Wedding & Event Planning Legacy: Irene Tyndale's Journey from $230/Week to Pro-Athlete Weddings [Ep. 18]

In this episode, Irene Tyndale, Chief Event Officer of Irene Tyndale Weddings & Events — a first-generation Puerto Rican American shares her journey from growing up in the Bronx surrounded by hospitality and family celebrations, to working as a corporate hotel event planner in Atlanta, to being unexpectedly let go just two weeks before Thanksgiving, with two little ones. What happened next changed everything.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How Irene's Latina upbringing and family legacy planted the seeds of entrepreneurship long before she knew it
• The moment she turned down three referrals in one day and realized she needed to build a team
• Why knowing how to do the work is very different from knowing how to run a business

Whether you're a first-generation entrepreneur, a creative business owner figuring out the CEO side, or someone who got "released" from a job and is wondering what's next — this episode is for you.

Connect with Irene

• Instagram (Coaching): @IreneTyndale
• Website: irenetyndale.com

Follow me on Instagram: @uniqueblendconsulting 

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Hasta luego, amigas. Bendiciones. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hola amigas, this podcast is for Latina entrepreneurs building businesses while navigating faith, culture, and yes, motherhood.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

We unpack how your story shapes your leadership and build real-life systems that help you grow without burning down. This is where Kozura meets strategy. So let's go.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Welcome to the Latina Entrepreneur Podcast. My name is Anya. I am your host, and today we have the beautiful Irene Tyndale, Chief Event Officer of Irene Tyndale Weddings and Events. She has built a reputable career as a corporate planner for hotels and founded her own company in 2012. And they bring it. So welcome, Irene, to the podcast. I am so excited to learn about you, a little bit about your upbringing, being from Puerto Rico and having those amazing roots. My husband's from Puerto Rico. I'm sure we'll have some talk about that. In fact, that's right. Yeah. Family, business, and all of the things. But before we get started, I always like to ask what is your favorite traditional dessert from Puerto Rico?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

First of all, Anya, thank you so much for having me. And I was born and raised in New York, but I'm first generation American. But my mother would always say, You're American to Uncle Sam, but in this house you're Puerto Rican. You're Latina. And it's funny when you ask that question. So it's funny because I'm like, I remember flang and I remember that it's leches. And it's funny because the people say that comes from this country. That comes from this country. But one of my favorite candies is this dulce de leche, right? It's like a coconut. Oh no, duse de coco. It's like a coconut dessert or coconut candy that my great grandma, my grandmother, my great grandmother would make and they grade fresh coconut and it's condensed milk. And then you make it kind of like a chewy bar. And it's just it's the sweetest thing. And it's funny because I mean, I live in Atlanta and I we don't have it accessible. Like when I go back to Orlando or I go back to New York, the bakeries have them like a normal thing. And I know some of our supermarkets here have the patelillo that's like you know, the goa with the queso in it. And so some of the places make them here, but they're they're not the same when you get them from a bakery with people that have been doing it for hundreds of years, and then there's no fat-free in any of that.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

There's no fat-free and no sugar-free. I'm just not a baker. Yep, I'm the same way. I'm just I have no patience for baking, and it's such a precise science. And if you don't do it, it's too much.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I gotta say, you don't have patience for baking yet. You put this amazing event that requires a ton of detail. I tell you, no patience.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Tell us. I I say that all the time that I have no patience. And my husband's really, because you could put on an event for 50 people to a thousand people and not sweat and not fret and do it well. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what that is. I was like, that's what that's when you know, Anya, that's like a gift from God. Like when you know when it's that and he always says the kids get under your skin, but at work, you're like, no. And I was like, at work, when I say go left, they say how far, Anya. When I say go left at home, everybody goes right, everybody goes the opposite direction. So it's I'm like, I have more control at work at times than at home. Because the kids will be kids and kids will test you and stuff like that. But yeah, it's funny when I say that, like I have little patience for certain things, but then in in my career, which at this point has expanded to about 29, almost 30 years since college in the event industry, planning industry, then I'm like, okay, that's when you know that's what you're meant to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

