129. When It’s Time to Walk Away (Even When It’s Good): A Conversation with Lara Casey Isaacson

After founding Southern Weddings and Cultivate What Matters—and creating the beloved PowerSheets®—Lara Casey Isaacson found herself at two unexpected crossroads. In this episode, Lara opens up about what it looked like to walk away from the businesses she built, the restlessness that signaled it was time, and how faith, chronic illness, and family shaped her decision-making.

We talk about what it means to steward a season well, the quiet bravery of closing a chapter before the next one is clear, and how redefining success starts with letting go. If you’ve ever felt pulled in a new direction—or wondered whether it’s time to step away from something good—this conversation will feel like a gentle permission slip.

WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/lara-casey-isaacson

Transcript

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Hi, Laura, welcome to the show. I am so thankful to be here, hi. I feel like this has been kind of a long time coming, but also, wow, this is life. It takes a minute. Thanks for being on the show and for your time and sharing your story and your journey. I am so excited to talk to you. Ditto, I mentioned to you before we get on and I want to say it again so that all the people can hear this. Your story and your intentionality with your life and your time has directly intersected with my life and has made a big difference on even just this current season I'm in. I am excited as an understatement. Just really grateful to be here with you. Laura, that's like so honor. Like, thank you for saying that. That means so much to me. I'm over here like, tell me more. I'm so curious. Maybe like, tell me more. Like how, tell me more. Just tell me more about that. Well, you know, it's been a long journey for me through my career. actually, yesterday, went down an intentional rabbit hole of clearing out some file drives and found so many old photos from what I'm gonna call the first half of my life, which is my career of building my first business and Southern weddings and cultivate what matters and really just trying to find myself at the same time becoming a mom, et cetera, et cetera. very much an online life and so thankful for so much of that. And I remember distinctly when you made the decision to use your life in a different way and not share it with the social world, but really just dig in and trust and focus in on the people right in front of you. One, at the time, how radical that was, of course, but it just really got me thinking, you know, I felt like a pretty intentional person, but But what were my motivations for being where I was in the spaces where I was and were they fruitful? And you you've made this point many times before too. It's not that being online is good or bad. It's, I really had to ask myself the question, where am I right now? And are these things fruitful or not? And the answer to a lot of it was no. So yeah, it's a different season for me. Okay, thank you for sharing that. That means the world to me. It's amazing. We don't often know the ripples of little things that we do, good or bad. And I pray so much that like my life can be, yeah, so that means the world to me because, you know, people are watching what we do and I hope that I'm always like. build a life you want. I come from such a background and I know we're both very ambitious people, but we're also incredibly intentional people. And I think we have encouraged, I think both of our work missions have encouraged people to be like, what do you want in your life and your heart and your work? we are very kindred spirits. I love this. are in so many ways. I know as you're saying that I'm thinking back to just the history and so many things that we've done along the years and praise the Lord for all that that's led us now to this conversation today. So which we've never had. I'm so thankful. Yeah. this is great. This is the most time we'll have ever spent together. It is. Yes. All. Well, how many minutes has it been? Yes, honestly, it's true. I think I've seen each other out of, we have seen each other at a speaking event one time. So that was quick and a lot of people, but okay, this is what a gift. Okay, tell me Laura, just actually, will you share what you're doing now as far as your career and your work and then give us a two minute backstory of before you even maybe had your first business and what your first business was. Yeah, so right now I'm in a season of, I don't want to use the word transition because it has a connotation that there is something next I'm going to. But it is a season of, I'm calling this my no projects year, and there's a lot I could say about that. For the last two-ish years since I sold Cultivate What Matters, since my father passed away in the same breath basically, I have been on a journey of... transformation for sure. And it has led me to try a lot of different things and to use my gifts in different ways just to see like, Lord, what do want from me in this next phase of life? So to answer the question is I am the CEO of my laundry room. I am I do business consulting for friends. I am a part of faith-driven entrepreneur as well, where we are building resources for teens to help them discern and discover their call to create. But all of this within the bounds of five to 10 hours a week, because the other 90 % of my life is, it has to be with my children right now for so many reasons. I'm a special needs parent. Our marriage is important to me. We homeschool. So yeah. I really relish and I don't say this facetiously, I relish being the CEO of my laundry room. I love it because I have had a long and busy career. And it's not to say that it has ended and now this is what I'm doing and that's the whole