Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev

Bloom and Grow Forever with Emma Crabtree

October 31, 2022 Kosta Yepifantsev Season 2 Episode 41
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev
Bloom and Grow Forever with Emma Crabtree
Show Notes Transcript

Join Kosta and his guest: Emma Crabtree, Founder and Owner of The Glass Tangerine: Plant Shop and Mercantile.

In This Episode: Emma’s transition from Mental Health Therapist to small business owner, starting your houseplant collection and how to answer the ever looming question - what’s next?

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about Emma and The Glass Tangerine:
https://www.glasstangerine.com/

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Emma Crabtree:

If you know what's not working for you, that's data, use that data to try to figure out what might work for you in the future and really listen to that. It's okay to say like this is not an authentic place for me and to seek out authenticity. I think that when people do what they're really passionate about people gravitate towards that.

Morgan Franklin:

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation on making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Hey, y'all. This is Kosta and today I'm here with my guest, Emma Crabtree, founder and owner of the glass tangerine plant shop in mercantile. Today, we're talking about Emma's transition from mental health therapist to small business owner, starting your house plan collection, and how to answer the ever looming question. What's next? Emma, I want to start with the reason for the season house plants. I love them. They however, do not care for me. So what's your favorite house plant for a beginner? And what new plant parent advice do you have for us?

Emma Crabtree:

Well, that is a really good question. For beginners, we always kind of direct people towards and these are not sexy plants. Okay, so don't get too excited snake plant, which is also called a mother in law's tongue, or a ZZ plant. And the reason that we direct people towards those is because they can handle pretty much anything, both of those plants, I thrive on neglect with a snake plant, they want to be left alone, they don't want you to touch them water once a month, okay, and they can handle light conditions from very, very bright to very low light. And so they're really great for like offices and classrooms and things like that. But just to kind of like dip your toes in a little bit and get used to having this living thing in your environment. So that's typically where we start people off. And there are some really cool varieties of those that aren't, you know, the ones that you're going to see at big box stores all the time. So that's the push that we get people started

Kosta Yepifantsev:

typically tell customers like, what's the most common advice that you give them when they come into the store?

Emma Crabtree:

I guess it depends, but for the most part for people that maybe aren't really great with plants yet, like me, like you, yes, whose plants are like rebelling against them, less is more, okay, that's really the key. So most house plants die because people do too much to them. So a snake plant, for example, if you water a snake plant every week, you're gonna kill it, it's gonna get root rot, the roots need to dry out really well, people will move their plants around too much, they just do too much to them. And I get the draw, because it's really exciting, especially if it's like, oh, it's pushing out a new leaf, I want to do this and that. So less is more with your houseplants. And the recipe for success is really simple. Having the right amount of light for that specific plant, having a good quality soil, good drainage, watering on a specific type of schedule, depending on the life of the plant, and fertilizer. And that's, it's those five things. And one of our goals at glass tangerine is really not just to sell you a plant, anybody can sell you a plant. But we want you to leave and feel like I can do this. I can be successful with this plant. And we're not going to sell you something that's above your expertise level, I'm not going to send you home with a Calafia if you are like I am struggling with these plastic plants, so

Kosta Yepifantsev:

I have an interesting or funny story. So when I did this office, when I remodeled this office, I bought a bonsai tree, which that doesn't look like a bonsai tree right now. And I bought a I don't know what kind of tree it was, but they were both real plants. And as you can tell, they're now both fake plants. Because the bonsai tree died and that tree died. And I just realized that I'm just I have a lot more a lot more luck with fake plants as opposed to real ones. So I go to like such a such an extent that at our house outside our outdoor plants are also oh gosh, oh my god, what does that mean? Like, you encounter people all the time. So the people that have outdoor fake plants? Is there like a like a sign? Like

Emma Crabtree:

