41: Cultivating Community and Female Empowerment with Emily Grey

But our mission, if you really drill down into it, is to help women break the chains of structures around us through being in community. So that is not probably any other brick and mortar store maybe in the Raleigh area but when it comes down to it, that's what we want to do as a business. We see all these barriers that are against women, against women of color, and we want to help our customers break those down in their own lives and for the lives of others.

Welcome to the Sugar Daddy podcast. I'm Jessica.

And I'm Brandon.

And we're the Norwoods, a married millennial couple here to help you build wealth so you can live the life you've always dreamed of. Brandon is an award-winning licensed financial planner with over 10 years of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the US. Don't worry, we leave all the intimidating finance mumbo jumbo at the door Stick with us as we demystify the realm of dollars. So it all makes sense. While giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other, we are so glad you're here. Let's get started.

Hey babe, what are we talking about today?

Today we have Emily Gray in the studio with us. She is literally just off the plane from a trip to Bali. So I am so thrilled that she is here with us and that she's not jet lagged at least not yet and she's got her coffee and is ready to go. And I am so thrilled because, you know, the flourish market is one of my all-time favorite stores and boutiques. Such a great mission behind it. Emily is so inclusive. I've modeled for her yes, a little hair flip here, and I just I mean, if you want to talk about great energy in a room, just go and find Emily, okay, because your life will be forever changed in the best way possible. She is such a bright light. So, em, thank you for being with us today.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, I was reviewing my schedule for today last week when I was in Bali and I was like, oh okay, right off the plane, let's go. I'm not sure why I was thinking when I scheduled, but I think I was thinking I can have some coffee. Jessica's my buddy and we're going to have a good time together. That's exactly right.

There's no pressure, it's just casual conversation. But for those of you who are listening who don't know Emily Gray and the flourish market or maybe you're not local to the Raleigh area let's get into this bio so you know exactly how dynamic of a person she is, and then we're going to get into our first money memory. Okay, emily Gray is a professional speaker and small business coach for six figure entrepreneurs who crave the freedom to flourish, helping them double their income and impact without sacrificing themselves in the process. I love them. After leaving Wall Street, emily founded the flourish market, building it to a million dollar company in less than three years. As a sought after business strategist, emily speaks at high profile events nationwide, has been featured in top rated media such as Forbes, Shopify and the gold digger podcast also one of my faves and she reaches more than 55,000 women weekly through her podcast, social media and obsession worthy newsletter. Emily's clients often refer to her as a business therapist and their game changer. When Emily is not helping her clients flourish, you can find her paddle boarding and kayaking, crafting killer cocktails, traveling the world with her wife and being an overly obsessed dog, mom to her sweet pity and two wild GSPs. What is a GSB, I need to know.

German short haired pointer and it. I just had to kick my sweet pity Henry Gray out of here because he was snoring and you might hear one of our three dogs or two cats during this interview. I have them sequestered in another part of the house, but if anyone is listening out of a lot going on, me too, I think we're like all in this together just navigating the wild, exactly.

Remi is right here and so you might hear him as well. He might just start snoring too, so okay, when I was Googling. Gsps to be prepared for this. A whole lot of stuff came up, so I was like I'm just going to need to ask her. So, okay, perfect. So you're basically running a boundless energy, boundless energy.

These dogs pits. My pit likes to snore and cuddle GSPs. No matter how hard you run them or prepare for a podcast interview, you still are praying that they will be silent and not no, I hear GSP.

I think of the UFC fighter, George St Pierre, which see a lot of things came up.

Okay, emily, we have a lot to talk about today, because we could take this into so many directions, but before we do anything else, will you share your first money memory with us?

