EXPERIENCE 103 | Becky Allsup, Designing a Team & Building an Integrated Enterprise

Becky Alsup is one of those sneaky, successful entrepreneurs we sometimes find almost hidden in the local community. She's the owner of Becky's Custom Interiors, which in turn holds Niche Design House and Rebecca Windsor and Associates Niche is primarily an upscale commercial and residential design center. And Rebecca Windsor and Associates provide national scope design, procurement, and installation services, especially for rapidly growing retail franchise operations. Becky is also a partner in a fast-growing drapery manufacturing business in Texas. My introduction to Becky came many years ago when she was one of the very first on-site clients for my mobile food business, bear's Backyard Grill. My mother-in-law referred me to her good friend Becky, and we catered a bunko night for a fairly large flock of ladies. It was a lot of fun. We reconnected recently on referral from one of my members, and I confess I had no idea as to the scale and scope of her many business interests. This business journey was a joy to uncover. Young interior designer sees opportunities everywhere and attracts a team of. Loyal and dedicated people to bring those opportunities to fruition and they stick around. Becky's special sauce is her strong sense of team and family, an intuitive sense for opportunity integration, and smart business. I am certain you'll enjoy meeting my new friend, inspiring woman in business, and one of our newest local Next Level members, Becky Alsup. Welcome back to the Local Experience Podcast. I'm honored today to be joined by Becky Alsup. And Becky is the founder and owner of Niche Design House, Rebecca Windsor and Associates and Drap House. And they're all owned under Becky's Custom Interiors. Becky's custom interiors are, at least in some parts. Mm-hmm. So, um, I think we might as well just start with what is, what do your different businesses do and for who? Well, it started off with Rebecca Windsor Associates was, uh, kind of the. segment of business that I started out in where I star, uh, had the opportunity when I lived in Minneapolis to make drapes for a large commercial project. Oh. At the time I had been a single interior designer in Minneapolis, and I thought, well, it can't be that hard. So I made a few phone calls and I figured out how to make commercial drapes, and I did the first job and then the second, uh, job that came money, no, I did it all myself. I installed it myself. I, by the time the drapes were nice as you needed them to be exactly they were green velvet, if that tells you anything. And so after that, I was offered to do a second job. And so I did that and then I went to the company and I said, Hey, I can do this 20% cheaper if you'll just go direct with me instead of making me go through the middle man that we had used. Mm-hmm. So I took on that and I did that for about mm, seven years, very successfully. I had some mentorship in that. Company that we worked with and one of the men there kind of just directed me on how to grow my company. So we went from making drapes in a tiny basement to making them in a workroom, which is a commercial, uh, commercial manufacturing, I guess, where you make, yeah, it looks like a sub drapes subcontract manufacturer. Mm-hmm. Uhhuh, And so then after about seven years, I went back to that same company cuz I'd watched their other vendors do things at install that failed. And I said, Hey, if you'll use me, I will take over your furniture, your accessories, your art, your, so you went from there drape. Supplier. Mm-hmm. to their organizer of these massive projects. Yes. Oh, wow. And my first one was in Vesta Hills, Alabama. And I show were up. Were you still in Minneapolis at this time? I was in Minneapolis at the time, and I showed up and I, uh, had everything pr no, actually I take that back. I wasn't in Minneapolis. I had moved here Okay. In 2008. And I showed up with everything. And I'll never forget, you know, I had for years made drapery for commercial projects and I showed up at this project and the drapes were too long. Everything else went perfect. All the new stuff went perfect. But the thing I'd done for seven to 10 years was not, and I remember just sitting there going, okay, what are we going to do? And so a few phone calls later, I had two women show up and they took my drapes and took'em and hemmed'em and had'em back up the next day. And I walked out of that job. Perfect. Uh, well, perfect as it can be in a commercial world and. my friend and I that worked for me at the time. We went on our merry way. So that was how it started. Well, it's interesting to me that, uh, like expanding that niche of just, I saw drapes and, and I mm-hmm. make them and just observing. You saw that opportunity to, you know, I can do a lot of this stuff if I wanted to, and hopefully better. Are you just a very organized person or you got a lot of vision? Like what was it that, uh, helped you to recognize that you could succeed in pulling off these complex projects? Well, I am organized and my friend that worked with me and still does work with me on these projects, we. Brainstorm really well together and we, when we go into these projects, everyone that I hire that works with me has to kind of adapt into my way of thinking, so to speak. Yeah. But luckily it's not that hard to do, but we all do. We kind of have the same collaboration approach. Yeah. We may not always like what the other person says, but we have enough respect for each other to do that. So with Rebecca Windsor, we are very open and honest about everything and we hold nothing back. This original person sounds almost like a partner type. She's amazing in some ways. I mean, she with you forever. She has, since oh eight. She is amazing. She, and actually my furniture buyer as well is equally amazing. And then I brought on a friend from Minneapolis to run our logistics side. And then, um, I have two warehouse guys who are totally like my sons. I love them and that's awesome. Then I have the niche side of things. Yeah, yeah. Talk to me about that. So after Rebecca Windsor had been established and I had moved in my company to Colorado, I looked around and there was no place to go buy anything. Mm-hmm. I mean, I thought I had moved to no man's land. in the booties. Um, Minneapolis, did you move here? Does your husband's work bring you or something? My husband works for Seagate Technology and Oh sure. So we moved to, and Fort Collins is where we decided to raise the boys. Yeah. So do you know the Brooks is Kathy and David? I don't know. David works at C I'm sure my husband does, but I don't, my rule of thumb has always been I have to live away from anyone that works for with him. I don't know why. That's just been the way it's been. Uh, so we moved here at oh eight. Um, I started, I had Rebecca Windsor. I transferred that, and then there was just nothing, um, to buy. So I thought, well, if I wanna do interior design, I'm gonna have to just create that, put my fingers on the mm-hmm. materials from time to time. And I already had the buying channels. Right, right, right. Because I was already purchasing things. So I started out, I, my husband and I went and we bought this tiny little space off of Green Ridge Road in Windsor. It's a little, uh, flex space. Mm-hmm. and I opened a little storefront there and it was ha, it was 2,500 square feet. So the first part of it was niche, and the back half was my warehouse because my warehouse still wasn't scaled as big as it is now. Right. And my friend, who I work with, Julie helped run that. And then we brought on another friend who has been, who is now my daughter-in-law's mother Um, and we just kind of organically grew Wow. That way. And then I ended up with three designers on staff and a full-time assistant for them. And then we've moved into Sentera and have a retail store. You're just kind of clumping these long-time, uh, cheerleaders. Mm-hmm. uh, with you for a long time. I mean, it's a mark of a, I think a really good leader. The posse. Yeah. I mean, and, and it's not that they, not only did they not fear. Doing bold new adventures with you in the earlys, but they've stuck with you for a long time too, and I think that's really great. I've run'em off. Yeah. And I'm so blessed to have them because, uh, not only are we friends, so when we travel, which we do a lot, right. It is super fun, and also we know each other, so, you know. Yeah. We know not to take things personally and we know how each one works. Yeah. You know? Well, you get to understand those gaps. Mm-hmm. and those strengths and appreciate mm-hmm. you know, both sometimes. Right. Uh, and then, uh, drap house. And we will explore all of these business journeys more as well, because it's never enough to do two. You have to add a third. So I have, uh, part of my business courses nationwide, and so I have different segments of the country. I have installers in each country, you know, segment, like I have New York installers, your favorite vendors and whatever you would so to speak. But, uh, drapery and shades, it does require a little bit of finesse and exactness because there's really not a lot of room for air in your side. Nobody was hanging your Drakes. Right. Sufficiently good. And so, well they did okay, but then when I had to, you know, when you're doing a huge project and you have 180 shades and you have, you know, your spend on these jobs, maybe a hundred thousand dollars, you've gotta make sure they're done right. And you don't really have the time or luxury on ground the day of to have it done. So you have to do a lot of background. You can always have a seamstress there really to hem your drapes. Right. And so having one person go in and install, just like when I do the upholstery pieces, it's better to have one person who is in charge who does that. Yeah. So the work is consistent. This is your job. And we also, at that time, were developing a brand with this fitness company to, you know, to grow them too. And so you had to be very specific. So the standards needed to be the same throughout mm-hmm. and consistent. Mm-hmm. So I, uh, met this installer from Dallas. His name's Aaron. He's a great guy. And, uh, how did you meet? I was introduced to him by one of our vendors. Okay. He sells our window shades to me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so Aaron and I hit it off. Uh, of course I'm from Texas. I was born in Amarillo. He is a Dallas dude, but he also lived in Oklahoma and I had lived in Oklahoma. So, uh, he's younger than me, but you know, we just hit it off. Yeah. And we were talking one day when we were, I think we were in Chicago, and he said, you know, um, I think we need to open a drapery workroom. And that was something that, you know, you do need to be somewhat vertically integrated. Yeah. You are able to save 20% about of your overall Right. Cost if you can own the company and have the funds to invest in it. And of course my son at the time was going to college in Dallas, so I said, well, why not? I'm there all the time anyway, I can right off my flights until you'll see my son. Exactly. So, uh, we did, we found a spot down on Cole Street, down in the design district. Yeah. And he is able, because he is the installer side of what we do, he. Can manage. He helps manage that. And then we did a little research and found that the three largest companies in Dallas that were workrooms were owned by people 75 or older And we have a little bit more life left in US than that. And not that that's old, right? Maybe means, but you know, we have a little bit more longevity in our work life. So we just, uh, took two people from two of those firms. We did, we interviewed and took two people from two of our favorite and largest producing firms and offered them a little bit more money. And they loved, they enjoyed it because they could start up a business and created the way they wanted it to work. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then we found, you know, the, we were able to find with one of our guys, uh, the manager of our workroom, he had already been a manager of a workroom, but he had some women who had been very faithful to him for like 15 years that would do side jobs for him. And so we hired them first kind of scale into it. Yeah. Yeah. And so we have five seamstresses now. We have a manager and assistant manager, and then Aaron and Lauren do the day-to-day, and I come in and drive'em crazy about it once a month. Do you sell these drapes to other people in Oh, yes. Install and stuff too. Is how much of your business is their business at this point? Uh, really not much. uh, Rebecca Winsor contributes maybe 10%. Wow. Uh, Dallas is a hopping place and Texans love their design. Pretty things. Yeah. But we have been able to do work in LA in Beverly Hills. We've done work, uh, in New York City. That's cool. We've done business. Uh, trying to reach, you know, nationwide it would be great, but, you know, our, we are limited in space currently, so we would have to really scale up to go to become like a Rose brand or another huge national workroom like that. But we are happy where we are. We've did great the first year. The first year, uh, exceeded all expectations. So we expect year two to be phenomenal. Oh, so this is a young one. It was pretty young. Yeah. Now it's been a two years in the making Covid we did. Oh, wow. And still have done pretty well. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm real proud of Aaron. He's done a great job. Yeah. Sounds like it. Mm-hmm. Um, and we'll talk more about that adventure. Mm-hmm. I think along the way. Um, One of the things we decided we should talk about early in this conversation is how you and I first met. Yes. Uh, would you like to share first? Yes. So I had a dear friend, her name was Suzanne, and she and I were sitting in her kitchen one day and she said, you know, I said I'm gonna have this party, this Christmas party, and I need an unusual. Uh, something unusual about it. And she said, well, my son-in-law happens to be running a food truck. And I had followed Kurt and Jill, you know, through the years with Suzanne, you know, of course, course. Talking to her at lunch and everything. Mostly she was complaining about me, but she's, that is not true. Just kidding. That is not true. She dearly loved, I loved her very much. And, uh, for people listening, Suzanne is no longer with us. She passed away about two years ago. And, uh, but before that, uh, you know, I would have lunch with her about once every three months. And of our, her favorite topic was always her children, but of course you were one of and so she mentioned you. And so I said, okay, well I'll trial cured out. I don't mind. And so Kurt and Jill brought their food truck to my Christmas party and we served our guest food outside What was that? What was that chicken dish that you asked? You had a special request. It was a fancy, kind of like a. I don't know if it was Moroccan. It. Oh it was, it was a Moroccan chicken something. And it was tacos, wasn't it? Yes. Because I'm sure being from Texas, it was a taco. Yes, we did tacos, but there was a special Moroccan chicken kind of flavor that I tried to do. Yes. And it had some kind of pineapple in, uh, some kind of a, a jerk chicken Yes. Type thing. I had found it when I was at market in High Point, North Carolina, and I had gone to a food truck there and told you, you had to figure out how to make it I was like, I came up with this really good menu. Mm-hmm. I, I loved it. It was a really fun engagement. It was so fun. Uh, I don't know, was there 20 people or something? Pretty? There were actually more than that. We had six tables. I think there were like 28 to 30 people. Cuz I didn't play bunko that night. Yeah. It was my neighborhood Bunko. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. I didn't real, I didn't remember that it was a Bunco party. Mm-hmm. for sure. Mm-hmm. So, uh, well thank you. I, I appreciated that early bit of business there, and, uh, and appreciate just being able to think about Suzanne a little bit. Uh, so what I think I would like to do, um, is to jump in the time machine and Okay. And go back to Amarillo. Is that What I remember hearing is that I was born in Borger, 50 miles north of Amarillo. Okay. All right. Toward, so even more in the boonies than Amarillo? It was, it was an old town. Okay. All right. Phillips Petroleum Company had us a huge refinery there. Okay. And my dad and my whole family worked for, uh, the oil company or they ran the pharmacy in town, or the dentist that was my company was in town basically. Mm-hmm. Was your dad an engineer? My dad's an engineer, believe it or not. Well, I know your husband's an engineer Uhhuh, so sometimes That was my mom's a teacher in trends Yep. And, uh, so we lived there until I was 10. When I turned 10, we moved to Stevan Norway because that was, Sea, north Sea oil fields. Okay. And my dad worked on shore, but with the North Sea oil production with those. Interesting. Oh, and tell me before that, um, how many of you was it, did you have more siblings too? Just one brother. Okay. Mm-hmm. me and brother. Younger. Older brother? Younger. Two years younger. Okay. Yep. And what was that like living in Norway? Yeah, it was wonderful. Uh, we moved there and it was great. My parents took us touring every chance we could. Oh, cool. And there were a lot, uh, you know, in Norway, things closed for a week during Easter at the time. So like even the grocery store, it would only open one day during Easter week, And you could only buy bread or milk. They wouldn't let you buy anything else. Wow. So you never stayed in town. You left. So we'd go to London, Amsterdam. Italy, Greece. We went to Greece once, you know, just wherever my parents thought would be fun. So we all loaded up and went. And what did that, was that like loading up on a train, loading up a car? It depended. Yeah. Uh, sometimes we would get on a ferry and like you could take a ferry from, uh, Norway to Copenhagen. Mm-hmm. to Denmark. And we would go do something there. And then sometimes, of course you would fly most of the time you flew because it's, you don't really can't drive any across unless you're on a ferry. Now was there like an American school there or something? Stefon. American school. Okay. Mm-hmm. and. is that like a little tiny school then, or are there Americans like, it's a big city and so there's 5,000 kids of Americans going in there? No, it was small. I, um, I'm trying to remember. So there were like three fifth grade classes. Okay. And each one of them probably had 10 kids. Okay. Yeah. So it was very much one-on-one. It was a very, um, I would, I had a great education there. Um, I found that, I mean, it's funny how you, I keep in touch with some of those people through Facebook and all, but everyone has done, you know, they've gone on, they've always, you've gone to, they've been success and been successful and puts different things to the notion that if you put a really good education into a kid, that helps. Well and. Probably also, most of their parents were petroleum engineers. they, well, they were all engineers, most of them. Yep. And they all came from pretty driven, right? Uh, families, yeah. Yeah. Uh, a lot of two-person families. Some, no one really was divorced. I mean, we were all, it was kind of interesting and that's an interesting dynamic. I like to follow. Sometimes it's like there's a two person family really yield more later on. There are benefits and cons and I, you know, everyone has their own situation, but it was just kind of unique. Yeah. Yeah. It was a unique utopia, so to speak. Did you learn Norwegian at all? Did you make friends with some of the local kids at stuff? They stuff played with them, yeah. But you know, your school bus picked you up on the corner and you went to the American school. So not as much of that integration. I mean, we sled with them in the winter and we played, but, and so you spoke simple but not. I never was fluent. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, and how many years then was that? Three and a half years. Okay. In Norway, we came back when I was a freshman in high school and we went to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is the headquarters of Phillips Petro Company. Oh wow. And did a tour of duty and impressed the right people out there. I don't know about that, but I don't know any of that. My dad never really talked about his job a lot, but we ended up in Oklahoma, which wasn't bad cuz it was pretty close to Texas. Yeah. Well, Probably better than the little teeny town in the middle of boonies. They had a McDonald's, which was a huge thing. I remember when we got a Subway and James thought it was amazing. It was amazing. So we had that, and again, Bartlesville was kind of a utopia too. It was 35,000 people. Everyone there worked for Phillips or two other companies. Hmm. And interesting. Everyone you know, went to the same church or there were like three main churches. You'd either be Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Baptist. I was Baptist. So everything's focused in on your church life a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Then that was in the eighties. And were you allowed to date a a Catholic boy if you were a Baptist girl? I don't know. I found me a Baptist boy, so I never had to go there. I didn't have to go fishing in that swamp. Sorry. Just kidding. I know, exactly. I remember that was like in my town. We were basically Catholics or Lutherans in North Dakota. Mm-hmm. and. Like they were, they were all friends. It was all good, all good. Mm-hmm. you'd hang out with whoever. But when it came time to for, for Dayton and Marion mm-hmm. then it was like, uh, you know, are you on the back row on the pew or are you, do you not go at all Right, right, exactly. It's one of those. So, um, tell me what kind of a, a young las shoe were you were, were you sassy already by the time you were 14 and returned from Norway here to Bartlesville? Yep. I have always been the type of child that if my parents said, don't do it, my big toe went over the line to see how far it could go. and I did it. Uh, one of my mom's favorite stories is I had gotten in really big trouble one night at home. I had, my mom had told me not to offer to type the football. Papers, and of course I did, and the typewriter broke halfway through the night and my mom told me again, don't do anything. I'll take it to work the next morning and put it in the typewriter and I can type the T's that broke. But of course me, I couldn't wait. I went in and hand wrote all the T's in, and so I'll just, it's the exact. Tea that everybody else, which was not. Yes. Uh, and so the next morning my mom was very upset with me and she said, if you get in trouble one more time, you were just, I've had it. Well, I got to school and who was, that was the day I got caught skipping class. And I got called into the principal's office. And I'll never forget sitting there begging Mr. I can't remember his name. His name was Ben. I can't remember his last name, how long He got two strikes. I said, please don't call my mom. And he goes, well, I'm sorry we have to So it was just attention, nothing big. But, um, yeah. So I was not, I was a good kid. Yeah. But I just pushed myself that way. Yeah. That's fair. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Were you athletic? Were you studious? I twirled. Twirled, yes. So, you know, you have to be in band and then you twirl with a baton. Yeah, with a little stringer on the, OR fire or whatever. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So I did that and I played the flute. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Fair. And how about were, were you strong in school? Yes. Straight A's. That was not allowed to not have anything other than that. And I'm imagining it's. Because you worked super duper hard on it. No, it's just kind of fun. Uh, I have always just been an auditory learner, so I don't really have to, you know, study hard. If I, if I sit through class and listen and then read my notes one more time, I'm good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, let's meet you kind of, yeah. Um, and then like what was in front of you from there? Well, after that I went to ou. Okay. And I, uh, which is where? In Norman, Oklahoma. Norman, yeah. I've been in Norman, Oklahoma before, actually Sooner born, sooner Bread. And when I die, I'm sooner dead. That's their song, And it's the big shoot. Uh, Sooner, like covered wagon that runs out on the field. You know, football's big in Right, in Norman. And so in Oklahoma there are two teams. There's osu, Oklahoma State, and University of Oklahoma. I went to University of Oklahoma, the arch rival of Texas, university of Texas. Mm-hmm. And of course my family is from Texas, so that was a huge deal. Oh wow. And my brother chose osu. So. Interesting. Yeah, I was actually, a few months ago, I was in a conversation with somebody about the. Like namesake and whatever. Mm-hmm. and it, you know the story I'm sure about who? The Oklahoma Sooners Oh yeah. Are, oh, I mean, it's like cheaters. Mm-hmm. basically they're, they ran across Oklahoma line cheaters. They snuck across the line before they were supposed to, to stake their homestead. To get the best. To get their best homestead. That was for a good reason. Yep. But still, I'm just not sure. That's a really great mascot. It's like, I know Anyway, whatever. It's, it's pretty funny. Do what we have to, to win. It is, and that's how it was then. I mean, you see those pictures of how. All of the people were lined up on the line and they shot the gun and ran to get their claim, you know? Right. And the people who had snuck out the day before, they Yeah. They were already chilling and they got to keep it Right. Which is still interesting. Right. Mm-hmm. well, hard to enforce who did and who didn't. Exactly. Exactly. There was no law to speak of at the time, so no law. Right. So what did you go to school for? Marketing. Okay. And why, like did you have notions of business? I could get done? Uh, did you have entrepreneurial instincts early on? Were you lemonade standing or things like that? Or Decca? I didn't really do that. Four H or debut time balls, like, no, none of that Texas. Um, I worked, uh, I worked in college just because I wanted to, uh mm-hmm. uh, my parents didn't require that. I'm sure they didn't mind, but I worked in a travel agency and I remember going to a. There was some lecture I had to attend and there was an entrepreneur there and he started talking. And I did sit there thinking, well that would be really fun one day to own my own company. But you know, I was, I wanted to get married, I wanted to have children. And so that was the primary focus of my college days. And you were looking for your RS degree? Yes. And I Did you find it? I didn't find it until I was out, but my husband, I met him when I was 16. Oh wow. And I met him after church one night at a pizza place and he waited on us and I said to my friends, I'm gonna marry him. And, but he was four years older than me. So no, 20 year old is gonna date a 16 year old for a couple of years. But believe it or not, the first football game, his season tickets were right behind mine cuz we were both a's, oh. And I guess they aligned those alphabetically somehow. And what was your maiden? Uh, Andris. Okay. Was my maiden name. And so af I had seen him on and off through the years, of course, in Bartlesville it's small town, right? Right. Um, but he asked me out after that first football game and so there you go. Mm-hmm. 32 years later and, uh, was it a Rapid romance or No? Uh, it took him, well, I mean, I finished college in three years. Yeah. Because I wanted to get done and he did not wanna get married. So I moved to Houston, Texas. I took a job with um Oh wow. Mc Foley's department store, which is now Macy's. And the buying office makes the heart go stronger. Sure enough. And uh, so he proposed in March. And like any good southern girl, you count six months. And I happen to get married on ou, Texas weekend, believe it or not, at seven o'clock when the game started. And who do you cheer for? Are you OU fans? Ou? Mm-hmm. Okay. Fair enough. Sorry for teasing the sooner name. That's okay. No, you can do that. I don't care. I don't care about ou so yeah, me either. I'm a bison nor put go. Yeah, that got whooped on on Sunday. But anyway, I guess I say that's nothing to brag about Well, you know, they still won like nine outta the last 12 championships, but that's true. Um, so. talk to me about that early career. You said you were, um, in the, I'm sorry, when you were Yeah, I worked in the buying office. Yeah. Um, I worked in curious. It's not really a marketing thing necessarily, or Well, some, I guess it is. Right. You, uh, have to buy things that people wanna buy. Correct. And you have to figure out how to promote that. Mm. And things. Mm-hmm. but the buying office was, you know, definitely a corporate world. It was downtown Houston. Mm-hmm. So, you know, coming from a small town, being in a big city of, you know, six, 6 million people, then probably change aside from Norway in your life to that point. Oh my gosh. I remember my dad, you know, had given me all the horror stories about the accidents that could happen in Houston. And I remember my first day, I just cried all the way from my apartment my job, because it was just, I was terrified, you know? Yeah. And so I went to work there. I worked there for, um, a year. And we got married and I moved back to Oklahoma. And so at that point I had to move into the retail store. So Foleys transferred me into the retail store and I did a lot of, of course then, you know, I had staff, I ran departments in that. Oh wow. In the store. He was a whipper snapper at this point. Oh no. And was your husband already an engineer? Yes. And what's his name again? David. David, thanks. Mm-hmm. he's a mechanical engineer, so he and I, uh, had settled into more Oklahoma, which is between Oklahoma City and Norman. It's just a little suburb. Yeah. And it, life was great, but I had decided then retail was not for me. I did not like working weekends cuz he was off. And so I went to work for State Farm Insurance. Mm. And I handled injury claims, specifically death claims that went to court. Oh, for like the corporate office kind of thing? Right. Well just like a claims office. Right, right, right. Back then they had individual claim offices, not like now where you just call a one 800 number. Right. Okay. Yeah, they had regional offices leaves where people went to the court cases and blah blah. So like I was in court a lot. Oh, wow. And so, uh, like if anyone had a death, uh, death, it would go to my unit and you would have to mediate through that. And it was a very difficult thing. Right. Uh, you had to mediate through. Telling people that you know, yes, they were at fault and while you're sorry that they passed, you know, there's not a legal way. Do you know the two, the two things insurance companies hate? Hmm. Accepting risk and paying claims? Well, that's probably true. And again, you know, my rebel streak on that was, um, I was always happy to pay and I always tried to be very fair. Yeah. Because I didn't believe you could be, the insurance company had a contractual obligation, so you always had to honor that contract and, uh, you paid the fair value. You didn't have to