Episode 116: Where Are They Now (Part 2): How The Interior Design Business Bakery Changed This Couple’s Life

Show Notes:

In this episode I am coming to you live again from the Las Vegas Market and I am interviewing Interior Design Business Bakery alum Heather Vercellino and her husband Joe about how impactful being in The Bakery has been for not just Heather’s interior design business, but how it has trickled into every part of their life. 

Sometimes having the talent isn’t enough, you also have to get the tools, and that is just what the bakery is designed to give you. Joe and Heather emphasize the importance of having a coach and getting the right support when building a business.. When you show up, do the work, and have the right tools, it gives you the confidence needed to be successful. 

The ripple effect from joining the bakery has impacted their personal lives, Heather’s business, and Joe was able to apply those same business principles and have courage to start his own business that now has affected and impacted over a million of our youth through the Lionheart organization,  where Joe speaks on stages and leads an amazing collaborative effort to give our youth a strong sense of self worth and combat many of the challenges our youth face today. 

Listening to their story of how one choice- to join The Interior Design Business Bakery has rippled through from Heather and her being able to build a profitable and sustainable design business, to igniting her husband Joe and giving him the confidence to pursue his passions, and how them leading their family and businesses with purpose and passion and with ease, is truly inspiring. 

We are so grateful to have them as members of The Bakery family, and being there to model to others what is possible when you invest in yourself, believe in your dreams and get the right support. 

Thank you for listening, and if you enjoy the show, please don’t forget to rate and review it! 

It would be very much appreciated if you would leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps to keep the show relevant, and I would love to come back to see some of your kind words. Enjoy this fall weather, and take some breathing time for yourself too!

About Michelle: 

Michelle Lynne began her interior design career after spending more than two decades working in Corporate America. She began in the home staging arena and has since built a successful, award-winning, full-service interior design firm, employing talented designers and serving clients across the country.

In the summer of 2018, Michelle began focusing on a big gap she saw missing in the interior design industry: teaching interior designers how to run the business of an interior design business. She now engages in private coaching and leads an in-depth, 12-month group coaching program, both options focus on teaching designers profitable processes, systems, strategies, and mindset needed to run a streamlined, profitable interior design firm.

Her motto is simple: we rise by lifting others.

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A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Transcript:

Hey, y'all. Welcome back to another episode of Design for the Creative Mind Podcast. We are here in Las Vegas still. And if you hear anything in the background, it's because we're at [00:01:00] market and there's all sorts of fun things going on. So you might have heard the previous episode with Ivan Pinero and Heather Vercellino. 

 We are back with Heather and her husband Joe, because while we were sitting here chatting, they were talking about how our time together in the interior design business bakery has really had a ripple effect. And I was like, well, well, we're here. Look, I'd love to hear how it has impacted you and your family and just the pros and the cons and hear your story.

I have no questions because I don't know what we're getting into. Yeah. But thank you for starting because I'm curious. So he has to say from an- 

Participate. Yeah. Spouse slash friend. Yes. Partner. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you guys are so cute together. For the listeners, we're celebrating nine years of marriage. That's right. Our ninth anniversary is this week, so. So fun. Yes. We still like each other. We are better friends at year nine than we were when we met - so sweet girl, in the [00:02:00] right direction together.

Yeah, it's a good thing. I wanted to hop on just because when I think about Heather getting involved in the bakery, and I remember her seeing your videos on Facebook or your promotional material and she's like, I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to do it and. I never, , I never doubted Heather's talent, super talented, and there's a lot of really talented people out there, but I think sometimes you can have talent, but you lack the tools.

You lack the community, like the belonging aspect. Yeah. Being an entrepreneur is lonely. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you can lack the tools and the belonging and then the confidence. Mm-hmm. I remember, one of your things you're like, you know, I love Jesus, but I cuss a little . I remember Heather saying I'm a badass.