I think what that means is that you care very deeply about the aesthetics. You're not sure about all the rest of it. Yes. And I think part of that I think that that's like a huge issue within the plant community, which is growing, right. So earlier, before we started the podcast, we're talking about social media and how it's changed a lot of things. One of the things that it has really changed his people's love for plants, plants were super popular in the 70s MakerBot was super popular in the 70s. A lot of stuff is coming back from that era, but you'll get on Instagram or Facebook and you see these plant pages and these people have like hundreds of plants and they all look great and they're beautiful. But if you don't know what you're doing, then you're gonna go out and you're going to drop some significant cash on a plant that is not at a level that you can care for it yet. And so I think that's the problem with some of the bigger box stores is that you walk into Lowe's, for example. And there's some like 19 year old kid that, you know, yesterday was shoveling rocks. And today he's running the plant stand, and they don't have answers, and they don't know how to help. And that's not their fault. They're not trying to do that. So you go in, and you pick up a plant, because you think it's pretty, and you have a little tag, and it's like low light, or I don't know what that means. And then it dies, right? And then you feel like I can't do this, and you stop. And so that is really something that we're trying to fight against in the boutique plant community is like, come in, let us ask you a bunch of questions. Let's get to the root of where you are. And then let's get you set up for success with the tools that you need, so that you take that snake plant home, and it might not be the sexiest plant in the world, but it lives in it thrives, and then you boost your confidence. And then you come back and we move you up a level.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

That's an interesting perspective. So let's talk about how you started the glass tangerine. Because for the past eight years, you've worked in private practice as a mental health therapist, and seemingly overnight, you completely transformed your career. What happened?

Emma Crabtree:

COVID I think, okay, a huge part of it. So yeah, I've been in private practice for eight years as a mental health therapist, that path, I mean, if your listeners are listening in their therapists, you know, like, it's three to four years of graduate work, it's 60, our graduate program, most are 36, er, graduate program, and then you have to have a minimum of two years postgraduate supervision. So it's sort of like residency, where you have to pay for clinical supervision, and you have all these tests, you have to take all these hours in. So it's a I mean, it's, for me, it was a six year endeavor just to get licensed. And then you know, you build a practice and you get on with insurance panels, you do all this stuff. And it's a heavy job. And there's a lot of rewarding aspects of it. But it's a very lonely job in a lot of ways. And, you know, I was kind of cruising through that, and I was doing good. And then COVID happened. And then we had some personal stuff go on. And we had my husband, younger brothers came to live with us for a couple of months. And then my dad got really sick, and he had to come live with us, we had five full grown adults living in a two bedroom house, and I'm trying to do therapy online. Yeah. And a house, we don't have internet in our house, because we live out in the middle of nowhere. And so it was just, it was too much, I had too much of my own stuff going on. And one of the reasons therapy works is because me as the therapist is objective to your situation, because what you're going through, I'm not going through, well, that wasn't the case with COVID. And we were all going through it together. And I've got all these people that are understandably completely emotionally dysregulated and terrified, and I'm emotionally dysregulated. And I'm terrified, but I'm trying to hold space for them and be grounded and be reasonable. And that was extremely difficult. And I think COVID expedited the burnout, for me always knew going into therapy, it wasn't something I would do forever. I was thought I would move on and get a PhD in counseling, and then maybe teach or do something in that realm. And I think after that experience, I just I needed I needed out. So I

Kosta Yepifantsev:

mean, how do you just shift from something like therapy to opening up a plant store? I mean, did you like plants before? I mean, I'm assuming I did, right? Yeah. Like they were a big part of your life. But I mean, how do you take the dive into being a small business owner?

Emma Crabtree:

I think you just jump, okay. You just recognize like, I don't know what I'm doing. But I know what I am doing is not working for me. And I think part of it for me was, you know, ours used to joke people, my clients would ask like, Well, do you journal a lot? Or do you do this and I'm like, my life would be so much better if I did half the stuff I told you guys to do. And so finally, it got to the point where in the therapy space, you have to know when to stop. Because if I'm in there, and I'm burnout, not only am I not helping my clients, I could be harming my clients. And so when you burn out, you drop out. And that's sort of the role, you need to get supervision or you need to take a step back. So I knew that I was in that space, or I had to take a step back because I can't do this job well. And that's really dangerous in a lot of ways. And yeah, I loved plants and what my husband and I love to travel. And so we would go on our trips, and we'd always go to these towns and we'd visit I'd always look for the plant store or flower shops and thing and I would see these really cool places. And I just thought I can do that. I feel like I can do that. And so I just decided I'm just gonna do it. And we'll see what happens. I said, How's it going? Amazing. I love it's been incredible.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

I love that. I want to ask one more question about the mental health space. Do you worry about the greater exhaustion of our workforce in the mental health industry?