What comes easy to me and hard to others is that's when that that's what I heard someone say one time, Anya, that what comes easy and natural to you is your gift. That is and your talent. And what comes hard for someone else, and can somebody plan their own wedding and event? Absolutely they can, right? Especially with all this AI business out there now. But do they want to? Do they have the capacity to do it? The list goes on and on. No, that's why I have a whole career.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Correct. Yeah. And tell us a little bit about that because I know that you said you were working for over 30 years in the industry. So you started very young. I did. Yeah. So what made you transition or what give us a little background? I don't want to pass over too much and tell us that.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, I started. I've listened, I'm the eldest. I'm the I'm a nosy rosy. I've always been very involved ever since I was a kid in clubs and after-school activities. And so I was always a kid that was like volunteering myself to lead something, do something, volunteer my mother, bless her heart. And then I also come from a long line of women, my mother and my grandmother, who both were like the go-to people in our neighborhoods and in our families to help put on baby showers and dinner parties and bridal showers and making the capias or making the favors and that kind of thing. They were like the organizers when I was growing up. And my mom was the mom in the building. I grew up in the Bronx, so she was the mom in the building that would decorate the door. We grew up in a building, five floors. My my our door was decorated for every holiday, even for St. Patrick's Day. And I remember my friends like, but you're not Irish. I'm like, nope, but we're having fish and french fries for dinner tonight. And my mom was like, the door would be like we'd have a little leprechaun on the door and whatever else, like that. And she would decorate for every holiday. Like our birthdays were like a big deal, right? I feel like as Latin people, I feel like innately we're hospitable and we're loving and we bring, we take everybody in, we feed everybody, no matter who you are, whether you could speak our language or not. Like I grew up around that, right? I grew up around my mom taking care of everybody. I grew up on a predominantly black neighborhood in the Bronx. Shout out to Creston Avenue. And we would do blog parties and everybody would come out and everybody would cook and it just was just like around me without even realizing it, right? And so then I got to college and I got more involved and had an amazing advisor who, when you came to her with an idea, she was like the she would push us as students to figure out the who, what, when we're hot. Like she figured, like she taught us how to have a logistical mindset about events, right? Like just don't come to me with a great idea, come to me with the plan. And that's where my the love of planning, but I really didn't know it could be a career. It was just something I did. And I was gonna go into or business, business administration, or like I wound up getting a degree in organizational communications with a minor in topology, which I use it all every day, which is kind of cool in my in what I do for a living and in the coaching side of things when I coach planners. But then I had a girlfriend in college who went to go visit her boyfriend and eloped while she was away, and she came back and I was like, uh, I have never met anybody who eloped. We're good Catholic schoolgirls. What are you doing inoping? My mind was blown. I actually knew somebody at 21, 22 who eloped, and the moms were like beside themselves. The two mothers were beside themselves and forced her to have a forced them to have a wedding, a reception. Like they didn't really want that. But the moms are like, we have to. And so she asked me to help. And I was like, I don't know nothing about weddings. I've been to one wedding in my life when I was six, and she's it's another event with a girl with the white dress. And I was like, Well, you're not supposed to wear white because you're not. You are this isn't you know that's like you know, that's so traditional, like what we were taught, right? That's true. And I helped her with that, and she that was like the first wedding I did, and for years, I would just do it here and there for our friends and friends and family there here and there. And then after I got college, I was a corporate event planner for a while in Orlando, and then we got married. And a couple years into our into us being married, we wanted to get a bigger house. We wanted to have thinking about starting a family in the future, and the cost of living was so high 20 years ago in Orlando, but the salaries were not going up. And so we always we used to come up to Atlanta all the time in college because we had friends that lived up here. It was just a fun place to come up, not a bad drive, whatever. So we visited and decided that we were gonna move. I applied for 30 event planning jobs, which was more than I ever applied in Orlando. And I got a job at a hotel. And so five years, five almost six years, I worked at hotels selling weddings. I was from the generation of booking it, cooking it, and serving it at a hotel. So I booked the wedding, I detailed the wedding on their behalf at the hotel, and then I was there to service the wedding. And then about 13 years ago, God saw fit to release me. I say fired, my husband say released. God saw fit because it made no sense, Anya, to the naked eye, like why they were firing me, right? I was making my number, it just made no sense. And they wanted the owners, not the owners, the management company wanted more weddings on the books. And I'm like, but I'm exceeding my goals that you set for me financially. It doesn't matter if it's 50 weddings or 20 weddings or quincenas, or they're like, no. And so I was released, and of course it was devastating. It was two weeks before Thanksgiving. The kids were two and four in private school. It was devastating. My husband, I call my husband, because I always say chicks don't cry at work. So don't cry at work, Latinas, don't cry, don't cry at work. Even if you feel like it, go to your car, go take a walk. I don't know, just something in me that just don't. And so I got in my car and I drove off the property, and I was maybe half a mile, no, maybe a couple miles off the property, and I was like, that movie cry, that ugly cry. And I'm just like, I was just like, call my husband, and he was off. Thank God he was off that day. And he was like, Did you get into a car accident? No, he said, somebody die. He was just he's very calm. He was just trying to figure out why I was like balling. Are you driving? I'm like, no, I pulled over. And I'm like, he's what? So what is after all the no, no, no's, and I was like, I got fired. He was like, he's like, roll down the windows, wipe the tears, take a couple of deep breaths, blast some music, and make it home. Because I was, I live about 45 minutes home. And he's even if you have to pull over a couple of times, it's gonna be okay. And so we can't he gave me a day or two to mope around. And I think by three or four days into it, he was like, I think you should start up your company. I think you should start a planning company. And I was like, I laughed at him. I was like, no, I'm going to enjoy the holidays for the first time since the kids were born. I'm gonna do all the classroom stuff, I'm gonna do everything. I'm gonna go, we're gonna go see the nutcraft, like all the stuff that I normally couldn't do because holiday parties, right? And I had a blast because it was right before Thanksgiving, all the way to New Year's. And as soon as the second day, like January 2nd, one of the hotel, one of the brides that I had booked at the hotel, somebody at the hotel told her that I left and that I was thinking about starting my own company. She found me on Facebook, and like they said, the rest is history. 13 years later, I'm still here. Like, you know, so that's amazing. Yeah, it is crazy. And every time I'm a woman of faith, every time I'm just like, ah, like straight having my own little panic attack. He's here's a contract. Now be quiet. Now go sit down somewhere and do what I told you to do. I was talking to my best friend the other day. I was like, the idea of going back to working for someone else full time just doesn't sit real for my spirit right now. It just doesn't, every once in a while, listen. Yeah. Every once in a while, I want to hang up the clipboard and go work for Target. I always say, give me my red shirt, my khaki pants, and put me in the back. I don't want to talk to people. I don't want to be a manager. I just want to be a stock person. Put me in the back. Sometimes it's fun be being a business owner, all that kind of stuff, it's frustrating sometimes. But then I'm just like, I have one more to graduate in two years, and I'm just like, no, no, I see the benefit of me being home with them every day for the past 13 years. So I would say somebody who either gave birth to them or made them is home, sees them off in the morning and receives them in the afternoon. And it's it's a blessing to be able to do that. Because I had a woman, maybe the first year of my business, it was an older woman. I met her, it was a planner. I met her at a venue, and the venue owner introduced us. And her last name is Miller. So I was at Mrs. Miller. She was like, How old are your babies? And I told her they were two and four, and how I just started my business. And she's work really hard until they get to middle school. She says, when they get to middle school, that's when the real parenting begins. That's when you really want to be present. And she's not wrong. That's not true. Oh my goodness. And so it's like, when she told me that, it's resonated with me over the past 13 years, and I see it now. And I'm like, if I'm gonna go, if I ever have to go back to work, it's gonna be after my daughter graduates high school because I'm like, she's off to college. But then I think about that too. I want to be able to just pop up and visit her whenever she needs me.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

