Ep. 90: Opening Up Why I Postponed Pretty Ambitious Summit
Do you know what it’s like to “cancel” something for reasons outside of your control?
In this podcast, my team and I get real about why we had to postpone the Pretty Ambitious Summit. The episode gives you a behind-the-scenes look into the event—what went down, what went down the week before, what’s going on right now.
My husband, Will, joins us in this episode.
Also chiming in on our experience during the whole thing is our operations director and boss babe, Laura.
And last but most definitely not the least is my best friend of 25 years, Julie, who was also basically our event planner and stage manager for Pretty Ambitious (oh! She's also the Pretty Rich Podcast editor. Fun fact. Okay.).
If you’ve been following me on Instagram (which, if you’re not, hello! Do that right here), you know how obsessed I’ve been with Pretty Ambitious.
It was in the works for a year! A YEAR!
It started out as an idea in the shower, and then it grew all the way into a 400-person (even over 400-person at the end of it? I think, yeah) event.
It was a huge loss for me and my team, not just financially (I did lose six figures last week), but emotionally. We’re not immune to the chaos that’s happening in our world today.
I understand that the world is full of people from so many backgrounds and are in the middle of crises circumstances with no resources. I know people are losing their homes, are terminally ill, have lost their jobs—my team and I aren’t blind to the fact that we’re not the only ones hurting. I am aware that I am not the only one hurting.
In the spirit of being transparent, this episode of the Pretty Rich Podcast is my perspective and my experience with the coronavirus and how it changed me and my dream—how it changed my team and how it feels like it took what we’ve been building and crushed it.
We really didn’t cancel until we had to cancel!
We held on for as long as we could.
At the end of the day, serving people in this situation looked like keeping them—keeping you—safe.
Enough explaining on here. We unpack the whole event in this episode, from what we felt to what we thought to what we had to deal with and how we dealt (are dealing) with it.
I love you all!
Thank you for sticking with me.
We’ll get through this, and we’ll get through this together.
Here are the episode highlights:
‣‣ [03:07] Here's where I tell you about what the event felt like to me and my team and what it felt like to "lose" it to the Coronavirus.
‣‣ [05:40] Laura chimes in at this minute mark on what it felt like for her to have to let go of something we put so much time and effort into (blood, sweat, and tears feels like an understatement!).
‣‣ [07:49] Right here is where Will unpacks what it looked like from an "outside" but close perspective and how he observed what we were feeling and dealing with.
‣‣ [11:00] At this point in the episode, Julie talks about the measure our team tried to take to keep Pretty Ambitious in play. Again, when I say we cancelled when we had to, we really had to. Julie speaks to that here.
‣‣ [13:46] Will talks about what it was like witnessing what I was going through at home, how it affected me emotionally and even physically.
‣‣ [15:43] Here's where I talk about the hard choice of postponing the event that had to be made--what led up to it, everything that needed to be considered, etcetera, etcetera.
‣‣ [17:14] I talk about the timing of us postponing Pretty Ambitious and how timely it was, even with complications that Julie speaks to.
‣‣ [19:15] Why wait until the "last minute," you guys? Laura answers that question here. It was a tough decision for us to make with all that was going on behind the scenes, and you'll see why right here.
‣‣ [23:32] Here's where we get specific about the behind-the-scenes of the Pretty Ambitious Summit launch week. We were literally packed up and ready to go! Did you know that? It's so crazy. Anyway, that story is at this point in the episode.
‣‣ [24:34] We get really honest about how postponing Pretty Ambitious affected our attendees. We know how disappointing it might've been, whether attendees thought it was "too late" or "unnecessary." All the details are here.
‣‣ [37:05] Transparency is vital in building relationships and community. We wanted to be completely honest with you, to keep you in the loop, and to let you know that we're here for you too. Our answer to "Why be so transparent about this?" can be found here.
I NEED TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! (Listen Here)
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You can enjoy a transcript of the podcast here.
Sheila Bella:
You're listening to the Pretty Rich Podcast, where you are totally the heroine of your own story. I'm your host, Sheila Bella, and I built a seven-figure PMU biz without a degree, without a fancy website, or a sugar daddy. And if you and I hang out here long enough, you're going to start to believe that you can do it too, because you really can. I know you think I don't know you, but I do. I really, really do, because I am you, and I believe we're all on the same journey together
My perfect job didn't exist, so I created it. The job I wanted wasn't hiring me, so I skipped the line and hired myself as CEO, just like you can.
So consider me your secret beauty biz BFF. In case you need to be reminded that power is never given to you, you just have to take it. Are you ready, beauty boss? Let's jump in.