of my life. But I'm really grateful for right now. So that's the answer to what I'm doing right now. To give you a brief on where I have been and what's led to here is there's always been a through line of being fascinated by transformation. you know, much like you, it's, I'm just fascinated by what makes somebody wake up one day and decide that they're going to think differently, act differently, work differently, interact, connect differently with people. What is it that precipitates that or that leads to that? And I think in the first half of my life, I always thought it was big changes lead to that or big movements lead to that. And I learned through the company that I founded Cultivate What Matters through that work of helping to coach women to do just that, to see what matters in their lives and then do something about it. That it is the little things that add up over the course of a lifetime, not the big sweeping movements all the time, that lead to a life of love and legacy. And so I founded several companies along the way. I started with wedding planning. I have a degree in music and theater that led to Me being a personal trainer in New York City, starting a wedding magazine, doing consulting for people and touring with Speaking Things and leading the Making Things Happen conference for 10 years, and then founding Cultivate What Matters. And that may seem like lot of hops and jumps, but really, again, the through line has always been much like, I'll tell you a quick story. When I was my kid's age right now, I have an eight-year-old, a nine-year-old, 13 year old when I was about eight or nine we lived in Washington DC and there was a bookstore an independent bookstore there called the Cheshire Cat and in the window in the spring they would have monarch caterpillars and we would go and just marvel at it as kids and just watch and watch and it almost seemed like nothing was happening when they were in their chrysalis and I would walk by and be like mommy nothing's happening you know okay let's go ahead and read Cinderella and then it was almost like all of a sudden they were ready to fly, would burst forth. And that's really how I have felt about all the work that I've been able to do and the things I've learned in creating companies and to help people cultivate what matters is sometimes you can't see it and feel it on the surface, but it is those little by little by little choices that we make on a daily basis that then lead us to a point in our lives where we can burst forth. and fly in a new direction. Yeah. I love it. Did you know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? I mean, did you, when you think about pre business days, did you always see that or did you have a different career in mind? That's a great question. think underneath it all I did, I remember being very enterprising as a young person, like we would do the lemonade stand, we would do, let's think of how to sell this or how could we create a business doing this just in my house just for pretend play, right? But I did move into what I thought was going to be my lifelong career of music and theater. I loved learning what motivates a person. I loved learning about a character's objectives and what makes them transform within a story. So it really started very early on for me. Okay, and then, when did you, was wedding planning your first business or fitness? Okay, wedding planning, fitness, then magazine. Yeah. It kind of simultaneous too. I was doing personal training at the same time I was doing wedding planning and the wedding planning, which I really would call wedding production came very much fluidly out of my theater training. It was using things like light and sound and music and a menu to tell someone's story much like theater was. So that felt very seamless to me. Also, my mother is a French chef and so I grew up with entertaining all around me. And she would host these amazing dinner parties where people just connected with each other. So I think it was in my blood. Yeah. Did you go into your business? Okay, so wedding planning, fitness, was it just like, I'm going to follow my curiosity? Was it, did you know, like, I want to be, did you have financial goals? Did you have ambitious, you know, like, what were the motivators behind the different businesses, transitioning businesses, and kind of just like following the path, the way it unfolded? Yeah, so you're a finance person? The answer is I had no idea what I was doing. Zero clue. I was in debt in the beginning. I would put things on credit cards. There was no internet back then, you know? There were before actually it wasn't until I started Southern Weddings really that blogger even became a thing. So there was no real education for finance, for personal finance, unless you learned how to balance your checkbook from your parents or which was rare, believe it or not. I did not learn that. And then the other option was you go to school for finance. So there's your answer to that is I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah, 2003. So I graduated from college in 2002. And then as far as the transitions from like, did I have a plan for that? No, I really was doing the things that fired me up, but also doing the things that I needed. I needed. a health transformation after college. I was so tired after having this very intense training at Carnegie Mellon University for Music and Theater. I mean, it was like 56 credit hours a semester. It was insane. And then you move to New York City and you're kind of thrown out to the wolves. And I am a very sensitive person and I did not like auditioning for my life. I just felt a lot of dissonance there. And so, yeah, I needed... a place to feel alive in my body without it being the thing that I was just presenting to people all the time, you