Emma Crabtree:

Absolutely. I think it's a huge issue. And that's probably like a whole nother podcast, right? I'm just like dissecting how hard that job really is. And the need is so great. When I left ipc on a six month waitlist, and like I was good at my job, but I'm not that good at my job right like I can understand my own limits there. We have such a high need for good quality therapists. But if I'm being totally honest, we're not compensated at that level. You know, inch difference is like constantly trying to cut our fees down. And they have such like a control over how you do your job and what you're doing if your job is very restrictive, and you have people that are working, and they've put five, six years of their life into having this career, and they're making barely any money, and there's just not a good return on investment there,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

you know, I talk a lot about going to therapy and how it's helped me and my therapist used to work at mental health Co Op. And one of the things because we talked about, you know, like, why'd you decide to open up your own practice and stuff like that. And he said that one of the most disheartening parts is, you know, you do this profession, because you're trying to help people, right. And so you're essentially like devoting all of your life and attention to the skill, when you work for a company like mental health Co Op may or may not be your experience, there's a quota. And so you got to see so many people that you just can't be effective. And it's like you said earlier, like, when you're not effective, then you're doing more harm than good. And so I think maybe that probably plays into some of the issues. Absolutely. I'm gonna share some advice for listeners who feel burnt out, overwhelmed and generally unaligned with a career they've spent their entire life building towards, Well,

Emma Crabtree:

Honestly, my first answer is gonna be to go to therapy, and find somebody, I think there are good therapy resources out there. And I think with the change, COVID opened up a lot of doors that weren't open before. One of those is telehealth insurance was at, we're absolutely not offering telehealth I don't care if your client cannot physically leave the house, they better show up at your office, if they want to bill your insurance for it. Well, COVID came around, and they had to open that door. And once you open that door, you can't shut it. And so that opened up a lot of options for people to be able to access therapy in non traditional ways. And so I think just being able to process that with someone that is objective is really important and to understand for yourself, like what is this? Is this an environmental thing? Is it just I'm burnt out at my job because my boss is a tyrant, and they're expecting too much out of me and I don't have any flexibility or is it I'm burned out on my job. Because I'm misaligned, like you said, and this isn't authentic to me anymore, just being able to understand what that is for you. And then to be able to make a plan moving forward. I think a lot of people, you know, through life experiences and then also life requirements, we so much do things that aren't aligned with us or aren't authentic, because we got to pay the bills, and I've got kids to take care of and I've got these things to do. And so having a space for you, first and foremost, to process that is a really good first step.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Is this something that you learned in college? Or is this just your personality? Like that gives you this perspective on life?

Emma Crabtree:

Probably both. I mean, I think college, my master's program, audit amazing mentor, Dr. Chad, look, Chad, if you're listening, I hope he is he is an incredible person. And he was so incredibly helpful towards me. He did, he was my graduate advisor. And then he did all my posts, clinical supervision. And he really helped me take a different perspective on things, I think, in a lot of ways. But just you know, eight years of working with people on a one on one basis, you start to see like, what's happening and understanding like where people are meeting them where they are, and then how do you help them find their own path

Kosta Yepifantsev:

kind of like almost forces you to be happy or at least to seek happiness? Right? Absolutely. As you enter into this new season of life, I want to talk with you about the best and worst parts of this transition. But also any challenges that took you by surprise along the way?

Emma Crabtree:

Yeah, well, I guess I'll start with the worst parts. I think the worst part for me has just been, I'm a very, my girls are gonna laugh, all my girls are sore. I'm actually like a pretty organized person, although it's like organized chaos, you know, but I thrive in a routine. And so for me, you know, I went from like, I saw nine clients today, nine 945 945 to 1030 and that and I had my lunch break here and I would always get a coffee here. And like I had this very specific routine. Well, that's just been completely thrown out the window. And I think that was really hard for me and it has nothing to do with the job. It was just like now it's like I'm in the shop 16 hours a day and I'm on my feet and you know my previous job I sat all day long, which I hated. And now I'm on my feet all day long and so it's just so much change happened very quickly. For me that was really hard for me to get used to but now I'm like this is the best ever so I think that was that's definitely been the hardest part was just readjusting to something new. The job in and of itself though, like I have total creative control over everything that I do in that space. My landlords are amazing and I'm taller done. They on SoulCraft they on my building like they're incredible and they've just been so beyond supportive first and foremost, but excited for like all the weird stuff. I'm like, we should do this and they're like, Okay, whatever you want to do. I just have like this space that I create It did, and in a lot of ways created it for me. And I get to come in every day and I get to talk to people about plants. Like, that's amazing.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