Like, and yeah, and I mean, you can't just, you can't just like make a huge shift in your business by being like, you know what, I'm a badass. But when you do combine [00:03:00] what the bakery has offered Heather, which is giving her the tools to manage your business, right. Giving her a sense of belonging. And combining that with the confidence is the result that I love to see in Heather.

I feel like she's a full expression of what she can be. And that was because of being able to be part of the bakery. Well, she got in there and did the work. So there's, you know, there's people who sit there on the sidelines and they have some good experience, but Heather's like that little unicorn who showed up every time, did all of the work and really went deep.

I think that's part of it as well because a lot of times we think it's just business, but you said it in an off recorded conversation that your business and your person are very commingled and you have to do a lot of work on yourself and it reflects in your business.

Where you do a lot of work on your business and it reflects on yourself. And , that's been an interesting journey for me as well, [00:04:00] because I can tell when I'm getting off track on one or the other because things are not balanced. Yeah, things are not balanced at all. Yeah, one of the things I heard from a friend and colleague of yours.

Yeah.

You know, even LeBron James has a shooting coach, you know, and he's one of the best basketball players of all time. And so to have another person, giving you the tools, giving you the support, , it's lonely. It can be hard. Sometimes you feel like you're just. , treading water about to turn on be, , I mean, honestly, if you feel like a fake, yes, to just have a community of people who have been through similar things who are there cheering you on your supporters, um, and your friends, they care about you is, um, that community over competition.

I've got. Friends all over the country [00:05:00] now, and it's because you're so shy. I like to blend it. I'm wearing a half pink dress of bananas,  yes. And then , the ripple effect. , so since doing the bakery, that confidence of I can do this, I can run a business. I have the tools. I'm not just good.

Designer and I can toot my own horn because I'm a badass but I've got the tools now. You can make a living off of it. You can, yes. And so back in 2021 in the fall, we were sitting down Joe and I, and he was building a side hustle. I don't want to say hustle, but it was not a career at the time.

Um, he was doing that back in 2017. So it's been building for several years and we were out to eat and his dad was like, well, can you make it, what do you need a week? Do you need a thousand bucks? Do you need 2000? You know, like, what do you need? Can you do it? And I was like, well, I have tools now, you know, [00:06:00] like I can, like, we can, we can do this together.

And there was this encouragement of like, um, you know, it, it's not a direct plug and play from design tools to, , what Joe does. And I'll give you the high level of that in a second, but it is this, you can have the right tools to run a business. But if you don't have the confidence, if you don't know your why and what you're able to do, then you're just, you're not going to keep going, you know, especially when it gets hard, when it gets hard.

Yes. You need that backbone. And so Joe, he was teacher of the year, city of Detroit. , And the one and only teacher of the year that worked at a charter school. I don't know if that applies to all the listeners. It was big, it was a big board and it was definitely, you know, this time in his life of like, okay, I think I'm ready to make that next step.

And , he was building a public speaking platform. Yeah. And [00:07:00] so. Through the encouragement that you gave me and the tools and the confidence, Joe and I, we would sit in the hot tub, and we'd brainstorm all these business things. Oh, so now he speaks at schools all around the country to both students and educators about Identity and self worth touching on depression and anxiety.

And he might be able to explain that better, but to know that through your encouragement, Joe is now traveling. He's seen probably a million kids at this point in the last five years. Oh my gosh, changing lives. Wow. So you would never know what. you can say or encourage other people which can then lead to a life changing ripple effect to thousands, hundreds of thousands of people along the way.

That's so thank you. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna cry. , I was just gonna say that. You might think about getting [00:08:00] into the bakery just because it's like, okay, this would be good for me. This would be good for my life. This would be good for my business. But all of us are connected to all these different networks.

And a lot of, some of them might even just be in your own home. Right. So I know that I've benefited from the tools that Heather has gained because I don't think I would have the confidence to. Yeah. be able to venture out and start my own thing if I didn't know that my partner and my friend had the tools to help me.