know? And so that's where I went to a gym myself, and I hired a trainer myself. And then as he helped me transform, I started to think, wow, this is something that I feel really passionate about. I could help people with this. Yeah. How long did you do fitness? And then when did you start Southern weddings? Like how long into your kind of being your own boss after college life did you start Southern weddings? Yeah, so Southern weddings began actually in 2007. My husband was deployed to Iraq and I was very restless. needed a project to keep my mind off of bomb threats. And I just thought through, you know, all my wedding planning experiences and all the beautiful things we were able to create in my tiny little small town, there's there's so much more that we can share with people about how to tell your love story beyond just chicken and tool, you know. There is a transformative possibility here for people, much like when you go to a really great theater show or a really great movie and you leave transformed, you leave with different thoughts and ideas. I saw the possibilities there with wedding planning too. So, so yeah, it was quite a bit after, after college. doing wedding cleaning? Were you still doing fitness instruction? I'm assuming you got married at some point in the time, moved back to your hometown. the timelines seem like they overlap a lot and they do. So I was a personal trainer. actually am as of December 2024 now again, a certified personal trainer. We've come full circle. I think that's always been a love for me is helping people understand their motivations and do the things that matter in life. But yeah, the timeline to map it out, if I remember correctly, because this was like 20 something years ago. ago. There's a minute. If I remember correctly, I graduated from Carnegie Mellon, moved to New York City, ordered, you know, snail mail materials for a personal training course after I had gone to the gym a few times and really started to understand the power of this for people. And at the same time felt the restlessness of after all my parents have poured into this and I've poured into this, I'm not sure if theater is the thing for me. love, love, love performing and the art of it, but I didn't love the business of it. And so there's that simultaneous moment for me happening. And so I got my personal training certification, started training clients, and one of my clients was a wedding planner. And my mom and I were also kind of at the same time thinking, well, if you're not going to do theater anymore, you know, why don't we get together and we'll do events together, because that was really her history. She went to the court on blue in Paris and just always had her sights on a whole new life after kids flew the coop. So there were a lot of factors playing into that. yeah, so I ended up meeting another trainer at the gym. We ended up getting married for a very short time, which is a whole other story, very difficult story. And that really helped me catch the bug. about floral design and wedding planning. So that was 2002, 2003, 2004. And then through 2004, five and six, this was like before Ari and I really got married, I think. During that period, I had continued to grow my wedding planning business and also do some training on the side. So those were simultaneous years. just still trying to explore those things. And then we come up to the launch of Southern Weddings, which was a whole new world and took away a lot of my time. I stopped doing personal training and really focused full on in the wedding world. And it took off like a freight train in Georgia. Like I just had no idea how much it would take off. Yeah, and the magazine took off and wedding planning continued for a little bit, but then had to phase out because the magazine really... needed your attention. Yeah, I think that's something we, we could so go there, but let's not go there. But I'm like, being multi-passionate is who we are inside. But it's interesting. That's something I was curious kind of to hear from you. You've had a lot of different, your hands in a lot of different things, but we, it's like, we can't do all of those at one time. Super. well, I mean, that's what I see from my side. Like, let's focus, let's move forward. Like, okay, so Southern Weddings, I wanna hear all about, you know, like figuring out how to create a magazine and price a magazine and sell a magazine and that's a whole thing. But I actually just wanna ask you, when did you know, like, Southern Weddings is done? Cultivate What Matters is where I'm going. I feel like you have this sense of... this is a season of work for me. And I don't think everybody knows how to navigate, like knowing when that season is done, moving on to the next season. So I would love for you kind of to speak to, at what point did you know Southern Weddings is, I need to let that go, Cultivate What Matters is where I'm moving, and how did you navigate that? Yeah, great question. You know, to speak a little bit about what you said about being multi-passionate, I think this is really where the work I'm doing with faith-driven entrepreneur right now kind of steps in, which is college is a really expensive place to figure out what you want to do with your life now. And there were not a lot of resources back then for me as a multi-passionate person, which I believe most people are, that there are like gifts in there that maybe haven't been unlocked yet or... They just don't know what to do with them or where are they in the first place? I think there are so many more resources now that are helping with discernment and helping people to understand what that is as they move into these phases of life. I did it in reverse. I did it after college. I think we all did. It truly was a generational thing. It's like in my