Nicaila Matthews Okome 0:02

If you're listening to side hustle Pro, the podcast that teaches you to build and grow your side hustle from passion project to profitable business, and I'm your host. Nicaila Matthews okome, so let's get started. You

Hey, hey, friends, welcome. Welcome back to the show. It's nicaila here back with another amazing guest. So today's guest, Julia Coney and I met at where else the my taught you retreat back in 2019 it's the gift that keeps on giving. I met so many amazing black women at that retreat. And the one thing about Julia is that she united us all over a bottle of champagne. And you'll hear me tell that story in a second. But what I really love about Julia is the fact that it just goes to show that side hustling can look a lot of different ways. I know I often emphasize going from passion project to profitable business, but the reality is that there is a whole spectrum in between those two things. The fact is, I want you to side hustle so you can learn what you enjoy. And sometimes things need to remain a side hustle forever. Sometimes they need to be a side hustle for quite a while for you to truly understand, hey, do I want to monetize this? Do I want to make this my next career move and what have you, and so I hope Julia's story will show you that you can take your time enjoy life and see where things take you. So let me give you a little bit more background on Julia. Julia Coney is a Washington, DC and Houston, Texas based award winning wine writer, speaker and consultant. Julia is the wine consultant for American Airlines in partnership with the James Baird foundation. Julia is also the founder of Black wine professionals, a resource for the wine industry whose goal is to lift up the multi faceted black professionals in the world of wine. Julia was also the recipient of wine enthusiasts 2020, social visionary Award for her work in writing and speaking on diversity, equity and inclusion in the wine industry. Wine industry network has even named her one of wine's most inspiring people for 2022 and Julia is the wine columnist for sweet July magazine and a former contributing editor at Vine pear, her work has been featured in The New York Times, Wine Enthusiast, Thrillist, the tasting panel, plate magazine, forbes.com The Washington Post, the Financial Times and more so in today's episode, we will talk about how Julia got started, the many career moves that she made in Between discovering her love of wine and what she currently does now. So let's get right into it.

Julia, welcome officially to the guest chair.

Julia Coney 2:54

Thank you. I'm very honored, very

Nicaila Matthews Okome 2:56

so glad we're finally doing this. As I mentioned in your intro, we met during the my taught you retreat in the pool in fabulous Mexico, the Mizu resort, right? And it was just, it was one of those moments where I distinctly remember feeling, how did she create her life? I need to know her career journey. Because it was, I was so fascinated by you, your dynamic presence, your soul. And is this

Julia Coney 3:26

what I was pouring champagne in? People, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:29

And first of all, I still feel a little like silly to even admit this, but you taught me how to hold a champagne class I've been on. I was holding it wrong my whole life, right? I mean, most people, yeah, so what's the right way to to hold it? We might as well start it off like that, right? Come over to the YouTube channel, and you will see, all right, don't, don't have your hand all over. A lot

Julia Coney 3:50

of times, women will do this and you're warming up your wine. And sometimes you need to, if it's, like, very cold, like, to me, like my champagne is too cold. You can see condensation on the glass. But you really want to hold it by the stem. And if I always tell people for the photos, like you and your friends, you want to kind of get the here at the base for the optics, yeah, you know, you can properly, you know, do one

Nicaila Matthews Okome 4:13

of these, and it just looks good in photos. It does. And this is what they were doing in the pool. So they, yeah, we're doing this. We're getting demonstrations and practicing and taking pictures, and

Julia Coney 4:24

also how to open a bottle of bubbly. Remember, I was like, don't turn the cork. You turn the bottle. You know, the cage comes down six times. You never leave. Take your hand off the top, you know, yeah,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 4:34

right. And I feel like Selena was in the pool too. I just interviewed Selena the other day of being glorious bride. So look at this full circle moment. So now we can officially jump in. And you have to tell us, how did you start out, and then how did you get into wine?

Julia Coney 4:50

Okay, wine is my third career path, so

Nicaila Matthews Okome 4:53

I like this. Y'all, you can keep reinventing yourself. I

Julia Coney 4:57

started Wine career 43 and. And I'm currently 51 so I say that, yeah, I say that I had been drinking a lot of very good wine. So I grew up in Houston. I was born in Louisiana. Grew up in Houston, and I thought I would always go to law school like that was like the path I wanted to go to law school. And what I realized I started working for lawyers, and after studying abroad in Paris, coming and working for lawyers, I actually like being a legal assistant. I like being a secretary. I liked all that, but I had way more flexibility. And once you get that travel bug, I was like, Man, I can travel. I can do all these things. I was just hooked. So I still was thinking I was gonna go, I'ma work for you years and then apply and be a late law student. That just really was the game plan in 1999 so so long ago, I was 26 and the boss I had, had just gone to Napa Valley tasting wine, and he came back and he did a barbecue at his house. Now I'm drinking margaritas. I tell people this all the time, and they're, you know? He was like, well, you studied abroad in France. So it's like, when you're a college student, like you're broke, studying abroad is cheaper to drink wine in Europe than it is to actually order a soda. So it wasn't one of those, I'm drinking wine. To know about wine, it was just cheaper, and I'm on a budget, right? So funny, yep. So he paired Napa Valley Cabernet with brisket, and he paired these. At that time, the icons, the pinnacles of Napa Valley heights, came as clot of all Opus ones. Like I am like, what am I drinking like this, and I'm eating it with food, and whoa, this is okay. So are there cherries in the wine? And I'm asking all these ludicrous questions because I don't know, because my family doesn't drink. So it was okay. I'm very curious about this. What is going on. And then he just started talking to me, and he was like, You should actually go to Napa, like you seem very curious, and you have a good palette, and I'm 26 years old,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 6:57

and I know you're like, go to Napa.