pay more, but you should always pay fair. Right. And to determine that there were lots of things that you were trained to do, but, uh, you know, like we would have a court case and let's say I never lost, uh, which I don't know how, just good attorneys, I guess, that we had on staff, but. After you lose sometime or you they, after they lose and you win, then you can go back in and still mediate that so they don't appeal. Right. You can get your, uh, you can get a dismissal with or without prejudice. Right. On that final release. Right. We can't pay the, the quarter million you're looking for, but we will always pay what I have originally offered you and sometimes even a little bit more depending on the facts of how the case went out. Right. Because I feel like that's the fair. You don't ever go back. If it was worth something, then just because you lose does not make you worth less then. And if you thought somebody was actually trying to screw you right then you fought like nails to keep that right. When it, just to be fair, I mean if I, and hopefully you never took anything to court. If you owed it, you owed it and if they were unreasonable, then yes, sometimes you have to go to court. But yeah. Yeah, I learned a lot through that. That was interesting. How. Like, that's quite a pivot, right? It was, uh, like how did that come about? Was there just somebody who knew somebody or you saw bunch of, I just saw job ads and like, I can do that and just applied for it. It pays a little more than what I'm making now. Mm-hmm. for these bo bozos and so, yeah. All right. And it was great. I did that for three years. We were married four years before we had kids, and uh, so I did that for three years. I loved it. And then I quit two weeks before I had my first child, and I didn't work again for eight years. And how was that like, were you just overjoyed, like you were at RS or were you like, I'm kind of bored and I miss dealing with all the real people? Do. Wasn't, wasn't bored, but I, I'm sure you weren't bored, but No, there's a difference between mitigating or, uh, not mitigating, but what's the word you used? Uh, mediating Yes. Media insurance conversations and going to court and having that intellectual strategy and different things. and then, you know, I'm trying to figure out why my baby won't sleep or why they like peas so much better. You know, it's just not as you're busy but you're not as intellectually stimulated. But I did, I really just poured my life into my two boys. Um, I enjoyed every minute of that. Okay, good. And I just kind of went to where they were and we just, we had lots of activities cuz I'm a very activity driven person. I coached their T-ball team when no dad would do it. I love it. Uh, that was really interesting yelling Jonah, stand up. You're gonna get hit in the outfield when one of the little boys would lay down in the Right. Outfield. But it was just fun. And I had good friends, we had a really great group of friends there. We all had kids at the same time. Yeah. So we played play dates a lot. And in the meantime, um, my design business kind of started taking off then because I was bored a little bit. So yeah. Where did the design business. Start, I just started being able to put things together and, um, people liked it and so then people would start asking me to do it. So, you know, I would say, okay, I'll do this. So that was the thing that you did. How long after you had the first kid, did you start doing your first kind of project? Probably three years. Yeah. Okay. My boys are three and a half years apart, so around that time. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. I had remodeled a house and David and I had taken that on and redone the kitchen and a few other rooms. Yeah. And then we just kind of grew from there. Wow. And that was kind of, to some extent really the, the bulk of your design experience mm-hmm. to that point. Mm-hmm. right. I mean, you had at least some visuals, trainings, and education from your marketing background and stuff. But the business degree I feel is super instrumental. And that's one thing with all of my interns that I hire from CSU and all is I write, I try to really make sure they understand business, uh, is just as important as a design degree, if not more so. Because if you can't run a company and understand. the effects of spending money and getting a return on your investment. Mm-hmm. and where to value your time. Uh, you can get really bogged down in the creativity part mm-hmm. but that doesn't produce money. Yeah. Very often I have to say, uh, just especially to early stage startups, it's pretty easy to add value to the world. Mm-hmm. like anybody can do that. If you work hard, it's not always that easy to extract it back out for yourself. Exactly. You know, you have to make, you're, you're a steward and you have to figure out what your value is. Mm-hmm. not overvalue, which I see a lot, but to know where your value lies Yeah. And what you can be good at. Right. So, I guess take me through, we already kind of mentioned those first couple clients, but take me into like first having, were, were you solopreneur for a while? Well, so in between all these, having kids and all, I moved to Minnesota. Oh yeah. My husband got transferred in, we got to Minneapolis two somewhere along the way. Yeah, right. And so in, when I moved, of course I had a new neighborhood, a new house. And so, you know, I had done my house, fin moved in and then of course, you know, all the moms come over for Friday afternoon club. Love your drapes. They do. Where do you get those? Well, guess what? So that's how that whole thing started. Well, plus even, even in Texas and Oklahoma and stuff, like people are fancier mm-hmm. than they are in Minnesota, Midwest And so you being even subtly fancy up there, probably caught a lot of a. And it was cuz I was from Texas. Whereas they all, that's why you and Suzanne jived so much because you guys were Midwestern types that uh, yes, we were, that were fancy And it was unusual back then, then, right, right. So yeah, we, that's what we did. I mean, uh, I just started doing different people's houses and I had built my business. It was just pretty small, but it, you know, broke even. Yeah. Gave us a little extra cash. Yeah. And it was great. Um, and then I had the call in, I guess it was in oh nine, it was when I got my first, no, I had moved to Minneapolis, I'm sorry, in 2003. I'm getting my years mixed up. I moved to Colorado in oh eight, so it was in oh four that I got my first call to go into this fitness company. Right on this spur The moment, are you allowed to mention this to this company? Yeah. It's Lifetime Fitness. Okay. Mm-hmm. And so they're like, Hey, we got a whole bunch of projects. Do you want'em or like, how did this I had to fight for'em. Okay. You know, improve. So the girl that was the purchasing for one and then get more mm-hmm. Okay. So it was a blind company that did not do drapes. They just sold like, you know, at the time it was, uh, wood blinds. Mm-hmm. everyone had wood blinds in the house. Yeah. Yeah. The dumbest thing ever invented. Right. But we all loved them and they still do serve a great purpose. We can go into that later. But, um, that's what they had been putting in and they didn't have anyone to produce drapes. And so I had to learn, I just called my favorite fabric vendor and I said, Hey, I've been asked to do this. Who do I go to? And he said, you need to go down to the design center in Minneapolis, which, you know, Minneapolis is of. 3 million. Yeah. You know, plus region. Right. And so they have a great design center. And actually Minneapolis is a real hub for interior design. You don't realize that, but a lot of HGTV shows Originate outta Minneapolis back then Trading Spaces. One of the regulars on that show was Genevieve and she was out of Minneapolis. There were just a lot of different names. Sorry for, and of course lacking the cred there earlier. Oh yeah, I know. But, but like away from Minneapolis. Mm-hmm. It's probably much less. Right. Much less. But you know, they have the Dun Witty Design School. Ive heard of that. Yep. So there is just a little hub. Oh, so it's a little bit like Fort Collins and CSU creating all these veterinarians. Exactly. Like you got the best veterinarian service in the, in the worst paid vet tech in town, Exactly. And it's true, you know, you have that wealth of knowledge in that you're dump all this knowledge out and they're trying to start businesses and doing this. Exactly. Yeah. Cool. Uh, when I went in, it was, so I went into the design center, you know, I was super paranoid because, you know, here I was a mom. I basically a mom. That's always been my first role, right. When, and they're like six and four by now or something like that. Uh, at that, that point, uh, yeah, they were four. Well, actually not even. Yeah, four and seven. Yeah. That's close. Yeah. Close enough. And so, you know, I did, I was really unsure of myself, but I went in and this lady named Connie took me under her wing and just within, and I'm a quick learner, but within a month I was raring to go and I wanted to learn how to do it all myself. And so, because I've always believed if I'm gonna ask anyone on my staff to do something, I'm going to have done it first, and I'm going to know how to do it so that I can make the criticism needed or whatever, you know, that would need to happen. Yeah. Or so. And you would not believe to this day how many installers that I'll get. They'll say, oh, you can't do that. And I'll go, um, yeah, you can. because I've done it myself. And you may have to put your ladder this way and hang off of it this way, but you can do it I, uh, so Alma, who you've interacted with mm-hmm. uh, through email. Um, she was hired as an intern and a week after she came on board, uh, actually before she came on board, but after she was hired, my other person gave notice, Rory and so mm-hmm. Alma was 18. Oh wow. First semester at Front Range Community College in marketing. Thought it was interesting and. I was like, well, I, I'm not gonna hire right away. And like, I don't really know how to do Rory's job. but she's got really good notes and I'm, I'm pretty confident you can figure it out. Mm-hmm. So we have a different perspective on that. Mm-hmm. I, uh, a lot of the digital stuff and stuff that local think tank requires for me to create podcasts. Mm-hmm. and stuff. Mm-hmm. I could learn it. I'm not dumb. Like we're, I'm here just by myself to push the record button. You do a good job, Yeah. At all. But, but for the most part, like, I just don't have any willingness to kind of dig into that space. Very good. Which is a vulnerability. It is. And it's hard and it's a strength, right? Like most things. Right. If you can delegate it and feel good, right? Yeah, I feel good. Yeah. I trust all a lot better than I trust me on any of that stuff. Well, and I do trust people to do things better than I do, but I do like to have that underlying knowledge so that Yeah. When we do have conversations, I can at least. Know where we're starting, where the boundary line is, right? Yeah. And it's not that I don't think that I do it great, it's just that I then can call someone on it. And also remember I work with tradespeople and mm-hmm. different people in different regions, and like, particularly in Boston, they don't really like to talk to a woman, uh, always really in certain trades. Well, there's extra chauvinism in Boston. There is. Well, not just, I'm not just calling Boston out. My son lives in Boston. I love Boston. But, uh, and your preps out there, you should treat your women ol or, but they do, you know, like, uh, they, there are certain predisposed interesting things. And so, especially being a woman in business sometimes, and I'm not a big woman's libber or anything like that, but I just have seen that. And so they think they know more than me or they can, and especially when you deal with union versus Yeah. So you wanted to be able to do it yourself and be like, I wanna be able to say, yes, I could do that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, talk to me about that. Like, outside of that dynamic of maybe a little bit of, uh, aversion to even working with you because of your womanness was. Other places like banks and lawyers and things like that. As you went along and you were, yeah, this is where, this is early two thousands. We're starting to get kind of right. Oh, even aware by now, hopefully. I went to a bank in oh eight when my business was just really starting to escalate and didn't do well and I had asked, uh, for a line of credit. Right now, I have built my company solely on my own. I have never had any investor, no capital, nothing. No capital. It's always just been my husband and I, and so I had gone to a bank cuz I finally had decided that in order to scale, you know, when you're buying for these clubs, you have to expend. You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars for to buy the furniture and everything that's gonna go in and you don't get paid. It's pretty much a guaranted until 30 days payment. But I gotta put it in first. It is a guaranteed payment, but it's not until, well, you hope it's a guaranteed payment, right? Yes, yes. Um, but it's not paid until 30 days to 45 days after install. Mm-hmm. Right? Or according to the, so yeah, you needed a lot of capital. I needed a little bit of, I needed a hundred thousand dollars. Wow. Is what I had decided I needed. And the first banker kind of looked down at me and then, um, I had a great banker here and shout out his name's Chris Burns. He's phenomenal. What's up Chris? Yep. I love Chris and, uh, he has been my banker for the last, let's see, we're 2023, so for at least 10 years, if not longer. Nice. But he just, uh, took me where I was at and he just kind of walked me through that and yeah. You know, it's help, a great, great relationship. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, I need a line of credit occasionally, but not very often. Of course, now I've amassed enough to be able to do a lot more, but yeah. So that's cool. Mm-hmm. that's cool. Mm-hmm. um, I remember that's probably the biggest evidence of kind of whatever male, chauvinism or war, whatever you wanna brand it. Mm-hmm. because I, I got into banking right outta college. Okay. And like three times during my career, uh, ladies from the bank that were either my peers or, or my subordinates. Mm-hmm. Kurt, you're so not a male chauvinist. Mm-hmm. like, what's up with that You know? And I was like, I don't know. I just, you know, I'm where I come from. Right. Women are equally in value to men and we share burdens and we're different. Mm-hmm. And we, you know, that's okay to be different and super. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So anyway, I digress. But it's always interesting to me the barriers. Uh, ladies perceive along that way. And so, and some of those are, well, I don't wanna get into all that cuz it's such a, there's some psychology there. Right? There is, and I've never had a victim mentality in my life. I was always taught that you just take what you're dealt. Yeah. And you figure it out. And you didn't have a whole lot of examples of women that Right. Started businesses and grew them and hired people. Right. And told bankers where to shove it if they didn't want to play. You have to give my husband credit for that because I was not necessarily raised to be a risk taker. Um, I had a great life growing up, nothing like that. But when I got married, um, my husband just would, I would have an idea and we would talk about it. He'd go, yeah, go, go do that. And sometimes I would think, oh, he doesn't care. You know about me cuz he doesn't care if I'm hanging off a ladder, you know, 10 feet up in the air or whatever. But it wasn't that at all. It's just that he knew I could do it. Yeah. He does help me if I need help. That's not the issue, but he knows I can. And just having that in your relationship, I mean, I give him full credit. I would not be successful today. Hmm. If I hadn't had him behind me pushing me and just encouraging me to try. I like that. And there's never any, like even when I have failed, there's never any condemnation on anything. He'll just go, okay, well let's figure that out. And we just talk it through. So it's a little bit like that. Uh, behind every successful man, it's in your case, it's behind a successful woman as a supportive husband. And all this time he's had his career too and done fine, but it just and great at his career. But, and I'm sure he lives vicariously through you a little bit. He loves that. Cause he's a working stooge, right? Yes. Like he's, well he does, he does supplier quality engineering and he's a very thoughtful, introspective person. But that works really well with what I do because. He is the figure it outer. Yeah. And then I'm the implementer. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I like to run ahead, but Yeah. Oh, for sure. But we work it out pretty well. I like it. Um, I want to, because we're getting close now, right? Because, uh, the Rebecca Windsor and Associates is kind of gathering some of its momentum and things we're, we're growing and now it's time for niche to come mm-hmm. on board and really explore that. Right. I wanna take a quick break before we do and uh, we'll be right back. Sounds great. So we're back when we left, we were getting close to the origins of niche, niche, niche design house. Um, but also talk to me a little bit about execution, like and building a team. To, to pull off these things because Yeah, it's a lot, right? Yeah. So you have to find people who can mesh with you. Hmm. And then also the client that I mainly work with, lifetime, it is a very fast paced and very demanding client. Yeah. So you have to be, so is this like half your business or something? Yeah, probably close to that. It still is. Mm-hmm. you're still doing work for Lifetime? Yeah. Oh yeah. Still am. Oh, okay. And, uh, last year, 13 in opening. Wow. So it was a lot. Yeah. And they've, you know, there's other different aspects of their business that I work in too. Do they have other people that. I work with for them, or you depend Design firm. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that they own and that is in-house with them. And then they send me the information. Then my, my team executes. I'll get that and get this and get that. I'll, yeah. That's so cool. And so it's really important to find people who can be flex. Uh, I. am a huge mantra. One of my statements I say all the time is mission first. People always. Mm-hmm. And I know it's stolen from someone, but I love that because it always means that we always are on task to no matter what our client ask. It is never too much of an ask or there is, because there's always a way to phrase it. Well, we can do that. This is the cost. Yeah. You know, and we offset it. Yep. But, you know, you think about it, if you're trying to open something and get a business open and running, sometimes the cost is, you know, I'm not gonna take the mm-hmm. to the cleaners. I'm gonna be ethical about it. But, uh, there is a cost to escalate and there is a cost to hold. Totally. And, um, they're willing to do that because, I mean, they're looking at the grand scale for, and you can't be pigeonholed into just thinking only your perspective. Right. You have to realize that their membership and their, you know, scaling fee for them to wait a month to get open. Right. It's not gonna work. You might think it's crazy to charge an extra 50 grand to get it done that much faster, but they're like, Well, but it'll cost us 200 grand. Not could have done that fast. Not. And so we always work in tandem and I've never charged 50,000 to, not but, um, there are some definitely cost to hold or accelerate. Well, it costs you money. Right. But my value comes in when I can pivot and turn to meet that demand. And so we, that is one thing I stress all the time, is that we're flexible no matter what. And I never, I always believe we come from a place of yes, we never come from a place of, no. Because number one, I'm not a negative person. And number two, no one wants to hear no, they wanna hear. Well, sometimes it is, let me think about it and come up with a solution or how, right. Or what else. Today I had a designer call me. She was on site in Scottsdale, Arizona and she didn't like where we were gonna hang a curtain rod. Okay? And I said, well, the drapes are. Uh, so let me brainstorm tonight and see what solutions I can offer you so that you don't see that curtain rod. There was only one place to hang it. She wanted it in a different place, but that wasn't possible. Hmm. So let's come up with a solution and we'll figure it out. You know, I mean, nothing is No. So she can rest assured that we're gonna take care of it and yes, it may cost 2000 more dollars, but you know, we'll figure it out. And so you always come from a place of Yes. I have always prided myself on that. So, and I'm teaching my staff that hopefully I have emulated that enough that they all know. And whenever we do have that, they are never, none of us are ever penalized for saying yes and figuring out something that is something you are encouraged to do, as long as you can figure it out. Which is kind of how niche then came about. Yeah. Right? Yeah, because, um, there. When I moved here, like I said, I thought I had moved to the boonies from Minneapolis. You know, we were all sophisticated in Minnesota. Right. And I moved to Colorado, the Wild West and you know, a smaller town and you know, I was used to going shopping at the Mall of America and being able to find, you know, pretty much anything I wanted. It was easy. Yeah. And it was a little bit more challenging here, right? So, uh, my, well probably not even just that, you could go to the Mall America and find what you wanted and then find the manufacturer of that thing and. A bunch of it. And that was the trick too, was, uh, as my business was scaling up, I was needing to find more custom things that could be longevity. Like for instance, uh, the time there was a copper table that this my client liked, well, it was can metal. And so anytime it was in a commercial building, so anytime anyone set a beverage on it, it would leave a ring on the can metal. Yeah. And it wouldn't work. So I had, I, that was one thing I tried to bring into was some value engineering in this business where I could, I needed to find a manufacturer of something, of a table or whatever it was that was cool like that that, but had that same aesthetic, but yet could hold up to a commercial use. Yep. So one day a sales rep visited, you know, as they do, they call on you. And I was just telling her, I d I can't buy that re you know, from you because it's not. Commercial grade or it's not gonna hold up. And she said, well, here is a guy in Denver. I'd like you to meet him. Hmm. And so again, another sales rep introduced me and I went down and met with this man, his name is Zia. And we came up with a way to customize and take things. To like, if the client has an idea, then we can customize it and make it for them. And so, uh, on volume in, in volume and we can stock it and guarantee Oh, that's cool. Brand consistency. Remember, you know, when you walk into one lifetime, it should look the same in, uh, Troy, Michigan as it looks like in Wall Street. Sure. Maybe not exactly the same building, but the aesthetic should be the similar fields so that you feel you're moving across, right? Yeah. Yeah. So part of that, the head, the VP of Design at the time, and I worked really hard to come up with ways that we could value engineer. Uh, things you would see like in a magazine to a specific commercial use that could hold up. Mm-hmm. Hmm. So, like I said, my first one was Stevia, Alabama in 2009, I believe. And that one, when I, that furniture still is in that club today. And it has not had much work done on it. I mean, it's held up, is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So you get, uh, you may spend a little bit more as a commercial client on the front end, but you have a longer lifespan and you'd depreciate things out over five years. Yeah, yeah. But you know that you're not gonna be replacing it and break, it's not gonna be breaking and I can guarantee the manufacturing of it and I can control that. So branching into that side of it. Now granted, I don't own the company that manufactures, but I work closely with Zia. Um, and, but that's how Drap House started, was to become more vertically integrated too. Yeah. Yeah. So that I have more control over what I am selling so that I can guarantee it and replace it as needed. Right. Well, and to some extent, what I think I'm picking up is that with, with Niche design House, if it was not, if you didn't have that in some ways, you'd be at risk of losing kind of that mm-hmm. leading edge of things. Right. Like opportunities. Right. And how much. Niche's stuff. Do you buy, like, do you buy your materials directly through, do you get a, a surcharge or is it more of like a showroom kind of thing? Well, it is a how separately do you run them at all? Well, right, and so they are two separate LLCs, right? Mm-hmm. that feed into an umbrella company, Becky's Custom Interiors, and then Drap House is a separate slide. It's a partnership with your man here, partner down there. Yeah. So, um, what we do with niche or Niche, if you're texting it's niche, but you know, you can say it either way. You want, I don't care. um, I, that is a showroom. So it is a storefront in Centara. Yep. People can walk in and they can choose to buy what I have there. Right. Uh, we also, in the back of the store, it's a 4,000 square foot space. So in the back I have the, my design firm is, uh, back in there and they have desks that they can work at. They, we all work all over. Right. But they have, so do you do also, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Oh yeah, like, just like luxury home designs and things like that, that's full skill, everything part of that. So this, right, so this, uh, Rebecca Windsor has, has kind of a knit a niche. It's the procurement niche in procurement and stuff like that. But then, Niche doesn't all, doesn't just have the showroom and stuff, but it also will design your whole place, right. To get you this stuff full service design. Our, put it in our logo is Des, defined by you, but designed by us. Mm-hmm. So we take, and that's why Niche came about, was because it was taking what someone saw as their vision and nicheing it into their lifestyle so that it fits them. Yeah. Uh, a lot of companies here in town and there's nothing wrong with what they're doing. I'm not saying that, but they have a look. Mm-hmm. and so like Studio McGee. Mm-hmm. for instance, at Target, you know that Shea is going to pick all white, it's gonna have gold accents, but not everyone can do that in their house. Right. That doesn't look good for everyone. In my perspective, uh, I am mission first. People always. So, uh, you always go directly to what your client wants. And so when you look at my portfolio on my website, it isn't as clean as some of these other firms that have, you know, the same look. Yeah. And that's a challenge my advertising firm and I work with and my marketing firm work with all the time. How do we represent ourselves because we are very niche oriented, but Rebecca Windsor was a niche business Yeah. Set up to service a large scale client and to do things that, and that's what I do like for a hotel. If they need Right. A certain piece of furniture, I can have that made and I can usually do it cheaper than we can buy it in a case. Good line. Mm-hmm. And then I can also guarantee it and I can also guarantee when I can get it in. Mm. That's been a huge thing since Covid, even the supply chain supply chains been rough. Right, right. And so, you know, I source. Uh, I have of course probably a 300 vendors that I can go buy Sure. From at any given time. But I try to economy scale my business so that I deal with mainly seven large vendors. Okay. Um, that, and then I have, they're, they're all large. You leave the little guys out on that part? Well, you know, they're, they're national firms, but, uh, I all, I put most of my money into buying so that I have pull. Right. Because it's not fun when, like for instance, this week I just had this call today. I had ordered rocking chairs for a Boston job, um, okay. And today they came back six weeks later and said, well, we're not gonna make that chair. And I said, yeah, we are gonna make that chair. What do you mean it's been six weeks? Right. But I have enough pool then that I can usually rain. Those type of rogue decisions in, because it's like, okay, well you're gonna jeopardize how much of your business for two rocking chairs that you've had the frames for, but you're just not willing to produce anymore and there's not a warranty issue with it anyway. And like I said, I try to be reasonable. They're like, The, the rocking chairs are a painted in our butt. We don't wanna make'em, basically, and I say unacceptable. You're like, whatever. I buy$250,000 worth of stuff from you or, yes. About 2 million or some bologna every year. And you're going to take care of that. Yeah. Right. Give my rocking chairs. Right. And so, you know, I mean, that's fair. That doesn't have to, you don't have to be terrible about itt do your pole. No, but the way there is a better word. Are you a Seinfeld fan? I love Seinfeld. So hand is really, it's, it's, you don't have to use the pull, you just use the hand, like talk to the hand or give my chairs Exactly. Exactly. And sometimes that's just how that works. And, but that's what I do for my clients is that behind the scenes that they may not ever realize that. Yeah. That we have gone and said, no, that's not acceptable. We have, and everyone does that. I mean, I. Special because I do that, but Sure. It's always putting the person and the mission first. And uh, even if it's inconvenient to me, you know, we're gonna do what it takes. Yeah. It may take me five more hours Yeah. To convince them to do that. But so tomorrow we'll see if my discussions that I had today will yield fruit with two rocking chairs that I need for a apartment complex in Boston. We'll see. So is it public that you're like, kind of merging. No, I mean, it's not anything hidden. Um, okay. And so I've, I'm trying now to, I'm working with my marketing gal who's extremely intelligent. She is to, uh, she's amazing. Jonna Eel, if anyone wants to know who she is, she's amazing. But she has really helped me pull my brands together so that I can, for the next stage of growth, I'm getting my women owned business certification, which allows me to bid different jobs. Um, and that just is, you've been a woman, woman-owned business the whole time. It just, it has solely owned a hundred percent Yes. but, uh, you to get it official for the government. Yeah. It does open up some more doors and then to also, uh, you know, grow. I mean, I, yeah. Would you like to have more lifetimes? Like, I'm thinking about, I'd like to have two or three more. Like my friends at Chiba Hut are mm-hmm. like building a lot of Chiba huts. Mm-hmm. And they're taking, like, every time they find somebody, they gotta like, have somebody build it out. Right at that time. Now they don't really need any design. They get their stuff figured out, so. Right. They get that, that's probably