generation, you chose a career and you stuck with it. Then I got out of college and I knew that that wasn't going to be for me. Um, but let's fast forward about 10 years into Southern weddings, which really became an iconic brand at that point. And we had had a partnership with Southern living and everything seemed to be going really well, you know, like we were profitable. It's a small team, small company, but things were going well. But we had accidentally, and I say accidentally on purpose started a shop. Um, we had a once a year print edition was our model. as opposed to newsstand options that were coming out once a month. For us, we really market it as a keepsake, something that you kept on your coffee table or in your book collection forever and ever. And people still tell me they do. So for us, we needed a way to connect with our readers more than just once a year through the print edition. And we thought, well, let's put a printout, which was unheard of at the time, right? There were no online shops besides maybe Amazon was around back then. But no, like small independent resource shops. Emily Lay and I started shops around the same time. And we just put out a print that said love never fails. And it just snowballed from there. People wanted reminders of what matters on their walls. And we thought this is a way for us to connect with them. So we put a few more prints out. And then it grew and it grew and it grew and it grew into what we then called the Laura Casey shop because I was sharing prints with inspirational messages that I had written. We had started the first PowerSheets goal planner, which was the tool that still exists today and is still growing. And so we had these two entities growing at the same time. What was then called, sorry, what became Cultivate What Matters and Southern Weddings. And with very, very specific and meaningful missions. Now, back then, this was 2016, when I really felt like I was getting restless with, I needed to homeschool my daughter, I felt called to do that. I didn't want to go through the process of trying to find a buyer for Southern Weddings because I did not think that there was gonna be anybody out there who could carry on the mission in the way that we did. And yet, there was so much growth potential with Cultivate What Matters on paper and just... in our minds, like for helping people not just in a marrying stage of life, but in any stage of life. And I had a lot of advisors around me telling me, Laura, I know this thing means a lot to you. And you're crazy. How could you let it go? But also advisors saying, I know this thing means a lot to you. You're crazy. How could you not go after the growth potential with Cultivate What Matters? So how did I know it's restlessness? Truly, and I didn't know. I did learn. that sometimes you have to let go of one thing before you even know what the path is ahead. And yes, we did it with counsel and guidance and we did it with accountants around us and people who were guiding us, but in my heart of hearts, it was very difficult to lay it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it a very similar kind of feeling when you got to the end of like when you felt that same feeling with Cultivate What Matters? Or was that very different experience? similar in the way that there was certainly restlessness there, that I knew something needed to change. but different as well. that for me stemmed from a lot of things. One, my father's health was declining. Two, my health was declining. I was showing up to work every day with chronic pain. And six years into that, I just felt like I am getting, and this is my own perception. No one was telling me this, right? But it was my reality that I really felt like God was telling me this needs to grow and you need to get out of the way. You need to put this into hands of someone else who is going to take this and run with it because what you really want to do and need to do right now is focusing on your family. And that's gonna mean a slice of your ego is gonna fall off. You're gonna have no idea what to do next. It's going to be very humbling and really you have no idea what the future holds, but you just know that you cannot keep going at this pace. Will you, Laura, thank you so much for just hearing this, like 20 year career entrepreneur running, growing, building multiple brands that have done incredibly well. What would you feel like these, I'm literally making these questions up. Like I'm just like, let's, I don't know, like Laura. I just like, what would you say? went well and I would ask that from like a professional standpoint and a personal and then what would you say are some of the one or two maybe harder lessons you've learned again professionally and personally. Or just throughout your 20, just 20 years of entrepreneurship. Yeah, I think what went well is always people. You know, I have chills and a little frog in my throat talking about it. Whew. you people went well because I was and still am extremely blessed to have worked alongside so many incredible women. That was certainly the hardest thing to let go of was knowing that those relationships could change and praise God they've changed for the better. Our relationships have just grown and continued but and then the people that we got to interact with in both brands. couples and the brides and the mothers of the bride and then all people across the world with Cultivate What Matters. So many of those relationships continue today. So I think what went well despite my own shortcomings and despite making many mistakes along the way with relationships and not being perfect in any of that is God's faithfulness through connection that we used to call it the prophet of people. and we put that first over anything. We would send out every issue of Southern