First money memory Okay, this isn't necessarily my first one, but it's my first money memory like the thing that sticks with you. I don't remember a ton of my childhood. I actually have a story I normally share about something that happened in high school. That was a money memory for me. I normally share that in the context with my clients because it's a little bit more vulnerable. But here's my first like thick money memory. Okay, so it was in college and it was spring break and I was visiting. I went to Elon University and I thought, growing in Fenn Johnson County, I thought I understood what wealth was when I thought about the doctors in my community who lived at the country club, et cetera, et cetera. When I got to Elon I was like, oh wow, there are people that have money. And then there are people that like have money and so I was at one of my friend's homes. Her dad is, like, very famous in the movie industry, so we were in California and LA. I'm pretty sure her house was right down there from Ashton Cusher, like a lot going on, and so I remember waking up early because of jet lag and going down to her fridge and opening it up and seeing two things. One, water. They paid for water in a bottle. It was green, it was this beautiful bottle with a blue logo on it. It was Pellegrino. I didn't know it at the time. So I see the baby literally paid for water. And then the second thing was my friend comes downstairs because I had woken her up and she's getting together like a snack and she takes cantaloupe, chopped cantaloupe, and then she pulls out like this uncooked ham, like a little uncooked ham, and she starts rolling the cantaloupe in this uncooked ham, which now I know is for Shedda. And I was like, should I tell her you got to cook that? And I just remember that memory because I was like this purse, they have money, and the truth is they did have money. But I so connect that. And it's such a memory for me because my business coach asked a group of us one time, like when did you first know someone was rich, like someone in your life? And that was the memory that popped into my head and, yeah, it just sticks with me. Anytime I see a bottle of Pellegrino, it just like takes me back to that moment. That was a realization, not just that these people had money, but just like this different context I felt about life.

I love that. It's funny that you mentioned the fridge, because I am like so envious of the Kardashian fridges because they're literally like works of art. But then also, growing up we had friends with garage fridges and to me that was like if you had a fridge in your garage just for like beverages or extra food, you had money. That was like my dial of like different level of exactly. And now we have a garage fridge because, you know, my mom got a new fridge and she's like, hey, do you want this one? And we're like, yes, please. And now whenever I go out to get extra beverages from the garage fridge, I'm like, look at us, go boo with our garage fridge.

I think it's funny because you said, um, you had that realization like in college, because you know, going off to college you're introduced to a whole different world than what you're, you know, normally used to. And like it's funny because Elon is at the time probably was in the same conference as we went to college Charleston and we would play Elon in a lot of sports and I definitely remember you know like my family was well to do. I grew up, I was fortunate. I grew up, like you know, middle upper middle class, but, like when I got to Charleston, you have a lot of people that come from up north that used to vacation and Kiyoa, South Carolina it's ridiculous and I remember people like you know. oh, my parents just bought a house for me to live in down here.

I'm like they just decided that you were here, so they were just going to buy a house for you to live in, which is a smart move, especially now.

But yeah, I mean, even if you, I mean I open her.

I open her that. Yeah, I love that. That's a great memory. Okay, for the sake of time, take us from Elon to Wall Street because that's a big deal. Walk us through that.

Big deal, and I'll also do you one better. I'll tell you what happened after Wall Street.

You still, you were going to do that too. Well, I take the journey to get what's. Yes, let's do it.

We'll do it in one little snorkel together. So I originally went to Elon on a dance scholarship. I went for dance. I dreamed of being Britney Spears backup dancer. So now the stretch to Wall Street seems even wider. Okay, I actually got hurt freshman year, which was devastating and also the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I remember going to the career center because dance was all that I'd ever known and then just saying, okay, well, business and communications are two biggest majors, so why don't you pick one of those? Because that opens you up to a lot of opportunities. And I asked what the difference was, these poor career counselors, and they were like well, give me a short answer business You're, you'll talk a lot, and in communications you'll write a lot. And I was like talking sounds easier than writing. So I went business and it was such a learning curve for me because I was in there with a lot of folks. I remember accounting classes a struggle for me because I was in there with a lot of folks and like you, brandon, I also grew up very privileged. I was middle class, my mom was a teacher, my dad worked at the public library. I always had access to food. I could, I was a cheerleader, dancer. I got all the things. I got to go to college. I'm white, like super privileged. In the context of you on that, I just remember feeling very behind because so many of these people grew up not just at a different wealth level but at a different understanding of money, entrepreneurship, dollars. Their parents also had jobs where they were passing along things to their children, lessons that you know no one in my town really knew, right, growing up in small town North Carolina, so that no one where I grew up had context on, because a lot of these were investment bankers, kids. And so I just remember for the first time being a straight A student, a plus plus, top of my class, high performer, to going into these classes and having to go to study hall, to having to not understanding things and Google was less successful at that point, you know, the internet was just really coming out and so just having to go to in person tutoring sessions. It was very humbling, but I remember learning to love business because I actually my grandpa was an entrepreneur. He was an appliance repair man, and the more I studied business, the more I realized is actually just listening to people's problems and then solving them. Because as a kid I used to answer the phone for my grandpa. He was English as a second language, he was from the former Yugoslavia, and so I would answer in the summer when I lived with my grandparents. And so I was like, oh, I'm just seeing what's wrong and he's going to show up and help them out. And so I realized through the business career that that's what that was and it falling in love with marketing and sales, which is what I studied within business. I randomly got a job with a Swiss investment bank right out of college, which was very lucky. I started in recruiting and over the course of eight years there, ended up moving to London, living and working there and just like taking those marketing and sales skills marketing and sales skills I had learned at Hone and College and that's like high performer energy and myself and really just the corporate ladders right there and I was like I know exactly what to do to climb each level of the ladder and I did that. I also work for pretty progressive bank.