not you. Well, and when you brand that's, you know, like them, they go in and drapes, everything's the same. They don't have drapes or shades. Yeah. Right. And you know, a lot of these vendors now will go in and get national accounts, you know, like Chick-fil-A has their own Right, right. Company that does all their shading and uh, but again, they have that, those people then have regional installers. And so we do the same thing. Like if you need anything in Detroit, I have installer there. If you need someone thing in New York City, I have a guy there. Yeah. Um, and then when I don't, I can usually either send one of my local people here. Yeah. Or something. Or just, just sub with somebody that you've met before and work with. Exactly. Because that's part of the value that you provide is like, I've got a network that can get stuff done in a lot of different places. Exactly. Interesting. And it's same with movement of furniture throughout. So what's next for, are you gonna start another business next year or If I do, I will be shot by who? By all of my employees Probably. Um, or my associates, I don't like to call'em employees. Yeah, your team, whatever team. Yeah. Um, do you wanna shout out to some of the, the real impact players and, and Oh my, describe'em at all or anything I love or is that too high pressure? I love, uh, so my head designer is Sarah. Okay. And she is redheaded and the personality goes with it. Yeah. Yeah. She is extremely ingenious and. Problem solving and, uh, very creative. And it, under her, we have Taylor and Berta who are both equally strong designers. They're, they just don't have as many years of experience. Fair. Uh, but as that team goes, that's an, an incredible team. That's cool. My store is just, I open my store mainly just because I wanted something fun and to have a variety offered in Fort Collins. There are other great companies, yeah, don't get me wrong around here. Uh, and I've searched and been in all of them because I definitely go in and check out all of my competition. It has cause has improve a lot actually. It has. Right. Uh, over the last 10 years or 12 years or whatever it has, it's grown immense. In that field. And like I said, everyone that I've encountered is super nice and sweet. So, uh, and everyone has their own niche. Yeah. Or niche. Um, but my store, I try to focus, you know, like on the end user, I hate design. That is not useful. And so it doesn't do any good if it looks pretty, if it isn't livable and useful for you. Hundred percent. So that's always the balance. Uh, but niche was started for that because I wanted to have a storefront. So, and the design firm is my love. Right. Yeah. I love the design and probably commercial design is my true love because I love working in the commercial space. I love the fast pace of it. Yeah. I love the challenge, accountability, and the obligation that, and on that side I have Yaz, Julie, Karen, and then Patrick and Joey. And so that team, we've been together so long. You know, we are family. Yaz, Yaz, ya. What's her name? I like it. She's great. it sounds like a, a foreign national almost. Potentially. She's an American citizen. Well that's great. And we Is she from Middle East or Egypt? She's from Venezuela. Oh, Venezuela. Uhhuh, Oh, I've I've been a few Yamen, yes. Oh, but they're usually Middle Eastern. But that's also, that's m i n Venezuela has been. The nation that's been the most beat up by a terrible government over the last, oh, you're not joking. Hard years. Uh, and she still has family there, but, uh, yeah, God bless her. She's lived here for many years. Gone to college here. Her dad, when they came over, uh, he taught at in Indiana. And so she's been here since high school school's. So it's been amazing. She's really American all the way. Really? She is. Oh, totally. And we always tease, she and I always wear black. That's like our uniform, So, yes. And I laugh a lot about that, but we are all just family. We, we know each other, we know we all raised kids together. That's so cool. We all, we just treat each other like family. Is it all ladies? Do you hire men ever? I have two men. Okay. I have Joey and Patrick, but my store staff, it's not that I'm opposed to hiring men. Not very many men wanna work in a retail, you know, interior design setting. Yeah. and you already bragged about Aaron at the Drap house. Mm-hmm. Aaron's my business partner with Drap House and he's great and his staff, he has a contracting company that does installs like shade installs. Mm-hmm. you don't realize what all it takes to put a building together. It takes a lot. It takes a lot. And so you have to have people who are, you know, motorization experts and who can handle the low voltage wire that has to go into your rod to be able to function a drape and then, you know, interesting. It's just all the little interations, I guess everything's probably not everything, but a lot of things are movable now, right? Oh yeah. Uncontrollable. It's a smart home. Except as a business, everything interfaces into that. Yeah. If you want it. There are pros and cons in a commercial setting to doing that though. Now, in a residence, yes, motorization is your friend, but it does cost 20 to 30% more. Right. Some people would say 50% more depending on your markup. And you know, I operate on a very low markup. Uh, I'm a very lean run company. Yeah. Uh, there's just in commercial work, there's not as much give as there is in residential. Somebody will undercut you. Right, right. And it is a, it is a tooth and nail. Yeah. Uh, it's very difficult. So what has caused you and lifestyle life? Lifetime. Lifetime. Sorry. To stay together for so long, like. I don't know. Like, is it, is it, and it can be taken away in a heartbeat. I know, right? I'm not guaranteed that. Right. So, um, you know, your relationships assume you, you know, some of the senior leaders almost even within that company instead of Yeah. I mean, of course, as you do business and also that company's set up to where they do value their relationships with their vendors. Um, some of their vendors have been there longer than me. Wow. Um, and they, you know, once you have that in place and you get into the rhythm of your client's, uh, business Yeah. And you can help drive that. And then also being a problem solver, I mean, all these, a lot of these businesses don't have time to say, you know, they just say, here's the problem, what do we need to do? And they can sometimes internally solve, but not always at that level. Why do they need to, you know? So here's a question about that kind of, because it's such a major, how transparent is the like, relative profitability and stuff. Very, very. So you've gotta like, here's how much I'm spending. I get my 12% off the top. Mm-hmm. or whatever that is. Yep. And whatever. And here's how what I'm doing them, every invoice I submit has what my cost is. Yeah. And then my retail, what what do you retail to them? It's not, it's not like retail like you would see in this place, but in retail to them. Right. And so they see net versus retail and they can always go back in and calculate that. And you know, I'm like, you know, the purchasing agent calls me, I'm happy to, I'm transparent. There are not any secrets. That's scary though, right? Like it's both scary and a blessing cuz you know they're not gonna fire you cuz it came outta the blue that somebody could beat you by 40%. Right. Well, I mean I guess someone could try not with your quality though. Right? Right. And I would hope that that would be the case. Yeah. Um. You know, but you never know. I mean, it is business and everyone has a bottom line. Uh, I would suspect, you know, I mean, and I don't care. I mean, I'm happy to always explain. Yeah. There's not anything I've honest. I'm, let's find a path to Yes. Right. and let's figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. fair enough. Any business principles that you'd like to share? Either. Somebody in your space, in the design and, and efficiently putting pretty things together and stuff like that. Or even for, for women in business, right? But like, I'd love to hear a piece of advice from either of those fronts. Well, I do think you have to know what you're talking about. Excuse me. You know, I mean, you, you do need to be an expert in your field as far as being like a woman owned business or any kind of business owner. Really. Yeah. Man owned business too. Right? And you show your stupidity or your lack of if you can't answer things thoughtfully and. Respectfully. I mean, I would say, you know, people listening niche is not a perfect company, Rebecca Windsor. We are not perfect. But I will tell you that we own when we make a mistake and we are going to fix it, and we're not gonna fix it at your expense. I mean, there are sometimes, there are unavoidable circumstances. If you have a flaw and a carpet, uh, you cannot, there are certain things that I'm bound by with my manufacturer that I can offer or not, but I'm going to fix it. And you can guarantee that it'll be fixed correctly and you're gonna be, you know, you may have a little bit of a lag, but you're gonna like it when it's done. Um, also, you know, people, well, I guess I'm gonna digress a little bit, but when people don't understand that there is a process to things and they wanna jump ahead of that, that's when dissatisfaction can occur. Mm-hmm. So I guess I would always say you have to set realistic expectations at the front. So like when I meet with a client, I try to say, You know, we are, we are honest, we have integrity here. Yeah. And we're always gonna be able to answer a question you should be able to ask at any time. Hmm. Uh, I often will put in my letters of agreement that, you know, we have transparent billing and here's the Google Drive that you have access to and you can look at anything I'm spending and here we go. Wow. That's pretty wild. Because I am going to tell you what I'm gonna make. I am inti, I am a for-profit business. I do have a ride. If you want to make money to make money, I do have a cost of doing business. Yeah. Uh, and that's in there. But we're happy to share that. So right now we're working on a project up in Estes Park and it's a fairly large mil, multimillion dollar remodel. And, but with that, that's super easy. They can look at any time on the Google Drive and they can find exactly what that we're spending. And we already know what our cost is. So, you know, there are things that we can manage that way and things not, but it's a nice, transparent way to do things. Oh, I think that's beautiful. One thing I. I, I think I talked with, with Val Miles from Old Town Media. Mm-hmm. is, and the dynamic of a marketing agency and, and Johnna faces the same thing. Mm-hmm. like, the more she can charge you for the less she can do as long as they're getting results. Mm-hmm. uh, that more she makes mm-hmm. and kind of the same with construction. Right, right. Like, like the more. The less the, the, the, the less expense you can accrue to develop something that the customer is happy with. Right. The better for your bottom line. Right. But maybe not for your long-term relationships, but it's too opaque. You can't see it. You have to look at is if it, like for instance, if I can sell a client a table that's gonna last, you know, like most tables are not gonna last 10 years. Yeah. But they're gonna last, they're gonna internet right here. Right. And so, and that's okay. But it may not last more than. Three years. So if it is in my clients, and there is a break even point in that where we have to look and assess, like at some point you're gonna need to update a new model and how good model is the design, right? And sometimes it's design, right? It might be last physically or last even socially right? And so we have seen a jump in that, of course in the 20 years or so that I've done this, but you, that's a different scenario then that is a different category, right? But as far as durability and things like that, we have met that original objective. Part of your value proposition is I'm gonna get you the right stuff that will last the right amount of time for your right. If you wanna to last five years, we will get that to where you need to depreciate to zero. So that's fine. And then hopefully have a year or two after, right before you move into another CapEx venture. Because see, everyone has build out money, no problem. It's the replacement that becomes the difficult things. Where did you get your business knowledge from? Because I hear you using. Kind of fancy terms. It's obvious to me that like you might business, you're no MBA necessarily. No, but, but you know, your, your way around a balance sheet, a profit and loss statement. Like, well, you might ask my accountant that I do. I know how to read it and I get trained every month in a meeting. is it, is it from your CPA and your advisors and things that you pick it up mostly? Yeah. Um, I have been very blessed in my life to, uh, and not to get super religious with anyone, but I mean, I pray about things and you know, and I ask for wisdom and guidance so that I can figure out so I'm not stupid. Yeah. And then sometimes it's someone coming into my life and teaching me. Yeah. Sometimes it's me figuring it out. Sometimes it's the school of hard knocks. Yeah, you do. But you do have to know those things because if you don't, you, if you don't know where you are, you don't know where you are need to go or how to pivot and change. Yeah. I like that. So, um, it feels like, well, yeah, I asked one other question. Sure. Um, Where are you going next? Are you doing something new? Yeah, actually that's organic growth. You, I know you don't. I am trying to, to, no, no, for sure. I'm trying to, at this point, we're merging brands together. Um, you know, Becky's Custom Interiors was started because I had to have a corporation do business, it Ha And my accountant at the time, and I was going, I cannot come up with a name. You know? I don't know. And so we just generically labeled it. Yeah. And it probably needs to have a name changed, but in my, in the procurement world, it would be Rebecca Windsor. And so, uh, because most of those companies are named after a name, I didn't want to. Also, if it's too difficult, who can pronounce that? And so, and I love England and Windsor Castle is my favorite. So I came up with Rebecca Windsor because, is it Rebecca with a CK or a cc? Uh, cc. Mm-hmm. Okay. Just the way I spell my name, But I love Windsor Castle, so that's how I got the Windsor. And I just happened to live in Windsor. But that had nothing to do with it. It just occurred to me that you're Becky, because you were Rebecca. Yes, yes. Yeah. Slow there, but Yep, exactly. So, So after, I think I want to spend the next year focusing on growing that and then, uh, trying to attract probably one to two more large scale companies in. And I've been working on one and there's, uh, but nothing in business is a done deal. Yeah. Until the contract is signed. Yeah. And the deposit is paid and then it's maybe not even still a done deal sometimes these days, right. When the deposit is paid, you usually know it's a pretty good done deal, proceed fair, you know. Uh, but yes, it has to ha uh, the contract means really nothing in today's world, and you do have to really work at establishing it. And I've decided that maybe my, you know, Lifetime is a publicly traded company, but a small business, you know, another small family held company or something, or boutique hotels, something like that. Yeah. You know, it would be something where I'd be interested. It's on a big, now on the design side. Yeah. For a niche. Uh, our goal would always be to, of course, increase our market share in Fort Collins, et