Weddings with a handwritten thank you note because that mattered. It didn't matter if we got up to 10,000 issues, we would still figure out a way to sign a handwritten thank you note. That is what went well. Growing things that last, I decided in the end, again, I can't claim it really, but God, that it wasn't that we were closing Southern Weddings is that we had completed the work we were given to do. And so that felt really good. So that went well. I think the other thing is just enthusiasm. If I could give anything to people out there, it's that our motto throughout all the work that I've done over these last 20 years is if you're not excited about it, no one's going to be excited about it. Obviously, excitement is expressed in different ways, but the root of the word enthusiasm is in theos, which means from God. So it all starts with a deep and abiding imperfect, of course, connection with God. And then living out of those things will produce things that people want to be a part of. What didn't go well, I think are all the times that I tried to rely on myself instead of God, which was many times. And it came at the expense of my health for all those years. know, I'm praise God, not suffering with chronic pain anymore. But. putting my work above my health many times because it was meaningful to me. And you know, the Bible is pretty clear. Like we should expend ourselves on behalf of people in many ways. We aren't supposed to end our lives saying, oh, I'm so comfortable, you know? So I don't regret that, but I do think that that was a difficult thing. And I think there are great ways to not go down that path. Yeah. talk about that? Okay, I'm going to write that down so we come back. Let's circle back to that. You keep going on things you learn. I think the, you know, the other thing I would say is to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. I was very grateful to do that, you know, because I knew that I wasn't going to have all the answers all those years. And I didn't. And so working alongside my team, who was always smarter than me, made for productive and profitable work. I learned when you stop learning, it's just you're done, you know. Yeah, and I'd say the other thing that did not go well was if I could go backwards and this speaks to, your heart of hearts for meaningful, rooted finances is I wish I could have had a degree in business or finance before starting this. I essentially like learned it on the job, you know, and now I feel very skilled in it, but I struggled for many years with just understanding a cash flow statement and understanding margins and asking a lot of dumb questions. So I think it could have saved myself a lot of heartache along the way if I would have had more training there. Yeah, okay, I wrote some things down I wanna circle back to, but speaking of heartache, will you just speak to, obviously with your faith you believe in purpose and the purpose of our work and that God made us to do good work and like, you're very passionate still about people and. seeing and cultivating change in an intentional way. So laying down something good, laying down something that's growing, laying down something that's hard, but that you want to make work. Like how have you stepped aside or laid down and kind of, I would imagine, worked through the heartbreak, the identity, the like, what are some ways you've had to kind of work through that change in identity? Yeah, it's hard to let go of a dream. You it's hard to let go of something that you pour your heart and soul into. It's still hard for me. There are still days I text Emily Thomas, my former coworker, and I'm like, I miscultivate. Or there are days I will pick up a photo or look at something here in my office and just think, oh, I miss whatever it is. And those are times that invite me into the holy and gruesome and beautiful experience of grief. So how do you do it? You do it in the same way you grieve well, really anything. And I learned this from, I have a frog in my throat again. I learned this through being the sole person there to hold my dad's hand when he crossed over to be with the Lord. And that is that there is a sting of death. and it's very real. And I remember him just wincing like he was in such pain for just a moment, a mere second, and then... peace. And so I come back to that often, whether it is an actual loss in life, like losing my father, losing my best friend very suddenly to cancer last year, or whether it is very intentionally and purposefully letting go of a dream, like a business that you know needs to be laid down and that you are just constantly restless, or maybe it's not letting go of the whole business itself. Perhaps it's letting go of the way you're doing the business. The business doesn't need to go very often. It is the way you're doing it. So I think it's inviting that restlessness, inviting the pain, inviting that sting and learning from it. Instead of pushing it away and saying judgmental things to yourself on a daily basis, like you shouldn't be feeling this way or you should work harder or all the shoulds, just leveling the playing field out and saying, What can I learn from you? Tell me more. know, talking to ourselves in a way that's compassionate instead of judgmental. That always for me opens up learning and growth and wisdom and clarity. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that Laura because I think we reprimand or I know I do so I don't want to speak for anybody else You know sometimes we can reprimand having the questions and I feel like asking the questions the exact same We should the exact thing we should do ask the questions if you're not feeling if you feel tired Why do you feel tired if you feel restless? Why do you feel restless if you feel? bored, unenthusiastic, or why do I feel enthusiastic on the positive side? Why I'm excited? Why does this bring me life? Listening to that, and I feel like that's the beauty and the privilege of entrepreneurship is to get to mold and move and I love all this. Will you speak to, because I have to ask about the numbers, will you go back to what you were saying about learning the hard way about business, but what would you say that you feel like on the Let me see how one asks this. In growing businesses over 20 years, what would you say you learned about, maybe what's the best thing you would say you learned about money as an entrepreneur? Oh man, that is a great question. I mean, fundamentally, the best thing I've learned about money is that it's not ours. That we're giving it to Stuart and that may sound like Christianese, but it's real. Like it is really not ours and it's placed in our hands to do good things. I think about it like seeds. Every dollar I spend is a vote for something. It's like planting a seed for somebody's future or my future self or something. Um, and it's also a map to our psychology. You know, I'm learning that even in this new season of the things I feel compelled to spend money on or the things I reflect that I've spent money on, or even as a business owner, the things that we decided to or not to spend money on are a reflection of, um, our psychology and where we are. So to give you a real life example, one, there's two things that come to mind financially, um, throughout my business life and One of those was a time that we were in a growth mode with Cultivate What Matters. Things were going really well back before Facebook ads were like widely used and you could drop $20 on something and make $2,000. It was just amazing. And so we were in this golden age of Facebook, which didn't last long because they caught on to us. But alongside that and just the growth of our community, there was a point where we thought, OK. We could take a big risk right now and take all this cash, the majority of the cash we have, and buy a ton of one of our products is write the word journals. We could get a ton of inventory in just projecting the same type of growth we have ahead, but then that would leave us in a bit of a cashflow crunch. Again, psychology-wise, emotion-wise, all of us wanted to do it. because we saw the potential growth, we saw the potential seeds of faith we could plant in people. But then I had to stop myself and say, you know what, why grow this fast? Why not still affect the same amount of people, but maybe just not as fast and do it in a way that is more wise and doesn't put us at so much risk? And I'm all about calculated risks at some point, but this one we decided it's okay to grow slow. And I'm so grateful that we did because several things happened in the market after that. think it was a lot of technical stuff, several things happened in the market after that where we looked back and we were like, my goodness, I'm so glad we didn't do that. God protected us. The other thing was when I was in the process of letting go of Southern Weddings, Southern Weddings, all the cash flow from that business came in almost right before the issue came out. So we're getting all those payments in in October-ish. Whereas for Cultivate, we had to pay for PowerSheet's orders in March, February, you know, and some of them even up to December once they landed. But so in other words, we had a massive cash flow crunch once we extracted the Southern Weddings cash out of the equation and did not see that coming. So that was a big lesson to learn was just understanding cashflow in general. Yeah. Do you feel like you navigated these things by yourself? Did you bring in help or a team? Because will you just share with everybody, if you can think back, at the height of either Southern weddings or at the height of Cultivate and PowerSheets, what did your community look like? How many products were you selling in a year, just so we can get the volume and scale of what you were working with? And then you're expected to, with no business degree, no finance background, no make. Big dis- I you're outlaying tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, I don't know, for inventory before it's ever sold. Like how did you figure this out? Those are scary numbers. they are. I can say, I think at this point, just because the business is not in my hands anymore, I would totally share transparent numbers, but I don't think I can. But I will say it's tens of thousands of people were affected within that. talking about scale, we're talking about a business that went from being in my garage to this massive warehouse, 3PL. So far more than I knew what to do with. And once you start getting, here's what I can say is that I remember a dear friend of mine who was also a former employee of mine telling me that once you got to the three point something million dollar mark in an e-commerce business, that's when things would start to get crunchy. That's when you either had to expand your systems, expand your financial team. It's hard to get past that. And once we moved past that, yes, I mean, I've always had. accountants, obviously, working with us. But I had to get one who really understood strategy at that point, because I didn't. And operations people, and we're saying a tiny team, Like they're consistently are about eight of us doing a whole lot. But to have an operations person that also understood that and how to order and how to source product, it was far more than I could understand. Yeah, there's so many things I want to dig into. Like, how did you as a CEO change your mindset from, want to do this thing that, you know, impacts people to like, wow, we're in this warehouse. I mean, it's, it's a lot to expect of ourselves to learn on the job about being, you know, my background is as a CFO, but