The Bossticks - Color Me Courtney aka Courtney Quinn - How To Ignore Negativity, Create Community, A Highly Recognized Brand, & Not Compare Yourself To Others

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

#205: On this episode we sit down with our friend Courtney Quinn famously known as Color Me Courtney. Courtney has built one of the most recognizable brands using color. On this episode we discuss how to build a meaningful brand, how to drown out negative feedback, and how to not compare yourself to others. We also discuss what it takes to build a highly engaged community online.   To connect with Courtney Quinn aka Color Me Courtney click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens If it's time  (and it is) to focus on your health and feel your best, getting into a daily routine with Athletic Greens really will be the single best thing you can do for ​yourself this year. We have a special offer is you jump over to www.athleticgreens.com/skinny ​and claim our special offer today. Get 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you'll ever wear to work.  Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

But I also think that people are really quick to, like, throw a creator away. Like if they post one thing that they don't agree with, Like, I don't have to agree with your politics to like your sense of style. But you also have the right to unfollow them if they made you feel bad. So it's like this weird, like, double-edged sword of they don't have to be your everything. And I don't want to be anyone's favorite blogger. I maybe want to be one of your 10 that you, like, go to. And you go to mind to make you feel happier to make you feel confident or to teach you how to wear color.

And you would maybe go to someone else to learn how to treat a pimple on your face. Howdy, howdy, boys and girls. Ladies and gentlemen, that clip was from our guests of the show today. Courtney Quinn of the famous Color Me Courtney Brand. On this episode, we discuss how to build meaningful brands, how to stand out online, and how to build thoughtful content. Her content is thoughtful. It is very creative.

Guys, if you haven't looked at her Instagram, it looks like a beautiful, beautiful mural, honestly. You know, Lauren, we're getting up there in years, or at least I am, I'm aging a bit. I love when I get to see people, you know, you spoke with Courtney a few years back at a create and cultivate when she was starting out and planting her flag. as a content creator, and it's been amazing to see the progress. She may working from every from Disney to, I've seen her on commercials with Microsoft all over the place. I mean, she has blown up, and it's just really, really impressive to see someone's growth and potential and how they build their brands over time.

The difference, I think, between Courtney and so many other influencers is that she's so strategic and methodical about everything. So she plans a color of the month. So if she's doing like yellow, she'll go scout out locations. She'll make sure her clothing matches. And she spends a lot of time curating a beautiful experience for people to be inspired by. And you feel that when you walk away from her content, you feel inspired. And I think that as an influencer or a blogger or a content creator, it's really important

to hone in on what you want the audience member to feel when they leave. So when you leave the skinny confidential, I want you to feel inspired to be the best version of yourself. I want you to feel that you have tons of tangible takeaways that you can apply to your own life and tips and tricks to optimize your life. So with Courtney, when you leave her page, you also feel inspired. And I think that's awesome because sometimes you can follow people that don't make you feel good. And Courtney is not one of them. People are finally starting to figure it out. They're starting to understand that being a content creator, blogger, YouTuber, influencer, or whatever you call it, podcaster, is not as easy as it looks on the surface. People are starting to say,

wait a minute, can't everybody be a blogger, influencer creator? Yes, everybody can try to be, but that doesn't necessarily mean everybody will be successful at it. And the ones that are are the ones putting in massive effort. I think if you're thinking about getting into creating of any kind online, this is a very valuable episode because Courtney drops some gems and some tips on how she's done it successfully, how she's worked with some of the biggest brands and platforms in the world by doing that, by being thoughtful about her content. You know, it's not just about throwing up everything against the wall online. It's really about being thoughtful, having a strategy and understanding it.

