up. I March 11 independent seasons. I paid. I couldn't even tell you. Thousands and thousands of dollars every year to March. Never had any assistance. It was very stressful. And I think giving that little bit of financial assistance to performers so that they can pursue their passion is really important. I also think we can rely on very little if you consider, what we, choose to pay ourselves and give away. We travel more than any of our friends. We bought a house this year. We I don't know. We have all the things that we need and that, that's words that we say to ourselves all the time is that we do a lot on very little and you don't really need as much as you think you do to go after the things that you want to do.
Fact, especially when, you guys seem to do a great job of being hyper-focused on what matters to you and what's important and where you actually wanna spend your money. Create, making sure that you guys have a good foundation for yourselves and that you're supporting what you care about and getting to travel like is, I don't get the impression that you guys are, care about what's happening for other people's lives so much as making sure that you're living the life that you guys wanna have.
Yeah. And we have friends who make 2, 3, 4 times as much money as we do, and they can never seem to afford a vacation. They can never, I don't know, they just, they don't use their money as effectively as I think we have learned how to do. And some of that is by necessity. For me, always growing up, just.
Having to, if I wanted to pursue an activity or an event, I had to pay for it myself. And I never let money be the reason that I don't do something. I tell my students that all the time, oh, there, I don't know if I can march this year. And I said if you want to, then you will find a way.
I've never seen money, stop someone from doing something that they really wanna do.
For sure. It's like the classic, are you interested or committed? If you're committed, there's nothing in your way. Yep. And what I also hear too is because you had to pay for things yourself growing up, you really got the, a clear relationship between the value and the opportunity with money.
Like really early, like you weren't protected because somebody else was paying for things on your behalf to know like how far a dollar goes and doesn't go.
Yeah, and I have students or friends who Oh, my mom says that she won't pay for school if I march drum corps again, is a really common example and I don't have any student loan debt even from when I was in school.
And I did eventually go back to take classes that interested me, but I never. Put myself in a situation where, yeah it put me in debt.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a game changer. It's a total game changer in how, what type of lifestyle you get to live when there is no debt.
It is, and I had a job before I was even allowed to have a job.
My, my sixth grade science teacher was also a captain on the beach patrol in Atlantic City, and ironically enough, he actually came up with the name Cine. It was a nickname that he gave me based off of my first and last name, Chelsea Levine. He would always call me Cine, and he just came up to me one day, sixth grade?
How old are you? What? Maybe 11, 12. 11, 12. He said, yeah, do you like the beach? I said, yeah, I love the beach. Cool. You want a job on the beach this summer? Sure. So I would basically make my money off of tips. Just working for the lifeguards. They call it mascotting. It's basically a junior lifeguard.
And yeah, I did that for years. And finally when I turned 14, I officially applied for the position through the city and had my first job
there. I do, there's so many parallels between people who are successful in business and successful in designing their own life. And one of those for sure is independence, which you're talking about.
And another one is like having a hustle early. And not that this is limited, like none of you're sitting, listening, being like, oh God, I've never been independent and I never had a hustle when I was a kid. That's not limiting you. Of the things that a lot of people who are entrepreneurs have are those two things.
And I think part of what makes it like being an entrepreneur or starting a business or just being in business can seem so intimidating from the outside looking in when when you haven't figured out a hustle your whole life. Because it seems like you need to know things that you don't know to have, but when you're 11 being asked to come do this job and you just say yes, and you don't know anything at 11, but you still go and show up and you're like, oh, I got this. I can figure it out. We don't give ourselves credit for how smart we are and how capable and resourceful we are.
So I think that the main correlations that people who start hustling or having jobs or making little mini businesses when it's better that you don't know what you don't know. You build this confidence that like, no, we can figure it out. We'll call people, we'll figure it out. There's a way to make anything happen.
I'm fairly convinced that everybody who owns their own business has no idea what they're doing.
No. And I honestly, I think that there you know what, but you also are really present too, how much you don't know and how much you have to keep learning and googling and calling people and outsourcing and just saying fuck it.
Like this works right now. Let's go, let's just start.
Yeah. Chances are, if you're creating something that you know is gonna catch on, there isn't a resource out there. You can't just Google how am I gonna start a podcast about powerful ladies, your step-by-step process on what you need to do to be successful. It just, I've read tons of business books and listened to all the business podcasts and, everybody's story is different on how they land. And I think that's fascinating.
Completely. And they all just start. Just start.