it's not as a CEO. I never anticipated being in a CEO position. So it's like, there's so much mindset work and all that, but. We're gonna have to do another one, Laura. We're just, we are. Yes. I have to say though that it's not, none of this happened overnight. Like, how do you do it? It seems so overwhelming to talk about it. And it's overwhelming for me to talk about it in this context. But in reality, it happened one relationship at a time. Like one person at a time. And that's the way I wanted it to happen, was at the speed of relationship. And if it happened any faster than that, which I'm sure we could have done, There's a lot of things that we could have done to make more money over the years. Many things. But pulling those levers would have come at the expense of people. Yeah. Okay. That's a perfect transition to my last question before we quick fire in a world that asks us to do everything really well. Be a great mom. Be a great wife. Be a great CEO. Know how to manage your company and never make me say like, how have you navigated finding harmony? And as you kind of bring you back to what you said earlier, recognizing when you're sacrificing your health or your relationships, like what are some practical ways maybe that you and some lessons learned in like finding harmony and work and life in your 20 years career so far. Yeah, you can't do it all and do it well. You just can't. I, at this stage, as I do business consulting for a lot of people who are in these stretchy spots, is what I'll call them, do I sell my business? Do I take on investors? Do I grow instead? You know, like there's a lot of ways you could go. In these stretchy spots, I see people pushing beyond. what their limits are and really burning themselves out. You know, I don't like using that buzz phrase, burning themselves out, but it's real and it happens a ton. So, you know, how would I... Sorry, ask me the question one more time. Can we go back? Finding harmony in work and life, that's how I just how have you learned to navigate, I've used that word so much, like life harmony, life and work harmony. Yeah, you can't do it all and do it well. You have to cut something to make room for something else. And I think that's where my journey has just kind of been a fast forward button on that, is that there have been a lot of things that God has somehow allowed me to put my hands on alongside an amazing team of people and they grow. And if your trellis is not strong enough to hold that growth up, then something has to go and you got to do some pruning to make it even more fruitful. You know, I think about that with my tomatoes in my garden. There's a lot of times where the plant gets enormous and it looks very flourishing, right? There's a lot of leaves there, but until I start cutting things off, the nutrients can't get to the actual fruit to make it. So how do you balance it is you have to know the honest truth that you just can't do it all. do not like when I hear and I'm going to sound like I'm stepping on a podium for a half second, but I'm going to do it anyway. When I hear younger, and I don't mean as an age, but just people who are kind of green in business come out and say things like, you can do it all, you can have it all. I'm like, maybe in like little tiny pieces. But if you're talking about living a life that is connected motherhood and, you know, deeply rooted, meaningful work. and getting your laundry done and having time for your health. There are only so many hours in a day and so you have to choose. So it takes a ton of humility is what it takes. Like that for me, honestly, over the last two years has been the hardest thing because I think there's a lot of skills I could use. There's a lot I could do, but what is gonna matter at the end of my days? It's at this point with five years left with all. three of our children in the house. My oldest is 13. I've got five years potentially left with her in the house and I keep reminding myself of that fact. This is all I got with her. I'm never gonna regret taking this time instead of starting a new big thing, you know. yeah, yeah. I just want to soak that in because I do think there's a lot of messaging and I think that we are, I feel blessed that I started my business. I mean, I've been in business, doing business almost 20 years now in the finance world. And that was like the Blackberry days when Facebook was just coming out. mean, was like old school. And because I do, think there's this messaging now of like, you can be a stay at home mom and run a business and do that. And it's like, Yes, but not all at the same time. Like, you know, you have to choose. Like, we can't do it all. I love how you said that you can't do it all at all the same time. Well, Laura, this is a joy to spend time with you. Thank you for just reminding us all to keep what matters most top of mind. And that's not always easy. And I don't feel like people talk about that enough. Like when you're an ambitious person and a driven person and a a career oriented person, but you, the season of motherhood, you know, that's not easy. And I heard somebody say this morning, like, hard doesn't necessarily mean bad. And I just, loved that so much. And it's just stuck with me because it's like, wait, you might feel like you're choosing something hard, but you can always, a friend of mine shared a Martha Stewart interview with me. And I think she was 70 at the time of this interview. And she said, they were asking her like, Martha, when are going to do this or that? And she said, there's always more time for that. And I just love it so much because, like you said, the kiddos grow. But we can start another business tomorrow. So let's quick fire and send this off. OK. What is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew? I'm kind of an old lady. I'm not super embarrassed by it, a little bit when I have to explain it to someone so this qualifies is I like to go to bed at 7 I like to wake up at 5. I like to work out in my bathrobe many times and Yeah, I wear hot pink earplugs to bed. I just feel like I'm embracing my Old lady-ness, and I love it I love it. love it. Any regrets or wish you could do over moments? Okay, this one hits me hard to be honest and sorry it's not super rapid fire. But yeah, I think the entirety of my career, I've learned a lot and I see so much growth over those 20 years. And if I could go back and do them all like I did the last few years, I would love to do that. I would love to balance things like you said in a more meaningful way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And isn't it great though that now you can start and move forward? Yeah. so thankful for all that, that now I know and I will continue to know God willing as He grows me and changes me more and more. And I'll look back, you know, Lord willing in five years and say, Oh, I can't believe I, I thought all those things or I said all those things. Like, I'm so grateful for the wisdom you've given me now. So he's never done with us. yeah, yeah. Big win or pinch me moment. I think the partnership we had with Southern Living, huge pinch me moment. I remember sitting around the table with all those editors in the Southern Living offices in Birmingham and Emily and I just looking at each other like, how did we get here? This is so cool. And it was, it was July and they were getting ready for the Thanksgiving issue and there was Thanksgiving turkey in the test kitchen. And I just thought, oh, this is the coolest moment. it was awesome. I'm challenging myself in business right now, soak in those moments, soak it in. Best advice or just really good advice, and I don't feel like I need to preface this, but between you and I, that can be from the Lord. Mmm. the Bible, like whatever comes to mind for you. Best advice, really good advice that you have ever received. I think the best advice I received was through the life of my grandfather and he when you met him and seriously he if you would come to his door the first thing he would do is say hey it's great to meet you let me show you something and he would go and get a picture of his wife's lust and he would bring it to you and he was enamored with her and he loved his marriage he would bring her wild flowers in the morning which obviously makes me think of your podcast but I think I learned the biggest And best advice I learned and the best lesson I learned was through his dedication to relationship. And I pray for that same connection in my marriage. Yeah, I love it. Okay, last quick fire and then we'll send it off. What are you working on now or one resource you would like to share? Oh, I am trying to get my first post on Substack out. I am working on it. So I'm working on that. I am working on a small book. And I am also working, like I said, along faith driven entrepreneur on a new podcast for parents to talk about how in the world do you help your teens and preteens? start the process of discerning what their call is in life and to open their eyes to the possibilities of life within the kingdom. Like you know back in my early early elementary days if you wanted a job that had something to do with the Lord you would go into ministry. You would be a pastor or something and now there are endless options out there and ways to do it that create redemptive companies. So I'm really excited about that. I love it, I love it. Keep us posted on when the podcast is coming out, because we have a love to share this. Let's send it off with looking back now, and you can go to starting Southern Wedding, starting Cultivate, going back to fitness, wherever you want to take this, but what would you tell yourself looking back on day one of your journey as an entrepreneur? I would tell myself on day one, you are so loved. And that, that really speaks to how incredibly insecure and lost and broken I felt at that time. You know, for me starting a business, at least starting Southern weddings came out of a time of fear and a time of my husband and I at the time Ari and I just being two ships passing in the night and not having a solid foundation of faith and needing something to grasp onto. Obviously, I learned over many years that my work is not my worth and that changed at one point. But I would say you are so loved. Laura, I love it. I feel like there's so much that we didn't get to talk about, you know, your faith journey. like, I think that has so much to do with, you know, I feel restlessness too. Maybe we all do, like an energy. Yeah. can sound so, but an energy of like, what are we doing? Where are we going? Like, what is our purpose? And, and I feel like your, your walk and your faith journey had so much to do with, you know, your career and like, like you mentioned your relationship with Ari. And so we're probably just going to have to have you back, but I appreciate your time so much and your wisdom. And I think, um, I feel the same way watching you always continue to ask the hard questions, but the good questions. what matters most and how can I live that in this season because coming from a finance background, that's why I'm so passionate about what I do now. It's more, more influence, more money, more, more, more. And I just, that's not what's always going to fill up our hearts. So I just love being kindred spirits and that we finally got to spend some real time together. so thankful. I know feel like we just like tipped the iceberg and I want to turn the mic on you. So I'm gonna have to have you on our podcast and talk about things. Yeah, just so thankful for all that you do and yeah, all that the Lord has done in both of our lives. Thanks.