SPEAKER_02 0:30

And we are back with another episode of Lost in the Music Podcast, and we are going to do a part two of the day the music died. This is episode number five. John Wackin, the host of Isaac Lindahl, and we've had uh an excellent journey. Really, a lot of learning um can be extracted from this podcast, regardless of business. Because, you know, just to recap, you can go back and listen to the prior episodes, but a lot of lessons learned. Some were hard lessons, some were easy lessons. You had successes, you had some setbacks. It's uh a lot of um interesting stuff, a lot of interesting stories within the big story.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, but both personal and business related.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Absolutely, you know, and um we're gonna get into what I would what I would define as a a heavier episode in the sense that we have now we're gonna talk about something that went from a professional disagreement to a personal disagreement because of the professional disagreement.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Like I just said, personal versus business. I just mentioned that 10 seconds ago, and that's a great transition and explanation kind of how to what we're gonna be talking about in this episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

And just to recap, you know, in our in our first part, so you're going into 21, you're really you're playing catch up from 2020 because of the COVID. Yep. And you're expanding, and you're having a huge year, and you're adding staff, and you're taking on more events, multiple events simultaneously. So you're you're you're progressing. You're you're you're looking at you know what you're bringing in and what you're doing, what you're accomplishing is is going up, but so is uh the amount of investment that you have to make in terms of time and the stress level and the pressure and all that, which is a natural thing, right? It's a little thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Right. Now I know that it's a natural thing. At the time of being a new business owner, I didn't know that it was gonna happen. But yeah, and I I guess I didn't really realize that um the success that we were having in 21 was due to the COVID hangover, too. Um, and that's not normal, you know, that that's not gonna happen next year, that's not gonna happen the year after that. This is kind of a a one-off. Um yeah, I lived and learned as a business owner, and um in that regard, in that situation, and you know, kind of what we'll talk about today is in the same regard, um, you live and learn when you come up against new experiences in business.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Well, so just to back up a little bit more before we get into this, so you you were signed a purchase agreement from the original owner in in 2020. Yep, and that agreement stated a lot of things, right? And you were paying off bimonthly to become the owner purchasing, in essence, a contract for D. I know this is not real estate, but in essence, that's what it is, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

There's no bank involved, it's just yeah, basically owner finance, owner finance sale by owner, yeah. So it was a monthly installment um of a set agreement, set amount um for overall for the entirety of the company, and then each month was uh you know payment towards that amount. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Buying an established business and the equipment and the name and the you know all of that, as opposed to going out and trying to start something on your own. You went this route to buy an established because you you were part of this anyway. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

I'd managed the company at least for a year prior to that. I'd worked for them since 2015. Um so yeah, it was just uh a natural progression for both parties that uh worked out and we came up with that deal and that agreement. And um the majority of it was the reputation that I wanted um because I could have gone and started my own company if I needed to with my own reputation. But the company itself um and the previous business owner and the reputation that it had in that area is kind of what I just wanted to continue being a part of. And that has a value.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Significantly more than the equipment that I was buying. Right. And you know, this name recognition, reputation. Oh, I you know, I heard this outfit did somebody else's wedding and it went really well. You're you're basically buying the value of that, you know, which which you were a part of anyway. So this is moving along, and all of this growth is happening, you're making your payments, but you're also starting to uh encounter some staff issues that you didn't have as much issue with early on.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Correct. Yeah, and if you haven't listened to part one of this um podcast The Day the Music Died, I encourage you to go back and listen to that because we do cover a lot of the staffing uh issues in that episode, but then we didn't um get to hit on everything necessarily. There was one story that I wanted to get to at the end of that episode that um you know I'll just kind of touch on here. But uh, yeah, it was uh another staff that I had to hire kind of mid-season of 21 um because we had lost a couple, like I had mentioned in part one. And after I hired him and I trained him for you know a few weeks, he and I lived in the same area, and I was gonna go out to E'Claire to grab the equipment for him to do the gig in our in our hometown. And um that morning I just kind of texted him and checked in with him and yeah, we're good to go. Sounds good. Thanks for grabbing my system and whatnot. On my way back, uh I got I don't know, 20 minutes away from dropping up dropping stuff off for him. And he texted me, yeah. I don't, you know, I just don't think that I really want to do this, and I'm not gonna work for you anymore. And dude, I just is the day of the event. The day before. Day before before the event. Um, regardless. I mean, it's stress-wise, it's almost the same uh for me. And I was like, so I called him, I texted him, I emailed him, I couldn't even get a hold. He ghosted me after that. Oh no. At least he told me that he wasn't gonna do stuff as opposed to just not showing. But then even afterwards, I asked him why. He didn't give me a reason. I said, you know, so I had I don't even remember um what I ended up doing. I I think I've obviously I found coverage for it, but I I don't remember the exact situation after that. It was it's one of those things where your brain gets so traumatized that it just kind of blocks it out.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

I I do understand, and and I've had similar with running a broadcast business where you have seven, eight broadcasts and so it's an ancillary effect.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

And I've always looked at it this way, and you can expand on this, if not in this episode, in a future episode. Every time you survive one of those episodes, it takes a little piece out of you. It does, 100%. And there's only so many pieces that can be taken, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yeah. It yeah, I it's sad to say it that way, but it's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

And and this is and and we can explore this in the future episode too, is that one of the lessons here, and business owners will understand, and it's become a frustration, I think, more times lately than maybe it used to be, is when somebody backs out like this, like you just described, uh you wonder if they give any consideration to the position that puts the business owner in. Yeah. And if there isn't some sense of, hey you know, not to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, I don't think that is a thought in people's heads anymore. That people are have become more, I think, more selfish, um more uh for various reasons, but you know, everybody's become more isolated where they kind of just don't consider other people and some decisions that they make, and some of those decisions that are have a higher impact than others, especially in this industry when you're you know given notice less than 24 hours in advance and uh the these business owners, especially myself, needed reliability with people.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

So well, it's you know it's it's about two things, I think. It it's about professionalism and professional courtesy.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Even if you've only been there a short time, you know, it's like, geez, you know, I I'm really putting this person in a bad spot by doing this.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, it shows the character of the person. It shows how you know how are you behaving in your everyday life if that's what you're doing to these businesses that you're applying to be a part of. If you're applying for the job, you know, the assumption is that you're probably gonna at least gonna work for them for a year. That's always kind of what I told people when I hired them. Hey, I need at least a year commitment out of you because I booked you know events so far in advance. And um it's sad. I've but you live and learn, you have your lessons, and you go, okay, well, it's not getting better, so I can't expect next year to if I hire somebody for it to change.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