Julia Coney 7:02

That was it. That's how my mind went. I was going to Napa, and this is before smartphones, so it was literally landing in the airport, getting a rental car, driving over the Golden Gate Bridge by myself. No, none of my friends going with me. And I just went to Napa. Started testing mine, because the way I use Google Maps to go down the block. I need to go to here, but I'm taking ways, and I'm like, what like? It's up the road. So I'm getting lost in Napa. I'm doing rental I'm I'm so curious that I am blown away. But I'm never thinking about it as a career. I like my job. And so then the next year, I decided to go to Bordeaux. And I decided to wear

Nicaila Matthews Okome 7:43

Bordeaux like, where, in relation to France is,

Julia Coney 7:47

it's countryside, yeah, three hours by train from Paris. And I did a, I did, I was doing a biking trip, because I was very fit at that time of my life. And I went on a wine biking trip with a group didn't know anybody. And I said, I'm just gonna go and there I'm drinking all these fabulous bottles of wines, the wines you now see the celebrities drinking. It was like, back then, you could just go and drink them. You didn't have to make appointments. There was no fee. Just like Napa didn't have a fee. You just kind of walked in, knocked on doors, and, you know, you drink wine, and

Nicaila Matthews Okome 8:19

I can't imagine Napa without a fee. This is so never. Didn't used to have a I love how your boss ignited this adventure that you started to go on. We still keep in touch exploration. Oh, that's amazing. We still keep in touch. You know? What else I like about that story Julia, is that it the wine was paired with brisket, because there is this intimidation factor sometimes with wine, and you think you have to be so fancy, and it just goes to show that it's meant to be enjoyed with food. Well, I

Julia Coney 8:46

just did a panel at Aspen food and wine, and my panel was about snacks. And it was fine wine and snacks. And one of my favorite pairings is for Pato, which is an Italian grape with pizza combos. Like, when I tell you, like, we took it down to the snack level, like, the snack level, what?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 9:04

Never thought that it was even a thing. Adam, yeah, whatever

Julia Coney 9:09

you eat, there's a wine for it.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 9:10

I love that about it. So now you have this wine bug. You didn't think it was going to be a career, so was it just something you started to do as hobbies and hobbies, my

Julia Coney 9:19

vacations, all my friends are like, we go. I'm like, we're going to Italy. And everything was about a vineyard. Started reading wine books for hobby like wine books like, you know, like I read cookbooks like some people read cookbooks like I do. And I'm a big book person, so I'm a one of those people always have a book. Always really into books. So wine books, I started taking classes. I will fly to New York from Houston to take wine classes, not trying to work in wine. I was like, No, I know what a psalm is. I know that whole life, I do not plan to ever work in a restaurant. I still have never worked in a restaurant. I've eaten a lot of restaurants. And so for me, Bob just gave me that. It was like the permission. I can't come from a family like you know, if you want to know something. You're hitting a book, like, go figure it out. Go find it. Go discover it. And And if my family watched it, like, what is this wine thing? Like, I was like, I don't know, and I don't know where it's going to take me, where it's going to take me. And in 2005 I moved to DC from Houston, and then it was a whole other world, because East Coast wine lovers are very different than southern wine lovers, right? Because you need, okay, well, you can get a lot of wines come to the east coast that never make it down south. They don't even make it West, because East Coast is considered more Eurocentric. That is just kind of like a thing. And then 2005 you could get some wines in Texas, but you couldn't get them like you can't now. And so it was on the train for wine dinners, you know, at, you know, let's say, Okay, I'm going to New York. I'm going to Laguna, where you because there's a wine dinner. Okay, I'm going to LA Bernadine because there's a wine dinner. So I started knowing all these psalms because I was going up to DC, up to New York, and then I knew all the DC people because I was just eating at all the restaurants. And what's a psalm? Um, it's

Nicaila Matthews Okome 11:00

a sommelier. Sommelier. I always, always trip over that word. And are they like a wine curator? Is that the official kind of, the official

Julia Coney 11:08

kind of definition is a wine steward, someone who works in wine curates. I personally do not call myself a sommelier. A lot of people do. For me, I don't work in restaurants, and I consider them a restaurant person. And I could call myself that. I call myself a wine educator, journalist and consultant. If somebody says, Are you a psalm? Do I have certain credentials? Yes, I started studying those credentials when I wanted to get into wine as career. But I know a lot about wine because I've actually been to more. I always like to say I was going to wine regions, when Psalms actually weren't going to wine regions. So when I would meet them, they're like, Oh my God, you've been to all these wine regions and you've never worked. I'm like, No, I just I like wine.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 12:02

And what were you doing during all this time? Well, you were still the legal assistant. You were still a legal assistant. So from Houston to the East Coast, you were and

Julia Coney 12:10

then I became an international, like, legal assistant. So I was flying at Japan and Asia and Tokyo working and Asia wine scene was off the chain. I mean, they not that, oh, they drink some baller wines. I mean, they have a huge wine community in Asia. I actually love it, because I love also the cuisine. So you're in Hong Kong, you're in Thai, you know, you're getting Sichuan, you're getting all these styles of really great wine with, like, dumplings. Yeah, sounds delicious, yeah. And they're big champagne drinkers, so the buzz of really getting into champagne was when I was going to Asia a lot and drinking with them, and I'm like, Okay, well, what this wine? And what's this? And then in 2006 I started a beauty blog.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 12:55

Oh, oh, speaking of this beauty blog, right? So as I'm researching you, Julia, I find out this fun fact. You know, one of my favorite bloggers and authors of all time is Tia Williams, absolutely. So when I heard this connection, I was just blown away. Tell me. So what's the story? How did you meet Tia, and how did that lead you to Monster bug?

Julia Coney 13:17

So TIA is the reason I'm talking to you, and I will always say that Tia Williams saw something in me that I should be writing about, even though I have an English degree, you know it? Yeah, I didn't think about writing as a career. And I met Tia in 2006 at a writing conference on the weekend at Howard University.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 13:36

So were you going to this writing conference for fun as well? Was this another thing? It was Tia Williams.

Julia Coney 13:41

She was signing her book. Okay, I'm a TIA Williams friend from L and lucky like TIA is the Black Beauty girl that is always going to be. And so for me, Tia looked at me and she said, What do you do for your skin while she's signing her books and books for my nieces? And I said, I go to Paris every year and get a facial. Till it what? I said, Yeah, I go to Paris every year and get a facial, which I still do. I still go to the same facial place, and till it, you should write a beauty blog. And I said, What? And I never thought about it. And I said, I don't know. She said, I really think you have a voice. And she was like, you're doing something that's so different, because you're flying to France to get a facial. And I said, Okay, I think about it. And she gave me her email, and three months later, I emailed her back and said, Okay, I'm gonna start this beauty blog. And it was about me traveling in the world and shopping, about beauty products, being a lover of beauty products, and Tia posted on her then, beauty blog, shake your beauty and it went crazy, like every beauty Baron started reaching out. And I was like, what is happening? Like, what is going on? Because I thought it was like a fluke and a joke. And what is a blog? And, you know, it was a blog spot that the. And it was

Nicaila Matthews Okome 15:00

not like it is now, og memories right now. Listen, if y'all know about shake your beauty, comment, shake your beauty when you see this, because that was my blog. Okay, yeah,

Julia Coney 15:12

everything about her life, like, you know you you're reading about it, and she's talking about a product, and she's, I mean, I used to, we call them screenshots. Back then, I remember, like, the trying to take photos with a Blackberry of posts that she had, because I was like, I need to remember this. Because I don't want to, I don't want to forget what she said that I needed to layer this lip liner with this lip gloss. And, you know, individually, started your

Nicaila Matthews Okome 15:39

own.