She's not going back, okay? That ship is born, Irene. All right. So let's just like, yeah, we'll go back to work.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Maybe one day I'll go back to work, whatever. I do. And I have friends that are like now doing that where they're like going into full-time entrepreneurship and they have little ones. And I'm like, doesn't it feel good to be like to drop off and pick up at doesn't it feel good to mommy? I forgot my presentation, my son. Right? This is the last week of high school while this is being recorded. And he goes off and he leaves his presentation. And I'm thinking, Anya, it's okay, it's like a when I it's like a full sheet of pay, it's a huge sheet of paper. And I'm like, How'd you forget that this morning? But I just got in the car, took it up to him. That's the give and take. There's a lot of weekends that I wasn't home, and a lot of weekends I'm still not home. And I tell him, but I'm home during the week. Yeah, I work really hard in the spring so that you can have a great summer and great holidays. So there's a give and take. And I'm like, I was class mom and did the chaperoning thing and all that stuff. It's like sometimes I was the only parent chaperoning, or the only parent that can come and help in the classroom because people work regular full-time jobs. And so I was like, So I might not be here on a Saturday, but guess what? You whatever you need to do in the week, you're you have it. And you're and then they're home with my husband. When I started my business, the business got really started taking off on the weekends. He was home with them, and they have a wonderful relationship as well. So it wasn't like, okay, we're gonna miss you. If the three of them would stay on the porch and on a Saturday and wave bye at me and they're PJs, bye! Just like, bye. They still do that. Oh, have a good day, mommy, or have a good wedding tonight. That kind of thing. The wedding I just finished this weekend, like I left Thursday and then come home to Sunday evening, and they were like, bye, we love you. And they they were gone Thursday morning. They're just like, peace, mommy.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

It's all good though.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

No, it is. I wanted those one of the things that I am so thankful because I kind of like you, you get we get to do that. We might not have all of the things, right? But at the end of the day, what matters to us is being with our family and when we can having that flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I mean, all the things and all the different apps and all that kind of stuff for the school, but yeah, it's a beautiful thing, and and they don't realize it like how it's a blessing because my mom was a stay-at-home mom. Yeah, my mom didn't get a job outside of the house until I was in college. So she always had it was so funny because she called herself selling Avon back in the 80s and had the little pin and all that little door. It was like a door knocker. It was so funny. And we and I would go to the meetings with her. I vividly remember going to the meetings with her, and my dad, not that he never took it seriously, but I think my dad was like, that's like her chump change. That was her fun money, right? So she did Avon and then Tupperware, and then she would do like favors and things like that for parties. So she always worked from home, and it wasn't until I got to college that she actually had a job. But then again, it was like she worked in the evening. She worked at a bank and she cleaned in this bank building and she cleaned the offices in the evening for four hours. But then, so when we got home, there was dinner in the oven. It was just never we got home and she was home and she'll be home a little bit, and then she would go off to work. So she's always was around and home. And it's a blessing, and I don't take it for granted. Now, could I be working and be making my consistent six figures and bonuses and not be but then I'll be stressed out for someone else. That's the reality of that.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

That's the reality of that. I'd rather be stressed out and then my name is on the door.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