And finally, people are starting to realize it's not as easy as it looks. And with Courtney's interview, I think it's really important that you guys pull up her Instagram so you can see exactly what we're talking about. It's so dynamic. It's bright. It's got all these different pantones on it. Everything is so branded. It's so interesting too because even down to her house, she paid attention to what she was

shooting and everything is colorful. She just really understands her audience and her voice and her market. appreciate that. And Courtney, if you're listening, which I'm hoping you are, I saw that you got to go to the new Disneyland, Star Wars Adventureland, and I was devastated to not get an in mind. Let's take a plot twist. What is it with you in Star Wars? I love Star Wars and they just did a whole new Star Wars land. I don't get it. What am I missing? A lot, a lot. I mean, what aren't you missing? No, you and I just don't. We're not connecting on it. What aren't you missing? You said it's ground for divorce that I won't watch Star Wars. If we ever have a child, just know that that's something

that I'm going to get them right into Star Wars. I don't think a girl's going to. to like it. Yeah, trust me. She will, Courtney, bring me to Disneyland. You got the end. You got the hookup. I've seen it. I've been watching.

I want to go. Courtney Quinn is the blogger and influencer behind color mechortney. com. She's a quirky New Yorker with an out-of-the-box sense of style and she is colorful, you guys. She's worked with brands like Tommy Hillfigure, Disney, Jonathan Adler, Kate Spade, coach to name a few. And fun fact, she was working at coach initially and then decided to pursue Color

Me Courtney full time. When she's not creating candy colorful. content, you can find Courtney front row at the latest Broadway show, eating your way through New York, binge watching bad TV, or hanging out with her fiancé at Paris and her French bulldog waffles. Let's welcome Color Me Courtney to the show. Let's pause for a second. Let's dive into some nutritional stuff. Athletic Greens, one of our favorite new show partners.

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20 free, yes, 20 free travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase. That's athletic greens.com slash skinny. Start your day right and good things will follow. And they also have the ability to ship to the UK and the EU. So check that out as well if you're over there. Again, athletic greens.com slash skinny. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Okay, so I want to go back back.

I want to go back before you even started this. Go back to your childhood. Give us a little bit of your background. Totally. So I grew up in Arizona. I was like always into like fashion and color and I like didn't fit in because like Arizona everyone's wearing like, you know, like, like, uh, boots and like a jean skirt kind of thing. And I, I just always wanted to work in fashion. But my dad's an entrepreneur. He has like a PhD in math. He's like hardcore like that. And so when I told him I wanted to work in fashion, he was like, go get a business degree. So he did. I went to ASU and got a business degree and I hated it. So I just did it in like two years. He told me he would pay for. four years of school so like don't party and like mess around. So I kind of manipulated him into paying for my MBA. And then I got my MBA at 21 from San Francisco and moved to New York, like all like bright-eyed, like hoping I'd get this amazing job in fashion. And no one would hire me because I looked like really old on paper or I looked like I was lying because I had like

these kind of a lot of degrees like really young. I had no experience. So the degrees actually ended up hurting you? Yeah, I took my MBA off my resume. That's how I got my first job. But that's the first time. I don't think there's anybody that's ever come on the show and said a degree actually didn't help you. Yeah. Well, I think it helped me now in like building my current business and I use a lot of it now. But going in, I was going in for these entry level fashion jobs. Like I'd never had like a real like big kid job and it just either looked like I was literally lying on my, on my resume or that I had these degrees and like just kind of didn't know what I was doing, you know? And also I think after you're talking to some of my bosses who eventually did hire me, that they said it could be,

like, really intimidating to look at a resume that, like, the person you're hiring would have more education than you and could eventually, like, kind of take your job. That is so Robert Green 48 laws of power. But you know what? Those are the wrong people in those positions then. If you're getting discouraged, right, like, my whole thing is to get people that are better than me because then everything can be better. Totally.

Yeah. But, you know, like corporate fashion can be, like, kind of catty, like, kind of like very devil-wheres prodig, which is, like, weird and not what I expect. I learned quickly, like, in working for some of my favorite brands that when you see behind the curtain, it's, like, not what you think it's going to be. So I kind of bounced around. I did some retail jobs. I eventually, like, started my blog, really hoping to get hired.

And also because I was kind of miserable in what I was doing. And I ended up working at coach making handbags. I was a merchandiser first, and then I was a product developer for about a year. Is this before after the first blogger collab with them, which was major with, Emily Schumann. Ooh, I don't know. When was that? I don't know.