Julia Coney 15:40

I started my own and I wanted, what was it called, all about the pretty. All about the pretty. And the subtitle was a southern girls guide to all things Bucha miss, which my grandmother used the term beautiful, which is beautiful and glamorous together. Oh, I love that. And it was just literally me talking about spending Saturday mornings. I like, I'm from Texas, so I'm a Texas girl, and moving to DC was one of the hardest things, because I hated the Neiman Marcus in DC. I'm from Texas. NEMA started in Texas, and if you're a Texas person who understand the OG Neiman's, you could go in, sit down, they will bring you clothing on a rack. You pick a clothing, and next thing you know, it's at your house, it was valet. You drop your car off. There was champagne in the makeup counter. It was a scene. And just hang out. And I had a private sales lady named Miss Juanita who started selling skin care products when I was 16 because my mother wouldn't let me wear makeup. She was like, No, we can the skin is the thing. In this family, you're going to have a skin routine. And it was just really talking about a good time. It was talking, I'm going to Rome, and I'm going, you know, where I'm buying, I'm buying carthusia, but I'm in Capri. I'm doing a visit in Capri at that place. And, you know, it was like, I'm going to cross France to study fragrance. It was insane. Like, wow, it was,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 17:08

when exactly did you start your blog? And how long did you blog before you realized, hey, like, I can actually switch careers. Okay, I

Julia Coney 17:18

started to blog in March of 2006 I left my law firm job in September of 2010 and I was so what I my job as a legal assistant in DC was very busy. It was 60 to 70 hours a week, and then blogging on top of that. And I tell this story because I didn't hate my legal job, like some people hate their they I didn't hate my job. I just didn't want to work. I remember going into the office, and I had spent a month in Africa, going to the World Cup, and then going to Egypt with my then boyfriend, now husband, and I said, I just want to work one day a month from home, not a Friday, not a Monday, just Wednesday. I said, so we're going to get married, and I just want to work Wednesday from home. That's all I wanted. I was like, if they give me Wednesday, just not to go in, not come home in a car service. And, you know, because one of the clients, one of my, the clients I work with, really, we're on their phones like we're on their laptops, they were huge. So it was a lot, very intense. And I had a team of five, and when I by the time I came back, my entire team was like, I can't work like this for the rest of my life. Like this is very hard work. It's very busy. I don't know how you do this and a blog, because I would be traveling with the blog and still doing the legal work like at the same time. And I said, I go in and I'm gonna ask for Wednesday off. Dot not work, just telework. Now everybody can do it. It was hybrid. This is 2010 so they weren't cutting for that. They told me no. And at that moment, I said, Well, I'm making the same amount of money doing this beauty thing. Okay? And I went to my desk and I typed in a resignation right there, because I said, If I don't, yeah, yeah. And I mind you, this was a Wednesday, the after the Friday I got married. Wow, didn't tell my husband. Didn't call. I called him at work and said, Hey, I just quit. He went, Okay. When he got home, it was like, I said, Well, I'm gonna see what this can what this can do. Because it wasn't, I hated my job, like I said. It was just, I just needed a day to telework. And then in September 2010 I started doing full time beauty freelance, travel writing. I mean, I used to do Twitter chats. Remember when Twitter chats was a thing?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 19:38

Yes, Twitter chat. That was like, oh, 920, 10, Twitter chatting, big chat team. You had to do a Twitter chat. You had to join them.

Julia Coney 19:50

And I started doing that, and I really enjoyed it, right? I really, I loved writing about beauty. I love the behind the scenes. I love interview. Doing perfumers, people who make the product the skin care like chemists. Because to me, it wasn't really makeup that drew me. It was skincare products and it was fragrance. Those are my two loves of beauty. Like, yes, I wear makeup because we wear it on a camera. But I don't have like, 3030, eyeshadows. Like, I just, oh, but I have, like, about four to eight vitamin C serums, so that part still hasn't left. And so for me, I did that, and I was very happy. I was very happy writing. I was very happy traveling. And then in 2015 and you might remember this time, I remember everything was contouring. Remember when contouring came out, like, 2014

Nicaila Matthews Okome 20:44

remember when it because I didn't know about contour, that's okay, I I was late to the game with, Okay, well, it was, it was, it

Julia Coney 20:52

was the Kardashians. It was contouring like every day. It wasn't like contouring like we're going out at night, which I could understand. And it was this glam all day, every day that I was like, Okay, I can't, I can't write about that. That's not my wheelhouse. Yeah, and it became very hard to write about. Also, I wasn't really, I didn't really care that much about celebrities, like, I knew who they were, but it was kind of like, okay, if they were at the Oscars. Now, absolutely right there to reward you. But anything else, I was like, I don't want to write about that. And I was going back and forth, and my mom was living at the time, yeah, and I had to have a hysterectomy in the fall of 2015 and you know, when you have a lot to analyze, when you're like, Okay, I'm not having kids. And I was okay with that. That wasn't a thing. It was like, but do I want to be a beauty writer when I'm 60. Ooh, that conversation, and I'm 42 at that time, so I am going do I want to do this this way? And my mother was like, Well, what do you want to do? I said, I know something in food and wine. And she went, well, all over this house is one, I think it's just telling you, I think that's the sign. And I went, right, right. Okay. And I had known a black wine writer named Dorothy Gator who, to me, is my mentor in wine writing. And she wrote for The Wall Street Journal with her husband, John brusher. They're actually my mentor is still to this day, and I said, I want to be the next generations Dorothy Gator. I want to talk right about wine to make people feel comfortable like they made me in my wine journey coming into wine when I discovered them in 1998 I want to unders. I really want to read them and and be that person. And I was still very nervous, like, Here I am again, about to switch to another career. Yes, going to tell my husband I'm switching to another career. Like, it wasn't just like, and, you know, my mom and my family was like, well, you a wine person, though we see it, even if you can't, yes. And I said, Okay, thank you, because I didn't like I saw it, but I didn't see it. I didn't really see it.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 23:10