Hey, you guys. It's Sheila Bella, and today we're going be talking about giving you the behind the scenes of Pretty Ambitious Summit and what went down, what went down the week before, what's going on right now. Some of you who have been following me for a while know that I've been obsessed with this event, Pretty Ambitious, for a year. It was an event that started out in the shower, as an idea in the shower, and then it grew all the way into a 400-person event. My vision was to have 400 epic beauty boss babes in one room, and I wanted to bring us together for soul, strategy, and sisterhood in a way that the permanent makeup industry and the beauty industry has never been brought together before. It was going to marry self-development and business strategy in one event. And the event was scheduled for March 13th through the 15th, and on March 12th, at 4:00 AM, I decided to postpone it, super last minute.
And I brought my team here with me. I'm not alone on this mic. As you guys may know, Los Angeles has been shut down. Everything's closed, and we are all working from home. I have my husband here. Say hi, Will.
Will:
Hi, Will.
Sheila Bella:
And then I have Laura. She's our operations director.
Laura:
Hi, everybody.
Sheila Bella:
And I have Julie, who was basically our event planner, stage manager.
Julie:
I was everything else that had to fill in the blanks.
Sheila Bella:
And our podcast editor.
But yes. These are some of the core people who have been helping me put this together. I don't even really see it as my event. I see it as our event, our baby. That's what it feels like. And it never happened, or it hasn't happened yet. So I feel like I miscarried, and I don't want to be insensitive to people who've actually had a miscarriage, and, as a mother myself, the pain of actually losing a child I just want to say, first of all, that it's much, much worse. It wasn't just an event. It meant so much to me, and it still does. I'm sitting here right now. It's Tuesday, and I still can't believe that it didn't happen yet. I still can't believe it.
I lost six figures last week, and I understand that the world right now is chaotic and that there are people who have no resources. There are people who are losing their homes. There are people who are terminally ill. And I understand that I'm not the only one hurting, but I can just tell you my perspective of what this whole coronavirus thing did to me and my dream and how my dream was crushed, our dream was crushed.
Yeah, it feels, too, like a cruel joke. I don't know if you guys saw the movie Old Boy. It feels like that. I think about all of the times that Laura and I and everybody else celebrated every person we got as a speaker, every milestone, when we decided that we had to have a bigger ballroom, all of those times. We designed the backdrop. All of those things that we celebrated, it feels like a joke, like somebody knew, and I know that isn't fair, because somebody knew that this was never going to happen.
I remember when we sold 100 tickets, we took a celebratory shot. 200 tickets, we took a celebratory shot. When we booked certain speakers that we really looked up to, I was jumping up and down, but I feel like somebody knew this wasn't going to happen yet.
I know this will pass. I'm learning how to see the bigger picture and just to trust.
Laura:
I have to second that. Like Sheila said, I was at shock at first, and then it hit me two nights ago. It's like losing something, because we've been working full year for this, and every single celebration, it's like, yeah, where did it go? It's like it's taken from us. There's really no word. Even if it's postponed, we're not getting this version of it. It's just this empty feeling of all our hard work, where is it being projected? Because we had such a great illusion of happiness and what was supposed to happen this past weekend, and it just was taken away. Yeah, it was taken away from our hands.
Sheila Bella:
It did. For a year, it gave us a lot of joy looking forward to it. Yeah, you and I were texting last night. Yeah, I was sad, because I know that the next one's going to be better. I know it is, but then I wanted this. I wanted this imperfect first -
Laura:
First timers.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah. I wanted to see what the mistakes were going to be. I wanted this version. I'm mourning the loss of this version.
Laura:
It's like your first child. We call it our child, because, in our heart, it is.
Julie:
Explain the conflict that was going through your mind that week leading up to canceling. Between you and Will, you guys must have had a lot of conversations on the pros and cons.
Will:
I think it's also ... I was a little bit more removed than at least the three of you were, but I was watching the whole thing from the very beginning, from when she explained that she wanted to have this event. It's not just an event, and it's not just a thing to make money.
I love Man's Search for Meaning, the book by Victor Frankl. Part of that book is about finding a why that you're willing to work your butt off for. The why isn't financial. The why isn't just notoriety. It's not fame.
There was a very clear why here, which is to serve and uplift women, especially women in the beauty industry, who many are not taken seriously. Many are not given a seat at the table in any legitimate way, and this was to serve women like you. And I've seen, because I'm from east coast, WASPy-educated background, that women like you aren't taken seriously, and this was for all of those girls out there to basically own who they are, what they do, and give them a seat at the table and give them all the tools needed to get them that legitimacy that a lot of immigrants and people of color and people who've had a really tough go of things in their life ... This was a chance for them. There was a really clear why for this.