What is the approximate like, what is the timeframe of this? Like as far as year wise?

Year wise. Okay, so I thank you for dating me, Brandon. I appreciate that I was trying to speak.

She's talking about finance, the timeframe, what she's doing. This also makes a difference as far as what's going on. Okay.

Yeah, this is a really good question, because I graduated in 2007. And so I was doing this job and I had been moved to London, and then the financial collapse of 2000.

That's what I was getting at. Thank you, Jess.

So we graduated the same year.

I was assuming is around that timeframe. It's a big thing to be in finance during that time period, because I wasn't in finance at that time.

It was a big, big deal and I was working for a pretty progressive bank and I was the only female on my team. I think for many reasons that's why I was saved. I mean, yeah, I can say all day I was a high performer, but I saw high performers being laid off left and right. So I think being a woman in that industry really benefited me at that time and I literally always had supportive managers. My corporate story is actually pretty different than most people's and I was working with a very diverse team, very diverse group of managers in London, but it was scary to watch so many people get laid off. The role I took in that was a couple of years later. I was named a vice president, but I moved into a change management role during the time of that economic collapse and what we were doing, what my bank was doing, was selling off buildings, combining people into smaller spaces, and we moved to like a hot desking model to save money but also to up employee engagement, and so I worked on the front lines of leading change in the face of really hard things and headwinds coming out like coming at us, and it was a really great skill set to learn. I mean they put me in a training with two men who had led peace treaty negotiations in the Middle East for the US government. So I got a lot of good training under my belt, a lot of good experiences and having hard conversations and having to convince people to come along on things without BSing them, because the managers could smell BS a mile away. So I didn't go in and say this is going to be amazing. I listened to their concerns, I understood what was hard for them Again going back to exactly what I did answering the phone from my grandpa and then we came up with a way forward together and I truly think that experience I'm so glad you asked about it and when I was able to build on that incorporate, but by the time I left help position me for everything I do today as an entrepreneur and how I approach it.

I love that. Well, it sounds like you were just climbing, climbing, climbing VP in finance, while street girly. That sounds like the American dream, right? Why did you leave?

Because the American dream wasn't my dream and it wasn't for years. I sat with the tension of I was using my time off to volunteer, using the skills that I had honed in corporate to help nonprofits and social enterprises win people over to their fundraising efforts, win people over to buy their fair trade goods, and I could not figure out how I could monetize that and have people pay me for that skill set. That would even pay me a fourth of what I was making in corporate. So the tension I was feeling was I had this skill set. I know who I want to serve. There can be different economic engines, but I couldn't figure out the economic engine that would help me stay in that lane. But I could also live off of until one night an idea found me on Pinterest, so I was really obsessed with the tiny house shows. This was around 2014-2015. Yeah, jessica, I knew it.

You know, we're right here, we're right here.

The concept of looking at a tiny house is actually living in one, because I'm not a small person and I'm not gonna live in a tiny house.

But they're so cute. I keep telling you we just need like an acre somewhere with like beautiful, like a big open field. I would just plant a whole bunch of like wildflowers and then it would be like our quick like weekend getaway place, right where we like put out a lawn, like some lawn chairs and like have a fire pit and like that's just where we go to get away from it all you know. I'm 6'3", you can make one that's big enough for you. Doesn't that sound lovely? It does.

Take it offline. You know, I was a VP of Change Management. We can find a way to win, brandon. Let's do it. Let's do it. I love it.

Okay, talk to us about your Pinterest.