This is your first small business. Yeah, technically,

Emma Crabtree:

I mean, I guess you could consider private practices kind of a small business. And then I've made jewelry with my friend Melissa for the past like eight years. And so we her and I, all of our jewelry used to be at poet sparrows Eve, and now we're at my shop, but her and I have always we do like craft shows and stuff, but she owned that business, I just kind of like worked for it.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

So something that I find unique is that the glass tangerine isn't just a plant shop. It's an interactive experience with workshops, classes, personalized floral, design, art, and so much more. That design is impeccable. And you've really tapped into a market here that is largely ignored. The upper Cumberland is growing and we want elevated experiences like your shop, how did you identify your potential customer? And why haven't more business owners done the same?

Emma Crabtree:

I think that's an interesting question for a couple of reasons. First off, it's a very complimentary, thank you. But also, you're giving me a lot more credit than I mean, you had

Kosta Yepifantsev:

like 50 people outside that door like yeah, the street. I mean, for a plant shop. I'll be honest with you, you know, Anna came on the show, we talked and she said that there's a store opening up next door, and she didn't tell me what it was. But then I found out it was a plant shop. And I thought, oh, no, man, that's that's very, very, like specific niche. Yeah, see, but you open the doors, and you've been open how long? Three months? Okay, and gangbusters. Plus, not a lot of people have success with their first small business. Yeah, I mean, please, what's your secret?

Emma Crabtree:

Um, you know, finding a target audience. Everything that I've done with this business I've learned later on is the way I should not have done it. So I went to market with CG last week, we went down to Atlanta, and I learned so much from her. And that was such a cool experience. And I helped her pick merchandise for her store and kind of learn her process. And one of the things that she said is like, you need to shop for your customer, like not everything that you have in your shop is going to be for you. And that's okay, you just serve a larger audience. And I'm like, Oh, whoops. So like everything that I did in my store? I did because I liked it. And when the whole question of like, choose your target audience, I don't know if I did that intentionally. Part of this is I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm just flying by the seat of my pants all the time. But I think that plants are so universal, and they bridge every age gap and demographic. And so that is a real when you can see it from that perspective, like how can my business serve everyone equally, that opens up a lot of doors. And so that was something that was really important to me, it was like, I want to make sure I serve everyone in different ways. And so having things that a certain population would like that maybe a different population wouldn't, and vice versa. But honestly, at the end of the day, I was just like, I'm just kind of doing it all the way that I would like it and the way that I've seen it done in other large areas, going to these larger towns and seeing, you know, plant shops in Salem, Oregon, and seeing plant shops in Nashville. And so how do I bring some of that to Cookeville? Because I think our taste is being elevated. And I think our town has grown so much. And I think people are wanting like, Let's go the next level, right, let's like, really, really, really dial in here on something that's special.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

So we're going to talk about the growth next. But before we do that, I just want to ask, do you do the front end and the back end? Like are you doing the books and selling the plants? Do you have? I mean, how many employees do you currently have?

Emma Crabtree:

So I have one full time employee and then for part time employees, and I have an accountant, Nicole Clayton at Small Business Accounting, she's amazing. But yeah, other than that, I do everything. So I did all the design, I do all the merchandising, all the buying all the inventory management. Pretty much everything that's in the store has got my hands on in one way or another.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

What do you enjoy more? Do you enjoy selling your product? Or do you enjoy seeing the performance of your business?

Emma Crabtree:

Oh, I don't know, maybe both in different ways. I mean, I think it's really cool to watch people come into a space and people walk in and they're like, wow, you know, and so many times I've heard people say like, I don't even feel like I'm in Cookeville anymore. And I'm like, good. That's exactly what I'm going for, you know, like my design was very like French inspired and very like maximalist. But that is such a cool experience, but also like, I love shopping. And so this job lets me like essentially shop without spending my own money in a sense, you know, it's like I get to buy all this stuff for the store. And that's really cool to put it all together and just I'm really getting to be fully creative all the time. And I love that.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Do you believe there's a demand for more niche and curated shopping experiences in downtown Cookeville and is our collective taste as cooked? villians evolving?