And I think people that just see it as an event ...
Sheila Bella:
It's not just an event.
Will:
It's not, but that's a hard thing to explain. They would have gotten it there, but because it hasn't happened, they don't see it, and still just seems like an event, and that's part of the heartbreak too.
Sheila Bella:
Right. We were just talking. I was like, "I think people thought that this was going to be nice. This was going to be a nice event." In my heart, I'm like, "It hasn't happened yet. You didn't see it. You didn't know that it was going to be amazing. It was going to be life changing."
Will:
You and I kept saying, "They have no idea what they're in for."
Sheila Bella:
Yeah, we kept saying that. Every time, "Wow, I can't" ... It was a big surprise.
Will:
So that week, because I'm a really, I don't know, logical, intellectual type, I just did at on of research on this virus and what's going to happen and what's happening around the world, listened to a lot of podcasts and talked to a lot of friends who are doctors and people who are scientists, [Amisha Delga 00:10:13] and Nick [Kirsockets 00:10:15] and Michael [Orthrum 00:10:16] and Anthony Fauci obviously and all these different people, Zack Rubin, all these different people, and what are there takes on this whole thing and what's going to happen. It was uncertainty, and now it's Tuesday and there's still a ton of uncertainty.
I was just talking to a really brilliant university-tenured professor, and she was like, "I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what this is." Looking at the different rates and the mortality rates and the infection rates, it's just all so uncertain. So there was a lot of "We're not sure what to do" going into this.
Julie:
I know the day before ... I would say Wednesday. It happened Wednesday. We all had a meeting, and we were planning so hard to try to make this happen for people and to be safe. We were planning on handing out sanitizer. We were planning on sanitizing everything we possibly could to make things safe for people.
And I remember, once everybody left the room, nobody else was there, it wasn't just Sheila being crushed. It was devastation, because I could tell she was so conflicted. She had so many voices going through her mind right now of trying to figure out what's going to happen tomorrow, because none of us knew.
I know you remember me telling you this, Sheila, that, whatever happens, it's out of your hands. It's not anything that anybody could have done, but if there was going to be a mandatory decree the next morning that the governor stated no meetings of anyone higher than 250 people ... That number's gone down, by the way. It went from 250 to 50 to 10. So it's just gotten down in a matter of days. In a matter of days, it went from 250 to 50 to 10. That's a huge increase.
Sheila Bella:
It hasn't even been a week.
Julie:
No. It's been a few days. And here's the thing: if it happened, it had to be happen. It's nothing any one of us could have done to prevent it is the problem.
Sheila Bella:
I feel like where I'm getting a lot of criticism is ... which gets to me. I'm human. Because the accusations are really serious. The accusation is that I will risk people's lives for money, for my dime. They have no idea. That's a serious accusation.
Julie:
Yes.
Will:
Look. First of all, any way you slice it, this disease is not this massive global killer. It's not. It's not some avian flu with a 60% mortality rate or something like that. But it's infectious, and it affects people who are over the age of 80 years old as high as 15%, but that still means that if you're 80 years old and you get it then you're 85% chance of living, but you can get very sick for sure. You can get very sick from this obviously. But this is not putting the lives at risk the way that it was being portrayed it seems like by certain people, some people, whatever, whoever's saying whatever.
But more than that is ... Sheila and I were having a lot of conversations leading up to this, and what it came down to this is Sheila isn't ... I'm talking about you like I'm not sitting three inches from you. You're not just an eyebrow artist. You're not just a businesswoman. You serve. You're a servant to some degree.
Sheila Bella:
I'm a speaker.
Will:
Yeah, but you're trying to serve people.
Sheila Bella:
Right, on a really meaningful level.
Will:
You're trying to get people what they want. There were already people here the beginning of last week, because they were flying in from all over the place, and your mindset ... This isn't something that anyone put in your head. This was just the way that your mindset was going into it, was "If people show up, I will serve them. I will go there, because they are putting out risk." These are adults. We're not telling anyone that they have to come. We're just saying, "If you want to come here, I will show up."
Sheila Bella:
I'll be there.
Will:
And that's all it ever was, is if you want to come, I will show up. Even speakers who were like, "I don't know if I should go," Sheila's like, "Then don't come."
But we're not going to cancel on the people that decided, the adults that made the decision "I am going to risk flying and everything, because this is that valuable to me." Sheila can't say that "You choose to show up. I'm not going to." You wanted to serve and you were going to be there until the government said you can't. There was like 30 people or more who were at the Loews. Some might still be there.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah. There are some people who are stuck there now.