It is, it is, and you're building it how you want to build it, right? Because I'm sure there's working for somebody else, it's their the way they want to do business, right? Just like you do your business. So it's that difference that you're like, I like what I do because this is my gift, but I don't agree with X, Y, and Z. And so you get to control that, like you said, you get to control your people, you get control your business.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Take the plans you want to, exactly. Not the you have to. Because when I worked at the hotel, I had to take every fool that came through the door. You know what I'm saying? Didn't matter who they were. It wasn't up to you. Yeah, it was not up to me. Now I'm just like, I don't feel like we're gonna be a good connection. Or no, that the price is the price. Correct, it's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, no, but it's beautiful, just like you talking about the trajectory from like even your mom to me, it's it was in your genes already to have all this the gift that you have was passed down because, like you said, your mom would love to decorate. She had that welcoming feeling for others and all of that, the hospitality. And I think it it was already in there, and you were the one that got to take the baton and it's like do something with it. Do something with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, it it's it's the it's I had somebody tell me one time, they're like, Well, have you ever met a child that has personality traits or tendency from someone they never met? Like they've never met, right? Like a great grandparent or something. They're like, That's DNA. There's some things they just carry on.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

And then the other part was like when you pivoted to working from your career, your husband was such an incredible support to have believed in you when you didn't even think about having your own business at all. That just gave me the chills because thank you. Wow, that's just beautiful. That is not he's encouraging.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

He's yeah, it's funny. We joke. I'm the only friend in I'm the only person in our friend group in college that did not talk about being an entrepreneur and having their own business. I was like, okay, so when you all have your business, hire me on to do your events. That was the joke. And I always wanted to be like, I'm like, I want to be the chick in the corner office, give me my bonus every year and send me home. That was because I like stability. I like knowing listen, I'm a planner. And so when he said that, I was like, I'll have a job by the latest March. Child by Feb by mid-January, I had my first contract. By early February, I had my second contract. Both brides from the hotel who I had been planning with them at the hotel for so long. And when they found out, they were like, This is ridiculous. And then that community, that part of town, it's called Roswell. I had worked in that area for two years, almost three years, at the hotel. And so they were like, all the venue owners and all the other people, like, wait, what? And they were just referring me. The first two or three years of my business, a lot of my business came from that just that community, that part of town, because they were like, We loved you when you were at the hotel. Now we could send you everything. And so I stayed pretty busy just from referrals and word of mouth. And it was it was a beautiful thing. And I I'm a bull in the China shop. Now I just am a tourist. That's my I always joke, I'm like, I am a bull. I tell me I can't do something, or give me a ta I'm running with it, right? Or give me an idea and I'm running with it. And I started this business with an unemployment check of $230 a week. And then my daughter was my son was in pre-K, private pre-K, and my husband's just take care, whatever you make goes back to frickin' frack, is what we call them, frickin' frack. And and I did, and I I had to talk to the director of the daycare or the school. I'm like, I want her to still come, but I can only afford for her to come a couple days a week. And the other times she would be with me, and there's times that she would go to site visits with me at hotels, and it's just you just did what you had to do. And I will tell you this, Anya, she was about five, and I was going to work on a Saturday, and she's you have to go. I said, Yes, I have to go. I said, Somebody paid me. I have a contract, they pay me to be there. And she's okay. And I said, Do you want to come work for mommy one day? She goes, Nope, you're gonna work for me. She goes, I'll work for you for a little while, but then you're gonna come work for me. And we we lost it. My husband and I were dying, and then her face was like poker, and I was like, Oh, like she's she yeah, she means it now I love that. She she's worked events with me, whatever. She the production side of it, the b the behind the scenes she loves, but being like front and center, I she spent one entire day, one of the fall breaks a couple years ago. She spent an entire day with me at a bunch of meetings in a city, and then she she was spalled everywhere she went. Somebody had a treat for her everywhere we went, she had lunch provided, and then at the end of the day, we had lunch, the dinner together, and she was like, You were on all day. I was like, What do you mean? You had to be like bubbly and kind all day. That's not me. She's I just can't. I she's like, even when somebody was saying something that you did not agree with, you're like super kind, and I just there was no face, there was like no like and I she's even though I know you're thinking it because I know you, and I'm like, Yeah, she's I like production, I like to make sure things are set up good, I like the back of house. So people always ask her, Are you gonna take over? And she's I don't know. But she she said, only way she would take over is my son always jokes and said he will sell the company. And she was like, they already made their decisions for it. Oh yeah, he's gonna sell the company, and then so she's don't make him only 10% owner so that he doesn't sell the company. It's like this whole thing. He's gonna go into cybersecurity and all that nerdy techie stuff, and she's thinking about architecture, she's thinking about architecture, and I was like, Listen, I'm building this, and if either one of you want to take it over, great. If you don't, it's fine. I'm not forcing anybody to if it's not your gift, it's not your gift. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, it's just I don't know, all that stuff is funny.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

And I'll also I wanted to point out growing up within the family of entrepreneurs, that that's what I was looking at every single time where my family would take me to their to the jobs, to whatever events. And I do that for my daughter as well. And you know, my little ones are still too young still, but even then I'll bring them where I can, right? Or I explain to them. So you doing the same thing as they were little, I think they grew up with a different mindset of how they view things. Because I can tell you, Irene, as well, that my daughter, she's 10 years old, and she'll she's already, what's my business gonna be, mom? You sit down with me, and she's just like, Can you sit down with me and can you pretend I'm your client and you do the same thing because I want to understand? And then I'm like, All right, well, are you sure? Because this is a process because you're whatever. And she has gone through it a couple of times, and I play with her just so that she can get her critical thinking. Yeah, and she's like, Yeah, I don't want to do that business. Yeah, I don't want to do that business. We get middle part, and I'm like, that's the importance I say of uh a business plan, putting it together because that's where even adults, if we don't do this, yeah, get into the colour.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