Maybe 2009? Oh, it was after. It was after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I graduated high school in 2008. Okay. Yeah. So I graduated in college 2012.

Oh, shit. We're getting old. The last project I worked at at Coach was the first Disney collab. Cute. The Mickey one. And they were starting to work on the first Selena Gomez stuff. It wasn't under me, but that's what they were working on. So it's cool because they were working on all this, like, new stuff.

They still had this, like, previous, like, like kind of coach image of like it's your mom's coach. But we were working on all this cool stuff. And it just got to the point where then coloring me, Courtney grew because like, you know, when I was miserable at jobs, I was working more on it. And then I had to choose between like one of them.

Isn't that wild, but you just said when you're miserable at a job, you're working more towards your hustle? Yeah, 100%. That's my favorite thing ever. I think that mentality is a winner mentality. Yeah, I would watch the clock. I called it.

I said I was a five to nineer because I would go to nine to five at like coach and then I'd go home from five to nine and work on color me. That is wild guys. If you're out there and you're listening, there's no excuses. I actually miss it a lot. Like the side, like I also called it my hand of Montana life because it's like I got to like take off the wig, you know. And I liked having two things. Well, I want to talk about this little because I think there's a lot of young people and they can use you as an example of what's possible now, right?

Because you are somebody that has proved you can have a typical nine to five job may not be the happiest, may just be, okay, you know what? I'm going to eat shit here for a while. and just put in the time and at the same time build the thing that you really want to build into. Can you talk about what that actually looked like when you were at the typical 9 to 5 job and working on the thing that's your main thing now? Yeah, I think back. And like I kind of got sick towards the end because I was working a lot. So most days I'd wake up around like four or five.

I'm like a five hour sleeper. Like five hours is like my number. If I sleep more than that, it's too much. It's like I either sleep five or 10. There's like not an in-between. How old are you right now? Is that rude to ask a woman? No, no, I'm 28.

Okay. Yeah. My dad's like a, he'll sleep like one night every three nights. I used to think I was a six hour. Yeah. And then I'm really, I started reading all these books on sleep and I'm questioning it. But I relate to, but as I've gotten older, it's catching up to me. It's changed.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I'd like it to change. Like, I feel like I'd probably be like I would like to be able to sleep more. But yeah, like five, six hours is like my number, especially then. So I'd wake up like five or six a.m. I do some work on Color Me Courtney before I would go in like just like simple stuff like I would comment on I'd give myself metrics from a numbers girl so I'd be like okay I'm gonna comment on 200 unique blog posts like linking to my site every single day I would spend three hours working specifically on Instagram. I would do like things like writing blog posts and like all like the generic stuff but I was really working on like kind of growth then on my lunch break I would think I would do I would eat for 15 minutes I would work for four.

45 on coloring Courtney stuff. And then I would like do stuff like on the subway. Like I always like kind of made a game out of it. Like how many things can I comment on in these like 20 minutes to like help grow my Instagram? How many times can I be active in this community to kind of help grow that kind of thing? And then I come home and I would again like answer emails usually at night and do all like my blog post and stuff and then go to bed and then wake up the next day and do it good. Out of every single influencer we've ever had on this podcast, your story sounds the most similar to mine. Oh. And it's funny that you just said you created a game because I did the exact same thing without knowing I was doing that. Like I would go on Twitter and see how many people I could actually

engage with in five minutes. Or I would go. I still do it. I did it today. Like when I was sitting on the runway, I was like, I have five minutes. Let's see how much I can do it. And how long have you been doing it? Like how long have you been blogging? Like I guess six years, seven years. So if that to me, again, is another winning mentality. That's so important, the hustle. What I see in commonality between both of you is no matter how big your platforms are getting, right? Like you're on commercials, Lauren's platforms are growing. Like you guys have, you guys are success stories in the blogging influencer space, but you're still taking the time to engage with your community and other communities. And I think that's something that a lot

of people lose sight of as their platforms grow is that they go, okay, well, I'm big now, so I don't have to engage in those behaviors anymore in those practices. It's the wrong way. The minute you stop, like even if it's just like I didn't one day because I was sick, I didn't one day because I had a migraine. I didn't want to look at my phone. It makes such a difference. And now I find myself like being able to like take next steps and like deciding to like delegate a task because it's like, oh, if I delegate that task to someone else, that's

an hour more I can spend engaging with my community. It's like my favorite part. And I think it has to be your favorite part of it. If you want to have a really active community the way you do, Lauren, like it has to be like for every level though. Yeah. Right? For anybody that wants to do this as a career path.