There's so many wannabe entrepreneurs out there and people with amazing ideas that are stuck in the, I don't know how to start space. And honestly, that's what completely supports my coaching and consulting business because I've started things like I know how to, I know how to start, I know how to help you start.
I know how to, create income streams. Like I have a checklist, like it's the one that I've used for my businesses. I've used it in the corporate world, we just follow it and at least you'll be starting right. And we'll start having, asking the right questions and I don't know, I just, yeah, I
mean you just gotta figure it out.
I think back to the early stages of, what became cine and it's comical to look back and think of some of my processes that have really developed over the last years. And, yeah, I can't believe I even did certain things the way I did for so long. And now see where it is, it's okay, there, there's a lot of things that are going a lot better, but I'm sure, even a year or two years from now, I'm gonna think back of the systems that are in place now and I will have found ways to make it all better and to grow it and, keep advancing it forward.
For sure. And what phone would it be if it was like all buttoned up and clean to start with? Like you'd have to move on to another project?
Oh yeah. I think it's one of those things, it's like when you're. I don't know, cleaning your room where sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.
Yes. Kinda have to tear things apart and, look at it from a different perspective to try and get it another way. And I'm actually going through a small project now for cine with redoing our packaging and everything, all the gloves are packaged with, let's just say a glorified Ziploc bag and a printed insert that goes inside.
The gloves are in the bag. And five, six years ago, maybe longer now, we didn't even have packaging. We would just ship loose gloves and it became outta necessity because a music store. Said, oh, we would like to resell your gloves, just ship 'em to us, blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking, yeah, we can definitely do that.
And then that, oh crap, I need to figure out how to package these gloves. And that has worked for us really well over the last few years. But I got it in my head and my really have a friend of mine Denise, to thank for this I'm very environmentally conscious. But for whatever reason, I always think about that with my personal life and not really, cine as a whole, or I haven't historically.
And she really pushed me to try and get rid of the plastic with the packaging. And that's what we're doing now, is getting rid of all the plastic
and
yeah, just making it look cooler and. It's really better for everybody involved. And I'm sure as we figure that out and slow it through the inventory and, rid the shelves of plastic, we'll think, I can't believe I won all those years using all that plastic.
And I can email you some really great eco packaging people too, so I'll make a note to send that to you after.
Sounds good. Yeah.
So when you look at where your business is at now and you know what part of the market you have and what the opportunities are, what are you excited about for creating in 2020 and what's next for Cine?
Oh man. Yeah. What's next for Cine? I think we have done a good job with, I think we've done a good job with our processes and inventory and making everything run smoothly and now that it is in a place that I feel confident in terms of, turnaround times for, the end consumer and just the quality of the products we offer.
I think it is time to start working on product expansion and taking the cine brand and offering that in similar but new ways to our customers. And just, yeah, expanding our offering. I love that we get to do all these side projects, like the scholarship and we have tons and tons of media on our websites, hours and hours of video of the groups that choose to use our products.
There's so much more we can do with that. But of course that is all financially driven. Yeah. And if we can bring in more money, we can give away more money, we can do more, we can do cooler projects. We can afford to spend 70 cents on packaging instead of 8 cents on packaging.
Yep. So yeah, that, that's really what I wanna do is just expand on the C Vine brand. And I do have some ideas for products but not something I'm comfortable Yeah. Course sharing to the world. Gotta keep it secret. Some of it, and, there's a few others that I think we'll be able to launch hopefully within the next year.
And is cine what you're spending a hundred percent of your time on, or do you have other projects and businesses too besides the the drum corps that you guys are teaching on the weekends?
Yeah, so we teach drum one. I have, and I actually have been doing some work for my friend's digital marketing agency.
And it's funny because I hired him to do some of this work for me and still pay him to do some of our social media advertising and email marketing and whatnot. But now that I have a greater understanding of really how powerful all that can be for a business I'm now taking on some contracts with him to help businesses grow the same way we have in the last year.
I, I think it's really powerful to connect and it's really fun to come up with business strategies for a company that's not your own. Yes. As I'm sure you experience very regularly. It's it's exciting too. I don't know, put a new process in place or put together an ad campaign for a company and then see them reap those rewards.
I am really loving it. So that's something else that's consuming my time at least. From a hustle standpoint,
how has the marching band, drumline drum core, how's that industry changing since you started to now?
Unfortunately not much. And I think that's why there's so much opportunity there is it's activity that is built on tradition.