Will:
If there were 30 people that came and everyone else didn't come, you would've still shown up and gone through a summit for 30 people.
Sheila Bella:
That's what I said. I originally envisioned this for 50 people. I said, "If 50 people are there, I'll be there."
Leading up to it, though, was so conflicting, because there was an article and somebody of influence that supported every idea, supported every idea ... There were people who I respected who gave me their very strong, passionate opinion, both conflicting, successful people, conflicting opinions, people that I wanted to model my career after, good people, church people. Even non-church people I listen to. Even my cleaning lady Annabelle looked my in the eyes and gave me her two cents for five minutes of how she felt about this.
I felt like I let myself down, and I'm still recovering from all of that. I feel like I can't trust myself right now, because I wasn't able to predict this. I wasn't able to hear myself, number one. I wasn't able to hear god it felt like at some points. And I wasn't able to discern whose advice was best.
Yeah, I'm beating myself up about that right now, because there are people who said, "Okay, cancel now." And I'm like, "I should have listened to some of those people." But, then again, should I have? I spoke to an attorney, because this was has been all about that. I spoke to an attorney, and she told me that there was a huge difference between canceling on Wednesday night versus Thursday morning, because what happened on Thursday morning, when I decided at 4:00 AM, by then there was a travel ban. Trump issued a travel ban for everyone in Europe. And also the governor said no gatherings of 250 or more. So the fact that I canceled at the time that I did actually helped me out in unraveling this thing now and rescheduling this thing for getting our deposit back, which still hasn't completely happened, by the way. Full transparency, we're still working on that.
Julie:
Right, because this is being postponed rather than being canceled.
Sheila Bella:
Correct. I'm having some issues with the hotel as to the date and also how much they're giving, et cetera, et cetera. And I love the Loews. I want to do it there again. So, full transparency, I'm trying to cooperate with them, but it's not that simple.
Julie:
Everything is complicated now, everything. You look outside and it's empty streets in LA. How often do you see that unless there's a zombie apocalypse outside? It's not going to happen.
Sheila Bella:
And that's the bigger thing too, is in the midst of all this ... It would be very different postponing this if the world was normal, but right now it feels like Armageddon. It feels like the apocalypse. When am I supposed to schedule?
Julie:
Who knew toilet paper was the new currency? It's one of those things.
Sheila Bella:
Go ahead, Laura.
Laura:
Yeah. It's definitely one of those things. I feel like what Will was saying we can tie up to what many people have been asking themselves. It's like, "Why did you wait until Thursday?" And it's basically because ... We weren't after the money. We were after the movement, after our mission. We received every day, probably from Monday to Wednesday, 20 to 30 people afraid of the virus, what's going to happen to the event.
Sheila Bella:
Only 30!
Laura:
Yeah, and we have a mission with the majority. We serve the majority. That's what people behind the scenes don't know. It's that, yeah, those 30 loud voices who are everywhere on social media and panicking or voicing out their thoughts are just 30, but what about the other people that were ready to come to the event?
Julie:
"Don't cancel. Please. I can't wait to see everybody."
Laura:
That's the perspective they're not seeing. They're just seeing the loud voices, but they weren't seeing that we had an obligation to the majority of the people that we had to serve.
Sheila Bella:
Correct.
Julie:
We didn't cancel until we absolutely had to cancel.
Will:
Just to keep reiterating, these are adults. These are adults, and they're going to make up their own mind. Then when the government says that there's a mandate, what's right now about the public gatherings or San Francisco has a complete lockdown or who knows what's going to come even by the time this is released, that's a different thing, but when it's up to individuals just to be smart about it and here are the guidelines and everything like that, their guidelines were social distancing and washing your hands and things like that. I've talked with so many doctors it's ridiculous, and many of them, many medical doctors that I talk to personally said, "It's fine. Just be really smart about it and don't rub up against each other," and things like that.
Julie:
Practice good hygiene.
Will:
Everyone's an expert. Everyone's a Monday morning quarterback. Everyone says, "Oh, this is what they should've done," or whatever. But in those game-time decisions …
It's ironic. I don't know if ironic's the right word, but it's interesting. It's not the people who produced events that have been critical at all. They have been extremely supportive, because they know. It's like the man in the arena, the Teddy Roosevelt quote. This is really hard. If you dump your heart and soul into something, you want to serve these people, and there are people who are saying, "I need you. I want you. I can't wait to see you. This is so meaningful for me. Please don't cancel." To say, "I know what's best for you, and what's best for you is to stay away," that's not what you do. You don't do that. You're not their parent. You will serve people who ask you to serve them.