Along with you in 2014-2015. I was obsessed with the tiny house shows Note for the audio, by the way, when I said that, brayna was pointing at Jessica and I, like we have a lot of overlap, so I did not know that was one of them. But on Pinterest, one night as I was, you know, as you did in 2014-2015 you make a board and you pin everything that you literally are never gonna do. I think we're still doing that, but that was like the height of Pinterest and what came up for me was just a random pin and I was like this is not a tiny house, what is this? And the title underneath the photo said LA's first fashion truck hits the streets. And I was like what is a fashion truck? And this was a divine moment. I clicked on it, read this old article actually, it was had been years prior and it was a mini boutique on wheels and that is when the idea found me. I was like okay, every time I travel abroad, my friends are always asking can you bring a necklace back from this country, from this nonprofit, like you had before? Can you bring a leather bag? Can you bring a sarong? Can you bring x, y and z? I mean, I was basically in a legal importer.

She's just rushing through customs. Taking tags off of everything. It was literally all this less than $10,000.

Okay, I never broke any rules, but it just got me thinking, oh my gosh, this is not an economic engine I had thought of, but one that comes naturally to me. So I had never literally never shopped in a boutique, definitely never seen a fashion truck in person. But it was in that moment over the next few days, that, all in a week's worth of time, I decided I was going to quit my job, that I was going to tell my boss that I had found an old uniform delivery truck on Craigslist in western North Carolina that I could buy for $8,000. And my 30th birthday was coming up the next week and I was going to tell all my friends. And I look back and I don't know where I got the conjoinis to do that or why I did it or what changed for me in that moment, but I did do that and I remember looking around at my 30th birthday and looking at everyone's faces and they were like what are you doing? And that was July of 2015 and in October of 2015 I launched the flourish market, the first year we were in business. We were a fashion truck and I started with 10 brands. Between July and October, I launched a Kickstarter and got $5,000 from folks to pay for my first round of merchandise. They were buying gift cards, essentially. So then that's how I got my business going. Year two we got a brick and mortar store, and year three we hit a million dollars in sales on a side pocket street in downtown Raleigh where you don't really get foot traffic. And we did that without any ads, any paid ads at all. It was definitely our customer base telling everyone they knew about us. Yeah, and now we just celebrated eight years in business absolutely incredible.

I want to take it back to when you saw the Pinterest and you made a decision to go ahead and purchase the truck. Quit your job. It's a lot pursue this did you have money saved up which allowed you to actually go ahead and do this without worrying about having to pay you, obviously your day-to-day bills yes, I did and I didn't.

Okay. So when I tell my clients now who are like doing side hustles, wanting to quit that eight figure or not eight figure job, but wanting to quit their corporate job they had an eight figure job I'd be like, okay, let's maybe think about it, save me a place.

So now I give an eight figure job. I'll give the C sweet love.

I'm like hey, have. Like I'll first ask them like how it? How many months of bandwidth or runway would you feel comfortable having? and for some people it's three who are, or more, risk averse, and for others it's six months, nine months a year. They and depending on their life circumstances, truthfully, the level of privilege they come from, this like what is their, their, their tolerance for risk, what in this current season of life? And so for me, I had probably four to six months of runway if I had cut expenses. But what's interesting about a product-based business because I have product-based and service-based businesses at this point now is product-based what I didn't take into account for that runway. I had saved up because, again, I've been thinking about leaving for two to three years. I just couldn't figure out a way. But I was stowing slowly. I was slowly stowing away money. I also had a side hustle as a photographer, just stowing away money. But what I did not take in it to account which I, my clients do now is that needs to be separate than what you're going to invest in your business. Right, and so I had. I was thinking like, let's just get the fashion truck. But then that's why I did the Kickstarter to raise money for my inventory, because I was like, having no experience in retail, I was like, oh, we got about inventory. Oh, there's minimum units. Oh, okay, this is, this adds up, and so I didn't have money at for my business startup funds. So while I had, the runway ended up needing to be for my business startup funds in addition to the Kickstarter. So I would say when I did that I had about two months runway for expenses. So for me I was coming from a very privileged position as well. There were people I could ask for money. I could probably got easily a credit card, an additional one. So you know, I I'd say a brisk averse or like that was maybe more risky, but I also had fallbacks that I could easily fall to.