Like people fight so hard to get. audience, right? Like, that's their main thing is like when you guys are starting, I need to get audience and the audience. And as soon as they get it, like, okay, cool, got it. And I'm going to abandon it now. But then, like for what? Why did you fight for it? Why do you work for it? If you're just going to toss it away. It's wild when people, like Michael just said, works so hard for the platform. And then the thing that got them the platform, which is the audience, they separate from. Yeah. It's crazy. I think like we were saying earlier, like you have to work even harder now. Yeah. Well, and there's so many creators. And I think just recently, maybe it was last week on

Instagram you said or someone said that you had said that you don't rely on platforms that you don't control, which I love. And my fiance said that forever. Like every time I complain about anything, he's like, you don't own Instagram. Why are you like complaining about it? And really like Instagram could go away tomorrow. Any of these things could go away tomorrow. And unless you've engaged with your audience and taking the time to have that relationship with

them, they won't follow you. So community is obviously a huge part of your success. Let's talk about branding though. And I want to get really into this. I know just by looking at your Instagram as a creator how long those images that you take are. This isn't like just an image, guys, of her with a handbag sitting at a cafe. This is a serious, serious image. Tell us, walk us through how long one Instagram post takes with a caption.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess it depends. I've gotten better at it now. But for me, I want my feed to look like a rainbow. So when you look at it, like, I don't want two photos that have a yellow background to sit together. So that takes a little bit of planning. There are days where it's like I'm just going to take a photo of my outfit, but then I need to have a blue backdrop.

So it's like, okay, let me go walk until I can find a blue backdrop. So maybe we're walking around for a half hour. Maybe I know of a blue backdrop. So we go to it specifically. I spend about two or three hours doing what I call color scouting. So that's where I just walk around the city in like different areas. And I take photos on my iPhone. I have a fake Instagram where I like.

like save them and geotag them. And then I like use a hashtag system so I can find them later so that when I'm looking for like a yellow one, I can like go through and I'm like, oh, there's that yellow one that I saw two weeks ago. Here's a geotag. Let me go there and shoot my outfit there. So that's kind of helped instead of like just having to figure it out on the spot every single day. I also do a color every month that I focus on as like it's something I started last year just to kind of introduce people to a specific color. So like right now it's baby blue, which is like a heart. color for me because I don't really wear blue. I mostly wear like warmer colors. So I'm always shooting baby blue looks. So I have to find like colors at work with baby blue. So there's like a lot of like

color theory that goes into there where there's certain colors that I would wear with it where there's certain colors that I wouldn't. And then captions, I usually am writing the caption while I'm shooting it. So I usually am thinking about what I'm going to say. Maybe I won't know going in, but I start shooting and I'll be like, oh, this is what I want to say. So I'll physically stop the shoot write the caption. Sometimes it happens when I'm editing and then I'll again stop editing and like write the caption because like just I'll have that like inspiration of whatever I want to say. But it's, it's been harder lately because I've been on this kick where I'm kind of worried about like the next generation. I'm worried about people who are consuming on their phone so much and I want to make

sure that I'm not just saying like here's a cute photo in my outfit. Like I want to make sure I'm actually like saying something. So a lot of times the captions aren't related. It's just like, you know, if you're having a hard day today, like I see you kind of thing. And I think that can help people sometimes more than just me twirling in an orange dress. And who's taking the photos? My fiancé. And I can't wait to get into this. How's working with your fiance with him behind the camera? Because I can only imagine how that would work out. No, it's pretty good. Oh, Michael doesn't take your photos ever? Oh my gosh. He can't even take. If I ask him for one photo, it's like I'm pulling tea.