First of all, you have lived so much just within our talk, so it just feels like you have had so many rich experiences. And it's just a testament to the fact that your life has different chapters. And we've been programmed to believe that we, at a certain age, choose what we're going to do for the rest of our life, as if it's going to be one long chapter like 18 and then 22 and then same chapter for the rest of our life. No, no, no, no, no,

Julia Coney 23:40

yeah, but remember, I'm Gen X. Gen X is you go to school, you go to college, you get a job, you retire, then you can decide about girl you can rent and do whatever you want,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 23:49

yeah. And here you are like, Okay, well, first I'm gonna become a beauty writer, and then I am going to pivot at 42 and that's okay, that that is fine. And then now let's talk about these nerves, right? The nerves starting from the beginning. Even as experienced as you were and traveled and knowledgeable, there's still that sense of, Well, I haven't been doing this. Yeah. Am I to do this? Did you feel any of that?

Julia Coney 24:18

Oh, I felt all the things. I felt all the things to start over. Who am I to now? Want to jump into wine and like, feet first, right? I remember just going, Okay, so let me google myself, right? So I googled myself and said, Well, if I keep my name, everything relates to this beauty blog, right? Everything pulls to this blog. So then I had to decide that was like the identity I had. I am Julia Coney from all about the pretty I have to take this beauty blog down. What if I don't take it down? When you Google me, it will forever be beauty. And that was a hard decision to pull 10 Years of Beauty writing pose. Down. Wow. Like, yes, I still own the domain, but it was like, let's take this down off WordPress. Let's archive everything. Wow. When I tell you, like,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 25:13

I don't think, even if I pivot away from science or pro, I'm not taking it down.

Julia Coney 25:17

I did. I was just like, I kept googling myself, and I was like, why is never coming up? Like, is is not going to come up? And I cried like a baby, like I am telling you, I was bawling because I didn't. And here is like, starting a new blog, knew this, knew everything, and taking something, that old identity, yeah? Who? I still love that girl, but it was like, this new girl got to show up, and she can't show up doing this, yeah? And I like, I do everything. I had research, bloggers, writers, I mean, found emails. And when I tell you shoot your shot, because I was shooting my shot in people's emails, like, Hey, I was a beauty writer. Can Can you help me in this one thing? Not one person said, no. Not one person said,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 26:09

no. What kind of help were you looking for?

Julia Coney 26:12

Just like, Okay, how do I get on? You know, there's a PR list, right? How do I go from a beauty list to a PR list, and I will never forget. Her name is Katherine Todd Dame wine. She's like. Email every PR that works in beauty and tell them to pass it to their friends that work in food and wine. That's the first step. Email them and tell them, hey, this is a new email. This is what I'm doing. Set that up. Did that. The response was great. Okay, we'll just switch you over, change my name. Incision, email. Incision, hey, I need you to take me off the beauty PR list. You put me to food and drink. It was like a checklist. Every day I'm doing something, yes, and then it was like, okay, less cold pitch magazines. I love cold pitch. I love a cold pitch. Y'all you know, and people you know, pitching is hard, right? Because I'm doing pitching about beauty to I'm doing writing in the story. And it took a long time to go, in my opinion, from Julia covid Beauty writer to wine writer. And it wasn't the pitch that actually made me popular, and everybody wanted to talk to me. It was writing about the racism in the wine industry in 2018 on my blog. And when I did that, my mother was still living it was January, 2018 and my title was your wine glass. Ceiling is my wine glass box, an open letter to the wine industry on their racism. I wrote that blog post about everything that had happened, the things people said, like, when it was now, you're in the business, I can't believe you've done these things. Because how have you been these places? And I've been here for 10 years, and you have been all these places, and you know, oh my God, you've been to Bordeaux. Like, the real Bordeaux? Like, yeah, the real Bordeaux. It's only one, right? Right? There's only one with clarification. I wrote this honest letter in the next day. It was in what we consider in the wine industry, our daily news. It was in wine business, and they linked to it, and I literally woke up and it was emails upon emails from people like, we need to talk to you. How can we help you write? Do you want to write a story? It became just because I was just so frustrated, because I was just like, I can go back to what I know how to do. That's that's easy, but that's not what I want to do. And if this is happening to me, how can I help people coming behind me? Because I am the well traveled wine person like before. You know, I was working in wine, and that literally jump started my career. So I am very grateful to blogging and writing and having that platform right, because that changed everything for me.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 29:01

I love the word you use because I love this word platform. The power can be in your hands, like we can literally give ourselves a platform, whether it's through a blog, whether it's through a podcast. Yes, you can pitch till you're blue in the face, but they need something to come back to. And when you when you have this platform, which is like your portfolio, with all of your work, it speaks for itself, they can then say, oh, oh, yeah, we we want more of this. So talk to us about the platform building that you've done throughout the years and how impactful it's been for you, whether it was beauty or now food and wine. Well, for

Julia Coney 29:40

me, one of the things, you know, I still freelance, right? So I've written Washington Post, Food and Wine, wine enthusiast. And this, this year, last year, Lord Jesus, I started a sub stack. And what I wanted to write with the sub stack is I wanted people to find a wine, one wine. One week. That's all I'm giving you. I'm not giving you all nuance. I'm not giving you technicality. If you want a technical wine writer, I am not her. Can I go there with you? Absolutely will i No. People don't want to. They want to know what they should be drinking, what they should be eating. So for me, those main platforms for me are sub stack and then Instagram, like, that's where I'm gonna, you know, can be myself, you know, talking things, talking wine, talking food, just talking books. It could be anything, and it took me a long time, because everything is about, yes, you need to niche and niche this, and if you don't niche, but I'm a wine person who are comment very often about how when I'm tasting wine for work, I can't wear a fragrance. Fragrance hinders me smelling wine. So I write often like, Oh, I'm glad I'm home, because I can wear a fragrance, and then I can smell this wine, or I'm writing about this wine, and then I'm like, Yeah, then I'm a layer of fragrance after it. But there are so many nuances in fragrance and wine that are very similar. Right on the subs. I pair champagne and fragrance interesting