But it did light a fire under my, under my little arse to get out there and sell and make this business work for sure, yeah because that's one thing that I mean, that's one thing that obviously I talk about with my clients as well is having that emergency fund, whether it be for, you know, a negative scenario where, if you got laid off, get you know to be able to pay your expenses, but then also the potential for if you have an idea and you want to go ahead and quit your you know nine to five and pursue that idea, it can help balance some aspects. But I love how you mentioned the other things that a lot of people don't think about as well, as far as like oh you know, maybe having that you have a family that you can lean on or, for example, like, if you are married or in a committed relationship, you have a spouse that's bringing in income and that could help out as well or maybe, yeah, we just talked to somebody that quit their job, um, but was able to get her husband's insurance.

So it's, you know, it's like those life things like, okay, well, we still need insurance, the kids still need insurance. Everybody's situation is different, but it's a good call out, right. Your emergency fund should not necessarily be your side hustle fund. Right, because what's going to keep the lights on and the food?

on the table needs to be separate, and I will say I hear the insurance piece a lot, especially from my single female clients that their parents have said you need insurance or that's what they've said in their minds I need insurance and. And they don't see a way to leave their nine to five. And one of the things I push back on is I say have you priced it out right? Do you know how it works? I really encourage people to look at that because even if the number is something you don't want to see, it could be less, it could be more, but at least get that information because we actually have perceived barriers that don't have to be a barrier. Yeah, sometimes barriers are real barriers.

Other times perceived barriers are not real barriers or maybe they are temporarily and we can find a way around them yeah, can we talk about briefly the jump from van right like fashion truck to brick and mortar, because in my head I've never looked into a brick and mortar because I don't need one, but in my head that is a huge deal and I'm sure takes a huge amount of business, credit and and business acumen. How did you navigate that? Can you walk us through that? She did it so quickly when, right, that's so fast.

You know, I'm going to reveal something here that I hope is helpful for others to hear. Very few people who are out here on these business streets know what they are doing when they are doing it. I love that and I hope that brings comfort and I hope that brings a bit of warning to maybe do more research too. But I see so many people make assumptions, right, when they see my story of like I'm glad y'all dig in here, it's like, oh, she must have had money or she must have known how to write a business plan. She must have done this. And also, she studied business in college. All those things, yes, yes, I studied business in college, you know. Yes, I had I work for an investment bank. But what's interesting is I did not know anything about anything other than that. And what I learned in business school didn't really help prepare me for entrepreneurship understanding the books, understand what you can afford. When I was looking at spaces, I was doing it because at the time the downtown Raleigh Alliance so this nonprofit that overlooks downtown they had grant money to give to female business owners and business owners of color who wanted to move their businesses or start their businesses in downtown, and at the time if you gave them a budget, they would match it like up to $35,000. And so I was like, well, surely a brick and mortar is not going to be more than 70,000 for a build out, so I'm going to go for that. I did have. I was like I can figure out like the $35,000, paying that up. I had set aside some of that money and so I started looking at spaces. I also didn't know how corporate brokers worked. I didn't know anything. I was like figuring out as I went. And at this point what's different than when I was in college is now Google does exist. You can find a lot of free information on the internet. You have to watch who you trust, but you can get a good amount of data points from the internet. And so when the landlord of the place I was really serious about said that they needed a five year business plan, I was like no problem, I went online. I was like how do you make a business plan? And then I was like business plan template Legit. I downloaded it from like, just like a place where you probably shouldn't get advice from, and I looked back at a couple of years ago and just laughed because the I will not say who the landlord was, but it's a big national investment bank. Okay, everybody literally would know their names. And I'm like, how did they approve me? There was no way I look back at the business plan there was no way I would have been profitable. Like I didn't even do the numbers correctly and I love numbers, but I have had to learn so much over the past many years of being in business. You know, past I've been in business eight, but I would say seven years ago is when I really started to have any at serious. Because, yes, you're right, just when you have a brick and mortar is expensive, okay, we got rent, we've got bills, you have to pay people to staff it. You've got payroll, you've got workers compensation insurance, you've got two other types of insurance. There is so much. And then it's like, oh, yeah, you've got your inventory, now we have to buy more inventory. And so these were all things that I didn't take fully into consideration. I'm glad I didn't do as much research as I needed quote needed to because I don't think I would have done it. I'm really glad I did.

I just want to let people know, yes and I.