Listen, I show up on this mic every week. I feel like that's putting in my time. I'm not good at photography. And he's also very entertaining on your Instagram story. Okay. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you. Do you have to ask him to be on your Instagram stories? I'm going to keep you around. No, he loves it. See, I have to ask Paris. Like, I have to show him.

He has to get pre-approval. Oh, no. Michael doesn't care. I would love it if Lauren would get a pre-approval and I would love if she would ask. That's just not occurring. I just don't care. So she says no, it's like I would really love that. Yeah. Because imagine if I just turned, like if she woke up early in morning and I just had the camera going, that wouldn't go over so well. No.

You just, you would know better. I know what good light is. You don't have any, like, you need to work on like your good light. If it wouldn't match her aesthetic and her branding. It's all about self-preservation. I don't want to get, I literally don't want to get shanked. You know, I'm sleeping. All right.

So go on. How is it working with your fiance? Yeah. So it's pretty good. So he does all my photos right now. And then he works in PR. So, like, he's like a sounding board too a lot of times. Sometimes if they're bigger projects, I'll involve him.

Like last year for Fashion Week, I did a mentorship program. where I took three girls from a Black Girl Magic program in Brooklyn in high school who were interested in the fashion industry and like set up like meetings with like potential career people that they wanted to work with and tried to help like break down this barrier like this race barrier that they felt was prohibiting them from being able to do these jobs. And so he helped with like setting up some of those interviews using some of his contacts, things like that. And but from photos, he's pretty good. He's always been interested in photography. He went to school for journalism. So he was like kind of good with like a camera. But I think there's this idea,

this like glamorous idea of like a blogger boyfriend. And I can't tell how many girls who are like, I need to meet a guy who will take my photos. And I, oh, I just want to shake them because they're specifically like the first generation I feel like of the fashion bloggers. They all had this blogger boyfriend and none of their relationships worked out. And I've talked to them like some of them on panels or like elsewhere about it. And it's this like sad story where girls think that they need this man to take their photo to like help them elevate to the next level. That sounds like an excuse to me. Yeah. And like it's nice that it works out because we can like travel together. But there are days where it doesn't work out. There are days where I'm like don't talk to me that way and we fight

and it's like an issue, you know. So. Lorna and I wouldn't be together if I had to take the photos. I'm being 100% honest because I couldn't I'm not excited about it. I don't like photos. My mom made me take too many photos as a kid. Sorry mom. Oh, sob story. That sounds like an excuse me. I don't. I don't posing out and like taking, but that being said, if we, in a hack to give anybody that's creating, like any hotel you travel to, you can hit up the concert or say, hey, is there a local photographer that wants to come and shoot for a few hours? That's a professional. That does that professionally for living. If we go somewhere, I'm like, okay, who do we need to bring on to do this? Because I know it's not what I'm good at. Yeah. But it'd be like me bringing her down somewhere and saying,

okay, listen, we're going on vacation. I'm going to need you to do this thing that you hate doing. It just, it just wouldn't work for the marriage. Totally. And I think that's the thing. some people like when people are like oh my husband hates taking photos but he doesn't I'm like maybe he shouldn't do it then because like I don't want to tell you how to run your marriage but that sounds like an issue to me Paris likes taking photos he goes to YouTube university like every night and he's like researching new stuff he'll come home and be like can I buy this camera and I'm like yeah whatever buy whatever you need so he's genuinely excited about it and so that's why it works and but because he has a full-time job there's been times where like I have blogger friends that we rely on

and we'll like meet and we'll like bust out three photos really quickly if we need it. There are times where I travel on press trips without him because he can't travel and like we have to like figure it out. So I don't think it's something that you have to have. He's also an extremely patient person, like the most patient person. You guys, oh, that's not like Michael, but very, that's another thing. I think about my friends Thomas and Julia. That's what I was just going to say.