Nicaila Matthews Okome 31:03

and and I learned that from a perfumer. And what's really interesting about you, Julia, is there's an unapologetic nature that you have. You know, this is me. This is what I want to do. There's not coloring in the lines, and then there's just like, ripping up the lines altogether. And you're just like, What line? Because even within things that we give ourselves permission to do, we can find ourselves still going back to these made up rules, like, who set the rules? Who says, if you know this much about why, then you need to be a song if you do this, then you need to do it this way and be writing about technical stuff. You're like, No, I don't want to do that. No, no, no. Well,

Julia Coney 31:43

the reason why I will say this, I come from a family, my dad, my mom, grandmother, family like, we are very we're very loud family. We're very bold family. We're very unapologetic. Like and that was just the way I was raised. I am the daughter, the baby girl of four boys. I am the baby. I had to be loud in order to be heard in that house. My father was a US Marshal. My mom was a teacher. And you know, my parents like, you're curious, go study it with anything you want to do. We'll believe in you. You know, those kind of like, okay, you fell down, get back up. You mess up. Get back up, you can fix things. And I think even as adult, we forget that we can fall down and get back up. We can fix things. We can mess things up and then still fix them. And so for me, when I think of wine in that way, and I talk to a lot of young people who want to interwine, and I always ask them, okay, do you want to be the person for the gram? Like, are you want to do that? Or do you want to do? Like, wine education? Like, what do you want to do? Because even though this wonderful beverage is fun, yes, it's also a lot of facts about it. Yeah, so you can't be stunned for the gram and don't know the wine facts, right? So I tell them immediately, like, somebody might have a situation, and I'm going, well, was that racism or you were factually wrong? Oh, because it could be both, and it could be you actually wrong. And they're telling you this not because you black, but you actually are factually wrong. And when along the line, nine times out of 10, they're factually wrong. What? What kind of things are they factually wrong. So right now, in Bordeaux, Bordeaux is known for classic five grapes. For centuries, it has been five grapes. Few years ago they allowed seven additional grapes. So now we got 12. So you're talking to somebody, and they're a Bordeaux person. They know Bordeaux inside and out, and they're telling you Bordeaux has new grapes. But your mind is saying Bordeaux has a five, because my textbook told me it was five. Okay, you're factually wrong. Yes, five are still the classics of what they do, but because of climate change, they had to add these new seven, and these new seven are going into these blends. That's facts. Champagne, right? Champagne can only be from Champagne France. Yes, there technically are three main grapes, but there's also five other grapes. Do we know the five other that makes the eight? So you can tell me, I don't understand why Pinot Blanc is in a champagne and it's a legally, illegal grape that can't be in the blend. That's a fact. Yeah. So that is understanding we have to also continue to study. Yes, you can continue to drink wine, but wine laws change a lot of things, and it's something sometimes things change every week, every day in wine on the factual part. So when I'm encouraging my mentees, I'm like, you have to be up on your career, what's happening in your industry. You have to read these news articles. You have to see who sold what wine company to this understanding what they're doing in the vineyard, as much as what's happening in the class. So you have to be a forever student.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 34:59

You. Let's shift gears a little bit more, because I want to know about the financial aspects of this. It is all finance, and need to explore your passions and to do something that brings you joy. But how do you sustain yourself? Especially as a freelance writer, it can be so hard, I imagine,

Julia Coney 35:20

to make a job like it's not a job like No.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 35:24

Tell us about these jobs. Yeah, how do you say yourself?

Julia Coney 35:28

I have writing my subs. I have a paid, paid vertical on there. I have a free vertical. I talk on panels. I charge my fee to be on your panel, and that is inclusive of, are you paying for my travel? I don't. You know, I don't. I don't travel on budget airlines. I don't travel on airlines that I don't have any points, you know, as my with my work, I only mainly now travel 99% of time on American that's where my status lies. That's what I do. And it's understanding that, right? If you want me to write for you. This is my rate. This is I don't accept anything below, and it is very hard. So you have to unders like even when I do private, I do a lot of private tastings for people you want me to come taste with you. That means you need to pay for my Uber Black because you want me to drink with you too. So let's be clear. You want me to do a private I'm not getting a regular Uber. I'm charging for that, and I'm charging per head. Okay? I'm not charging per event unless your event has a comma in it, because otherwise you're inviting 50 people to the zoom. Just say it's still on a zoom. I have to have the energy for 50 people. The same energy for 20 is the same energy for 50, but I have to charge for that. You are you have important notes. It's important notes, right? Am I choosing the wine? Am I coordinating wine delivery? Am I then I have to charge because I gotta pay a virtual assistant to create this Excel sheet with everybody address. Then we have to make sure your state allows the wine to be shipped from my vendor? No, I gotta charge for all that, and it's and I'm not everybody's person, and I'm okay with that and that. Now that took a long time to get to it's kind of like now I do private seller coordination. You want me to come into your home, analyze your wines, see which ones need to be drank now, see which ones? I can't do that if your seller doesn't start at 10,000 and up, that's that's a real talk. You need to have $10,000 worth of wine for me to talk today, and not like because if you're not a wine person, and you have a few bottles that you've collected on your travels, a lot of the times, those bottles need to have been drank. You didn't buy bottles to collect. You bought bottles to be dragged now, which means bringing me in is not worth the money, because you don't really know what you have. So usually people, I mean, you know, and I for events like Aspen retreat, yeah, amateurs at Aspen, I got two clients. They want me to come in. And you know, it is this, you're paying me for my time. You're paying me to go to restaurant like they don't want to do. Tease the expertise, right? And it's fun and exhausting at the same time, because a lot of that work is dirty. I'm opening boxes. I'm labeling boxes. I'm telling you, hey, I need you to drink this bottle on this shelf right now, within the next two months, because it is going flat. That is an expertise I've honed over decades of drinking wines, decades of knowing about certain regions that they've bought into reading weather reports. So it's not just like I'm just drinking a wine. No, I'm weather reporting that year that you bought that also, how was it stored? Fascinating.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 38:41

Is

Julia Coney 38:42

the capsule still on the wine? Yeah, was it behind the kitchen? What? Who

Nicaila Matthews Okome 38:46

had it?