Laura:
True. And another thing is that we couldn't control the speed that everything was going at. We were seeing a situation on Monday that turned completely different on Wednesday night.
Julie:
We were about two weeks behind Italy being shut down, and not we became one week behind Italy. It just escalated much quicker, much quicker turnaround than we could have predicted, and has this event been only a week earlier, it would have happened, because we were all going about our everyday lives doing things with normalcy, still keeping good hygiene, and, in our industry, it's what we are trained to do. We walk around and we wash our hands. We study bloodborne pathogens in our industry to make sure that everyone is hygienic and safe. When we're in an entire room filled with people with this knowledge, it was one of our comforts and securities that we knew that things were going to be a little more safe in this place because of all the people we were surrounding ourselves with. We have this knowledge.
Sheila Bella:
That's what a lot of people said.
What people won't know, too, is that Wednesday ... Our schedule was Wednesday night we got the U-Haul. We had a team load the U-Haul with all of the decorations, all of the swag bags, that huge backdrop that's ...
Laura:
All of the banners, the backdrop.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah, the lights, the cameras, all that stuff.
Laura:
Furniture.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah. And then Thursday morning, when we got this news, we were supposed to drive to the Loews, but then we postponed. We canceled.
Laura:
We had to drive back and everybody had to help unload.
Will:
Yeah. I loaded it and unloaded it. The difference between loading up the big truck, 27-foot U-Haul, and unloading was about five hours.
Julie:
Oh my god.
Laura:
And people were asking us for answers, and my email was blowing up.
Sheila Bella:
While we were doing this in tears.
Laura:
While we were doing this, yeah.
Julie:
Yeah. It was absolute devastation all around.
Sheila Bella:
And all while being criticized too.
Julie:
Yeah. Online has been both generous and very harsh. There's been complete polar sides going on about this whole ordeal. You guys maybe don't know, but we read them all. We read them all.
Laura:
We crushed the ones that had just arrived and saw the news while they were getting off the plane. We crushed the ones that thought we didn't cancel in time. We crushed the ones that were really hoping to make it, even with the virus.
Julie:
We got a lot of [crosstalk 00:25:07]
Laura:
We felt it. We're with you. Our heart was with you as well, and all of this was going on as we were unloading our things.
Sheila Bella:
And it's still going on. We still don't have all the answers just yet. I have a lot of agreements to ... We started yesterday. I have a lot of agreements to look over. Now we have no choice but adapt, and I will. We will. I just don't know what that looks like yet.
Laura:
All I can say now is invite everyone to think bigger than just thinking of themselves and of the situation that they're in. And I can assure you 100% that we know that everyone's going through a difficult situation. We read the comments. Just like we told you guys, we know everyone's going through a tough time, just like those who landed and lost their money and now they're alone, those who barely have money for groceries. There's tons of situations, and we are with all of you, the 400 of you, in this.
All I ask is that we come together as a community and also think of our responsibilities. Just like you guys were thinking of your own, we have to carry the 400 of you with us. We're all adults here. We all made decisions. So everyone decided to come to the summit, commit a couple months ago, or whenever you made your decision, so we started creating this dream. We started hiring employees. My salary came out of this.
Julie:
It's true.
Laura:
So just the fact that people just start emailing and just thinking, "Hey, can I get a refund?" and think it's that easy without being conscious of the bigger picture. That's all I invite everyone to do for a second, is just to think of the bigger picture of what we are going through. And I'm sure Will can add a little bit to that.
Will:
No, Laura. I think you're explaining it really well. The money that this was going to make ... And these are a lot of business owners who listen to this, so you understand the difference between revenue and profit. This event wasn't designed to make a ton of profit. It was going to generate significant revenue, but that revenue is not three days. That revenue, say it's a couple hundred thousand dollars, that revenue isn't for three days of work. We don't make a couple hundred thousand dollars for three days of work. It's a year of work, and full-time salaries, several full-time salaries, for an entire year were coming out of those ticket sales to build this thing.
Sheila Bella:
To build the event.
Will:
It's not like all that money just came in and then we were sitting on it and now we're stingy. We don't want to give it back. That wouldn't make any sense.