You have to put your thoughts on paper.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah, we uh we have to put everything out, and then she's oh, I get it. But you know, the detrimental mindset it's in her brain and it's funny, but it's because she sees Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

So even if she goes to college, right? Even if she goes to college, she could Wind up working for herself. During the pandemic, my daughter actually started a business. She started a lip gloss business. So she literally did all the first of all. Initially she wanted to sell make and sell slime. When I tell you, I'm so glad the slime craze is over. I don't know if any little kids are into it now. I'm so glad we're over. She has messed up, she messed up enough comforters and spots on the carpet and clothes. But during the pandemic, she she just watched watching YouTube and learned how to make lip gloss and did an entire PowerPoint presentation because she had learned how to do that in school. She did a whole PowerPoint presentation on so she could present it to the Bank of Tyndale, which is daddy. Got dressed up and everything. It was the cutest thinking thing. She needed $300 to start her business. And she needed, and she bought, she she made the list, she had the Amazon links. It was amazing. I love it. And she packaged it, she made her own little website. It was, it gave her something to do. And it was just so crazy. I'm like, she's 10. It's like this is crazy. And so she did it for a little bit. She was serious about mailing her packages. It was this, it was a family affair, you know. It was like, but she did it. And she did it for a little while. She made some money, and it was like she had some sales, but you know, she outgrew it, whatever. But I'm always telling her because she loves lip gloss. Like, lip gloss is her thing. I was like, child, you need to have a whole lip gloss line because Kylie Jenner did it. Kylie Jenner had a whole that's how she started with lipstick and now she has a whole beauty brand. Yeah. And I'm, you know, that's not what I want to do for a living. I'm like, yeah, but you could have a whole beauty brand and never have to be like the brand all the time. It could be a side hustle. But yeah, it's cool. It's like when you see them, I heard somebody say that time because we were taught that, right? As first generation Latinos or came to this country as little people and grew up here. Your parents tell you you could do what you could. This is America. We could do whatever we want to set our minds to. Our parents push us. I have friends who parents. I knew people from the 70s and the 80s that when they migrated here to the to the states from Puerto Rico, for Santo Domingo, from wherever, their parents were like, no more speaking Spanish. Just speak English. We want to assimilate, like that kind of thing. But we were taught that we could be whatever we want to be. But let's be real, we didn't see that in our communities. We didn't see now you turn on the TVs and our kids could see themselves in different TV shows, American TV shows. Because I'm like, I could turn on, I won't even see I'm gonna see myself all day long in Del Mundo. I can't do that when I turned on ABC as a kid. Now the our kids have that. It's a regardless of what side of the fence you are. My son was a baby when Obama was inducted inaugurated. And I sat here, Anya, and just sobbed. Because my husband's Jamaican, I'm Puerto Rican, so I'm a black child that could for the first eight years of his life, he saw somebody that looked at him at the White House, right? I'm like, when Kamala Harris ran, I'm like, my daughter was like, wow, she's a woman and a woman of color. So she, you know what I'm saying? So we didn't have that growing up. I didn't have that growing up in the 80s and the 90s. So to for them to have that, for them, for our daughters, especially our daughters, to see their moms still running a household, still being a wife, still being a daughter, still being their mom, and helping other people and using their gifts, right? Because you and I both know we have tons of the family and friends that had a gift that they never used it outside of their neighborhoods, yeah, outside of their households. We all have the one at the that bakes, one tia that bakes. It's really good that you think everybody says, Oh, you should have a business, but she never had the means or whatever or the encouragement to the somebody telling you to start a business and somebody helping you start a business, it's two different things. Two different things. And so I love that they they as far back as they could remember, they see that. They're like, oh, mommy, and then also letting them know that even though I'm the owner, I still have clients that I have to answer to. There's still commitments that I need to make, they still have to see consistency, they still have to understand that my business revolves around my family, right? So I but it took time for me to get there, right? There's times where I had to go to work and I had to miss a soccer game, right? But like what it counts. I don't know if you if your M agreed that just she's does an aspire podcast. That's what one of the things that people like or and stirred up about the last few weeks, but she's I'm like a three to four hour mom a day. She's I'm not gonna go to every single little thing, but she's like, What the big things and the things that matter the most, I'm present for, right? And so there was times I'm like, I'm not at the soccer game. My daughter just had an architect, she has a she does an architecture program every year that's one time a month and it's four hours and all that kind of stuff. And I miss her present, I miss this presentation this year. My husband FaceTimed me because I was at work. Typically, the presentation's done a Saturday, they did it on a Sunday this year, and I had an event. And so I I as I was setting up, I he FaceTimed it and I watched it. But I was at the other one and I'm there all the other times, and she was okay with it. Of course, you have that mom guilt, which is ridiculous that we didn't have that. I think women, entrepreneurs that, especially Latinas who have daughters, I don't know. We talk about resilience, and I think it's resilience in action. They get to see mommy build something from nothing.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, and they're proud of us. But at 10 and 11 and little, they're not, they don't say it, but they'll say it. They might talk to their friends. I just did this, the wedding I just did. Mind you, I've been doing weddings their whole entire life, and I've had weddings of other calibers, but this wedding, they're like going around bragging about it. I'm just like, okay. Even my nephew, one of my nephews or my best friend, was like, Your nephew is on the floor that you just did this wedding. I did a wedding for a football player, and I was like, Oh my goodness. Yeah, exactly. And so they're like, My nephew's, oh my gosh. And I'm like, Y'all, I've done weddings for I did a wedding for one of the founding members of the Commodores, um, and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, I've done all the ball players because I don't really tote it like that anymore. But everyone's everyone's bragging about me. I'm like, mind you, I've been doing it for 30 years, but okay. What about the other times? Yeah, like okay, but it's okay. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Oh, that is so awesome. How fun is that? You know, but that's an incredible journey. And as you went into your care from your career into your business, what were some challenges that you discover that because I'm sure being an employee is different than running your business. Oh, absolutely. So, what would you say were like your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