Julia Coney 38:50

What is like? What do we do?

Nicaila Matthews Okome 38:51

You know, what I love about this, Julia, because my mind is blown because I don't even know that. That's something people pay for. You see why I love talking to people. It's like, I don't even know this was a job. I didn't know that was part of what you do, but it makes so much sense. But you know what else this is? Rich people problems. This is wealthy Talk right here on court a whole new level, like if I need someone to come tell me what's in my cellar and help me know when to drink it.

Julia Coney 39:22

Oh, I have a client every every week, Her job is to send me the list of what she bought, because she buys a lot of stuff, right? I get the text, I should buy this, and I am just like, nope, nope. And also, too, everything you might see on sale depends on the vendor. I will tell you not, not to buy it. I don't like the way their warehouse is, I but that's an inside baseball nuance of wine for me to tell you, they don't properly chill their warehouse, so you're buying an off bottle. That is a lot of inside my career that I learned by asking questions.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 39:55

What do you think of things like wine subscriptions, for example? Are you able to advise people, if you don't know anything about this subscription company and where they're storing their wines?

Julia Coney 40:06

Yes, and I look, that's a flat fee, and I don't, and here's why, I don't take that on one time. One time doesn't create a relationship for us. For me, I am minimum six months, because that way I figure out, what do you like to drink? Where are you going? Because here's also two, you went on vacation, right? Vacation was great. You bought all that. You came home, you were happy. You were in Italy. You were like, Oh, girl, I got this wine. And you came home and you're saying to me, you don't like the wine now. Well, one, you're not on vacation. So vacation wine tastes different. Vacation wine taste different, right? But if you've bought wine, I needed to know, what store did you actually buy it from the vineyard? What happened, like, how did it get to you? Did you take it immediately, out the box? Are we leaving it in a box? Also, when you have something at home, where is a seller? Is it a private room? Is it a basement? I'm asking about temperature all those so we can help you in your investment of wine, preserve that wine to your kids, literally, graduate high school.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 41:14

So if you bought it in the fridge, Julia, I can't

Julia Coney 41:19

What's the thing fridge? One is, when you go to the wine store, you went, you know, bottle of wine, yeah, put it in. I will tell you within two months that wine needs to be drank in your refrigerator. Just don't leave. But it's those little things I've learned, asking questions, talking to people who know more than I do, like, how did you get in this game? And I asked a friend, and he was like, Oh, girl, let me tell you. And literally, call me one day like that. One day. And I was like, bet say less. Got it done. And when I started telling people, and they're like, oh. And then I came, you know, thank goodness for Canva created my little one sheeter. The this is the rate always happens. And here's the funny thing. Now I download it because I meet so many people, because I'm always in an airport, right? I can tell them, here's here's what I do, here's the rate. You can choose it or and nine times out of 10 I get a client nice because people, they don't know and they don't even want to do the work. So yeah, the wine job is like this, so it's not a straight and narrow, right? I do know January is my slowest month, end of December, January, right? In the wine business, we call O and D, October, November, December. But by literally, Christmas Eve, everybody has had all the wine, all the spirits they want. Everybody's on a diet in January, and everybody's really not drinking, right? They're not drinking, which is fine. So that means I can take a vacation, I can go away, I can regroup, and I usually don't take work in January for that reason. Yeah, that's what I have to think about. Everything that that leads to that I also, you know, I don't know if you know this, I do food and wine trips around the world

Nicaila Matthews Okome 43:00

now I've seen glimmers of this. So tell me more about this. Are you leading these trips? Are people paying you to take these trips? Are you a guest on the trip? Okay, tell me more. I

Julia Coney 43:10

am leading the trips, and I am launching my own luxury travel company, ooh, with my friend to do food, wine and wellness trips around the world. Very better

Nicaila Matthews Okome 43:21

to go with

Julia Coney 43:23

and like, Hello, yes, and I'm I also will be hiring other wine professionals to lead wine trips in their regions, their design like you love recently.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 43:34

All right, reach out. Reach out. Y'all Yes.

Julia Coney 43:38

So we're launching next May, and in a wine region for Week, we have a little weekend trips, and then we're having 10 day look super luxury, high end international trips. So we'll, we'll have something for everybody.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 43:49

Yes, I, you know, I want to highlight here and just really call out the fact that you discovered something you love you for many years, allowed yourself to explore that on the side, and didn't try to define it too early. Why do I like this so much? What can I do with this? You know, who should I be doing something with this? Just you just let yourself enjoy a genuine love for something, and when the time was right, you realize what more you should be doing with it. And so I just, I love that progression, because you gave yourself space to see exactly what you which part of it you would be okay taking payment for so that it doesn't ruin the joy of it for you,

Julia Coney 44:34

yeah. And some days, you know, the, you know, and I do a lot of work in diversity and wine, and some days, those are heart right? Some days the joy is like, Oh, this is, why am I doing this? Everybody has that in their career, yeah. And then what, honestly, the way I get over it is I just go say, You know what? Let's look about indigenous grapes in Slovenia, and I'll get back to the love of why I came to wine so. Take the work part out and become that student again. So that's why I continue to take classes, continue to be curious and interested, because every day I don't always like it, right? I mean, I think about I am the first black person to run a wine program for an airline. Wow, right? I don't want to be a last so there is that, right? And then I'm like, Okay, I know what I'm doing. And then when I get the Excel sheets, I like, oh, I

Nicaila Matthews Okome 45:33

don't want to do this. I

Julia Coney 45:34

don't want to do this, or I don't want to look at this 600 line item that I need to look at, right? Yeah. So there are days it's like, oh, this just sucks, but that's life, and that's a that's a lot of jobs, and I think we forget that every day in a job is not going to be great, right? And

Nicaila Matthews Okome 45:50

I just actually had a moment like that today where I was like, you know, self you could be doing this, you know, for someone else in an office, but no, you have to be your own boss, and you have to buckle up and do something you don't want to do, and that's okay, like you either do it here or there, here or there, which one you know, everyone has their days, no matter what the profession where there's some elements of it that are not the most fun, like you, I don't get to just Kiki with you all day. That comes into the podcast, and you have to remind yourself that you're so right.