But so back to to what we're gonna look at more in in this specific episode. So your your per your purchase agreement is moving along, you're making payments and all and whatnot, and we get to August of 22. All right, August 27th to be exact. And just to uh reiterate something, it's a policy that you and I agreed to right from the get-go. We're not gonna get into names, specific names. People who listen who listen to this, who have knowledge of the situation are gonna know, and the people that don't know don't need to know, right? Other than to say what we're talking about really happened. Yep, it isn't made up, it isn't, but we're not gonna get into specific names because that's not what we're gonna do here. Right. Okay. So the previous owner, as part of your agreement, was scheduled to do so many events per year for a designated number of years, and I believe that was five years, correct?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, he was the the way the wording was in the contract was um because I was purchasing the reputation of the company, I uh had asked that he be a part of the company for five years. There was an exact wording on the number of amount of events that he had to do in order to fulfill that part of the contract. Um, but there was a general's agreement, understood that it was gonna be continuing kind of the amount that he had already been doing on average. It was just, hey, this is kind of what you do every single year, and you're just gonna continue doing this for five years total.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Okay, so I'm I'm gonna play the college professor here, the business in the business school, real quick. Yeah, right. You probably know where I'm going with this. You mentioned gentlemen's agreement, but it wasn't written specific with specific wording in the agreement. You both understood what exactly I mean it's no secret, right? What's the lesson here?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Uh the lesson is to always have your I's dotted and your T's crossed in multiple different ways. So anytime you wrote a contract, either have it looked over by a lawyer, um, if not to. And if you you know, in my case, I'd I we had such a close relationship and a good friendship. I was like, I yeah, this is solid. We have something in place, but I don't I don't I trust this not to have to go south and have an issue with it for the next five years. I should have. Um that's a different lesson that we can get into, but um you have to look everything over, um have everything written in multiple different ways. So in one section of a contract, you need to have it written, and then maybe another section of the contract have it written in a different way, so it is abundantly clear that this is exactly the terms of the agreement. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

And even though you have a personal understanding with somebody, and now don't keep this is something we want to mention because this is a key part of this story. This is a person that you're friends with. Yeah, that you have a personal relationship. This isn't just a business arrangement with somebody you've known for two months or something. This goes all the way back to the the beginning, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, I had been working for him since 2015 and um we kind of developed into a personal relationship on top of the professional one that we had. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

So there's there's this there's this maybe a little bit of a gray area in this in this contractual contract, even though there's really a solid understanding from a personal level what this means. Correct. August 27th comes along. Let's let's go back to August 27th, 2022.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah, um we usually book out events you know 12 to 18 months in advance, especially our more popular DJs, myself and my business partner, were at the top of that list where we were booked out at least a year, if not more in advance at that point. And so he had been booked on August 27th of 2022 since like I think early 21, like over a year and a half. He had been booked on this event or on this date for at least an event, and it was a wedding. And we got uh in summer of 21, we got a message from uh his wife that was kind of asking us through Facebook Messenger, asking us, hey, can you switch our the the event on this date to um my friend's wedding? My friend's getting married this day, we would really like him to be the DJ on the event. Um can can we make this happen? And I said I I check with the other client that he's booked for because they had requested him specifically, and if they're okay with switching, then yeah, absolutely. Took a little bit of time to go back and forth and figure that out, but we made it work. Um, you know, about a year out we were at this point from the August 27th of 2022, so this was summer of 21 that this conversation happened, and um we got about a month out then from the date, so this would have been late July, early August of 22, and I was notified that he was no longer going to be able to do the event. He you know, he had said, Hey, due to due to a a concert that I have made an obligation to organize and be a part of, uh I'm no longer available on this date. And this was communicated to you when? About a month, like three to four weeks before the event.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

So not a lot of not a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Right. And I was shocked because first of all, you had known about this date that you were gonna be booked for this date for sin for a year and a half you've known about this. And then you also have known about it because you've been requested specifically on one of your you know, at least why he's close friends wedding specifically, and you guys have asked us to switch you to it. So it's not just like I posted this on the schedule and you forgot about it or something. So he you know, he had been a part of organizing concerts and and festivals and stuff for uh a few years at this point. And I guess this specific festival, um it was called Feverfest, and he had been a big part of organizing it. And uh he mentioned me, you know, three, four weeks, hey, I'm gonna be a part of this, and you know, I'll find another DJ to cover this event, um, but I'm not gonna be available personally to do it. And I said, you know, okay, let's figure it out. And the person that he was trying to book, I c reached out to um and said, Hey, have has so and so contacted you? Are you available to state? Oh, I I haven't even heard anything from him. So that was never done. It was never reached out to. I was just kind of told that it was gonna happen. And then two weeks, uh I think approximately two weeks before the event, um, I got an email from the client saying, Hey, who's gonna be our DJ? And I'm like, Okay. This is a wedding. This is a big thing. Yeah, this is a wedding for people that are close to this person. And I said, Well, as far as I know, it's you know, my my business partner at the time. And they reached out to him and he he then replied to me saying, Hey, why are we telling these guys that I'm gonna be their DJ? Because I haven't heard otherwise. You know, this person that you said was gonna take over for you that day hasn't heard from you. I I contacted them um and I haven't heard anything from you since then, so until I hear differently, you're on the event. You can't just back out and then not fill it like you said you were going to. And so that's kind of where our uh paths crossed or diverged, I should say, actually, diverged.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Um that was the start of the crack in the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah. Um I mentioned this previously. There's a a quote in one of my favorite shows, it goes, I've seen you look do a lot of crappy things to a lot of different people, but I never thought that you would do something to me. I always thought that was the line. And now I I look back on you know any relationship, whether it's a business relationship or or something. Um family's a little different because most of the time you're stuck with your family, but when anytime you have a non-familial relationship with somebody, no matter how long that's been going on for, you have to know what type of person they are. Typically, you do at that point. Um, just kind of innately who they are, and y you can never trust that that isn't gonna um manifest into something that causes a problem with you. Yeah. Um so there's a couple lessons that that will come out of this episode that I want uh kind of kind of people to take away from. And that's one of them. But um, yeah, that's kind of where it initially the issues initially started.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