The only people that came to this were people that love everything about what Sheila does and what she promotes. Those are the most loyal. Those are the most connected people to this whole entity of Pretty Rich. The last thing we would ever want to do is not serve them. This is not something about greed. This is about how do we reconfigure everything, because the ticket sales went into the service. You're not paying so that we can get paid. You're paying for an experience, and that experience costed money to bill. It wasn't malpractice the fact that it left. It wasn't because of us dropping the ball or you guys dropping the ball or fumbling around. It was because of a pandemic that was under no one's control. This wasn't malpractice. This was just, for lack of a better term, sorry, plug the kids' ears, a shitty situation that was unavoidable at the end of the day.
But we had all this revenue already invested. We had singers and we had unbelievable experiences and great food and all that kind of stuff at these events and these parties and blah blah blah blah. It was all reinvested in, and now the move is trying to get some of that out so that we can serve those that were loyal enough to buy a ticket, but it's very, very complicated. If we were sitting on all of that revenue, it wouldn't be an issue, of course.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah. It wouldn't be an issue at all.
Julie:
It means that Sheila would've had to fund the entire event herself, and that's not possible. It was too big. It was huge, guys. The venue itself, the decorations, the entertainment value that Sheila had prepared, the amount of people working the event, DJs, the sound engineering, the video, having to have the stage manager, who came from Broadway for crying out loud ... These were people that were professionals. These aren't just people off the street. We were paying professionals to have a professional event. All of that costs money, and all of them have salaries.
Will:
Sorry. I watched Sheila say, "I'm taking every ticket sale very seriously. This isn't to line my pockets. This is to provide an unbelievable, life-changing event," and to provide an unbelievable, life-changing event, it costs money. So the ticket sales, the vast majority of the ticket sales, wasn't to go into our pockets. It was to go into this experience, and that's where the money went. And then when it was taken away, that money was gone. It's gone, because it was investing in something that hasn't come yet to fruition. So that's why it has to be a postponement, so that all of that investment, all the stuff that we have -
Sheila Bella:
Can roll over.
Will:
- can roll over into the next one. And that's why it's so important that we move forward with this next one and why it's so complicated when people say, "Everyone should get a refund." That's not the way it works.
Julie:
We're ready to go. The bags are packed.
Sheila Bella:
Our bags are packed.
Julie:
We could put this out tomorrow if the pandemic was over. [crosstalk 00:31:46] pandemic can end.
Laura:
And I read this comment yesterday from one of the girls that's so loving and supportive. Probably most of the girls that are panicking and don't know what to do in these situations are the ones that need to be there the most and shouldn't be backing out.
Julie:
The economy is going under financial hardship obviously. It is current news. We are checking the news hourly sometimes, because it's that fast it's changing. But with the amount of businesses that are being close down, obviously there's going to be some pushback from this. They're not going to be in the same financial state of mind that they were a couple weeks ago, so we have to take that into consideration.
In all aspect, people paid a lot of money to come here for this event, and some made it and some postponed early, and some had to pay money for their room and board, and some are still stuck here. Trust me, it's not easy to hear all these hardships, because it affects all of us knowing that if there was anything we could've done differently, we would have.
Sheila Bella:
Right. That's why it's so hard.
Will:
Well, we're going into ... The majority of people listening to this are in the beauty industry. Few industries are hurting as much as the beauty industry probably.
Julie:
Right, because we work in close proximity of our clients. There is no six-foot distance.
Sheila Bella:
And it's not a priority. It's not a necessity.
Will:
And it's a service and all these things.
Sheila Bella:
It's a luxury.
Will:
A lot of it's luxury.
So we're all in this. There's still a salon that employs people, employs a lot of women, single moms and things like that. That's a priority too.
So there's a lot on the table here. It's just going into a recession, which it looks like it's going to be. For everyone listening in the beauty industry, whether you own a salon or you are renting a chair, and you know that you're looking down the barrel of something really scary, because you have kids to provide for, yourself to provide, a sick grandma or grandpa ... When you have employees and things like that, that's just more responsibilities. When you have employees that you love that are like your best friends and stuff like that, it puts even more pressure on it.
This wasn't done for money. That's not the purpose of holding this. That's way too simplistic.
Sheila Bella:
And also anyone who's ever held an event before knows that you don't make a fortune from events.
Julie:
No. [crosstalk 00:34:33] it was not that much. Yeah. If people are thinking in the millions, just get that out of your head right now.
Sheila Bella:
A ticket price was very moderate. Maybe they're comparing it to other conferences who charge thousands.
Julie:
But it's still, based on the area, we have to also charge based on the area because of where we're having it. This isn't in a different state that has a lower income or lower even housing. The cost of housing here is even more expensive than other places, so we have to consider this hotel. A lot of goes back into this event. Everything that was spent.