But before we get into the lightning round, I have to learn more about how you became the wine consultant for American Airlines. So how did that come about? So

Julia Coney 46:37

the American Airlines partners with the James Beard Foundation. So the James Beard Foundation for anybody listening, James Beard chefs, top of the line, best of the best in in the United States. And they have the wine program for American and so a few years ago, they reached out saying they're looking for a new wine consultant. Would I like to be considered and interviewed, and I said, Yeah, okay. And like on the interview, I was like, Oh, thank you for my job. I'm like, Thank you for my job. And I remember to see the faces. They were like, Huh? Oh, thank you for my job. I just await. Thank you. Thank you for the job, you know, because here's the thing they had watched me talk about wine and snacks on Instagram. Somebody told somebody, and she was like, Hey, this looks like a fun person. You know, we want not just to choose the wines, because it's the planes and all the lounges, so it is all that. But maybe she can do public appearances. She can teach the staff about wine. Because when I came in, I was like, okay, choosing wine is fun. This is gonna be fun. But I'm I also like to travel, and doing the trips. I'm always in the lounge. I want to talk to people. Can I talk about the wines? And they were, you want to do that? And then I was like, watch me. And then they saw me in one lounge, and was like, Yeah, we get it. Now. That's amazing. Yeah, that is amazing. You know, my

Nicaila Matthews Okome 48:01

favorite part of this is the fact that they saw you on Instagram, and somebody told somebody, that is my favorite kind of story, because I keep telling y'all, what if you are not posting what you do on the Internet somewhere? I don't listen. Here's a crazy permission slip.

Julia Coney 48:18

It's so funny, because you were talking about wine and food, and I did this panel and asked them with snacks. And my whole August is just literally filming that, filming the video, one snack, one wine, and posting it. That is literally gonna be it, because I'm getting all the snacks from all the places. And here's the thing, some of it's gonna work and some of it won't, but that's the beauty of it. Is trying, right? And trying to bring something that I love and make approachable and easy and fun. And I think about it because I'm only in eight and a half years. I mean, I've only been working in wine, technically, since 2016

Nicaila Matthews Okome 48:52

right? When you told me that I couldn't believe it because we met in 2019 I'm like, wow, you were only, like, three years in three, four years in at that point, that's crazy. I would never have known that and but you know what? Three and four years is a long time when you do something consistently, you'll be amazed at your growth. Yeah, and it was three years, it's,

Julia Coney 49:14

it's amazing, because I always like, I have my husband, you know, I'm a triple fire sign. So anybody who's in the signs, I'm a triple fire sign. So

Nicaila Matthews Okome 49:21

I have to say this, what does that mean, right? Because, yeah, you got people like, I'm

Julia Coney 49:25

a Sagittarius, Moon, sun, Leo. Like,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 49:30

what does that mean? Like, you just, you on it. You just, like,

Julia Coney 49:35

when you play through I love what I do. And I'm always thinking, is not what's next is, how can I keep having fun? I, you know, and I changed my mind narrative that a lot of people will say, Julie, you're so busy. I'm not busy. I have a full life. Yeah, I had to retrain the wording, because everybody was putting things on me. And I'm like, I read 70 books a year. I get seven hours of sleep a night. Like, I'm not busy. I. Just am very have a full life. And so one of my things is I love hotels. That's why I love traveling. Like travel, I'm a hotel person, the band, the room matters, right? And so I my goal. I want to be a wine person for hotels, for boutique luxury hotels. Yes, I want to go in and I want to choose wines for some of my favorite hotels to put in rotation, not permanently, just a little bit, just say, and I do a residence one time a month at that hotel, 12 hotels one time a month, and we have dinners. And everybody come to this hotel, and I work with the chef and, boom, that's what we do. That's how my mind thinks, Oh, I love that.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 50:41

It's like you create job descriptions, and then you go out there and it manifests, because it's so important to visualize and to speak life into yourself over what you want. And so as you're saying this, it, you guys know you've been listening to the last few episode. It all ties back to what I've been so focused on this year, which is making sure that my words really reflect the reality that I want. And same thing, I no longer say things like, Oh, I'm so busy. You know, I was talking to a mindset, I guess I'll call them coach, for lack of a better word right now that I was working with, and when people are like, Oh, I'm stressed, you know, I got my kids, and everybody's pulling on my time, and she's like, No, reframe that my life is full of my life is filled with people and things that I love. And so it just reminded me of what you said, I'm not busy. My life is full. My life is full of amazing things. And some days you

Julia Coney 51:39

can Netflix and chill, and some days you can't like

Nicaila Matthews Okome 51:43

and that's just it. And then the last thing that you said, before we jump into lightning round, that I want to reiterate, is, how can I say that again? How can I make my life more fun, right? I love that question. How can I continue to make my life more fun. If your life is not fun right now, ask yourself, What can I do to make it fun and like that for you, the guided light exactly because

Julia Coney 52:09

I look at planning wine list for a hotel, it's fun. I'm gonna stay in a fabulous room. Yes, I'm gonna talk to people about wine. I'm gonna host a dinner, and in that dinner, guess what? I'm picking up new clients. How can I like

Nicaila Matthews Okome 52:27

and so for me, I'll demonstrate that for you guys too, like, how can I make more life I want to talk to people I'm naturally nosy. Being nosy is fun for me. How can I do that? I can just continue to interview and talk to amazing women who I admire, who I feel are icons in their field. That is fun for me. And so you everyone listening, ask yourself that, and you know what it requires? It requires you taking the limits that you've put on yourself off. It requires you, you are the one that has to take that ceiling off. Like, oh, that's not realistic. Oh, everyone can't have fun all day. Julia, yes, you can

Julia Coney 53:09

what we describe as fun, right? Like, like, I picked up roller skating last year as a hobby, right? That's hobby, yeah. But I don't want to leave this earth and going, I didn't have fun the majority of the time, right? Does that not mean, look, I'm still full time caregiving right now in Louisiana, and it is hard. But how can I have fun still? Yeah, I'm drinking champagne with you and, you know, in an afternoon,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 53:37

that's right, yeah, that's it, right there. All right, so we're gonna jump into the lightning round, you guys. I have a big smile on my face. I you know, like you said, there are hard moments in life, like I am running on fumes sometimes from lack of sleep and these conversations, they give me so much life that, like, my brain, my brain be like, I'll just be like, so energized after them, after waking up with like, three hours of sleep, like, all because of what we've decided to do with our life. So I hope that inspires someone today. So now let's jump into the lightning round. You know the deal you just answered the very first thing that comes to mind. Are you ready?