That reminds me of that. From Galmeets Glammon, Thomas loves photography. He's, he has all the equipment. He loves taking the pictures. Like he's something he's passionate about. We ran into him in Aspen and even like he wasn't he was not with her. He was just we were at dinner and he's like bringing us aside taking pictures. Like he likes to do that stuff.

And so for somebody. Thomas you're hired. That wants to do that. That I think it's great if that's their passion. Right. But if it's somebody that's not excited to do it. Yeah. Don't put him in that box.

And it doesn't mean that like he can't work with you then. Like you just have to find like for you. Find what strengths that you're good at and then fit it into the business that way or create roles for them that way or bring new value that way. Or just turn the camera on them on Instagram story when they're not. looking and just make them do stupid shit. It's one thing, though, like, if we're at a dinner or somewhere, it's like, hey, there's nobody around.

Can you snap it? Like, of course I'll do that. I'm just not going to go on sheets. Yeah. So we were talking earlier off the mic about how you're specific about which content you consume. Yeah. Can you sort of speak on that? Because we just had Mark Manson on and he is really strategic about limiting the content.

Yeah. No, I think it's really important. And so me specifically, like just on Instagram. I have two Instagram accounts, right? I have Color Me Courtney, which is my main Instagram account. And then I've Color Me Magic. I just launched it earlier this year. It's like at 40K.

It's not huge, but it's Disney, Harry Potter, and Broadway focus. So I'm like a nerd on all those things, but I felt really censored about them on Color Me Courtney because not everyone's like on my extreme level of like I can watch Moana every single day. So I wanted to create a community where I could kind of be more of like my full self there and not alienate my previous community. And I work with Disney all the time. So it just like was a fit. So on that one, I follow like all like happy days.

Disney accounts, right? So there'll be days where I'm like sad or something and I just want to like basically go to Disneyland through Instagram. So I'll just go check out those accounts. And then on my Color Me Courtney page, I like really try to follow like people who look like me, like people who have like curvier bodies, shorter bodies, like maybe not like the normal idea of what you would see in like mainstream media. Like I think especially for me growing up, I didn't have a ton of role models who like looked like me in the media. I straighten my hair for, I don't know, like, 15 years. I just recently started. That makes me so sad because your hair is so fucking cool. Thank you. It took me a really long time to like accept it. And I've, I've always like, why did you have, why did you feel you needed to straighten it just because that was the example of what? So my mom's white. So she has like beautiful straight hair. I like, you know, every little girl wants to look like their mom, right? I didn't know how to do my hair. I grew up in Arizona. There wasn't a ton of like black women in general. Even if they did, they didn't have like curly natural hair. I remember. I remember. like if I had to like say like role models that I like looked at that I felt like looked like

me their options were like Kyla Pratt or like Raven Simone or like Beyonce and I'm like that's that's not really obtainable you know but how cool is it now that you get to be the role model that you needed growing up to so many women totally that's like the main reason why I started my blog it doesn't that give you like chills yeah no and it's a huge responsibility like I remember reading like 17 like reading it like it was my Bible and and reading something that had like a girl who looked like me. And she said like specifically what she did in the shower with her curly hair. And I think about that.

I can picture that ad because I was an ad nerd too. So I like ripped it out. I had it in a binder all organized by like different things. But I can picture that ad every time I wash my hair, which then reiterates the fact that anything I say could have that effect. And so that's why there's a lot of things I don't talk about on coloring Courtney. Like I claim to be an expert on color. Like I claim to be an expert on like my own personal journey and like my personal sense of style. But if someone asked me like a question about like mental health or something, I always

then will direct them or if they ask me about skincare, I usually direct them to you because I'm like I don't have a ton of experience. Not with this pimple on my chin. You don't. No. You see me in the middle like straight from a flight. But because there are experts, I feel like you're an expert on skincare. Like I consider you an expert on facial massage.