And then the larger I mean that that's a big issue on its own merits. And then the larger issue becomes from this this whole dispute about how many events he's actually obligated to do as part of the original purchase agreement, correct?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yep. So because there was a you know cracker hit to his ego at that point, it kind of became uh, okay, well now a relationship our personal relationship is effectively ruined, I guess, in in his mind, and it be you know, it became uh both personal and professional um dispute. So I had basically m said if you are not willing to do this event um or any future events, as he has had also said, yeah, I'm not gonna be doing any other events until you know we come to some type of agreement on um a resolution for our our dispute at this point.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

And I said, Well, okay, now you're basically refusing to do any further events. You're not you've posted publicly that you're not a part of this company anymore. You've broken the you breached the contract, in my opinion, and um so I'm not obligated to follow through with my uh contractual obligations either. So that was kind of the business portion of the dispute initially where that came in. Um and you know, it it kind of in my mind was just gonna be that. It was gonna be a professional dispute that if we needed to, you know, have a legal recourse of some kind to figure it out, we could do that. And he decided to make it personal. He decided to um, you know, attack my character, run a smear campaign against me personally. Um it became way more than just a a business dispute, and and that's where um I just kind of never thought that anybody would be able to be okay with attacking someone in the ways that I've been attacked by a person that I consider a very close friend of mine. Um you know, business dispute is one thing, um, but attacking someone's personal character, harassing them, um, going after their family, their children, that's a line that should just never ever get crossed, no matter what. And in a in an effort to reduce the inflammation of the situation, I just kind of kept my mouth shut on it. Okay. I did my best to handle things behind the scenes, um, try to do my best to do things the right way. Um so a lot of the public defamation that I was facing, um, some of the private harassment um and attacks that I was receiving, I didn't make public. Um I looking back on it, should I have, that's another argument that you could make. Um it just has never been something that I've um felt like I should have done or wanted to do, but um I've kind of gotten to that point now where I'm gonna tell my story.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Sure. So you gave him the option and said, in your just to recap, him not doing this event and then claiming I'm not doing any more events, that violated us a clause in the contract that negated the contract, that had been in place for two years, that you had, you know, you had followed through on in terms of the the purchase agreement of this business. You gave him the option, say we have a dispute here, we could settle this through small claims, which happens every day when business, you know, partnerships and all this. And he did he chose to not do that, yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Instead with this other direction. Yeah. He sent pretty much any friend or family uh not family member, any friend or um client that he knew and had a personal relationship with because him and I both we would book events with friends and and whatnot. So there was a a handful of friends that he had um or clients that he was close to or had connections with that um kind of were in his pocket and he was able to manipulate the story to the point where they were able to go and you know file small claims against me or even just blast me on social media or something because they were friends with him and they didn't know the whole story because of what I'm sure he was telling them. And so he was able to have kind of other people do the dirty work for him in in a certain way. Um there was a lot of clients that we had that canceled their events with us um just because they heard that there was a dispute or be because they knew that he wasn't gonna be their DJ specifically anymore. They're like, Well, so he was supposed to be my DJ and now he's not a part of the company, so I'm just gonna cancel my event and I don't want to do have anything to do with you guys. Um or just the events that he was already supposed to be on because he was supposed to work at these events, and so I had to you know cancel some of those, try to figure out a way to rebook some of those, and and we've talked about this in the past, but that just kind of continued. You know, reduced our staff numbers even worse than they already were. And I just kind of kept continuing saying in in our email thread, because he would email me at least once a month, if not more. Um, hey, you owe me money for the company, uh blah blah blah, this and that. And he was even claiming that I owed him money for a certain um event that he did prior to this falling out, which I had paid him for and I have all the documentation. Yeah. Um so he was just continuously bombarding me with these emails and text messages trying to get a ruse or a reaction from me, pretty much is what the goal of it was. Um but it was harassment, and I ended up having to file a um ended up having to file a restraining order request against him. Um But yeah, he chose to make it personal, he chose to make it a larger deal than it needed to be, and but ultimately didn't ever pursue any uh court action um towards his claims of the fact that I owed him money or I breached the contract.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

And so um no case was filed against not uh no legal action on his part was filed directly against you claiming I'm owed this amount of money or so that that never happened. No. Okay. It this is speculation, but do you speculate that he didn't do that because if indeed he had, he would come out on the losing end?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

I I think that's I mean, we're speculating here, but you know, if you're trying to analyze it.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Right. In my opinion, I think that he knew that um he had a large part in the issues as well. Um that his reaction and and interpretation of the clause of that part of the contract um was not what the initial agreement was, um, that he had breached the contract prior to that even um in several different ways. And so that, you know, going into a lawsuit of some kind, it's it was a very it was gonna get messy. It was gonna get expensive, it was gonna get messy, and I'm not afraid of putting up a fight in in uh in a legal term and in a legal sense. I'm right. I will stand up for myself when I need to, and um I think either he just didn't want to get into that, and it was easier for him to you know go this other route. Go this other route. Um But yeah, again, that's just my personal opinion.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Now, so in addition to this this becoming very personal and very bitter and very, you know, contentious, you had mentioned he contacted clients and basically cost you business. Yep. So that's trying to use my words carefully here, but that's a form of slander with an economic price.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yep. I have talked to several lawyers about it and they they have claimed that I have uh a case at least a case for defamation. Or defam right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so defamation is uh a broader term for either slander or libel. Um, we don't need to get into that, but it's so yeah, defamation is you have to be able to prove that um somebody, you know, said something about you that they knew was false, they said it to a third party. Again, I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, but this is just my understanding of it, and that um it caused damages of some kind, and you have to be able to monetary damage. Yep, and you have to be able to prove those damages. And I was able to do all of those things, but I again at that point when we kind of got around to that, I was so exhausted from um you know my the situation with him, my situation with clients, employees, my own personal health that I was dealing with. I was just like, I don't want to add another thing to it. It's is what it is at this point. Um I I was moving on with my life and um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