cetera. And, you know, I meet with Jonna. We, how big are you? Do you think? Like there's, well, I mean maybe four players in that space. There's probably the overall, or maybe six or eight, but a couple are small there. People who think they're players or people who really are And that's the other thing too, that is so hard in today's world, is to know with today's media, anyone can present Yeah, yeah. But what is the depth behind it? For sure. And so I've been lucky that I have enough. With my commercial work to for sure be able to do that. But I will tell you that there are a lot of companies here that do not. So, um, and I dunno how to really judge that. All I can do is ask my marketing gal to run me reports on my competition, which she does. I mean, at least probably once a week she gets an email from me. I wanna know, uh, net revenue and I wanna know da da da. And how did you learn? It's all done through analytics on the internet and Wow. I don't know how to do it, but she does. Okay. And you know, I just, so I kind of know where I sit. Yeah. I would say probably, um, I mean like my calendar right now for someone to come walk in our door, they will not see work start probably for three to four months because we're booked out. Yeah, yeah. Um, and we're busy enough for the staff that I have right now. We're scaled pretty fair. Yeah. Like you can't handle any more market share than you have right now. Right now. I would love it. I would love it if I was the number one place in Fort Collins and no one else could do business. I mean, yes, that is the competitive side of me, but that's not fair. And there's also, that's also very selfish to say because everyone has a place to, and a niche to put into society and so, yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm not a one stop fit all. Yeah. I, you know, I was, uh, my friend Mike that told me, Hey Barry, you should start a think tank. Mm-hmm. uh, way back when. And we played ping pong regularly. Uh, so at the beginning he had an auto repair shop. Okay. And he signed a 10% fixed rate loan to buy that building when he couldn't get financed and things like that. Anyway, long story short is like as he was growing his business, He had a$7,000 a month mortgage payment payment on a little startup mechanic shop. And meanwhile, Huska has had their building paid off for 40 years. right. Or whatever it's like, right. You know, it's really not a level playing field, but does HUS good do, uh, great work all the time? Or is he more consistent? Yeah, I mean, right, exactly. What is that value proposition that you can give? What is the places where you can actually make a difference? But because those established players have a lot of momentum's hard, they've got a lot of advantages that just help them. And that's true. Like, and then they get lazy it. Well, and they do. And that's just did, I don't ever wanna get to the point I'm complacent. Yeah. And a few weeks ago, you know, I had a client that complained that they were not treated the way they thought they were. And I mean, I take that very seriously, number one. because it is my company. But you know, I had to assess. So I went back and looked and, um, I went back and I, I said, I think I can pull phone call logs and see how many times I did contact this person, And I made my staff go back and pull every email, text, or phone call so I could determine if I really had fallen down and what is the right appropriate amount of contact. Right, right. And you can review at least, maybe not the phone calls, but you can see what was said in the emails and stuff. Right. Because some people you just, it's not very popular quote Bill Cosby anymore. But, uh, one of the things that he said back in the day, it was. the, I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is to try to make everybody happy. Right. And that is hard. Me and some people are just not makeable. Right. And I have had, that is very hard for me. I am a people pleaser. I like everyone to be happy. And that has been a huge challenge to learn that sometimes you cannot, right? And, but I try to say, okay, I cannot, you're like, I lost$45,000 in this job and you're still not happy. And the client is not always in today's world with HGTV and all, especially. When we can see, like, or if you watch that Studio McGee show, I can't remember what it's called. I have it, but I will Netflix or something. Uh, you know, they go in and they in an hour or 30 minutes show you from start to finish a project. But that is not reality and the planning that goes on and you know, like, uh, the project, I'm one of the ones I'm working on right now. We have a gr we have a great team, but there are just delays, right? I mean, sometimes you can't go up to Estes Park because there's snow and it's not safe. Or I can't get a box truck up there up to the, uh, cross from the Y M C A in Wycliffe. I can't get a box truck up there cuz there are no guardrails and it's a dirt road. I have to wait. And the client in Texas may not understand that but it's a reality. And so they only come up in the summertime, Becky. Yes. And it's the resetting of an expectation, right? Yeah. And so, uh, but even I sometimes am shocked at how long it is really taking. Right? I mean, but I have to also, you know, the. Old adage, construction calendars are made to be broken Right. So I hate that. Now in commercial world, it's not that way. You know, I set it and I can work it down to the hour. Right. Uh, and even when they delay on the last, like I will have a truck loaded ready to go and it'll say, oh, we got a delay, you know, 24 hours. Well then I have to spend a day rescheduling everyone. I can do that. But on the residential side, it is so much harder because it is a personal thing. Mm-hmm. and it's, uh, your house and it is a very heart, it is an emotional thing as well. It's not just commercial, that's just business, you know? Right. That's business. We can deal, but the heart side of it, I know hard. I said I wanted. But I hate it and I don't really like it. And can you take it back or, well, but sometimes I can't. Right. You know, I mean, I it's is, this is custom purple velvet. Right. And we talked about that and the next person that asked me for a custom crushed purple velvet. Yes. Might be three years from now. Right. And it probably never In fact, I did a hotel, which is kind of funny, uh, with purple fabric And that was a really funny thing. Trying, you have to mass produce that and to custom diet and when you need 500 yards of something, you have to find someone who can actually make it. Right. And so that was, you know, people don't understand that, uh Right. Which you spent business seven hours trying to find somebody that could actually make custom purple dye. Right. Whatever. And then want to, want to return it after. They don't, after they have approved it and still don't like it. And, uh, but they're spending a half million dollars with you. And so God, Yeah. I want you to eat these$40,000 purple blinds. Right. And that is the thing too, that the consumer doesn't understand that they are responsible. Pardon? In a large That's okay. Uh, they are responsible in a large part for the death of retail. Yeah. And while we all complain that, well, there's nothing to go shopping for anymore, it's really our fault. Oh, yeah. Because when you go into a small business and you buy something, uh, there's automatically a 3% fee associated with any kind of credit card charge, right? Yep. Three to 4%. Yeah. Three and a half dollars. And then when you return it, there is another three to 4%. So now we're up to eight. Let's just say eight for the heck of it, right? I'm sure it's 3.5 or something. Now, I don't know. Um, then we, we return it. And then it goes back into stock. And so then the business owner absorbs that, uh, piece of inventory back in. So instead of being a thoughtful con, I just think that as a consumer, we, having a small business has made me very aware of what we expect and how unreasonable we can be sometimes. I read that. I, I'm sorry to interrupt. No, but I remember, I'm remembering a story from years ago when, when Amazon was first really a thing and online shopping and stuff. Mm-hmm. And somebody told me that they, they went and bought something that they loved, tried it on. Mm-hmm. used the staging room, put it on, loved it, bought it, brought it home, and then found it for like$15 less on Amazon. And so they returned it in order to, from Amazon. Right. And I was like, you're an evil person. Right. And you don't even realize, they don't that you're being terrible. You, you totally screwed that person's business. Right. Probably give'em a negative margin on that item. Right. And you helped their competition. Exactly. And. The competition may not be ethical because you don't know, right? I mean, really who you're buying from at Amazon. Oh yeah. And I'm not knocking Amazon. Yeah, whatever. I mean, it's great to get toilet paper delivered in 15 minutes to your house. Sure. But. when as a small business and especially in a small community, uh, it is kind of my pet peeve. And of course I can't let it bother me cuz I own a company and that's part of doing business. I get it. But when people do not respect the back behind the scenes thing mm-hmm. and really small business is what builds America. Corporations don't care about their employees. I make sure everyone of my employees is paid above market value, that they are entitled to bonuses, that I share my profitability with them and I treat them as best as I can within the parameters that the Governor Pollis has bestowed on me, which is we can go into a whole nother political decision on that. By the way, do you have time to run over? We're about 20 minutes before five now. Sure. Okay. Yeah, we're just getting into our closing segments and I'm pretty sure we're not gonna make it in 20 minutes based on I can go on forever. So, um, anything else I guess I feel comfortable saying. great job building an amazing business and a culture of people. You have a lot to learn. You wanna be part of your Yeah. And having that heart. Mm-hmm. of, of still being open to learning. we've touched on faith. We just touched on politics. Mm-hmm. uh, and we talk about family every time as well. Yeah. Do you know where you'd wanna start there? Well, I've been married 32 years. Okay. Uh, to a guy I've loved since I was 16. I'm very lucky that way. And, uh, like I said, I credit him with almost all of my success because, I mean, I realized I've had number one fan, at least. Right. But he has really been the instrument in allowing the freedom. Not very many husbands would allow their wife to just decide they wanna try something and then just support'em no matter what. And that's what he's done in a podcast. Uh, got long time ago now, a year and a half ago, I said to somebody that I think the, the woman is the decider. Uh, Jill actually told her mom, like after our second date that she was gonna marry me. See? And uh, like that's kind of my theory and I think it's for the best. Really. Like yeah. Women that. think that they have to hope to be chosen by somebody. Yes. Like it, it's a, it's a downside. And you were mm-hmm. what was it about David that made you be like, I'm gonna marry that fella even though it took eight years or whatever to have happened? Well, I used to be super nervous and Okay. A worry word. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's anxious Texas turn anxious about everything. And, um, my husband probably has never worried a day in his life uh, he's very methodical and just like I thought that you had to unplug all the Christmas lights, you know, before you could leave the house. That's how I was raised. You would unplug the lights from the wall. You never left a light Christmas tree lit when you Right. And that's how Christmas tree store on fire. Well, and that probably was back then. Right now probably not as much of a risk l e d. No problem. And I just remember one day David didn't unplug the tree and we'd been married. Four years. And I just went nuts. I said, how could you not unplug that tree? And he said, Becky, how many hours have you had that tree plugged in? And I said, well, eight. He goes, did anything happen? And I said, well, no. And he goes, okay. So if we're gone for 30 minutes and nothing happens, it probably won't And that 30 minutes it probably would've happened eight hours ago. That, you know, just that kind of logic. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So as that, that was really great. And my boys benefited from that because had it been the way I was, I would've raised very nervous. Helicopter mom, like making sure they didn't, nothing bad happened. Right. But I read a book when I got pregnant called How to Parent With Love and Logic by, uh, foster Kline outta Colorado Springs. I think a guy named Jim Fey. But anyway, that book transformed my life cuz it fit in with David. And so the two of us parenting, we have two boys, 28. And because you're easy to love and he's easy to logic. Exactly, yes. And it was, it just made sense and it became fun. Like we never in our family, our kids growing up, I mean, we had very little discord because it, we just made it, it was fun. Now we had rules Sure. And we had punishments at times, but I never ever brought my children. Yeah, my, I never grounded'em, I never kept them home from something. It was, uh, the punishment fit the crime. And so it might be like, well, if you did that, then you're going to be within my eyesight for the next, you know, two days. So you can't go further than over there So have fun. But, you know, it was fun things. It was, and it was never condemnation. It was just, this is what it is, this is how we're gonna go with it. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, um, my oldest son, uh, is married. They live in Minneapolis, and uh, he's an engineer. She's an interior designer. Oh, awesome. She works for a residential firm in Minneapolis and uh, great. Great kids. Um, super amazing. I, you may know or may not that we always ask for a one word description of your children. Did you come up with something? So my daughter-in-law would be creative. Okay. My oldest son would be, uh, he is definitely a people person and networker. Yeah. Yeah. He's, and my youngest son is in Boston. He's getting his PhD at m i t and he would be what I would call my introspective child. Well, he like not, they don't just give PhDs from MIT away. Yeah. And I love, by the way, I have to share, I love that you, uh, Your daughter-in-law was part of your family. Yes. You know? Yes, of course she is. Yeah. I think that's great. And she got married, uh, we told her the day she got married, she was equal to, she's our child and we treat her no different. And whenever, and my, when my youngest son gets married, there'll be no difference there. And I've always learned that you don't divide your love with a family, you multiply it. Yeah. And, uh, that's, that's what love really is. So I'm remembering back to my early relationship with Jill right now, and, and thinking about her mom. Mm-hmm. and, and her saying, you know, Uh, honey, there's gonna be a time when you and Kurt are fighting and, and when that time comes, uh, the place to run to is to your husband mm-hmm. to work it out. Mm-hmm. Exactly. You're not welcome back here for that. And it's true. And that's how I have done with my children. And when Sam, you know, or Taylor have their issues, is they do, it's always, I take the devil's advocate role that they're going to, I'm gonna pull for that marriage. I'm not gonna pull for my child first. I'm not sides here. I'm, I'm not. Because you know what? I think that's so cool. Uh, we pull for the unit and that's how we do. And yeah. That's how my whole, that's how Dave and I have done our whole family, is it's, we pull for the unit. And so we don't, we don't fight against each other. Now we have disagreements. We're not a flawless utopia family by any means. I mean, we've had issues and worked through things Sure. But we work as a team to solve something, not to go against. Um, your son at m i t again? Mm-hmm. I forget his name, Ben. and introspective was your word for him? Yeah, he's, he's thoughtful and he is a deep thinker. He, you know, he's really concerned about the inner, behind the facade, like what makes people tick and all. Interesting. Yeah. And what do you think he'll do as his next step? Well, he's studying tuberculosis. Oh, wow. And uh, and things, that's the thing that's like the biggest easy button. If we spent. one 15th of what we spent on the Covid fight on tuber license. We to improve the world by a hell of a lot more. We would. And no one understands that. It's still a very prevalent, it is, uh, yeah. The number one killer of people, I believe that is virus related besides cancer, right? Yeah. So I mean, it's. Super high and we don't deal with it in the US as much, but you know, of course in South America and Asia and, and India is just extremely Yeah. Prevalent. And so when you tell people that's what he does, they go, oh, well that's not a big deal. But it really is. Isn't that what, why Herb died from, or something Yeah, exactly. That's old news. So, you know, I get lots of, uh, of course he works in the infectious disease building at m i t and so he has lots of other cohorts in different areas. So Covid was an interesting thing to talk to him about. I'm sure. You know, like I would send him something, he'd go, well, let's look at the source. And, you know, he'd figure it out. And it's kind of sad when your kids are smarter than you, but both of my boys are smarter than me. happens. Mm-hmm. happens. Yeah. So before we leave the family segment, you had a shine on, on David obviously, but. What was it, what was his perception of you, uh, as that 16 year old and was there something that you worked him on or like, that is so funny. Um, well he actu it's funny cuz you know, we lived in a small town. Um, I would hope that he liked me. Uh, definitely he did in college, but you know, he, it was an on again, off again relationship. Right. Um, he broke up with me my freshman year during finals week. Oh wow. Yeah. I thought my mother was gonna kill him. Wasn That was very traumatic. And so, and then, you know, it ended up working out. God had a plan and we all got married and it's been good so far. It hasn't been easy, you know, uh, 32 years. You have a lot of ups and downs, but, and I wish I would've appreciated. Him probably more in the early years than I did, uh, just because of my nervousness. And you know, you tend to think that they're doing it wrong because when you are a worrywart, you want to control. And as I've learned that worry is very much inco is, is a, um, pride thing. Yeah. It's putting, thinking that you can control an outcome when you really can't. Yeah. And you know, like that's like saying you can prevent someone's death from being there. You cannot do it. It's a faith thing too. Right? It is. And wondering that it's not about you. One of my guests said 365 times either fear or not, or worry not. That's exactly right. It has said mm-hmm and uh, yeah. It takes a while for some of us to learn that I'm. Scolded of being kind of a whimsical guy. Like I just, okay, I'm a bird, don't worry kind of guy. Yes. And you know, that hasn't always benefited me either. And so, but Matthew tells us that even the birds of the field don't worry right about where their food comes from. And that is the perspective where to take, I think, in life, is that I've always felt like, you know, you're directed through circumstance right through your life. And if you worry about what's behind the door, you don't ever go through it. So you have to have the freedom to walk through and then also understand that. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you have to back out or whatever, but yeah. Going through the door is not the mistake. The mistake is not going through the door. Yeah. Yeah. Because then you don't know what the possibility is. Right. my dad used to say, son, I, I know you don't always know the right answer about what's right to do next, but do something right. And if you do it wrong, you can undo it. Right. And do something else. Nothing cannot be undone. And that's something too, if my job is that in my voice business in life, yeah. I can always help you undo it, but I can't always, if I don't know about it, I can't. Yeah. You know, help. So, yeah. Yeah. Just trying to have that attitude's faithful too. Like bring it to the light. Right. Like, right. Uh, let's, let's jump there yet, we'll finish up his politics. Uh, okay. Baptist girl stayed that Southern Baptist Way. Baptist. Baptist for quite a while. Pretty much. We go to Timberline Church here. Okay. Uh, so, and that is not a Baptist church? Yeah, it's a assembly of God, but it's non-denominational pretty much. Yep. Um, and what was your husband's background? Same Southern Baptist. Okay. Yep. Uh, you know, we, and there is a lot of legalism sometimes in that. Yeah. Especially in the south in the baptism Right. Realm especially, and especially as we have moved, I have probably become more liberal on some things and Okay. Uh, not on others. All right. But I think part of that is also just understanding human condition and also I don't believe that God, Is just, uh, all about judgment either, you know, I mean, I believe that, and I also believe that God allows us to work in our life and we just have to learn to depend that he is directing, but that we don't and not worry about that if, when it's not about you. Yeah, it's a lot easier. I mean, let God be the judge. Exactly. I'm pretty sure he has some pretty direct scripture about, you know, judge not, you know, and all that's be the judge. Yes. Yeah. And also not, well, even just the last houses and stuff like that. Yeah. Like it's all obvious that he knows that we suffer from. Weakness as humans, and we are, and we're flawed. And the beauty of that is when you can admit you're flawed and still know that you have a place. Yeah. Yeah. I think that when you, um, I lost my train of thought there, but I'm sorry. I think No, that's not your fault. My brain just goes sometimes, but I, I do think that when we approach people from the way Jesus did at the woman at the, well, there's not condemnation. There's knowledge about maybe a past, but it's just taking and also understanding everyone has a backstory, right? That day at the dry cleaner, you know, when I wanted to get mad or whatever, maybe that lady had had a bad day. So I tried to just always emulate the way I, I just try to always exhibit a happy love. Facade instead of getting angry with people, trying to see that there is another side to it. I don't know. Uh, maybe that's not right, but that's just kind of the way I prefer to live my life with no regrets that way. Did you ever have a faith season when you were like, I guess God doesn't really love me or doesn't really exist or anything, or you didn't really have that? Uh, I've been a Christian from a very young age, Uhhuh uh, seven and Wow. When I decided to allow Christ to control my life. That's Baptist Stone baptize at birth, they baptized when you're ready, right? Correct. You have to make an individual decision. Yeah. Um, I, yeah. You know, it's funny, I, when, so you never, so yes, you do go through that and probably, uh, in my college years I doubted maybe like I didn't have that miraculous change. Right. Um, I just kind of grew. In it. Yeah. And so, but that's not all bad. Um, I think everyone has a different story. I just happened to have, uh, it was just a way of life for me. And I, you know, my parents, we were in church all the time. I mean, that was a, my spiritual heritage is very deep and rich. Yeah. Yeah. I have my grandmother's bible, she passed away, um, quite a few years ago. But in, there are just prayers that she prayed and I don't think people appreciate enough. The spiritual heritages are given and church of course now is so different and we see that it's really faltering. We get the experience of production in many cases. Right. And a lot of people now just wanna church hop because they wanna go where they feel good. And that's not really necessarily, in my opinion, you don't call me outta my stuff. I'm outta here. Yes. Right? Yes, exactly. No one wants to hear that they're wrong or that there could be a different way. Right. And it's not a condemnation way, it's just a way to make you strive to be better. Yeah. But that's what people don't, can't handle now that it's not about me. Right. They don't wanna submit to authority. No one wants to allow there to be an authority over them. I've talked about that, uh, before. How, um, the, the word obedience I struggle with mm-hmm. quite a bit, but surrender is easier. Right. But it's really the same, the same difference. Yeah. But surrender, it's obvious that. it's a higher power that you better surrender to. Right. Obedience. Cuz we have so much call for obedience in today's age. Right. We'll get into that in the next section. Yeah. Uh, while we're still in the, the faith segment though, I wonder like, how is, is it through BSF that you got to know Suzanne? Or how is it that you guys got to be friends? I did. So I had started BSF in Minnesota. Okay. And then when I moved here, I didn't go for a while. And then finally I decided, and this is Bible study, fellowship. Fellowship for those that don't know. Right. And Fort Collins actually has a very vibrant one of those. And so I went in and, uh, I met Suzanne the first day. I joined and I was a leader because I had, uh, already been one. And so they needed one. So I became one and Suzanne and I just hit it off and she was very, very dear to me for many, many years. Doesn't surprise me at all. I don't you, I'm sure you don't know it, but BSF is actually one of the, the four kind of contributing elements of Loco ThinkTech. Oh really? Uh, because in my. Second year of marriage, or maybe third year of marriage in my third, roughly third year of Christianity. I, I mm-hmm. kind of humored Jill by going to church with her the first time. Although I was curious for a while before that mm-hmm. um, but they asked me to become a discussion leader for bsf. Wow. And I was like, I, you know, I don't really know anything about the Bible, Jack you know, and, and they said, well, you don't have to. you just, you have a gift of leading people in conversation and drawing out quiet people and, and you'll learn alongside the mm-hmm. the men. Mm-hmm. you don't need to know it ahead of time, really. Mm-hmm. And so that's the role that we have for our facilitators. You don't need to have the answers to Right. To provide the structure and the right, you know, some level of wisdom to this conversation. Yeah. And the thing about B S F that I encourage people in so much is you come to a place where it's a level playing field. Yeah. You don't talk about your denomination or your background. Yeah. Your dogma. You just come in and you just read the Bible and it's just a really cool experience to see that. people agree uh, when, uh, there is just a single standard you can, and you can interpret it different ways, but the underlying Yeah. What theology, what does the Bible say? Right? And it really is. But you know, Amos, in the book of Amos. Scott drops his plum line down and he asks Amos, what do you see? And you know, we all want to be the holder of that plum line and adjust it how we would like, but there really is only one true plum line. And unfortunately, I mean, and I know people don't agree all the time, and that's fine. But for me, there is only one truth. And if I can just try to follow that, then everything else falls into place. You have honesty, you have integrity. You don't have to worry about lying. Yeah. We all struggle with things and we, but uh, that aimless plum line every time, you know, uh, I look at that and it just comes back to me. That is who's holding that? Is it me holding that and trying to tilt it? Yeah. Yeah. But you know, in design, everything has to be level or to the eye at least. Right, right. So it's a, it was just a real true thing that has kind of always hit me. I love that. Mm-hmm. I love that. Mm-hmm. um, Everybody wants to talk about politics. How would, how would you like to enter into that? Uh, I'm a registered. Independent. Okay, good. Um, and I did that, I voted for Kanye in the last election. Uh, and I did it after Trump, uh Oh, really? Because I was a Republican registered. Okay. Um, and it's not that I personally like Donald Trump. Um, okay. I don't have, I have a problem with his ego for sure. Uh, but, you know, I also love history and studying that. And if you look at our past presidents, every one of them is charismatic in some way. And some of them can use the charisma for good and some, I mean, look at Lyndon Johnson, right. That man spoke in four letter words, you know, and that's what a, uh, what Southern Baptist texting would say. Right? Right. But you know, I mean, he cussed all the time. He had his committee meetings in the bathroom. Right. And he was not what we would call a Koth person. Right. But he was a politician. And I think we also have to understand that power corrupts well. Some people play with power and some people play with. servanthood. Right, exactly. And so, uh, there is a difference there. And so, you know, um, while I don't approve of either party at this point and what they do, uh, I think that we have, but you can also see the underpinnings of, uh, what our Constitution was founded on. And I was just in Washington DC a few weeks ago. Okay. And I was at the Jefferson Memorial, and I had never seen those words on the memorial that say you. Uh, we are, as a society cha, we change and we have to be adaptable to change mm-hmm. but yet we still have to have the, under the, the foundation of our constitution. And, um, I think that's what he was saying and I need to go back and reread that to really understand what he was trying to really say. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because, uh, Jefferson definitely, you know, being, he did help author all the, a lot of things for us, but I thought it was interesting that he allowed, and he's, it's hard in, in the marble that change was coming and that it would, yeah. Yeah. And you know, we're, I feel like we're in a civil war socially right now. Oh yeah. In politics, definitely. Oh yeah. We aren't shooting, well, we are shooting people, but not. you know, not with, we're not lined up on sides either right now. Okay. But we are, and we're murdering our fellow man, and we're taking away the humanity Yeah. Of who we really are. And it's sad over ideology and politics. That And religion. And religion that we've got some new religions sprouting up. Exactly. When the religion of self and indignation in indignation mm-hmm. whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you. Uh, that is the religion. The religion of me. Yeah. And it's not right. We have forgotten that our fellow man is important and we are called to love them. Yeah. I mean, and to even that simple phrase, others first. Self second. Yes. Or whatever. Or whatever, you know? Yeah. Well, and love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. And when you can't put your neighbor into yourself, you are very lost at that point. And I think we've gotten to that a lot, and I see it, you know, every day. And so just trying to share optimism and happiness. Yeah. It's not something you spend a lot of time thinking about. I imagine. Imagine. But you just, you know, smile at the lady that gives you your Starbucks, you know, and say thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, thank you. In a sincere, even if she's clearly right, doesn't have the same values as all, why did you get that tattoo? That's interesting. Tell me, do you know that? Just asking questions like that, people will talk to you. Yeah. You don't even have to say a word. I mean, I can just ask a simple question and then I can hear all kinds of stories and then, see if, where they're coming from. And then, you know, empathy comes from that too. So, so I, I would call you kind of a conservative, independent from a politics perspective. Don't trust none of'em. The Democrats and the Republicans are two. Same kind of broken bird. We're gonna hope and you have to, like, for instance, I don't care for Nancy Pelosi personally, right. Uh, but I can appreciate how brilliant she is. She's a killer. Yeah. And as far as people that are in the, uh, look who has been able to hold on power, she's a very well dressed, she, um, But she does, and she's been able to pass bills without even, even anyone reading it. Okay, tell me about that. That's pretty incredible, right? The, uh, Babylon be, uh, the Babylon be had a headline today that mm-hmm. uh, showed a, uh, construction project at the Capitol, right. Uh, Capitol Roof raised to accommodate Nancy Pelosi's eyebrows, Well, and you look at, like in DC now, they have all of these fences. We were talking about this last night at dinner with some friends and um, I got really mad. I was in DC and Joe Biden's granddaughter was getting married that day. Oh, Uhhuh So of course you couldn't get within, uh, two block radius of the White House and they were all in their sniper vest. They used to not be, but now they all had their vest on and understandable. And they were walking on the roof of the White House. And um, I was just walking around cuz I love walking through that, that part of DC I just think it's, uh, it's super cool. Incredible. And it's just where we are found, haven't been there since high school, but, but it, you need to go, you need to take Jill and go. Um, Walking through there in all these fences, but the fences are there to remind people that the Republicans are bad and that they cause that insurrection and that we are all in danger. Right. And it's still left up all over that district. Oh yes. Around the White House. You can't even walk through the Smithsonian Mall hardly. Right. It's hard to get to the Washington Monument. And I started, it made me angry. It's like, you know, I'm a taxpayer. I should be able to walk on this land. It's all owned by America. It's all of ours. But, um, you know, that was a great political ploy we've made. Yeah. And creating fear, because fear and worry go hand in hand. Yeah. Yeah. And fear is about me. Same thing. Mostly. Yes. And it's all about control. And so when you look at that to instigate fear, once you have convinced people that they need something, you are very easy to create other things. So yeah, you gotta convince'em that they can't do it on their own and worry. How, uh, how has this like Covid Nation been for your various business interests? No. Hiring politics around that, right? like we got multi-generational firms and Oh yeah. Multi, like I don't see you as somebody that cares if somebody's a democratic or reporter, don't care of vaxxer or anti-vaxxer when you hire. I would hire anyone. It doesn't matter to me. And I honestly, that is the truth. I care more about the character you have. I could care less about your background. I don't care if you've been in prison. I don't care if you have done drugs, I don't care. I care about who you are today and being honest with me. Uh, again, because I have to be able to have an acceptable risk, obviously. Right, but Well, cause you gotta execute, right? We were talking before the show started even. Like how much better it is for your firm if you can leave there and Right. Dust your hands off and be gone. Exactly. Instead of like running back for a punch list. But my best employees are the ones that have struggled and have overcome mm-hmm. So I'm happy for anything, any kind of challenge like that. Yeah. It doesn't matter to me at all. Right. Uh, I care about the honesty right here in front of me. Yeah. And the relationship that we can develop. So, uh, but through Covid it was hard. We stayed open. Uh, we did have a, you were essential, I guess. Well, were they still opening stores for any time? I might get in trouble. You were in Windsor ish? I was in Loveland. Uh oh. Love'em was fine. You guys were a great stupid mandate. I just kept my doors open. I was did not going to bow down to that and I'm probably gonna get in trouble now. Well, so the I'd ask you about Kathy and David Burkes. Kathy runs the sweetheart winery. Uhhuh. Yes. And David works at Seagate. Yeah. Yet. And, uh, It was fall of 21 when I came to see her. And she won't mind if I share this story. Mm-hmm. I'm sure. So we, I, I go there and they had just put the mask mandate back on mm-hmm. and there was no sign in her door. And so I walked in without my mask on and I was like, so I noticed there wasn't a sign any door. She was like, like there's any difference of like, you walking from the door to here and sitting down at this table and then taking your mask off. Right. Like, I know there's no difference in risk for that. I don't know what the risk is. I've been a rule follower all my life. She was a Deloitte and too auditor. Mm-hmm. and like these crazy people have turned me into, I guess a rebel. Like apparently if I read the headlines, I'm so. Anti masker rebel at this point, but the law, whatever, I was transferring the policing to the business owner, which was I disagreed with in theory, right? So your customer, your employees have to, so there was no sign on my door, call people out. Right. And we did not. So how we handled it, I put hand sanitizer at the front door because I mean, we are a design firm and you touch things. So if you wanted, I had hand sanitizer that I, I still have tons of hand sanitizer, right? I got two gallons in the closet. Oh my gosh. I know. It's just everywhere. But, uh, if you wanted to do that, then you could, it was your choice. I had a mask box at the front door if you wanted a mask, because if you require a mask you have to provide it at the time. I don't understand all of that. But anyway, I just had a box there. And if someone walked in and had a mask on my, I asked my staff to be respectful and put one on if someone walked in with one. Oh, that's, but if that's a really nice place to live, no one had, if you walked in without one, we didn't wear ours. And were your staff all okay with that? Like they were Okay. And any upset? Upset. Nobody wanted to wear one. Yeah, they could wear one. Okay. And I just had Covid recently, I believe it or not, first time. First time. And Wow. You were, and I even have MS and I don't have, I didn't, hadn't gotten it yet. And I got it for the first time a few days ago. But um, you know, I texted my son at M I t and I said, so tell me really what's the difference between Covid and the flu because all of the symptoms are the same. And he wrote back, mom, you take a test and find out and I said, well, I guess that's how, this is your super thoughtful son. Yeah. So, uh, I took a test and I found out I was positive. The flu. The flu wouldn't impact the election. It wouldn't. Right. And, yeah. Sorry. And Neith would pneumonia or anything else? And you know, I was on the plane probably when I got sick. Um, I was sitting on a plane coming back from Florida and the man behind me was coughing. And you know, even me who believes it is your choice whether you would wear a mask or not, and I should not be required to. Right. For you. Vice versa. Now I will, out of a respect for someone, if I knew that my friend had cancer and was going through chemo, I would put a mask on in a, a heartbeat. There's no doubt. Or even if they were just very, very paranoid, I would do. Yeah. Or nervous. Yeah. And I shouldn't have said paranoid, but nervous. You're right. Well, it's not paranoia. If people are actually after you, you have to fight that feeling. Like, I was listening to him cough and I was sitting there and at first I went like, every cringe, every cringe. I am going to get sick. And I thought that, oh, that's the person that gave you the maybe, well, I don't know right. As likely as anybody really. But I just thought, but then I thought, you know, you do not have the right to sit there and even think that because everyone is breathing and you're also in an airplane. It's high, it's. Great filtration and I thought you don't have the right to judge someone for coughing. But yet people do. Now see, we've done that. We've created enemies with each other. Right. Because we can't see that everyone exposes everyone every day. Just me talking to you here in this closed room, I probably shared all my time right now. Yeah. And we have for years. And look at all the kids that blew out candles on birthday cakes for years and spit. Yeah, totally. Cuz they don't know how to blow the candle out yet. And yet we all ate that cake and no one thought anything about it. But we have created fear and made, uh, because of that fear, you become superior. Yeah. And because you are judge, you're sitting in judgements, I'm protecting you and you are. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a whole nother thing too, about how much do we, you know, well it's the worship of self and all. Well, yeah. And it's just like with uh, you know, discrimination and all, when we think that we can. uh, people becau with our set of rules, you know, it's like the Poisonwood Bible. Mm-hmm. the missionary goes to Africa, and in Africa they mound up the dirt and they have a circle around the plant to keep the moisture in. And he, that's not how you did it in Georgia. He was a missionary and he wanted'em to plow the field the way the American did. And then they all starved And it's because we cannot, I mean, and that's just a novel, right? Yeah. I mean, but it's a principle that's, it is not always up to me to impose my thoughts and things on everyone else. And, uh, why can't we just, and also that I am called to be kind and understand everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And so kind, and I have a saying in my laundry room that grace is not something you say at the table. It's uh, what we extend to everyone. Mm. And just extending grace. Yeah. It's just like, what's wrong with that? I think it's a good practice. Yeah. Do you wanna share your. Loco experience, your crazy experience from your life of business or family or whatever that's Oh. Shifted, changed your thinking. I don't know what it was. Well, I'll tell you, maybe you were in a drag race with the cops. I don't, I don't know. It was actually, uh, what kind of molded me was, um, well, it was, it's a, something that just stands out in my mind. And I had just moved to Minnesota and, uh, we had a women's night with all these cute, young, I mean, people in Minnesota are beautiful. They're all Scandinavian. They're, they're blonde hair. They're skinny. Yep. And, you know, they're beautiful. And, uh, they are all very nice dressers. Was this bunk? It was, it was. Uh, kind of like that. It was a girls' group, we golfed and stuff. So we decided we had to go bowling because it was raining and I spent three hours picking up my outfit. I was just super nervous, you know, trying to fit in. Right, right. The Texan and all, and we go bowling and uh, they're all drinking, you know, and I'm Southern Baptist. You don't drink. You and I had Dr. Pepper. Well they're from Minnesota, so they're really good at it. Yeah, they are. And. So we go bowling and my first, uh, time up, I get ready to go and I bowl and I find myself flying face first down that aisle. And I oh my, on my stomach face first toward the pins. I got a strike, but I was halfway through I fall, you know, obviously like the ball came away from your hand. And I three you were laying down already going flat on my face down. And I remember sitting there going, I think I'm gonna have to move David and I can live here We are gonna have to go somewhere else. And I got up and I turned around, and of course everyone was laughing. And I finally realized then, okay, you can laugh at yourself. Yeah, you don't have to take yourself seriously. But it was like the first real experience in my life that, that's so cool. But it was so in humiliation. Well, and if you were in Boston, they might've been all judgey. Judy's they may have, but in Minnesota, they're like, Becky, that was awesome. And they go, are you drinking? And I go Dr. Pepper. And then that was even worse, you know? Oh yeah. So I like it. Well, I love how it was that instant. and Yeah. Like a, a, a dose of humility. Humility and grace. Yeah. Like your friends gave you grace. Yeah. And you realized that you didn't need to move away. Yeah. After that, I, yeah, I, it took me a, I mean, I seriously remember standing up looking at those pins, going, I don't know how I'm gonna tell David we have to move That's awesome. If, uh, some amazing boutique inn that's expanding or some other, uh, place that wants to have your, your firm put their stuff together for'em, uh, what do they find you? Well, we're on the internet, uh, and we are on Instagram and Facebook of course. And, uh, niche dash design house.com. Okay. That's our, so that's your local one. Oh, that's your thing. That's our local one. That's really probably the easiest way to get ahold of us. And that's, our listeners are actually Northern Colorado anyway, so just roll in a niche. Yep. If you don't see Becky there, which you usually want, you always ask. She's running all over. Yeah. But ask for her and then, uh, we'll give you my personal cell. I'm always available I love it. Um, Any last, uh, words of wisdom? You and I just had a conversation about being a part of local think tank. Would you care to share any background and why that Well, I had, we were just talking about that and, uh, my New Year's resolution this year is to become more involved. Um, I, like I said, my company was built solely on me and, uh, my associates, but my, my money, my investment, my husband and mine's investments. Yeah, your risk. And our risk. And so I have never really branched out. I mean, I have not really, you don't really have a mentor to speak of except for that young lady that. or that person that helped you when you were in Minnesota yet Yep. And said, you can do this. That's fine. Right. And I still, he just retired and I, how that person cried when he told me he was retiring. And he's a very dear friend. I call him a friend now and colleague, but I don't have a mentor. You know, I, um, I am a hundred percent owner in my company. I, when I have a board meeting, Becky talks to Becky and we make some decisions. And while that has been great, and of course my husband's a part of a lot of those Sure. And I have friends that I have discussed things with and luckily I have had great people come in and outta my life. But, you know, I just decided I needed to be a little bit more. Purposeful about the next step and to maybe become more community minded. Awesome. So, well, I think any group that has, you would be blessed by it. Thank you. And I've loved it this time together, And uh, yeah. Thank you. I thank you. Really enjoyed this time. And I thank you so much, Becky. Well, Suzanne was right. You've made a great addition to her family, I'm, I'm proud to, to be a part of her family. Yeah. Alright, thanks. That speed. Thanks.