It's this fine line. You have to walk. As entrepreneurs or anytime as a human, you're learning something new and going for something new. It's like you can't wait for everything to be perfect and all lined up, because it never will. You also don't want to be too risky, where you know every shoe in your life drops and you are left like completely in a bad position and, depending on your lived experience and level of privilege, those look very different for different people, right, but it's this fine line you have to walk, and so I tend to air more on this risky side and it's it's interesting because what that results in I have to do a lot of pickup on the back end sometimes of like, oh, we need an extra 10 grand. All right, I'm going to figure out how to make that. It's like, why don't I account for that? And it's usually I'm an Enneagram three, so we're like high achievers. It's normally because I'm moving so fast and I've had to learn to hire people on my team who slow us down and say let's look more at the data. If anyone's ever done the disc profile D, I, s, c, I'm an I, so I have to hire S's and C's, d's and I speed up companies, s's and C's slow it down, and so I've had to really rely on my S's and C's to say Emily, no, sit down. No, no, look at this spreadsheet. We need to review some things. And I think, as you scale any business, bringing people around you that represent different, different perspectives is key.

Yes, you have to fill the gaps right, like what are your strengths, and then fill the gaps around you.

Yeah, I always say like you have people, like you're an idea person and idea people need to want somebody. That's a little bit more like I said. That's going to slow it down and kind of help you bring your grand idea maybe down a little bit into reality so that it can actually come to fruition.

Yes, well, and even those folks listening who want to start their own business or you've got dreams of getting back to a nonprofit, whatever it is hiring someone like you, brandon right, who says, okay, this is what I do, like you don't have to know everything. I hear so much imposter syndrome, especially from females looking to start a business or, honestly, just looking to do something in life, and it's because they don't know what they don't know. But we do not have to know everything. We have to know who we can trust. I love that. That is a difference, and that's why I love having a trusted network that I can give around to people, and I love that I'm in people's trusted networks because we're going to steward our power well right, not over people, but with people forward, and so I just really want to encourage anyone who's listening, who's trying to figure something out know that you're not meant to do all the research and know everything. We're in this together and you can reach out for help.

And even when you do all the research, there's always going to be something that you don't know.

Well and things change over time too You're never going to have the information it's impossible.

Yes, absolutely.

So talk to us about the mission behind Flourish, because I think it's. I think the mission and the people, obviously, that you've hired make it so special and make it the place of like. Well, obviously, I'm going to buy every gift that I need ever from you all. So that's part one, and then part two is how successful you all were, even during the pandemic, because you've had to pivot right. People weren't leaving their houses. You guys came up with the bouquets and you just did so many wonderful and beautiful things. So I want to hear about that, and then we'll go into the mastermind.

I love it. Okay, mission wise, I am sharing this on the internet for the first time. I thought you'd be the perfect people if you asked me this question. Yeah, so if you go to our Instagram bio, so I'll tell you three things. So first thing people might see when they hear about us is they might go follow us on Instagram. By the way, we're over at the flourish market, Follow along If you're local. If you're in a far, bestie, we ship every day. We'd love to hang out with you there. We will tag. If you go to our Instagram profile, it says a curated selection of 200 plus you know items. Sorry, curated selection of 200 plus impact driven brands. So many. I think it's curated products from 200 plus impact driven brands. There I got on the third touch right, but I didn't. I didn't study communication, so I'm I'm I'm worse at writing.

I got it.

So that speaks to our mission, right, it speaks to it. So people are like, oh, there's something different here. What does impact driven brands mean? Right? And so all of our brands have all different types of stories, from having makers who make their products who are differently abled, to women who package their products and do all their shipping, who are coming out of incarceration and having a hard time finding any other jobs, to women who've been dealt really hard cards in life, coming out of addiction programs making our jewelry, to leather bags made in Ethiopia by women who are crushing the stigma of HIV and AIDS in their country All different types of impact. We're about to pick up some products from a therapist who is very she wants to help people with their anxiety, and so she has these really cool paint by numbers sets that include like guided meditations that you can listen to. So it's so cool. There's so many cool people doing really cool things and we want to curate that into our brick and mortar store. So that's Instagram and that's kind of the vibe you get If you are local and you walk into our store. The second thing I will share with you is that you walk in and on the left is what we call our wall of women. And so you see this group of women and you're like, okay, this is pretty diverse. And you're like, also, I don't think everyone is American here. And so you start to look and realize that half the women probably live local and are maybe our customers or team members, and the other half of the women seem to be from all around the world. And the women who make our products and on the frame, like the, what's the white thing called? Like, like the black, like the white, the math.

yeah, Words are hard to find.