The biggest challenge on you that I, and that's one of the reasons I coach now, I coach planners now in business, is that I didn't know how to be a business owner. I know how to plan an event, blindfold it, gag, hang time behind my back. It is naturally in me to do. I know how to do it. I could walk into a space, you can tell me, hey, I have an idea, I want to do a retreat, I want to do a conference, I want to do whatever it is. And I'm like, okay, great. You where do you want to have it? Where and I go ask you a thousand and one questions because it's in me naturally. The business ownership part of it, it's the one thing that I still invest a good amount of money in every year. I've had business coaches, I currently have a business coach now. I have business coaches, I've had mentors, I've gone to conferences, I've paid for programs, that kind of thing. But it was the first okay, I have a business, and but it wasn't to like maybe going into year three that I was like, girl, you have a whole business. Really, I just jumped in. This came and I just jumped. I'm a bowl in China. So I just jumped in, but it was and it was just me. I was like, what they say, a solopreneur. It was just me. I didn't have a team. And at the time when I started my business, there was a couple other planners in the Atlanta area that were also starting their business. So we all just helped each other out for free. Like, oh, you have an event, I'm gonna come help you for a couple hours, a few hours, and then vice versa. Like, we all helped each other, but it wasn't and I needed to, I started to grow and I started getting more referrals and I started getting more bookings, and I'm like, okay, I need an assistant, I need somebody. And it was it, I remember the pivotal point. I might have been, yeah, it was a year two going into year three, and I was home from work that day, working from home that day. I was in my desk. My husband was off that day. And that particular day, I turned down three referrals. And when I tell you, I felt so good about myself. I was like, oh my gosh, people are calling, and I get to tell them. I am right, mommy. Look, mommy, I made it. I'm just like, oh my goodness. I felt I was on cloud nine because I was like, I got to turn down three pieces of business today because I'm booked. Like just like feeling myself. Of course, I'm like humbly feeling myself. I'll quiet to myself. I had a pep in my step. My day ends, and I'm in the kitchen, and my husband's like, You had a good day. I'm like, Yeah. And I'm like, and he the thing about is he overheard all those three calls because there were three calls that came in. They were either refer by a venue, a vendor, or a couple. And I was feeling so good. And he was like, Can I give you advice? And he always says that, Can I give you a piece of advice? I was like, I'm always rolling my eyes in my head. I just he knows I am. And I'm like, yes. And he was like, I think it's time to hire an IT too. And I was like, what? He's like, I think it's not time to because that was cute that you turned down business. He says, but that means that you could have a whole nother planner and a whole nother coordinator to take on those cup weddings on the days that you're booked. Or, and little did we know at that point, on the days you just want to take off. One of my DJ friends literally just made a post that said that he has a team of DJs. He said, I'm only taking 26 weddings in 2027. Point blank, period. We have 52 weeks in a year. He's only taking 27 weddings or 26, 20, 26 weddings in 2027. And I was like, love it, right? And so he was like, at that point, I didn't think like that. At that point, no, you all could do two weddings in one weekend, you do one, she does the other. And then I went on that venture of hiring somebody as an intern and then assistant, and then made her lead planner. But then with that, when I gave her after after that season, she worked from August to December. She did about 10 weddings with me as my assistant. I promoted her and she's great, I'm honored. I will, I'll, I'm gonna accept, but I need you to put all how you do things, I need all of that on paper. And I was like, What? Yeah, so basically she asked for a training manual. I was like, I have a way of doing things, and she's like, Yes, I need a checklist, I need a step by step so that I don't miss anything. She goes, I follow your timeline to a T. Your timeline is great, but I need to know how to create a timeline. I need to know how to do these things you do. She typically, I'm an assistant and I just show up. I have the information through two weeks before, and I show up and I and she killed it. And so I was like, Oh, okay. So that part of year three ish is when I was like, okay, I I am a CEO in the making. I'm a boss. I'm now technically a boss. I'm technically uh I'm a business owner. Figure this out, girl.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah. And everything's living in here.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Everything is living. That's why my hair is so gray now. It's all living in my head. Um and I still have to kind of check myself because a lot of times a lot of stuff sits in my head. This big the wedding I just did, when we booked it last year, I was like, we had our venue and the venue was locked in. I was like, I sent a message to my team, which some of them are WT employees and some of them are freelancers that actually I've coached many of them, and I was like, I need every last one of you not to please, if you could help it, I need all of you, all hands on dick. Because I knew the knew the size of the venue and I knew what we were planning, and I knew that I could not be the only one with this entire plan in my head. Yeah, it just can't. And so I was like, Yeah, so it I woke up and like, you know what? I uh gonna have to figure this business ownership stuff out little by little. And I still I tell people all the time, I'm like, there's levels and stages of business. You will always just when you think you've gotten it, you got it together and you figured it out, something new pops up. Yeah, it's just okay, what now? Something new pops up. So yeah, it's it's that's been the hard that's been the hardest part of it all. I have the skills and the talent, but the hardest part has been learning how to be a business owner, and it's different for creatives than it is for any other business, right? Like it's just it's a little different for us than somebody who's doing a startup in tech. Correct. It's a lot different, yeah. A lot different. Because we're creatives and we're emotional, and then we're women, and then it's all these factors, and then the mom guild, and it's all of that, that kind of thing. And then I feel like most Latinas are people pleasers, right? So then you're trying to please your trying to please and you try to please family, and then and then sometimes your family looks at you. My mom loved it because my mom was like, she was a stay-at-home mom that worked from home, so she was like, Great, you're there for my grandbabies. She was just like, that was her thing. It was all about them. Forget about the fact that your daughter had just put so many years into her career, and now she's gonna start something fresh. It was like, oh, you're there for the babies. That's all she cared about. And then my mother-in-law was like, but you have a whole degree because traditional thinking. That's true. And it was like a few people like, what are you doing? And then my father-in-law, who has an entrepreneurial spirit, was like, This is great. So everybody had their own take on it.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Like my opinion, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