So that's an incredible ripple effect. And then the second thing that I'm even more grateful for is that , our kids, we have three kids, they're six and four and two, and they get to see their mom and dad so alive in our passion, not drowning in it, you know, like it would be, it would be so sad for both Heather and I to be so good at something, but to be drowning because, and devastated because we feel alone.

So we don't feel like we have tools because we don't feel like we have community. Right. And our kids get to see us [00:09:00] alive in our passion and successful in it. And I think that's really important for a kid to see their parents doing that. Or even for our kids to really know that you can be X, Y, or Z when you grow up.

Because we believed in ourselves to take that step. So now our kids can see us. we're not just sitting at a corporate job wishing like Ivan story, um, which would probably be the previous episode of, you know, working the corporate job, wanting to start the business and interior design and like there.

I want our kids to know we took the step. Yeah, you don't have to have a job, you can pursue your passion. Yeah. And just, and be successful at it and, and work hard. I mean, it's not like you're sitting back eating bon bonds and, you know, wish sometimes , but it's, it's a lot. it's, it's hard.

It's hard and it might even be harder, but it feels more purposeful and it feels like I am who I'm supposed to be. Yes. That's, oh, I love that. That's different. So , , I think [00:10:00] hard feels even worse when you're like, I just don't think this is me. I can do this if I know this is who I'm supposed to be.

Yeah. You know, God has you exactly where you're supposed to be. , that's, I wake up that way when I can, , go and share and encourage and empower other women. And gentlemen, all these women.

So in that respect, it's like, I know this is where God has me. So this story here is just so encouraging. Thank you for sharing it. I'm going to listen to this when I have those days where I'm like, oh man, I can't do this anymore. Definitely a VIP in our marriage. Yeah. And , we wouldn't want to have a successful business and a struggling marriage.

I think it's great to just see them both elevate at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. So thank you. Thank you guys for sharing. I want Joe to share Lionheart. And your Instagram handle and stuff like that as well, sure. So that, if any of the listeners want to have you [00:11:00] come to their school, you go to the schools and yeah, if you're listening and you're connected to any type of education network, like your kids go to school or when your spouse works at a school or you're connected somehow in education.

, the rates of anxiety and depression, self harm for young people are just staggering right now. And we've got a lot of things that are kind of trying to address it on a topical level, but it really just comes down to a sense of worth, all of those issues, anxiety, depression, self harm with young people, they come back to how do I see myself?

Why do I see myself that way? And why does, how does that impact the way I interact with the world around me? Right. And so , that's the pool that my team and I hop into as schools. And schools around the country bring us the Lionheart experience. And they bring us in under the idea of like, we want our kids.

And our staff walk out and feel a tangible sense of worth. And so my team and I, we come in, [00:12:00] I speak and I travel with a group of my past students from inner city Detroit, but they're hip hop artists now. And so we come in and we do this layered artistic experience in schools where there's speaking and there's this huge canvas that gets painted and there's music.

And , it's all focused on connecting young people to a sense of worth. So a lot of people bring us in, , under grants for social, emotional learning, mental health awareness, , self harm, suicide prevention. And , we address and get in front of the whole K through 12 spectrum. We go to elementary schools, we go to inner city schools, we go to juvenile centers, we go to colleges because.

Having a tangible sense of worth that you hold on to in your life is what anchors you, right? And so that's what we do around the country. So the lionheartexperience.com. And then my Instagram is, @lionheartteacher. That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's really important that the audience knows that that's an [00:13:00] option and we can have more of a ripple effect.

So thank you guys for being here. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so proud of you and the impact you're making. Thank you. Yes. Okay, I have to speak in a couple hours and I'm going to cry. you guys for listening and for those of you who are interested in learning more about the interior design business bakery, you can head on over to design for the creative mind. com, you'll find all the information there under the bakery, the summit, all the things. And then finally, join our free community. on Facebook.

It's the Interior Designers Business Launchpad. And yes, I know it's Facebook, but that's the best place where we can run a free group and interact and have some fun together. So thanks again. We'll catch you next time. [00:14:00]