I would blame it on that, but this is just who I am.

I'm like what's the?

matter. Words are hard. It's fine. On the mat of each of the frames. I asked each woman to say what is a lie that they tell themselves in their heads? What do they spin on when they're having a hard day? And then the next sentence is what's the truth? You want to speak over your life, for yourself and for other women? Okay, so people stand there and read these words men a lot of times, stand there and people cry reading what people have wrote because it's so beautiful and so relatable. And you see that although our lived experiences and the details of our lives are different, there is this common connection amongst women of things we struggle with and the things that we tell ourselves. So that's the second thing I would tell you, which gets to my third thing, which I haven't shared on the internet streets. My clients know this is our mission, our team knows this is our mission, but it's one that haven't figured out yet a way to display this on the internet. Except we've got this really incredible video, this one minute video on our about page at theflourishmarketcom that really speaks to this in a spoken word. Poet did it and you'll see lots of our customers. But our mission, if you really drill down into it is to help women break the chains of structures around us through being in community. So that is not probably any other brick and mortar store, maybe in the Raleigh area, but when it comes down to it, that's what we want to do as a business. We see all these barriers that are against women, against women of color, and we want to help our customers break those down in their own lives and for the lives of others. So for that woman in Ethiopia, right, who doesn't have anyone else in her country, or very limited people in her country standing up for her rights, well, how do you do that? You can buy their leather bags to put more economic power into their hands, right? So we want to do that. But we also realize women here at home and our own communities are facing barriers that we want to, like, push through, right, to create more freedom or joy, more impact in our lives, and then the domino effect is in other people's lives as well. So we host a lot of programming and events. You know we all sorts of topics. We don't, we try not to. We we lean into the hard topics and invite people to come and talk with us about those. I think that was the hardest thing, honestly, about COVID about shutting down our store was not being able to have people be in there for these conversations and these events that we hosted. But, jessica, since you asked about COVID, that was tough. That was tough because we had to ask ourselves, I mean, not just how do we stay in business, but, beyond that, how do we still show up and achieve our mission? That feels so deeply connected, way beyond a transaction right that's going to pay payroll, but how do we still achieve our mission? And so we went to the people. When we were right, we were able to open up our store a few months later, but we found that our customers didn't necessarily feel comfortable coming out of their homes or neighborhoods yet, and so we listened to them. We got on zooms with them. I was FaceTiming customers and again going back to that same thing listening to people's struggles and problems and then understanding how we can meet them there and show up to help. And so we went to people's houses and did porch popups. We did almost 100. I think we did 92 or 94 during the summer and fall of 2020. And yes, we needed the money. The brands we partner with needed the money, but we needed to be with our people and they needed us to be with them. And still, to date, those are the most meaningful conversations I've really had was just standing in masks outside someone's house in their driveway, even when it was freezing cold in the fall, and doing like holiday popups in the conversations where we were having there, because it was when people were the most vulnerable. We had this common, shared experience that we were all having. We were able to connect on such a deep level and people were admitting I've got anxiety, my kids struggling with depression. This is really, really hard. We were able, together, to say, okay, we're in this together. How can we show up and fight all of this?

That is beautiful. You definitely have achieved your goals of building community. I can tell you that as somebody who is proud to be part of that community. You've done a beautiful job and the people you've hired help do that, and it all feels so genuine, so real, so intentional, and I think that's what comes through the most is the intentionality and the love behind. You know the brands and when you guys go to market and you're pulling us in on Instagram stories and we're voting and you just have made it so communal and, as a customer, thank you for that, because it really does make a difference and I know that when I shop with you, I'm going to see things that maybe I voted on or things that you've, you know, shared already. And now you've got your own curated line and you have plus sizes and there's just so much that you're doing that is so intentional, so genuine, clearly backed with love, and it's impactful for that reason.

Okay, I will say it's also like from a guy, a male's perspective, it's so needed. Any man that doesn't say that it is a thousand times harder to be a woman is either completely ignorant to the fact or they're just lying to themselves. It's way easier to be a man and there's way less hurdles that you have to overcome. So you know what you have created and are continuing to create to help women out is, I mean, it's needed.

I think that's why I get emotional when I see men stop at the wall of women and hang there for a long time, because one of the things if we want our mission to come true is we need men specifically cis, straight, white men a lot of times to turn around from their area of power, turn around to the row behind them and listen to the pain and listen to our hopes and dreams, and so that in our store is like an open invite and we have the most incredible we call them man fans who shop with us, not just for their partners but for their moms. We have a ton of single men that shop with us who resonate with what we're doing and just, it's very powerful, is very powerful because we need them as very active allies to achieve our mission and we see our brick and mortar is a way that we can help make that happen.

I love that it's a call out, because I think a lot of people gloss over the fact that in order to change any issue, you need the people that are not affected by the issue to become an ally. So in this scenario, you need men to help out with this mission, because they are the ones that have created this issue essentially. So you need the person who created the issue to turn around and help get rid of the issue or fix it.

It's true, emily, you are a wealth of knowledge. How can people learn from you? Because you have the brick and mortar, you have the flourish market, but how else are you serving people? Talk to us about the mastermind.

Yeah. So at any given time, if you go to on Instagram, Emily Gray, underway you will see my fun links. I got the link there. You can check out in real time what our current offerings are. So if you're kicking off your 2024, you're looking for something for the year, we've got some really fun things. I won't be able to mention them all, but a couple of things. If you are an entrepreneur, and at the six figure, multiple six figure or seven figure level, I run mastermind programs and masterminds. If you're not sure what that means, it's a. I am your coach, I have cohorts of 16 and it's a peer to peer group where you get to be in community. Achieve our mission right, Breaking down those barriers. Share your imposter syndrome, get the tools you need from me as a coach, from your peers, and go forth together to achieve what your heart desires and what you're calling is. It is the work of my life. I absolutely love doing this. It is a very diverse group of entrepreneurs from all perspectives and such a beautiful community. Probably by the time this releases, those for 2024 will be full, but I might be starting a third cohort. So check that out and even if you can't get in till 2025, go ahead and get your interest form in. We interview people all throughout the year. If you are not an entrepreneur, most likely and I can say this at the time of recording because of when this is going to air, because I haven't announced it publicly yet, but I just got back from Indonesia this past week leading my first ever trip for non entrepreneurs, so for our flourish market customers we took 20 women on a personal development retreat and it was so fun, and we are doing that again in 2020. So, if you're not an entrepreneur but you're like, wait, all this sounds good. I want to be in community with like minded women, with my, where my values aligned. Check out that link in my profile over at Emily Gray underway and you can go on the adventure of a lifetime. Oh my gosh, this past week was so incredible for every single woman that was there and then, other than that, I always have a lot of different things going on, especially for entrepreneurs. But, Jessica, what I loved about what you said is we you didn't say these words, but these are the words I'll share we co-build these things together. Okay, we co-build these things together. So definitely engage with the flourish market If you're into clothes, gifts, jewelry, or maybe your friends are and you want to give for them. And as far as what's next is, that's up to you. As a community, we get to build things together. We are always we got like 20 million dreams on the on the dream wall and as far as what we do next, it really depends on what our customers and clients both entrepreneurs, flourish market customers are like are telling us. And it's funny each year as we celebrate our anniversary, I'm like I didn't even dream of this the year before, Like where did this come from? And it comes from our surveys. We do the, the, the feedback we get, the conversations we get to have myself and my team with anyone we interact with, and that's the. That's the way that we're going to continue to drive change and to drive equity and freedom and joy and life is by building all of these positive things together.

Love that, Emily. One thing that you want to leave our listeners with today.

Wow. But just came to mind is you are not alone. And that is the big thing is. I gathered the group this past week around the table. I might start to cry in. In Bali, women would start to, you know, facilitate discussion, and they would so courageously and so vulnerably share what, share, certain things. And then someone three, three chairs down you could see a light bulb golf and they would say I thought I was the only one. Well, my manager said this to me, and then someone else shared something about how they felt about being a mom. There are so many layered feelings that come with being a human in this life, specifically very unique to being a female navigating this country and this world. And I want you to know you are not alone. The details may differ, but somewhere, somewhere or someone, probably just two houses down from you, is struggling with the same exact thing. You're not alone. Get into community, be the asker. Come on one of our trips, come be a part of what the flourish market is doing, if you're local, but having that community, even if you have to be the asker and the inviter a million times until you can form a group of people or even have a friend, come join you. We are not meant to do life or business alone.

Beautiful. Thank you, Emily, for being with us today.

Thanks for having me.

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