So and and I'm I'm looking at some notes here as we kind of sort through all this, because there there's there's a lot going on. Did he make offers to you for a lump sum buyout or you to him, or what once this dispute became what it was, did either of you make it say, hey, listen, let's let's settle it at this and move on?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Uh before the fact actually that's that did happen. Okay. So in the mid-summer of 2022, before this kind of falling out started, um there was a couple offers for buyouts, and those offers continue to get lower and lower. Um from him to buy from me to buy out from him. So I had you know, let's I at that point I owed him maybe thirty or seventy-five percent still of what the original amount was. Um, and he had you know said, Hey, let's cut that in half. Um you you can buy me out for half of what's one lump sum as opposed to the payments overtime. The payments over time. Okay. I said, Yeah, I'd have to think about it, you know, I'd have to get a loan, blah blah blah, all this stuff. And then, you know, a few weeks later he'd come back to me, have you ever thought about this? I I can do this amount instead, and then it would get lower and lower. And again, in my opinion, that you know, I and what I knew about the situations that he was dealing with prefer professionally at that time was that he was you know in need of money. And the research and understanding I've I've had since then of the situation was he was offering me these buyouts because you know he needed a lump some money for his own situations, and um, but it never got to the point where I was even able to come up with that amount. Um and I I had considered it um if I had been able to figure out you know a situation because we're still on good terms at that point, and I was I wanted both of us to benefit from it. Um but yeah, I just never finalized it and and then this happened, and I was obviously not gonna be doing it at that point afterwards either.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

So again, we're speculating. Do you think that you know, for lack of a better term, the jam he had got himself into through these other things factored into this whole Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

I'm sure he was under some stress and um you know trying to focus on other situations that he was dealing with, just like I was, you know, dealing with my own personal health, I was dealing with employee issues, he was going through some stuff on his end too. And when you're that stressed out and you add another thing to it, you're not thinking clearly, you're not making the the greatest of decisions, and you know, your emotional reactions to things I'm sure are more intense than they would have been if you were a piece, but um regardless of it, I mean this is a big situation, there's a lot of money involved, there's a lot of reputation involved, a company that's successful, and um you know there was a disagreement that definitely could be handled, been handled a lot better than it was.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

And was there ever a time, or maybe that time had come and gone, where you just said, can we just sit together face to face, you and I, or had too much happened by that point?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Not from me. There were uh he had he had broken my trust 100% at that point, and um that's valid. So I I I didn't have any remaining grace for him at that point. Um I I had seen That had run out. I had seen too much, I knew that where it was going. Um his involvement of my family, his involvement of um a personal attacks, and removing it from a business dispute um had already happened before he came to me and said, Hey, you know, I'll give you one more olive branch. I'll I'll reach out one last time as you know, a courtesy to sit down and talk about this. And I knew he was just full of BS at that point, and I didn't want anything to do with it, and um it wasn't ever gonna go anywhere. Just I um so at that point I had absolutely zero intention of of do going that route. I said, if you want this handled, it can be handled in court the right way. We're gonna do this the right way. And he and he continued declined. No, he declined. He continued to blast me all over social media, he continued to um, you know, run the smear campaign to get other people to do the same. He was trying to collect um, you know, clients that had apparently been you know stolen from, um, but we were refunding people um that we had to cancel on, and he went as far as filing a complaint with the Department of Workforce Development and that he was an employee uh who hadn't been paid wages, and that had gone through the court system, it became a criminal complaint, um, which was eventually dismissed. But in in the original contract, it said that he was an independent contractor. Um not an employee, and which is not the same thing, if you know you know. Yeah, again, I'm not a lawyer, it's not legal advice, but I know enough about it now going through the the issues that we discussed in the first part of this episode, all of this um you know legal action that had come against this. Um whole different story that is is public information now because of the lawsuits and and whatnot. If somebody wants to go FOIA that they can, but um, you know, this is public information. But so it's it's um yeah, it is what it is. Um it's just there's so much information that it is involved in this, but ultimately I just kind of want people to who either are familiar with the situation to know kind of what I've gone through, a very brief overview of it, and then the people that aren't familiar with the situation, you don't need to go researching this, it's not important. The important part is um the lesson that I learned from it, and that is you know, making sure your contracts are rock solid no matter who you're in business with. Um recognizing the red flags of people that you see in their interactions with others. Um don't think for a second that it's not a at least a possibility that that could also happen to you in the relationship with these people. And well, that'll never happen. Yeah. And making yeah, if you are serious about your business, um make sure you're rock solid in in every regard, no matter what, because our our business essentially um failed at that point. We you know, I'm still in business as um kind of my own brand now, but I it it took a company that you know he had worked hard to build from uh 2006 to you know 2020 when he sold it. Um me being a part of it since 2015, I put blood, sweat, and tears into it, and then after I purchased it, I was the business, technically the business owner at that point, making the decisions on it. You know, I took this really successful company that um two people were working really hard to make um continue to make successful and grow, and it pretty much destroyed it. Um and that I mean that's it's a sad story, but there are lessons to learn coming out of it. Um, both myself, just in my own professional future, the lessons that I've taken from it and changed for things, and um other people listening to this episode, I want them to really, really take seriously. Um, don't you know learn from my mistakes and the situation that I've been through.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

If you're going into business with a friend, or somebody you've had a long-standing personal relationship with, and you say, Well, you know, we need to really write a contract that explores all the different avenues, and the friend box at it because like the the mentality might be, well, we're friends, so we shouldn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Yeah, that's that's a huge red flag.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

That's a red flag.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah, because obviously that they are worried about you know something that you might not be. If if if it's really a a trusting relationship, that there shouldn't be a second thought on that. Like, yeah, absolutely. I'm I've nothing to hide, or there's no issue. You know, it's it's possible. Again, this is my opinion. It is possible that um at that point he knew that maybe down the road there was gonna be a time and a place where he needed to screw me over. Hey, I'm gonna keep this option open. Yeah, and again, I don't know if that's the case, but it's possible. And and he decided not to go that route. My lawyer, I actually did have a lawyer look over the contract very briefly, but I didn't have them really change anything on it. But they was like, hey, we looked it over. Here's some changes we think you should make. Okay, so you did do that. Yeah, no, I actually did do that. I forgot about it, but it was very brief. It was like I had him look over it, like read through it once. Well, and it's very expensive to do that. And then I mean they're like, hey, if you want us to actually like grunt comb through this and change things, it's gonna be X amount of money. And I said, Okay, well, I'll just take your advice on the things that you think should be changed and go for there. They gave me a document that said, um, it was I can't remember the name of the document, but it was uh something that he was supposed to sign saying that I owned the equipment, pretty much, that I had the rights to the equipment or something along the and he refused to do that. He said, No, the contract is enough. This this con this contract that I wrote that you looked over, that you know we both kind of already agreed on is enough. The stuff your lawyer is telling you is I don't let's not worry about it. So there was kind of a situation that happened very briefly about that, and I was like, fine, whatever, I'm not gonna fight you on it. We have a good relationship, I trust you. Let's just move forward and make this happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Well, just to draw an analogy, and we see this endlessly with high-profile celebrities or people that are who know who they are. It cut the prenup agreement. Yeah, the prenup that this is this this is the whole argument and the whole contention around a prenup agreement. Yeah, and somebody says, Well, I want to have this agreement, and then the somebody, the person on the other end counters, well, we shouldn't have to do that because this isn't gonna happen. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Yeah. I don't know if it's hit on their ego or they just think that there's like a lack of trust that should be there or whatever it is, but I'll tell you, who cares? You have to have your bases covered. Yeah, and hopefully nothing ever happens, you don't have to worry about it. Right. But yeah, when there's certain things involved, especially a lot of money and reputation, um you have to, you have to, no matter what. And and I believe, you know, I this is compared to larger businesses who there are higher stakes and all this, but this is just you know one person's opinion based on a business situation that I had. Um, you know, that's small potatoes compared to these multimillion dollar companies, but the the concept is the same. The concept is you still have to, no matter what size business you are, what you if it's a contract with your clients, if it's a contract with a business partner or um even an employee, you have to have your I's dotted and your T's crossed, otherwise you have put your business at risk and all the hard work that you've put into it.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

And so you're saying then at this point moving forward, the business just in essence came to an end. Did you still continue to do uh events? Events, but kind of what what what happened from there? We're talking be you know fall of 2022 to early 23.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Yep. Uh so after this falling out happened and we had to cancel some events that he was supposed to be on, um, we started to lose uh other business like I had mentioned. Um we ended up having to refund uh over almost fifty thousand dollars worth of business to clients um, you know, because we had to cancel on them. Um because he couldn't do it. Well, not him, not him specifically. A lot a large portion of that was the events he was supposed to do, but um there was other ones that you know we just we lost other staff members that maybe he pulled with them. He started his own company after that. He did. Yeah, and he pulled a couple of my employees with him to do events for him. Um you just answered my next question.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

So was there a non-compete? There was. So that's a violation of the non-compete. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yeah, so after that, we I did as many events as I possibly could. Um it got to a point where the the accumulation of everything that I've discussed in part one of this episode and now part two, uh, very briefly, with the employee issues and the business partnership and um even clients, you know, the smear campaign that I was um a victim of that really took its toll on my mental health too. Um, especially having to kind of keep my mouth shut on things and ignore the lies and the misinformation that was going on. And so it got to a point in early 2023 that I just mentally could not continue to operate anymore. Okay. And I had to make the decision to shut down the operation of the business. Um I it was gonna be indefinitely because I didn't know how long it was gonna take me to get my health back. So I had to send out, you know, kind of an auto-reply email to everybody, just letting them know that I was dealing with some health problems.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Um clients that had that had you that you had uh booking obligations. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Okay. You know, at that point a lot of people were aware of what was happening on the surface level at least, um, that the company was having some problems and and just didn't know exactly, you know, details of what we were dealing with. But um, so but I was personally dealing with some stuff that I just had to figure out in order to even be effective in my own events. I you know, there was some of the time, some events where I was just like, I I can't I'm not gonna be able to provide the level of service to these people that I you know used to be able to or that I promised them when they booked because of my mental health. And so I had to cancel those events and we refunded them and um you know now we you know we're doing things a lot differently. I am, I should say, personally doing things a lot differently, and and things have changed a lot. But yeah, through that time, 2023, I I I did, you know, a dozen or so events, and there was some where I just couldn't, you know, we got into the fall of 23 and I couldn't really do a lot anymore. Um had to cancel, had to do a lot of refunding.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Um so And without getting into too many specifics, you're talking multiple events, and these are not you know, we're when you're adding it up, I I know we say, well, this is you know a smaller business and there's bigger businesses, and but you're cumulatively you got to be talking sick a six-figure number here. Yeah, ultimate losses, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah, yeah, easily. See, to me, that's to me that's a lot of money. It is, yeah. And you know, it was we were doing really well um in 21 and and 22, and because of kind of this situation and and ultimately the smear campaign that was ran against me personally um and professionally, but it it destroyed the company. And there was a lot of looking back on it. I mean, that's really like we've said in the past few episodes, hindsight's 2020, and you kind of have to just laugh about it now because you look at the situations that you went through and you go, that was just it was laughable at the time, or now, but not at the time the way I was feeling and and how everything had been handled, it was just one of those things where it was another weight on top of you know of another weight on top of my shoulders, and it can the that just ultimately accumulated to the point where I had to I'm done. I'm gonna go do other stuff, I'm not gonna do this anymore. Um, so I put that notice out. I can't remember exactly when sometime in 2023 I put a notice out of probably in the fourth quarter, third or late late third quarter, early fourth. Something like that. Okay. Um that we're gonna shut down, we're gonna close, and we're we're I'm done. Um and I'm gonna focus on my mental health. And um, I don't know how long it's gonna be. It was kind of an indefinite thing, and I I put a public notice out about that. And um, luckily I was able to figure it all out and and get back into it, but it took me you know a couple years to do that before I could, and now looking back on it, like I said, you just you learn lessons, and that's another reason I wanted to start this podcast, was because I was like, I don't ever want anybody to have to go through this situation that I've gone through again, both personally and professionally. And but um laughter's the best medicine, and it can be you tell a story, and you're like you you're not you can't make this stuff up, you're not gonna believe this, but this is true, it's a hundred percent true of what happened, and um it's sad too, a little bit because you know, somebody that you trust and have a good relationship with starts to show their true colors and it it makes you go, it you can't trust people anymore, right? Like you you your understanding of your own personal uh level of trust for others gets uh takes a hit and you go, Oh well, yeah, I thought I could trust that person, but um now because I know some of the reasons behind the attacks and and certain things that happened you see that person's true colors and you go, Yeah, well, that makes sense. I should have seen that coming uh ahead of time, I should have seen that coming a mile away, and I laugh at myself, I guess, a little bit too for being blind to it.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Well, so we can back up here, you know, a little bit because this became it went from a professional to a personal. Okay. Now you had started having through self-awareness some issues mentally before prior to this. Right. And and it was established. This is a very common knowledge that stress will magnify stress and pressure and the ancillary effect of that will magnify that significantly significantly. And I'm this is an obvious statement. It did. This had to have magnified.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

It absolutely did. Yeah. Which is why I think in 2023 I was just not able to handle it anymore. You know, I to a point through 2021 or through 2022, I should say, with the employee issues that we talked about last episode, I was still able to manage it. It affected my ability to manage it as effectively as I did in the past, but I was still kind of able to just push through. But yeah, once the once the smear campaign started and I started uh kind of um I started to get these attacks against me as a person and then the harassment that came uh in and was um started to um be directed towards my family. Yeah. Uh that is kind of they crossed the line. They crossed the line. And so I was I was at that point of d continuing to keep my mouth shut. Um I didn't want to inflame it any worse than it already was, but I was at the point of filing police reports. Um you did file a a uh restraining order. I filed a police report first um for harassment and then I ended up filing a restraining order after that. Um which we don't need to get into. That's again public information. People can go find that if they want. But um Yeah, it got to a point where my you know, things were sent to me, text messages specifically, of um, you know, I hope your kids are really proud of you when they grow up. Um you're a piece of sh. You're this horrible person. Um just attacks that had absolutely nothing to do with our initial professional dispute. And I never once replied to him. That was the other thing, is like this it's not a case where you know he would send me an email or a text message and I'd throw an attack right back at him, you know. I went for it, it goes. I wasn't even I had blocked him on social media, I had blocked uh his number through text messages, and there was a time where I didn't even like get his text messages until a couple months later. I found out my phone saves blocked messages. Oh, yeah. And so I was going through. I'm like, oh yeah, I got this from him like six months ago, and I didn't even realize it. But so yeah, it just kind of continued, and I was like, dude, what is going on, man? This is getting this is getting out of control. It got to a point where it was out of control both from him and some of the people that he was close to that were also uh you know bl blasting us on social media and running the smear campaign as well. And I just was like, I just got to the point where I'm like, I'm not, I I want out, I'm not even a part of this. This is this is way far beyond what uh the initial issue started out to be. You have blown this way out of proportion and it has become uh evidently clear that you are not even remotely the same person that I thought you were. That's tough to accept. I I I think that also takes a toll on your mental health. Yeah. When you I can't remember the d it's it's it's in essence a divorce. Yeah. When someone that you are very close to stabs you in the back and portrays your trust and and does this type type of thing to you, it is um you know a thousand percent harder to deal with than if it was just a stranger that just kind of screwed you over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

You know, like a boss that fired you for no reason and whatever you'll work from for a year, whatever, versus yeah, somebody personal close to you that just stabs you in the back and then continues to treat you like and and here's the thing, and you you've you've alluded to this, is that in the in the current climate, in the year 2026, 25, you know, and go back a few years, there's a multitude of platforms. You you've referenced social media, and there's multiple platforms, right? Where you can really put stuff out there and go after somebody, and there could be no truth to it whatsoever, or or or just little kernels of truth that are taken, you know, and it can be put out there. And if your business is based on reputation, yeah, that's that's all it is.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Yeah, you start seeing that on you know wedding pages. I had a client one time who went as far as uh I think I told this story last episode where um I may not have, but anyway, there was a dispute on uh we did the wedding and um some equipment issues happened with at the wedding, and um, you know, she wanted a full refund, and um I hadn't, you know, she hadn't paid the other half, so I said, hey, you know, I'll give you a half refund. And um, it went through all this stuff, and um the dispute got to the point where it was she started posting on like Texas wedding pages and New York wedding pages and California wedding pages, like anywhere somebody there was a wedding DJ page, she was posting this blasphemous review of me and our company, and um I've had there's uh another Facebook page out there um that that I I I suspect I know who it is, but the profile picture is a picture of my truck at my house, and there's there's a post on it saying that I um you know am a thief, a con artist, I have stolen from people, which that in and of itself is not true, and is defamation per se by itself, just saying that I'm you know a thief and have stolen from people because that's not true, and uh, but I've just never pursued legal action on it. But the the other portion of it is who is this person that feels like they need to post a picture of my truck with the license plate number at my house and then go and you know throw a negative review on the on their own page. It's these people are horrible, horrible people.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Well, and here's and we can explore this in a future episode, and and and I think we will. Looking at this as an observer looking back, and we we've even referenced this emotions run so high with weddings. They do. With certain types of people that are very image conscious, right? And if something goes wrong, it becomes this it gets blown out of proportion, and that anger and frustration has to go somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Yeah, right? Yeah, I've never thought about it that way, but that's very true, where you can have an emotion n after the wedding itself, and it could be short term, but like you just mentioned And it has to go somewhere. These people that are so image conscious, yeah. I guess I've never thought about it that way where they have to be the they have to have someone else be the bad guy, no matter if they feel like they are or not. Um someone else always has to be the problem and they have to be the victim.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

And because of the way things are in terms of putting information out there, it's out there, yeah, it's out there and you don't know what's true, what isn't, and if you're uh and and we'll back up a little bit more, that uh that which makes this even more serious is you're in a competitive industry. And so you have a wedding, you have a you're planning a wedding or an event, so you want to explore who's the best one to do this, right? Right. So you do some Google searches.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Yeah. So people are out there researching and this stuff pops up. Yeah, not even looking for it, but it pops up.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Absolutely. Because you have to have something to go on to try to differentiate if you got six. Let's I'm just talking hypothetically, you have six vendors uh vying for a job and they're all within the same price point, or very you know you gotta have something to go on.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah. I mean and and I one of the lessons I learned was I should have said something at the time instead of kept my mouth shut because my side of the story would never was put out there. So the the information that people were going off of was, you know, maybe 10%. And if you don't respond, the the assumption is it's true, it's true, right? And maybe there's 10% of truth out of it, you know, the rest of it's either telephone or intentional lies or whatever it was. Um, but I I just kept hoping like this is just gonna blow over, it's fine, whatever. I don't really care. It's it's BS. I know it's BS. They most of them know it's BS. I just I I laugh at it because it's so untrue, but I didn't realize at the time how much of an impact it was having on the business and my personal reputation, my personal health. I was just like, it's one of those things where you um it it affects you so much you don't even want to get into it. It's you know, any any case, any situation when you're just like I let's move on with life, I don't even care. But um it had a major impact on the success of the business, and um for years it continued to kind of follow me and affect me, whether I realized it or not.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Well, and so when you decided you had reached the breaking point, which was as you mentioned, late 2023. Correct. I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

At that point, with with the mindset you had at that point, I think I know the answer here. Did you say, I'm never coming back into this industry again? Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Yep. I thought that I maybe would do, you know, trivia or karaoke or you know, lower uh high profile, yeah, uh emotional, less emotional types of events, but I looked at the wedding industry as a whole. And here's another thing. I would look when I was looking at the wedding industry as a whole and being like, I don't know if I want to be a part of it anymore. I had such intimate, uh close relationships with other vendors in the industry in our area. I'd been working in the I would been working at this point in um, you know, this area and this market for like six or seven years at least. Yeah. And there was some like photography there's a photography. Develop a lot of relationships, very close relationships with these vendors that you work with almost every single weekend, um, who are going through some of the same stuff you are. And I thought for sure that I would get at least a handful of them who would either reach out to me uh privately and just say, Hey, what's going on? Right. And just ask my side of the story. This doesn't sound like you at all. Yeah, what's going on, or publicly defend me outright because they just know me as a person. And I was blown away that there was not anybody that did that. And that's another thing that took its um that made an impact on me at least because I thought that um I I I understood it as they just don't want to tarnish their own reputation, they don't want to get involved in it. It's best I just stay out of this completely as a business decision. I'm just not even gonna get involved. I was like, okay, that's one thing, not to get involved publicly. I may be able to forgive that and understand why that happened, but you don't even reach out to me publ privately, you don't even shoot me a text message, everybody has my number, everybody can get a hold of me on Facebook or something. I I was blown away at some of the people that um just didn't make an effort to understand my side of the story on it.

SPEAKER_02 55:15

Did you ever I mean, you know, we're talking over two years have passed, almost two and a half, if we're we're talking late 23. Have you entertained the idea now, maybe that the smoke has settled a little bit about reaching out to some of those people and having that somewhat awkward, candid conversation of why didn't this happen? Or have you just I don't I let it go?

SPEAKER_00 55:42

I I have no interest in working with those people anymore. I've um my sense of trust has been eroded almost completely. Um I don't Which is unfortunate. Yeah, I don't trust a lot of people anymore. Um so have I would I ha let's I can maybe think of count on one hand the amount of people that I would personally reach out to and say, hey, would you be willing to have a conversation? Um but the outcome of that would be maybe I'm willing to work with you again, maybe I'm willing to recommend you again, but I would never have be able to have the same relationship with those people as I have in the past because I wouldn't trust them anymore. I wouldn't go, hey, like I would work with you on every single wedding from here on out. It just um because they didn't reach out to me and because they, you know, by their silence were effectively endorsing the other side of the story. Um I have absolutely zero interest in working with any of those people ever again.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

So 2023 happened, you just get out of this, you start to work on yourself because this took a toll on you.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Yeah, I had a couple other odd jobs too here and there that weren't in the industry, but um, yeah, I was taking time for myself, taking time for my family. Um, because through 2021, I kind of missed a lot of my younger my oldest son's um you know first year of life, and by this point in 2023 we had just had another child, and I didn't want to miss his you know first year of life, and so I that was another reason that I took some time off was just to be with my family. Um but yeah, I I took a step back from the industry completely.

SPEAKER_02 57:20

What then made you at least entertain the idea? Because I can understand if I'm you, I'm just done with this. Yep. And I, you know. Um about entertaining the idea of getting back into it.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

I had done um I had worked at a cold storage facility for a little while, and it was just I was still dealing with my mental health, and working, you know, a nine to five job for somebody else was really difficult because you you have to adhere to a certain set schedule. And um, when your brain is erratic and you're just having your own personal, it's really hard to hold down a nine to five job that you have to you know follow through on no matter how hard. I mean, the job itself was super easy and straightforward, but I was you know still kind of dealing with figuring out certain meds and stuff, and um, you know, I would not have the greatest relationship with the people that I was working with, and just just holding down a job was really hard. And so then I went to work for um a really close friend of mine. Um he was uh operations manager at a landscaping company, and and I trusted him, I'd known him since kindergarten. Uh we were roommates in college, and so I was like, hey man, here's what I'm dealing with. He knew a lot of what I was going through, and um I think being outside and and working on you know physical labor and would really, you know, getting that sunshine, I just knew enough about health that I was like, I think this job would just be good for me mentally. And um it was actually the I did a whole year of it. Um, and then I got uh the end of the first season in November, I got I hurt my back. And I was like, okay, um I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get back into this. So that whole winter I was going through physical therapy and I was on work comp and all this, and just trying to figure out that when this was winter of 2024, yeah, 2024, that I was going through all of this, and then so kind of through that time I was starting to get inquiries from friends and and family members and whatnot of hey, can you do this here? Just odd jobs here and there. Um, a couple bars that I knew the owners of or managers of wanted me to do karaoke or trivia and have somebody run it, be the MC. Yep, and so I was like, Oh, maybe I could just do that once a week, or maybe I could just do that here and there. And I started getting back into it, and I was like, man, I really love doing this. This is just what I was meant to do. So you rediscovered that yeah, that spark, that interest, that flame. And I wasn't really booking weddings yet at the time. Um, I think I had one close friend that asked me to do theirs, but I wasn't actively pursuing uh getting wedding bookings. I was lower stress events, and um spring of 25 came. I tried to start landscaping again, and I just couldn't do it. My back was a year a year ago. Yeah. Yeah. My back wasn't able to hold up with that consistently every single day for six months out of the year, straight through. And I said, Okay, um, what are my other options? And I have to have some type of a job. And um I I couldn't get myself to get interested in any other industry, any other, you know, job um of any kind. I just always kept falling back to I love this. You know, I whatever I have to do to make this work, I'm gonna figure it out, um, just because I love doing it. And and I don't have to I can set my own schedule I to a point. Um I don't have to work for someone else. It's not a nine to five. I I'm able to during the week be home with my family. Um I can, you know, during the day I can hang out with my kids and then go to work when they're sleeping. Um it everything just kind of started making sense and working out, and I was like, I'm doing it, I'm I'm getting back into it. And I gave myself until July 4th of 2025, and I said, if I can't book enough events um and I can't get my company back to, you know, being able to support my family by this point, I'll go figure something else out. I'll get a job, you know, whatever I have to do, um, I'll figure it out, and I just won't pursue this anymore. But I'm not a super religious person, but there's something that just kind of came from that decision, and people started booking me and reaching out through all different types of platforms. I was getting inquiries from places I'd never even gotten inquiries from before. And I just started being able to book stuff and you know, scraping by initially is like, okay, like this is just enough to kind of keep me going, and eventually just started growing again and growing again, and um, it's still growing and it's still taking time, but it's it was the right decision, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

Lindall event services, tell us about uh so you officially restarted a year ago. Yeah, basically, and um all of these lessons we've been talking about, we're we're gonna you know continue on with this podcast about the the industry and funny things and all that. So when somebody reaches out, how can somebody reach out to you and uh start a conversation about bringing you on board?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

Uh if you're listening to this podcast, the most direct way is just to send me an email or or give me a phone call. And um that information is on the website, lindalevents.com, L-I-N-D-A-H-L events.com. But go to the website and just kind of check some stuff out. I encourage you to follow us on um social media. Um I have a couple other brands. Uh we so we do a lot of trivia events. Okay. I really enjoy doing that. We're starting to book a lot of those trivia events at other locations in the area. So come out to a trivia show um and just see me in action because those are some things that you know introduce yourself. Hey, I'm thinking about hiring you for my wedding. I saw your information on this, and come play a couple games of trivia on a week um weeknight and hang out with me. That would be a lot of fun. So, yeah, I do I still do weddings. Um, I love doing weddings, but that used to be our our main focus and really all we did, and now I kind of have gotten back to my roots of karaoke, like we talked about in the first couple episodes, and just what I really love to do, and doing some trivia events and corporate things and other rentals, and um really trying to be a full service event company now. Um, but yeah, our our my bread and butter and and core experience still is in weddings. So yeah, no matter what you're interested in, whether you're getting married, you're um a bar or restaurant that wants to book trivia, however, any service that we offer is listed on our website. And um if you're interested in booking me for anything, just reach out to me via email or phone call.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

And there's two other events or two other types of events that I know you do because we've worked on them together. Yep. And that's community events, which hot air affair. Yeah, you know, and there's a lot of different events like that take place, you know. What you know, some have been going on for years, some are fairly new. So you certainly are capable of taking that on because you've done that. The other thing is sporting events because we've worked together a couple different times in a big jujitsu event. In fact, we just did this what, two weeks, three weeks, whatever it was, over in us in Stillwater, Minnesota.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

Yeah, adding music to any event, it just completely changes the environment and the people that are gonna be there. I mean, if you have somebody maybe that you're even working with that you think does an okay job, reach out to me because you know I I can at least explain to you and kind of sell me and my services to you in that regard of, you know, here's what I do, and here's how I think that it's gonna make this event more successful, um, more energetic, and the people that attend it are gonna just think, wow, I don't know what it maybe they don't even know what it was about the event that that um enhanced it, but music and uh a good MC, good sound, um just really makes a difference in any any type of event, any environment.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

And also too, even beyond events, if you're if I'm a business owner, maybe I'm going through some challenges and you know I've been listening to this, I've maybe I stumbled across this podcast somehow. Yeah. And you and would you want to have people reach out to you just this is my situation, what do you think, or something you know, like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

Because if you've been through this, if you've learned anything from this podcast, I hope somebody has. Um, just reach out to me and tell me your story. Right. I I'd love to just hear other people that maybe have had similar experiences because um I hope A, it doesn't make you feel alone. Um, because I know I've been there where I'm like, man, I gotta be the only person this has ever happened to because I have never in any of my research. Found anything online that is even remotely close to what I've dealt with. Um so yeah, just reach out to me. Even if you don't want to like book me for a service, just reach out to me and we'll sit down, have a cup of coffee and hang out and talk about our stories together. And um yeah, absolutely. I'd shoot me a message on Facebook or text message or even an email. Um and let's get that conversation going.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

Well, hopefully everybody's uh enjoyed this and you know it it it's uh it's a still evolving story. Yeah. Because you're back into it now, you've been out of it, now you're back into it, and we're gonna continue to develop episodes about we can go a lot of different directions with with funny stuff and more serious stuff and advice if you're planning an event. This is this is what I've learned, and maybe I can, you know, maybe your vendor vendor relationships, contractual things, do's and don'ts about contracts. We're gonna cover a lot of that stuff in this uh ongoing adventure.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Yeah, I'm really excited to get into that. I wanted to kind of get the first few episodes um of my history and get people to really understand my background as much as possible before we get into the, you know, we're gonna do me uh an episode on a certain topic in the future. And I'm gonna still tell stories about the past that I've done, you know, um, through that 10 years of of wedding experience. I have a lot of stories just from the events in general, funny stories and whatnot, and lessons learned in the future for those specific topics. Um, but ultimately it's gonna be about the future and about um how we can help other people in the industry and grow the industry in this area because you know this area has some some great vendors, and I want uh you know St. Croix River Valley to be successful event industry in general, and I think this podcast can really help with that. Um, but yeah, it's gonna be um hopefully a lot lighter and more um informational type podcast kind of from here on out.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Well, before we close her down and fold up the tent and slip slightly into the night, you're a sports guy, you're a Packer fan. The Packer we're recording this in uh 18th of May, it'll be released on June 1. The the rescue the NFL schedule got released just in the last few days. Yeah. We're we're several months away from the start of the season. Yep. What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:11

I'm uh excited. I assume you've looked at it. Yes, I have, yeah. I definitely have. I'm very, very excited. I always am every year for football season. This year is interesting because um Netflix has become a lot more involved in the I have mixed feelings about that. Yeah, I do too. It's it's gonna be interesting to see how um because so the Packers and Rams are booked on Thanksgiving Eve on Netflix. Yep. And and also against the Bears on Christmas Day on Netflix, but I think the the Thanksgiving Eve one is gonna be interesting. We were talking about bars and restaurants and and trivia and karaoke for events. Uh Thanksgiving Eve is one of the most popular dates for you know people to go out to the bars and restaurants. It is. And now there's a Packer game on. Okay, awesome, even more reason to go out, right? Well, hold up. Now Netflix is airing it. How are they going to allow bars and restaurants to stream that game legally, right? Yeah, that's a gray area, isn't it? Yeah, so it's gonna be interesting. I've had some conversations with the bar owners and managers that I work with right now, and they're just like, I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do it because uh the ever-changing landscape of who can do what, where and when, right? Yeah, so I'm excited for football season, but uh the introduction of some of these streaming platforms is really just making the NFL take a lot of people off.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:24

We could have a whole podcast on that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

So we got all kinds of topics we can talk about down the road. I'm looking forward to it, John.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

All right, Isaac Lindahl, Lindahl Event Services, check him out on the web. Send uh maybe some feedback on these uh on these podcasts as well. We're glad you spent some time with us here. We're gonna close her down from Locha Street Studio, episode five, part two, and we'll be back next month uh for our July release on uh Lost in the Music.