And I think. Tradition is probably one of the worst ways you could describe anything. 'cause I think it's just an excuse or a re, to do something or to not do something really. And so that's where we're at, trying to get in there and say I know you've always had these disposable white and black gloves, but why don't we change that?
Why don't we give you the opportunity to make 'em in all these colors? Or, change up the design here and there. So that I think is one of the reasons why I have ideas that I want to act upon for the activity because I often hear people complain about one thing or another, and. Of course, they don't do anything.
That's about it. It's just always been that way, and they accept it and they manage with what's in front of them. But I think that if there's anybody who's, mastered a hobby, an activity, their career, they, if they really sat down and thought about it, they could sit there and pick apart things that are the way that they are.
And, just think about ways that, that they can improve them. But a lot of people don't. And I'll sit here and not even, marching band related. Tomas and I'll sit on the couch one night and we'll just say, let's see what we can come up with and we'll write down 35 business ideas.
We'll just tear apart everything that we do on a daily basis and come up with, 35 business ideas. And most of 'em are pretty bad. And some of them aren't. And we do have ideas that we're sitting on that hopefully one day we'll get to act upon, if we feel passionate about it.
And I don't know, I think that's a good exercise to do for someone who maybe thinks that they wanna be an entrepreneur but doesn't have an idea, and just sitting down and thinking, okay, what is it on a regular basis that just frustrates me that I use and just sucks.
Yes.
And yeah, I think that you'll be surprised with what you come up with.
100%. I think that's a, I think that's super fun to do myself. I think it's a great exercise. Like what frustrates you? What if, like what would be really awesome, but sounds ridiculous. Like all of those questions that it gets just puts you in a state of being creative, but also rooted in you don't need to worry about if it's practical or not.
Like just brainstorm. Just see what shows up for you and what you actually care about. Yeah. Yeah.
That's certainly how I got my start.
When you hear the phrase powerful ladies, like what does that make you think and how does that relate to like yourself and your journey?
Oh man. When I think of a powerful lady I think of two main categories, which I know I've hit upon already, is just being independent and then not creating an excuse for yourself. I don't think that's specific to being a female. And I try to not put men or women on a pedestal in particular.
Yeah. Which I know is a fairly uncommon opinion. I feel like in a lot of scenarios, if you act big, people will treat you like you're big. And I know that some people aren't as fortunate in whatever their career careers are with that. But I think that if you're the right person for the job, then people will treat you like you're the right person for the job.
And that's why I just, try and do things on my own and. Surround myself with people who I think will help me get to my end goal.
When you look at the practices that you put in on a daily basis to keep moving forward and keep yourself educated as a an owner and entrepreneur and a business person and a leader, like, where do you keep going back to, or, what are your favorite places to go to, to keep yourself educated and inspired?
Oh, man. I think this year I've been reading a lot. I've set the goal to read a book a month, which doesn't sound like a lot but it's more than I've read in the past, and I have learned a lot about myself. Business and storytelling and whatnot. And I think that you'll never regret the time that you spend reading a book and or listening to a podcast about something that interests you. And I think the more stories that you hear, the more inspired you'll feel in one particular way or another, because everybody's stories are so different. I think that's very leveling for you as a human being.
Yeah. 100%. And, we ask everyone on the podcast like, where they put themselves on the Powerful Ladies scale of zero being regular everyday person, and 10 being super mega, powerful lady.
Where do you feel on average and where do you feel today?
Interesting question. I don't feel special to be honest. I. I think that I've acted upon an idea that makes me unique or differentiates me from the pack, but I don't feel like anything that I'm doing that someone else is incapable of.
Maybe they're not interested in it, but I think that they could do it if they wanted to. So I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm pretty normal, to be honest. And I did wonder going into this podcast if I have built something unique enough that qualifies me to be amongst the pack of incredible people who have been on the podcast already.
And I think in one way or another, whether it's emotional or physical or I don't know, career related that. Everybody is, could justifiably be on this podcast.
Yeah. Our tagline is that it's the place for the awesome and the up to something and you are awesome and you are up to something, like you're up to a lot of things and.
So many women I've asked to be on the podcast most people end up saying yes. And then there are a handful of people who just say no, thank you. I'm not powerful. And it breaks my heart. It makes me so mad because it's not about achieving a result. It's it's a way of being in motion and in progress.
To me that defines like what's powerful over achievement. We think about like powerful people and everyone always talks about Oprah, right? Yes. And yeah, Oprah's a badass, like for sure. Like she's on our Ladies. We love list and but it's a matter of if Oprah had done her talk show and then stopped.