Will:
But taking this hit on the day, the day that the recession clearly started. The day that it really hit low, where the stock market started to plummet and stuff, was the day it was canceled, which is the day that all of the difference of "Okay, this is going to give us a little bit of a cushion for the business in the future, in case something would ever happen," because the coronavirus looked like, oh, maybe something might have to ... make sure that these girls stay employed for a while, even if business is slow in the future. It went from giving us a cushion to a pretty catastrophic loss.
Julie:
It's a plummet. It plummeted.
Will:
Going into a recession with a loss starting that day, the timing couldn't have been worse.
Sheila Bella:
And also your dreams being crushed and I had to let go of this baby and having to stay strong for your kids too.
I don't know why, but I feel called to women who understand this life. I don't know why, but I feel a calling to that. I feel called to the woman who has to be consistent while she's being crushed, and I know a lot of you listening to this can probably relate to that, because everyone knows that momma isn't as happy as her kids think she is. Everyone knows that feeling. And I'm not just talking about my biological children. I'm talking about my team. As the leader and the mother so to speak of my team, you have to be consistent.
What I'm learning, though, very quickly is that there's a strength to transparency, and me breaking down and not being okay is also a form of strength I suppose. I want my team, even in their personal lives, to know that you're allowed to break and that breaking is necessary for sustainable happiness and for sustainable strength, that you have to allow yourself to mourn.
Even though I started moving again yesterday, I started seriously planning what's going to happen, the next step, I was still in mourning, and right now I feel like the theme for this week is just moving and mourning, moving and mourning. That's it.
I understand that we're all in pain right now, so this might be hitting home for a lot of you who might not be in this same exact situation, but that's what you have to do. As leaders, you can't stop moving. You can cry, but you still need to move.
Julie:
I don't know a time when you've ever sat down still and not thought about plan B, because already we do have plans for what to do. Can you share a little bit of what those plans are for the postponing for the Pretty Ambitious Summit?
Sheila Bella:
Okay. I guess we'll announce it now. First of all, we're definitely postponing. We're in negotiations obviously with the hotel and everybody involved. The date is not set because there's so many variables. We're aiming for the fall, for the autumn. My mom really wants to use the word autumn because she associates it with something positive.
Julie:
Harvest.
Sheila Bella:
With the harvest, something positive. So she's like [crosstalk 00:39:05]
Julie:
Autumn solstice.
Sheila Bella:
The autumn 2020. But this is contingent upon so many different things.
Also, there are events that I want to support that are happening during those particular months, and these organizers have been so supportive of me that I don't want to overshadow their events. So choosing a date is tricky, because I have to consider my community as well.
But immediately, though, in the meantime, what I want to do is I want to send out the swag bags. I don't want people to have to wait until the next time, until whenever this event is going to happen, in order to enjoy their swag bags, so we're planning on sending those out.
And I feel like the immediate needs of this tribe, this Pretty Ambitious tribe, is they need information, how to get through surviving the coronavirus lockdown. I'm actually organizing something called Resilience Week. It's going to start on March 23rd and it will end on March 27th, and I'm having different speakers just come in to do a virtual lecture series and teach everybody whatever it is they can on how to survive this slow season, this lockdown. That's on my heart immediately to do.
But as far as the specifics, I hope people can understand why none of us have specifics of anything yet. Yeah, hard. It's hard not to have all the answers. Especially when you tell people you have all the answers, it's really hard to come on here and say I don't know. I don't.
Laura:
Yeah. I think that's one of the things that has been very challenging for me, because I always like to respond to questions very fast, and in the past people love it and appreciate it, so it's been so frustrating because people want answers now, they want solutions now, and it's so hard that they really don't understand it, that we don't have them. We wish we did, because then we would give them to you, but we really don't.
Julie:
The only solution we have right now is to make sure people stay healthy and try to keep patient and be patient with us. That's all we can ask for right now, is that they take care of themselves, they try to take care of their families, and do what they need to do just day to day to survive, because this event will happen. And what have been saying? Sheila, what's that saying you've been ... When something's postponed, it's going to be even better than the next time?
Sheila Bella:
Oh. The comeback is always better than the setback.
Julie:
There it is.
Sheila Bella:
People like that one.
Julie:
I do. I actually smiled when I heard that, because, to me, it's something to look forward to. Knowing that times are bleak right now, people have been trying to find the comedy and the humor in everything, and that's totally my personality to try to find the light, and I try to be optimistic, because this event, it's not canceled. It's postponed, and that makes a huge difference.
Sheila Bella:
Definitely.
Julie:
Yeah. It's not like we're giving up. We're never giving up, okay? That's not our style.
Sheila Bella:
No. This is going to happen. Yeah. Right.
Julie:
What's my motto, Sheila, my motto from Confucius I've had since high school? Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall, and that couldn't speak more clearly to what we're going through right now, because there's a lot of people out there who have their hopes falling and stuff like that, but as long as they keep a bit of hope and faith and definitely smart about what's going on outside, we're going to get through this together. All of us are trying to get this camaraderie started so that everyone can move forward and move on with our lives.
Sheila Bella:
And just because we're not physically together, we're all in three separate houses right now on this Zoom call, it doesn't mean that we have to feel disconnected. Rather we can stay connected. My pastor said the other day that the methods may have changed but the mission has not.
Yeah. No. I'm not giving up. This is going to happen. I'm going to make fetch happen. I'm going to make Pretty Ambitious happen.
Will:
And everything that it was supposed to be is going to be even just more needed now, so specific strategies to grow your business. It wasn't about how to do ... I don't know anything about eyebrows, but I don't think it's about how to make realistic-looking hair strokes. It's about how to grow your business, because your whole thing was how to get women to get a seat at the table, to be taken seriously, to become heads of household, to become the breadwinners and all that kind of stuff, and that's even more important now.
You're going to be leading from the pack, though, these women. You're going to be going through ... There's been a lot of times that you haven't had financial need. For you to help people who are in financial need, you sometimes can be a little removed from that, but you're not removed from it right now, because we just took this financial hit, so you're right there with them in a lot of ways that ... Already you could relate to a lot of these women, but now you can relate to them as you're going through it with them.
Sheila Bella:
Yeah. It does. I'm already getting glimpses of that already. As I was saying in my IGTV, that whole week leading up to this I went silent on social media. I didn't show my face at all. And it's because I was so crippled by approval. I didn't have anything to say that I felt would please everybody, and I guess that's why I disappeared. I was thinking, "Oh, this what they go through. That's why they don't go on social media. That's why they don't show their face, because they don't feel like they're enough," and I didn't feel like I was enough. I wasn't confident in a lot of things leading up to it.
You guys, I don't know. I received a ton of verbal beatings from different people, even leading up to it, people whose opinions I care about. That was also really difficult, because they were conflicting. Going around and around in circles, but anyway …
Any other questions, Jules?
Julie:
I think we covered most of it, because we do have a silver lining, and that's that we're not giving up, that we are doing something virtual coming up soon and that we are doing a physical event hopefully soon. We just don't know precisely when, but you guys will know when we know obviously.
Sheila Bella:
You'll know for sure, for sure. I have the graphic ready to go. All that's missing is the date. That'll take me two seconds.
Julie:
Our team is solid because we're close and we communicate. We understand the needs of many, not just the needs of the few, because we want to please everybody. We really do. And, ultimately, with all the support we have .... Sheila has Will. We have our spouses. Everyone here is supporting each other to try to get through this hard time.
Sheila Bella:
We have each other.
Julie:
We have each other, and because we have that strength it's going to happen. We will make it happen. We just have to make sure that people are with us, that you don't give up on us, you don't give up on Sheila, because she will never give up on you.
Sheila Bella:
Thanks, guys.
There was no podcast last week for those reasons. Now you guys know. But I'm going to try to deliver two this week. Till the next time, you guys. Stay home!
That's it for today's episode of Pretty Rich Podcast. If there was anything in this episode that has impacted you in any small or big way, I want to know. You can reach me @realsheilabella on Instagram.
And, by the way, if we are not text buddies yet, that needs to change. You can text my name, Sheila, S-H-E-I-L-A, to 31996 and we'll be connected.
I really love hanging with you guys on here. And one last thing before we wrap it up, I got to include my kids, right? Hashtag mom first. So here are Beau and Grey to close things out.
Beau:
Hi. My name is Beau and I'm five years old.
Sheila Bella:
Can you tell everybody what our family motto is?
Beau:
I can do hard things.
Sheila Bella:
I can do hard things. Now fill in the blanks: hard is ...
Beau:
Fun.
Sheila Bella:
Easy is ...
Beau:
Boring.
Sheila Bella:
Good job, buddy. I love you so much.
Beau:
I love you the best, Mom. [inaudible 00:49:00]
Sheila Bella:
Gray, say, "Share with your friends."
Grey:
Share with friends.
Sheila Bella:
Please review my mommy on iTunes.
Grey:
[inaudible 00:49:11] momma iTunes.
Sheila Bella:
Thanks for listening!
Grey:
Thanks for listening!