And nothing bad and nothing negative and or discouraging. It was because you have a whole degree, you've worked at this many hotels, you did corporate. You're gonna do what? Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna give it a go. I'm gonna give it a go. And I was like, believe me, there I'm a planner and there was no plan. That's that happened. I was just like, That happens. I'm just okay, I'm gonna give this a go. I'm gonna go work for myself and see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah, no, and you're doing amazing. And honestly, um, I know you you went through so much during this process. And so I want to know like, where are you right now? What do you offer? How can people work with you? Where can they find you? What areas do you cover? And really, at the end of all of this, any word advice for other entrepreneurs that are in their journey to where you are?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, I always say that have clipboard and passport will travel. So we've actually we're based in Atlanta, but we travel internationally with our clients. We we go to Florida a lot with our clients. So where our clients go, we go, right? Some of our clients are based in Atlanta, some of them are not based in Atlanta. They just bring us because a lot of it is just referrals. It's been great to get referrals from someone else from another state, another country. Like right now, I'm putting it out there. I tell God, I'm like, I'm a New Yorker through and through. I was like, I want a wedding at the plaza. I want a million-dollar wedding at the plaza. I'm putting it out there. I keep putting it out there. And someone's like, I think once I get that one, I'm retiring because that one's probably gonna stretch me to no end.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