I don't know if she would be considered I don't think she'd get the acclaim that she has today because she didn't stop there. People love Oprah because she's constantly in the space of learning and discovery and sharing and what's next, and how can I give it away, and how can I connect with more people and connect people together.
Like it's a constant state of motion. And I don't know, I'm just a big believer in like people's ways of being if you are in motion and if you're creating, and if you are out there doing good in the world, it's gonna, like attracts like. So what else starts showing up? It's really hard to feel powerful, to be inspired when like life is going to the office and then like Netflix and chilling.
It's really hard if that's the only cycle you're in. So what does it take to be uncomfortable or try something new or. Just be curious curiosity goes a really long way, which I think a lot of your story shows as well.
I appreciate that and it, I heard this on a pod, on another podcast once, or, if someone asks you, who do you think is the the most successful person you can think of instinctively, you might say somebody like Oprah or Steve Jobs, or elon Musk, because, oh, they've created all these things and they're super rich and whatnot. But then. If you take a second and think about, okay, who do I think is successful? You might come up with somebody like I think my grandma's really successful, or I think my mom is really successful, because look at all the things that they juggled and created and et cetera, et cetera.
And, sometimes it's the normal, or what we say is the normal, day to-dos. Just accomplishing that is a pretty incredible accomplishment in itself.
It really is. And even if you look at, the industry that you spec specialize in, I can't say s words today.
It's my first day back in the studio recording in a while. So I think my mouth is like still warming up. But no, there's so much dedication and commitment and I don't like the word sacrifice, but you do have to make choices that aren't always easy to follow the things that you love and are passionate about.
And I think that's part of what, as you go through stages of anything that you're getting expertise in, if you go from marching band to, drumline to drum core, to, you name it, whatever's the next level, like it's people who like are committed and it still takes a lot, like you're choosing not to do something else.
You're choosing to put your money there. You're choosing not to, use your time in other ways that you care about. And there's something really powerful about just choosing and like dedicating yourself and time to something where like that time doesn't go to waste. Like you're get, there's so many valuable lessons about your abilities and your own confidence and your skillset and like I've never been in a drum line, but I can guess.
That there are so many intangible skills that you learn. Doing that between teamwork and listening and putting your ego aside and being supportive and creating things together and what it feels like to be in that space when you're all aligned in like the same, all your energies together and you just feel it like, when you guys have, kicked ass outta performance because you can feel it.
You don't even need someone to tell you. And those same skills and feelings like need to go everywhere. If you're working at a job and you feel that energy, like that propels more momentum, like that's my goal. I think it's just how do I stay in that energy zone as much as possible? Because it's like a life force of its own.
Yeah. It really is. And I try to not engage into anything that I'm not super passionate about. And I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, but. I think it's Derek Sers and he has a quote where he basically says, if it's not a hell yeah, then it's a no. Yes. Yeah. And just picking what it is that you wanna spend your time on, because I do feel often that, or I feel the pressure that time is very limited.
But time is also all you have at the same time, so you might as well use it wisely. Yeah. Get the most out of it. What else are we here for? I just posted a quote recently on our Instagram that said, why aren't you running as fast as you can towards your wildest dreams? Like, why aren't we?
Like, why are we spending our time doing anything else? One of part of the impetus for Powerful Ladies was me just being frustrated watching all of these capable, amazing people like being in a circle. Of lacking any intention to move towards where they wanna go, when all they have to do is pause and make a left.
And all this magic is right there. Like we don't realize how much of what we think we can't have or is only reserved for other people is so close. Like it's in, you can touch it, you just need to put your arm out. That's all it takes. It's like such a small change in your routine and your like mindset to get access to it.
Yeah. Don't play victim.
When we think about who's inspired you wherever they are on the gender spectrum, like who are people that you give credit to for how you've gotten to where you are today?
The biggest one is actually my grandmother. She is about to turn 92.
She goes to the gym three days a week. She lives in a two story house. She has a dog, she drives, she takes care of herself. But more importantly, she grew up in a time where being an independent woman wasn't really the cool or what people thought was the right thing to do. And I do think that she paved her own path in a lot of ways.
She had a family and when it was very taboo to divorce your husband, she did it because she wasn't happy and she lived in North Jersey and didn't like that. So she moved down to the beach, to South Jersey and, got her master's degree and yeah, just has the fuck it attitude.
Even still to this day, she. She's like a glorified con artist in a lot of ways. She is found ways to, she's traveled all over the world. She certainly creates opportunity for herself and she puts herself before a lot of people. She puts her, she puts herself first, I guess I should say.
But not at the cost of not caring for the people around her. Yeah.
I don't know. I think that's a, I very good quality, a great quality to have. She just has a lot of life about her and Yeah, she. I don't know. She's still kicking at 92. She was a bridesmaid in our wedding. She dances.
I'm not kidding. Yeah. At 90 years old, she walked down the aisle with the most handsome groomsmen she could choose. So
grandma is killing it.
Yeah. She still talks about it. So yeah, I don't know. I hope that I know I have some of her genes, but I hope that I have the spunk that she does.
N 92.
Yeah, no, it's incredible. And, I just, it seems like she really understands the power of putting on your own oxygen mask first. If you make sure that your life is good, it allows you to make sure other people's lives are good.
Oh yeah, absolutely. We were just there visiting her and she, within 10 minutes of walking in the house, she poured us a glass of wine and cut us a piece of cheesecake and, enjoyed the holidays and ditched us to go Black Friday shopping on her own.
And so she just does whatever she wants.
What's her name?
Her name is Helen.
We can all be a little bit more like Helen, no matter how old we are.
I'd say so.
Awesome. I would love to know what advice you want to give to women who want to follow in your footsteps. Women who see opportunities in areas that other people don't, or just women who are super passionate about marching band and what's next?
The best experience you can have is doing it, and you're only gonna get better at whatever it is you're trying to do by actually doing it. If your goal is to be stronger, then the only way you're gonna get stronger is to go and, physically pick up the weights or run the run or swim the swim, whatever it is you're gonna do.
If you wanna figure out how to start your own business, and you gotta start your own business, and I think the best way you can prepare yourself to accomplish something is to just dive in head first and try and do it. Sometimes it's a, I don't know, it's, everything feels like it's a thankless position on some days.
You don't. I'm really thankful that every day that I get to. I work from home or work from a coffee shop anywhere around the world and be involved in the activity that I'm passionate about. And then when it comes time to putting on my teaching shoes, it's for fun. Yeah. And it's the payoff. And I, I don't need that money to pay my bills.
The gesture is important, I think and certainly appreciated. But it's not something that I rely on.
Yeah. And there's, tons of books out there about, following what you are good at versus what your passion is and separating, your career doesn't need to be your passion.
And so many people like put those two things together. It's really an, a unique space when people can, and it's part of what I try and help clients put together. Like, how do we match up your strengths and your passions and what you're just good at to, to find this unique niche for you?
But so often it's a much, it's a path of least resistance in both ease of a career and, making money so you can eat when you just sometimes just do what you're good at and let your passion be in the hobby space, because that's just how it works sometimes, or at least for that moment in time.
And so you can figure out what's next and how to combine things and to really, it takes time to figure out your niche that aligns everything in a way where. Suddenly it works and you're getting paid and it's easy. Like you have to have like different experiences to get there. If we think about the 10,000 hour rule as well, and we look at what, how old you are when you started both hustling and, being in percussion, like it makes sense that you graduated school early and that you have this business, as a, a young woman and like you're taking things on.
No, I think that your path and sharing your path is so important so people can hear it and know that living the life that you guys have is totally possible. Like you can be a power couple of solo entrepreneurs and buy a home and travel the world and be able to give back. I think that's great and that's, why I think sharing your message is so important
and something I just wanna add to all of that is. This is something that I really didn't learn until after I was already doing it. But people will give advice, business experts where you need to focus on a very niche audience. And like I said earlier in the podcast, very aware that marching symbolists and marching horn players are, it's a niche within, inside a, within a niche.
And that because we're focused on those people and they get attention that they wouldn't normally get, they feel incredibly special.
And
I love delivering great experiences to those people who wouldn't normally get it. And we, we do certain things at events where we have our booth instead of set up as, just a place to buy things.
It's a red carpet event with a backdrop and spotlights, and we ask for their autograph and take their picture. There's so much payoff there and obviously helps them feel connected to the brand. And I think something else that people listening could take away from this is that there isn't a target audience too small that you can serve.
Yep. And if there is something that you feel connected to or are just very interested in, chances are there's other people out there that would also love for you to, capitalize on that as well. And I was fortunate enough to make the transition pretty smooth, but I think another last bit of advice I would offer is, while I was, starting to build this brand I never.
I always felt guilty trying to pay myself really until the, until I finally quit my day job at Apple. I worked for Apple for nine years, and I set a goal that once I launched this new product and made my first sale of the horn line gloves that I would quit. And as soon as I made that sale, I put my two weeks in and I left.
And I think because I sent that, set that benchmark for myself and was very conservative with how I spent the monies business, in a way where, of course I didn't want the business to suffer, but I also didn't wanna get anything that was unnecessary, including a salaried employee.
I think that was very critical on helping the brand grow early on is just having that capital available and, part of your reserve as you're. Trying to get people connected. It's exhausting. I felt, I do feel like it's a necessary evil, and I hear of stories where people are starting businesses and they set their salary at 60 k.
I need 60 K to run a business like this. No, you don't. You can find a way to minimize your your salary to be able to help the business grow.
For sure. And there's so many layers to that between, things that. The business pays for, that used to be part of your personal budget.
There are, even just doing, I have a lot of clients that are bringing on their first employee or first team of employees, and I don't think people realize how much income a business needs to be generating and able to be able to hire anyone on besides you, especially full-time and as a, either hourly or salaried employee.
Like you need to be a six figure company before you can truly have an employee and between, zero income and that there's so many ways to get help from people, between people who do it as the kindness of their heart. They believe in what you're up to. People you can outsource things to trade with.
There's so many ways to still have a team around you but not have to. If you're starting a business because you like the idea of having this like really cute office and all these teams of people to help you, that's really not what a business is like. That's something that happens so far down the line.
It really is. And you have to take advantage of your resources. I think about some of the people early on in, in Cine who, ultimately just volunteered their time and expertise and it's hard to imagine where we would be without that. With, without our, I don't know, certain creative people and the judges for our scholarships and everything and or, surrounding that.
I'm so thankful for that. It's necessary. You can't do it by yourself. You definitely cannot. And I think as a shout out to everyone who has helped us, I think that's a great way to, to wrap up for today and just be so thankful that, we have all these people in our lives that support each other, and that's what Powerful Ladies is about.
Women rise together and people rise together. How? How can we be a contribution and pay it forward for the next person? Hell yeah. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We are inspired by you and we can't wait to hear what's happening with C Vine. Next.
Thanks for having me, Kara.
I sincerely appreciate it.
I love Chelsea's story because it proves so many things about what it looks like to live a life that you've created. You do not need to graduate college to be an entrepreneur. You do not need to follow the path that others lay out for you. In Chelsea's story, I love hearing how she followed what she loved, which she thought would be fun.
All of that defined her own path. And when opportunities came up that sounded unusual, she said yes, it helped that she was inspired by her very bold and powerful grandmother, but she's made choices that may seem risky to others, and as a result, she has a life that she truly loves. She and her husband are both working from home entrepreneurs.
They own a home. They travel the world. They teach and give back and have more than they need. Chelsea's clear about what matters to her that allows her to be fulfilled. She's having fun, and I encourage all of you to do the same. To connect, support and follow Chelsea. You can follow her on Instagram at cine Co, and you can visit her website cine.co.
All the other ways that you can connect with and support Chelsea are through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, snapchat, email. They're all available in our show notes. I hope you've enjoyed this new episode of The Powerful Ladies Podcast. If you're a yes to powerful Ladies and you want to support us, you can subscribe to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts or on our website, the powerful ladies.com.
Don't forget to write us and give us a review. You can also be one of our patreons on patreon.com/powerful. Ladies, follow us at Powerful Ladies and of course. Visit our website, the powerful ladies.com, for any other information you want about how to connect with us. Send us a note. We love your feedback.
It's all available@thepowerfulladies.com.
Related Episodes
Episode 118: The Couple Who Designed Their Dream Life | Thomas Claesen & Chelsea Levine | Entrepreneurs & Life Designers
Episode 96: How to Be Confident and Create the Life You Want | Tawny Newsome | Actor, Musician, Podcaster
Episode 101: How to Have an Extraordinary Relationship and Business | Chris Grubisa & Aleks Lason | Co-Founders of Chrilleks
Follow Seavine on Twitter: @seavineco
Follow Chelsea on Twitter: @ChelseaLevine6
Subscribe to Seavine on YouTube: /Seavine
Find Seavine on Facebook: /seavineco
Visit her Website: www.seavine.com
Email her: chelsea@seavine.co
Find Seavine on Snapchat: @seavineco
Follow her on LinkedIn: /chelsea-levine
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
