[laughs]

...

I really thought that that's [laughs] where I was going to end m- with my career.

That's where I thought I was gonna end up.

I got exposed to graphic design, like, my end of my junior year of high school, and I was like, "What is this?" And, uh, the universe again pulled me in a different direction.

Yeah.

And I have a sister who is a fine artist.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I was like, "I need to write this book because it would, like, set...

It was to help you set your business up for things like this, and for, like, running a business, which is so unpredictable." So for us, when we knew we wanted to write a book, like, every book is different, obviously.

Sometimes, like you said, it might come from feeling like you figured something out or maybe people around you are trying to figure something out.

But Katie and I sat down to write this.

Thankfully, Katie's really strategic and introspective, and it, this was a question that was asked most.

So we teach a lot of courses, and how do I find my style is the number one question we get.

But yeah, the more that we can just sit in who we are and not kind of put any filter on that, I think the better.

Right.

And also, we've tried to outsource a lot of different things, and we find that, like, it's better when we do it, not because we have the skill set, like there are certainly things we need to outsource, but we need to understand it in order to have someone else be able to come in.

Like, we need to know what money we're spending and what programs we're using and why before we can ask someone to come in and, like, work on it.

Like, if we don't understand it, how can we value someone to come in? And so we, we really have done a lot of it ourselves, and we've worked with some contractors here or there.

But for the last, I'm, maybe five years, we have had Emily, and we just, everyone, I think, whenever we talk to people, we just talk about her as Emily.

But she is our marketing manager.

She does so much for us as far as, like, systems, and she's been with us for so long that she can do so much in our business.

so much more investment in training people than you realize.

Like finding our style really has a lot to do with being in tune of who you are and what you want.

Yeah.

And that's a lot harder to do when you are constantly scrolling and being fed.

Like I don't mean just make it sound all bad, but like you're being fed inspiration based on what a algorithm or a robot or AI or whatever is.

things that you will like or based on like your previous activity and it's like things you didn't ask to find whereas like if you're seeking inspiration now in like the real world you digest it in such a different way and we're like constantly reaching for our phones and we're constantly consuming instead of creating.

And so we actually have to sit down and make work.

We actually have to figure out what influences us and what we like, because I think so often, I know this has happened to me a lot.

It's a long, epic and not at all