Unknown Speaker 54:22

Okay, hold on, let

Nicaila Matthews Okome 54:23

me take a sip of courage. Okay, yes, and I'll take a sip. I'll take a sip of a different type of bubbly. It's just sparkling water, because Lord knows, if I drink right now, I will not wake up. Alright, number one, what is a top resource that has helped you in your business that you can share with the side hustle, audience,

Julia Coney 54:42

YouTube, YouTube and Google. Classes, YouTube, Googling something on YouTube, on Google and finding on YouTube, learning how to like I've learned how to work my phone better for things just being on YouTube like, content creation, content creation. Should also timing just everything, like how to make the phone more efficient, not just, oh, this is a note app. How do I sync this note to a reminder that's going to pop up on my phone instead of just having a list of notes? Yes, I

Nicaila Matthews Okome 55:13

need to do a better job with that. So thank you for that reminder. Apple. I know you have this big event, you tell us all these things, and I don't know what to do with it. On threads,

Julia Coney 55:24

a girl literally said how she links notes on her thing to her reminders. And I screenshotted it and went back this before you could save on threads get went on YouTube 30 minutes. I was like, Oh, this. I'm good. Oh, okay,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 55:38

I'm looking that up after this. All right. Number two, who is a non celebrity, black woman entrepreneur who you would want to switch places with for a day, and why I would

Julia Coney 55:49

like to switch

Nicaila Matthews Okome 55:50

places with Cookie Johnson. Oh, tell me why I

Julia Coney 55:55

think cookie Johnson is one of the most elegant women I have ever watched on a and I mean, I know she, I hate to say celebrity in that way, but I've still missed cookies jeans, and I want to know, does she have an archive of those cookies jeans that I can take, because I am literally on my last two pairs, and I'm trying to buy some off Ebay. I thought her jeans were the best concept for black women. Like it just worked. Everything about those jeans were amazing, and they don't exist anymore. So, all right, wow, yeah,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 56:34

I forgot about that. Oh, honey.

Julia Coney 56:37

Like, I

Nicaila Matthews Okome 56:38

gotta find out, Miss cookie. What happened? What

Julia Coney 56:42

happened to the bring back cookies? Jeans. I need these jeans.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 56:47

All right. Number three, what's the non negotiable part of your day these days

Julia Coney 56:52

quiet morning and exercise. That is how I get through the day as part of my morning routine, like, I wake out of the bed and I'm very excited. I'm happy I do Tracy Anderson method. I walk and I do yoga. Those are primarily the things I do. I don't do all the intense that a lot of people do. I know Tracy Ellis Ross is a as a big devotee of Tracy Anderson. It's like yoga, Pilates strength hit all in like one class, like 30 minutes. It is the best 30 minutes of my day. So doing a workout, even if I just walk, because some mornings, I don't plan it. So I wake up and go, How do I feel? Some mornings, it could be a 30 minute walk. Someone would be Tracy Anderson. Mornings could be yoga. And then I spend 30 minutes to 45 minutes every morning reading,

Nicaila Matthews Okome 57:36

Okay, number four, what is a, what's a personal trait that has really contributed to your success. I'm

Julia Coney 57:43

never meet a stranger, and I'm going to shout out to love you. Jay Jones on this statement, lovey said, years ago on stage, she walks into a room, God, has her helper there? Ah, my life changed, and I will tell you, in the past three years, when I walk into a room, my helper is there. That is how that is beautiful. That is a that segment change how I saw everything. And I don't mean a bunch of. It doesn't have to be 20 people. It could just be one person. And so never meet a stranger. I know my league and I talk, we're playing people who talk to everybody on the plane. If you talk back, I'm talking that's like, gonna be a thing, but you never your helper might be the person sitting next

Nicaila Matthews Okome 58:24

to you. Yeah, I definitely, I love that, because you just never know who you're crossing paths with. And, you know, people are so interesting. It's like, what brought you here? Like I said, like being in that pool, I just remember staring at you, like, what, what is her life?

Julia Coney 58:44

You know, is one of those things that pool scene, to me was like, you know, people go on retreats, and I've been on retreats, and you've probably been on retreats to see that many black people, women, that fabulous in one weekend, yes, one weekend, and to me, I wanted to bring the joy of champagne and sparkling wine of my love to women, and I am waiting for the next one my league.

Look, you have a retreat, you have an event. You want me to come with the with the champagne and the sparkling. I'm coming. I'm bringing the wine suitcase. I was

Nicaila Matthews Okome 59:23

just about to say, How can I forget you also introduced me to the wine suitcase. The wine suitcase. Yes, amazing. All right. Last question. Last question, what is your parting advice for fellow women entrepreneurs who want to be their own boss but are worried about not having a study paycheck, save

Julia Coney 59:42

more money, ask for more money, and know they're going to be lean times and fat times. And know what you're doing on purpose, on his purpose. For your purpose is we need your voice. However you going to give it to us. We need. It. We need it. We need it. Somebody needs it. And just know, I know, and I have to say this, just because it seems like everybody else doing it, we still need your voice. We still need your voice. We still need

Nicaila Matthews Okome 1:00:16

your voice. I love that so much. Thank you, Julia, thank you. Where do people connect with you and all your fabulousness? After this episode,

Julia Coney 1:00:25

I am on Instagram at Julia Coney sub stack. Is Julia coney.substack.com literally any word, like, I tell people slide into the DMS. Like, like, I answer my DMs, I email back. Like, if you email imma, email you, if you if you're not a DM person, fine. If you're not a social person, email me. My email is Hello at Julia coney.com I answer it. My assistant answers it. We I like people in my role as a black woman is to promote black women and to be a voice and sometime a listening ear, and being like, you know there and understand like also no means not right now.

Nicaila Matthews Okome 1:01:04

Hello, hello. Well, thank you so much again, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it, and I will talk to you next week. Hey guys, thanks for listening to side hustle Pro. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple podcast. It helps other side hustlers, just like you, to find the show. And if you want to hear more from me, you can follow me on Instagram at side hustle Pro Plus. Sign up for my six foot Saturday newsletter at side hustle pro.co/newsletter when you sign up, you will receive weekly nuggets from me, including what I'm up to, personal lessons and my business tip of the week, again, that's side hustle pro.co/newsletter to sign up, talk to you soon you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai