Summary

[00:00:00] Renee Devore: A slumber party. [00:00:01] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Welcome to today's Filled in Public podcast, and if you're new to the podcast, first and foremost, I just wanna thank you for joining. Welcome. I'm Stacey Gonzalez and this is a Build in Public podcast. Where we talk about the company that I'm building, I'm building two, but the one I mostly talk about is this one called Soul Growth with my business partner Renee Devore, who is also here with me live today. Hi everyone. And so we are podcasting from our pajama party , and that's true. And so maybe it's a nice moment tonight to share. The founder's journey or origin story, if you will, of how Renee and I met and how, and four months later, we are now having our first pajama party at Renee's House, . So maybe we'll tell our story. What do you think about that? Go for it. Yeah. Okay. So Renee had reached out to me on LinkedIn. in May of 2021. May of 2021. That's right. And I ignored her. Oh no. May of 2022. Yeah. Oh, 2020. Well, she ignored me. I did ignore her. And then did you [00:01:26] Renee Devore: reach out again? I did. I reached out again. So we had moved from Vermont to Chicago in July and I was still looking for people to connect with and I couldn't understand why Stacy Gonzalez, who had left education and was successful transition transitioning out, would not get back to me. And so, I don't do this very often, but I thought that I would try again in October and reached out to her again. And then I Then I heard from her in [00:01:59] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: December. Yeah, two months later. That's right. And so I got fired from a sales job and I thought I should probably go through my LinkedIn and like refresh this and update this and. And then I found this one. I'm like, oh my gosh, look at all these connection requests that have been sitting here for months. And I had hundreds of them. And so I found Renee's and I responded like, Hey, sorry for the delay. I mean, I did apologize. Oh, you did? I did. And we jumped on a call that next. Week. And as we were chatting, I'm like, oh, okay. I feel like she's kind of cool. Like she's passed the telephone test , and I mean, it's true. Yeah, it's true. And so we decided to meet at a little local, um, tequila bar by our house for a drink and just get to know each other. And so it was, it was a nice enough conversation. There was a little bit of business talk, but nothing, nothing. You know, like we weren't. Necessarily thinking we were gonna be in business together, were you thinking that? No, no. Well, you never thought you'd be, have a business partner. That's [00:03:09] Renee Devore: later on [00:03:10] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: in this story. She never thought she was gonna have a business. And I had told her in that conversation. I'm like, yeah, I tried to have a couple business partnerships. They didn't work out. And so now I'm looking for my next thing. I wanna be a number one hire. A first hire with a a. You know, startups who have gotten. Their first round of funding. And so when I came back from the holidays and vacation, cuz it was like Christmas time, Renee had texted me and again, again, because she's, she wanted me this whole time and we ended up, I texted her back and I said, Hey, my husband's on the couch with a man cold. And if we were friends like that, I would invite myself over to your house because she literally lives three miles from my. And the place in the community where I grew up for 35 years, the last 35 years, and she's like a nomad who's been all over the country, lived on the west coast, lived on the east coast, lived in Mexico, and like, you know, the universe just like dropped her into my backyard. And so I'm like, Hey, can I come hang out at your place? She's like, sure, come over. I've got wine. And I walked into her. And I was like, who even lives? Like this is like Joanna Gaines here. Like how are things so cute and perfect and like decorated with unmatching matching things. like things that you would not put together naturally, but like when you put 'em together, they look super cute. And so I just felt like really at home, obviously I like your home . Yeah, I'm here now in my pajamas. Yeah. Yeah. And. Then what were we doing? Oh, we were drinking wine because wine is definitely most necessary. And I saw this little soul growth card that she had that said, so, oh, you handed it to me. You said, I'm handing, I'm passing this out with this s e t-shirt shop called Soul Growth. And I'm tell showing, giving this to women for like what they, what they, I wanna give them what I would. And I'm like, I love this soul growth. This is the business. We can make this into [00:05:23] Renee Devore: business. Yeah. That's what happened. That's totally what happened. [00:05:28] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: And then the next day we, oh no, that night we planned the next Friday or something to have our first business meeting. January 19th, I think. Yeah. January [00:05:37] Renee Devore: 19th. is when it all went down the first [00:05:40] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: business meeting. And so today is April 19th. Oh my gosh. [00:05:45] Renee Devore: It is. It's our four month anniversary. It's our four month [00:05:47] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: anniversary. It's so exciting and so we have just been figuring it out as we go . Literally. Yeah. And following our heart. Yeah. And watching what unfolds before us. Yeah, and I think the biggest thing about soul growth, After four months of talking about it and trying to get clear on what it is and what we do and who we serve and how we do it, and all the millions of questions that when you are supposed to like have a go to market plan. And I think for us it's really about doing business differently and trusting that things will unfold exactly as they should in the timing that they should. like we're broker than we've ever been. Mm-hmm. , I've shared this a lot on this podcast. Yeah. But I feel more calm and confident and have inner peace more than I ever have. Mm-hmm. Dao. And so this soul growth journey is that it's a journey we invite you to be a part of the journey. We're starting Soul Girl Sundays, which is gonna be a virtual community for women who want to connect. With their heart and soul and do business differently, and we're just really thankful that you're on this journey with us. If you're listening to this, we invite you to join us and we look forward to getting to know you. Do you wanna say anything before we go? [00:07:16] Renee Devore: No. Thank you for being a part of Soul Growth. [00:07:20] Dr. Stacey Gonzales: Yay.