Emma Crabtree:

Yeah, absolutely. I think so. You know, we've got some really cool stuff happening on the west side and the road was paved by people's stepping out of the box, right when Red silo opened the brewery was a huge deal. And I think a lot of people were like, is a brewery gonna do? Well here like Cookeville is gonna have a brewery. And now we've got two breweries downtown on the west side, right. And they're both doing gangbusters. And they serve different populations. And they're killing it. And so I think people like that, that stepped out of the box, and really went for something that they were passionate about pave the way for more people to come in. And and I think that that only enhances that whole downtown experience.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

We were talking to Ricky Shelton earlier. And I think one of the overarching successes of downtown Cookeville is it pulls people out of their subdivisions, and it brings them to downtown. However, you know, whether it's for beer, or it's for food, or it's for plants, you know, whatever it is, it brings them and there's so many people that just didn't come to downtown Cookeville because there was nothing there to offer. I think that's 1,000% Correct. What do you think we are missing in downtown?

Emma Crabtree:

When I think about that, I think about Franklin, you know, you got to downtown Franklin, and you walk down the street. And it's all of these historic buildings. And you've got these really cool shops, and there's something for everyone. And you can easily walk to all those places. And that's what I want. For the west side. I want the west side to be lots of small business, a lot of people doing things are passionate about I mean, right now you can go to SoulCraft and get an amazing coffee, you can come over and talk to me about some plants, you can get out of eggs, bread and get an insane Danish, go grab a beer that's made here, you can get a donut, like there's so much walkability access, and I think one of the things that I would love to see for the west side is more retail in different areas. I don't know what that looks like, you know, maybe it's a men shop or more outdoor stores or you know, maybe it's a cool speakeasy or something like that. Yes, that's but more retail, more entertainment. I think that that's where we're headed. Careful is the town that I traveled to, right when I'm like, I'm gonna get a weekend away. I'm gonna go the mountains. I look for a town like Cookeville. And then it's like, wait, I live here. Yeah, that can be this

Kosta Yepifantsev:

amazing, right? Do you think that we need a higher end restaurant, like an actual Steakhouse, like I know, we have like the Putnam room, we have seven senses. And we have, you know, blue pig and crawdads. And they're all good. They all serve great food in their own ways. And I'm not saying like, you know, like, bring a Morton's or something like that. But wouldn't it be nice? I don't know if you need or not. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay, cool. We can be friends now. Okay, good. But like, what if we had a stony river or something? You know, I was telling Morgan that earlier. I thought like, it's a franchise of Chili's. So I mean, you bring a stony River in it's like, white tablecloth dinner? Yeah, good steak. I think that would do really well in downtown Cookeville.

Emma Crabtree:

I think that the room to grow is the margin is so wide. And I think that success for plant store, like you said earlier, like when you heard about it, you were kind of like, oh, that's a little I don't know. And I can't count the number of people that were like, Oh, very cool. So like, can you make money doing that? And I'm like, I don't know, we're about to find out. But I love it. You know, I think the margin for growth is so wide that like, Yeah, we could absolutely sustain a really nice high end restaurant. Yeah, and we can sustain more casual dining and we can sustain more local bakeries and we I think we can sustain those things and I think that the trend and Cookeville people are moving more towards they want to go down to the west side and they want to take a picture and put it on Instagram that they got locally made bread and you know locally made beer like that is the trend I think people are moving away from big box commercial chains. I mean, I think Walmart is a great example of that Walmart was I don't know if they currently are testing out boutique Walmart's, did you hear about this? I didn't hear about Yeah, I read an article about it. And basically they were like setting up these little niche, Walmart's run by Walmart. But they look like small businesses set up in the small storefronts like merch and tiles. Interesting. So I mean, you've got these huge big box stores moving in that direction of saying like, obviously, this is what people want. Nobody's gonna go to Walmart and post on Instagram went to Walmart today, like not unless something happened.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

Let's say see somebody like, you know, the people of Walmart.

Emma Crabtree:

Somebody's taking a picture in Walmart, you better make sure it's not a view. But like, that is the direction that we're headed. And it's wonderful. Absolutely.

Kosta Yepifantsev:

I mean, you close down the west side traffic, and you make it a walkable space, with parking with parking. Oh, yes. Yeah, parking, and then we'll do that. And then you get with Jay Albright. And you say it's time to open up a high end restaurant. So Jay, if you're listening, it's time. And I mean, I personally think that Cookeville is just getting started and the plant store the glass tangerine is number one evidence of that. And I hope this episode brings comfort and encouragement to anyone that feels lost or stuck in their profession or life in any way. There's always a path board that being said, what does your path look like now? And what do you hope the shop will look like next year, and most importantly, what's next for Emma Crabtree?

Emma Crabtree:

Whenever I went to make this transition, which you said earlier, like, overnight, seemingly overnight, and for me, it was a very slow burn, right. And so it's like I made the announcement in June, it was the next March before I actually left IPC phased all my clients out slowly, it was planning and then it was another like six months for open the doors. So whenever I went to make this, I'd like this is what's happening, I sought out other people that had been on a similar path that had left a profession or career to switch gears. And the people that I did get to talk to are super helpful, but I didn't feel like there was a lot of resources out there for people that are like, I'm really unhappy. And so the biggest message I would say to anyone in that department is just if you know what's not working for you, that's data, use that data to try to figure out what might work for you in the future. And really listen to that. It's okay to say like, this is not an authentic place for me and to seek out authenticity. I think that when people do what they're really passionate about, people gravitate towards that. And I think that that's maybe where some of the success of glass tangerine has come from. I mean, obviously, it's the new shiny toy in town, right? It's like this cool thing that people have never seen before. So I want to check it out. And that's going to be any new business that opens but you come in, and it's obvious to like the people that are they're really passionate about what they're doing, and they love it. And people gravitate towards that. So if you know what's not working, that's data, and you don't have to get stuck in that data. For the shop specifically, like there's so many different things I could do moving forward. And I am never the type of person to just do one thing. So I've got some ideas, cookin you know, we're playing with some new possibilities and trying to figure out okay, what does this look like, you know, we've got the retail side of things. But with any business, you really need to have multiple streams of income. So a couple of things. We've been doing private events, plant styling for both residential and commercial, were playing around with some ideas for maybe some like mobile options, just really trying to figure out what we want to do. And that's a fun place to be

Kosta Yepifantsev:

where did you learn this? Because you didn't go to school for business now. And I'm assuming you didn't like call the biz foundry and say, Hey, I've got this idea. Right. So like, where did you Where did you learn to start a business? Get your license? You know, honestly, you're already working on your pivot, like not like pivoting away from your core business model, but amplifying it with new arms of business. So where Weren't you learned all that?

Emma Crabtree:

Some of that I think my dad owned a small business growing up and so he's a timber framer, which is kind of a lost art. So timber framing is like traditional wood joinery, so they don't use any nails or any metal in how they joined the beams. It's all wood on wood. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So wooden pay,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

like a tongue and groove. Yeah.

Emma Crabtree:

So tongue and groove is a type of timber frame. And so a lot of like castles and things like that in Europe used to timber framing model. And so my dad was a timber framer. And so I grew up with him owning a small business, and really got to hear all the hard parts of that. But my husband also owns a small business. And when we started dating, he was really in the forefront of building his own thing. And so I got to walk with him down that path of like building the small business. But honestly, there's so many resources out there like Google. Yeah. There's so many podcasts, like I found a plant store out of California, and the owner of it did a podcast called How to Start a plant store. And I was like, oh, I need to listen to that. I mean,

Kosta Yepifantsev:

you can essentially get your business degree on Google. Absolutely. That's really all you need. That's the only resource. I learned how to use QuickBooks on Google. IgD. So between

Emma Crabtree:

Google and YouTube, like you can figure it out, you know, like, you can change a tire or build a refrigerator or start a business. Like, it's all there for you. I

Kosta Yepifantsev:

love it. So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better? When you're together?

Emma Crabtree:

I'm gonna give the classic answer. And so my husband, which is probably why I married him, right. That would be sad if it wasn't. But Seth is just amazing. And honestly, I would never have done this if it hadn't been for him. You know, the moment that this decision was born, it was something I thought about for a really long time, like five years, I'd want to open my own store. And we were sitting on the back deck one day, and I was crying, like I do sometimes. And we were having coffee. And he said, like, it just looks to me and he said, like you are so unhappy. And that's not okay with me. Like it's just not okay. And he's like, we can sustain on my income, you need to go and do your own thing. You need to figure out what this is for you. And if it hadn't been for him, encouraging me in the way that he did in that moment, and then pass that this would have never happened and the fact that he has carried us financially through this whole season, and he just really pushes me to be a better person and he's just a great guy. And so when we're together, I think I'm the best version of myself.

Morgan Franklin:

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev if you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin, post production, mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com, we're better together.