But again, give a shout out to that dream to come true. Yes, please. So everybody getting married in the plaza in New York City or know somebody in. Hit up.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Or if you want to go into national nation to somewhere like Italy, that's another place that I just I would love to do a wedding. My daughter and I were talking about it. She wants to live in Italy at one point. We were just talking about that. I'm like, I'm going to move in. I'm gonna go move in with you. I'm not gonna be home. Are you kidding me? I'm gonna go help you set up the house and never come home. But no, I we service, we do mo majority of what we do is is weddings. Okay. We don't do other socials unless you're a past client. One of my past clients are like, I just saw you did a baby shower. And I'm like, yes, only for past clients. And that's because I know who you are, I know your people, I know your budgets, I know your likes and your dislikes. It makes it a little bit easier to do something for you. But then we do corporate events and conferences, but it's really, I call it, it's corporate on paper, we call it corporate with heart. Anya, it's basically personal development. We have a client that is that does a conference for photographers, we have another client that does conferences for interior designers, and another one that's for speakers and coaches. So we, those are our main three corporate clients, and then we'll do charity galas, and we'll do, we're gonna be doing a golf tournament for one of my past grooms that is needs somebody to help me with his entire golf. He's hosting his own golf tournament for charity and some other things. So we'll do things like that. Then it's more heartfelt. Now, have I done corporate things with Fortune 500 companies? Yes, but what I've seen is our sweet spot is people that we could just kind of join their team and love on their staff and love on their attendees and their members from their coaching programs. We love doing that because it's just an extension of what we do. So, yeah, definitely again, weddings and then those kind of corporate events. My advice for any entrepreneur, any Latina entrepreneur, is that to do an assessment of yourself. I'm big on brain dumping. I was just telling this to I had a one-on-one coaching session yesterday with a planner. I'm coaching, and I was like, who she's looking at expanding her team and making some of these kind of freelancers into an actual employee and all that kind of stuff, like actually growing her team, so she's not the only one doing everything. And I said, You really have to decide, do an uh assessment of who you are, what you love to do, and what don't you like to do. So my coach had me do this a couple of years ago. Anya, she was like, I need you to ask the CEO, I need you to write down every it's a couple lists. One list is write down everything you do in the company from the smallest detail to the biggest. That's the number one. Just do brain dump that, then walk away from it. Come back another day and make a list of what you don't want to do. And now we'll tell you, because I'm a Jedixer and we don't say no. And I was like, that was the hardest list to do. Taking that first list was like, okay, this is all the things I do. And yeah, that was easy because I'm like, it's basically taking my to-do list every day or my task list, even with assistance. I'm like, there's things I always say the things I do. And then writing what I did not want to do was the hardest thing. But then when you do that, then you go the third list. Is what has to be done by you and only you as a business owner? What can be outsourced to someone, whether internally or you getting like I could manage my clients' budgets, but I hate doing that for myself and bookkeeping and all that stuff. So I have a bookkeeper. Love consuming social media, but I don't like doing it. So I have a social media manager. That was the first thing I outsourced. What can be done only by you? What can be outsourced to a person or a system? Because we have CRMs and we have uh AI agents, which I still don't understand how all that works. My husband was telling me, we were talking about it the other day, and I was like, I still like the touchy-feely people, I still like to talk about you. I called a photographer's phone number the other day, and the AI sound like a person, like it sounded like her. And I'm like, And then I paused and it was like, so yeah, tell me what you I was like, oh no, this is ridiculous. Just like I need to talk to I don't know. I'm like, I need to talk to a person. I was like, call me bad girl. But anyway, what only can be done by you, what all what can be outsourced to a person or a system, and something in things that you're not good at. If there is something on your goals list or to-do list in your business, month after month, year after year, all that stuff, that means you're not good at it or you don't want to do it. So that means it needs to be outsourced to someone or a system, right? That's a big thing. And the other thing is to being honest with yourself and being like, where do I need help? Me personally, do I need a business coach? Do I need therapy? Whatever it is. And a mentor and a business coach are two different things. A mentor is somebody you look up to, they're there where you want to be. A coach is gonna get you there. Because I get that in my inbox. Oh, can you be my mentor? A mentor is somebody that we all have a mentor in our head, like many of us, like Oprah or whoever, right? Oh my gosh, I love her, and she's a mentor in my head. But that's it, right? So if you I don't care what stage in business you are, I don't care if you're just starting out, you've been in business for a few years, you've been in business for 10 years. Sometimes it's good to have somebody have eyes on your business that it's not emotionally attached to your business, but has your best interests in heart. So if you're out there and you've never gotten a business go, do your research, find us, find a coach, find a business strategist, find a group coaching program, something to help you get to that next phase. I think sometimes too we're embarrassed to say, hey, we need help. Latinos are proud people.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

I don't care what, I don't care where we come from, whether we're South America, whether from the islands, wherever, we are proud people. So for us to be like, we need help, we'll pray and we'll be quiet about it, right? We'll pray. And sometimes we don't even tell our spouses about the stresses that we're going through as business owners. And it's like, but it comes out in other ways, right? Because I'm just speaking for my, I know it comes out in other ways. But it's having a business coach and having a business bestie that's in the same realm. Because I don't know about you, majority of us, Anya, are like first-time entrepreneurs, just like majority of us were first-time college students. I made the best friends I can make in college because it's like a lot of us were first-generation American, first generation going to college. It was our own journey. Our parents encouraged us, but they had no idea about this world. And it's the same thing. Our family is yes, you're a business owner, but you can't sit down and have a conversation about it. Yeah, they don't understand it. So it's find yourself a business bestie that in the same boat or a little bit ahead of you, and then find a business coach or someone that you could confide in and get push you to the next level.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Yeah, no, that's true. That's a really great advice. And I know a lot it doesn't come easy to people to do, just like you mentioned. But yeah, once again, if you want a coach, wedding planner coach, please make sure you reach out to Irene. Um Irene, before we part, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

On Instagram for the coaching side is Irene Tyndale, that's my full name. And then for the planning side, iTindale events, it's just it's all over the place. Up in the show notes, too. Oh, yeah. Okay, so on Instagram for the coaching side is Irene Tyndale, my full name. And for the planning side, it's iTindale Events. And like I said, she'll put it in the show notes for the correct spelling. And then my website's Irene Tindale.com. And yeah, we I definitely I coach and mentor planners at every stage of business on how to do what they're hired to do, which is plan manage and execute weddings flawlessly, as flawless as can be. But I also teach them how to be the chief event officer, the chief executive officers of their business.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Irene. I am it was such a pleasure to have you. Really gave us a lot of good wisdom and knowledge, and then sharing your journey was just amazing. Uh, thank you everyone for having us. And if you are not subscribed, please do if this resonates with you and you know somebody that you know could resonate with, please share it. And looking forward to the next one.