So if someone was like, I don't. don't know anything about facial massage. I'd be like, me neither. Everything I learned is from Lauren. Go to go to Lauren. Because I don't want to say something that then someone uses every day as their like main source of an idea or like a fact when I'm not an expert in it. I love that. Like I'm so attracted to that as a reader and as your friend. I think that's so amazing because you can't be at all to everyone. No. That's why I don't have a lot. I don't talk politics. I don't talk religion. I don't know enough about the subjects to have, and I don't know all the facts to have a strong enough opinion.

My followers are called cuties. So I recently got into it with some cuties about like unfollowing people that make you feel bad on social media. And I think that's so important. But I also think that people are really quick to like throw a creator away. Like if they post one thing that they don't agree with, like I don't have to agree with your politics to like your sense of style. But you also have the right to unfollow them if they made you feel bad. So it's like this weird like double-edged sword of they don't have to be your everything. And I don't want to be anyone's favorite blogger.

I maybe want to be one of your 10 that you like go to. And you go to mind to make you feel happy or to make you feel confident or to teach you how to wear color. And you would maybe go to someone else to learn how to treat a pimple on your face. Okay. You have to find that 17 ad and put it on your Instagram stories or something. I have it. Okay. Because I have, I literally, as a kid, I would clip them out of magazines.

I would paste them on, like, in a binder. Dude, you sound like me. We're twins. We're vlogging before. It was vlogging. I did the same thing. And you like post it and arrange it. Yeah.

And then send it to my friend. And my friend would be like, oh, I like have this thing. And I'm like, oh, here's a really easy DIY hair mask. Let me pull it out. But don't you think it's important to be following creators, authors, whatever it is, that also make you kind of question your perspective? Yeah, definitely. I think that the whole point of social media, right, is that you could create this, like,

space for yourself, but if you use it to close yourself off, then that's a problem. I think you even actually said to me, like, a long time ago when we first met that you, like, you were like, oh, I thought you were sort of this way. And then I started following you and I realized, oh, we have a lot of similarities. No, totally. I'll be real candid. I judge both of you. Like, early, like, you're beautiful blonde, like Barbie. Like, you're easy to be like, oh, this is what Lauren is, right? You know? And I was like, oh, I'm not going to like this girl. and then I met her and I was like, wait, she's like my favorite person. And I told so many people that.

That's very, very, very sweet. I feel the same about your platform. The whole idea behind this show is, at least from my perspective, I won't speak for Lauren. But for me, I never wanted an audience that was going to come here and just be nodding their head yes the whole time. Like the whole idea was to bring people like you on, bring other experts on, bring other influencers on and have them question perspectives and be like, hmm, I didn't think about that angle before. That's interesting. Because if you just have people that are like, yes, I agree. Yes.

It's like sheep, right? I got the idea is to create a new dialogue, to create questions, to create new perspectives, to present new lifestyles. Like, we've had so many different walks of life on here. And the whole idea is like, okay, you may not agree with this perspective. You may not like it. But at least it gets you to open your mind a little bit and realize that there's different personalities that exist.

And that's how we get to like a level of respect, right? Like just like see it. It doesn't have to be for you. But you just can't like be against it and mean to it for no reason. And if you, if that's where you go right away, then maybe it's a benefit to question. Like, wait, why is that my default response to go against this right away? Right. Use that as an opportunity to grow instead.

Yes, at least take a step back and question yourself like, hmm, I didn't like what he said. I didn't like what she said, but why? But for me, if it's not bringing me value in any area of my life, I'm fucking unfollowing. Like, I'm just, I just am. I think that my energy tank is like too valuable to be surrounding myself on a daily basis with with shit that doesn't add anything to my life. Yeah. Well, you can learn a lot from like, I'm like kind of an optimist,

where I feel like you can take, you can learn something from anything. So even the people who are doing it wrong, I learn a ton from them. You know, I follow a lot of, like, I guess you could call it like almost hate following, but it's not out of hate. It's literally out of like, oh, I never want to do that. Oh, that's a mistake. And I'm very like analytical. And so I watch numbers.

I watch people's numbers. I watch what post people are responding to. You know, like, and things that you do, like the comet chains, like where you post, used to do them every Friday. I don't know if you still do them every Friday. Sometimes, follow Friday. Follow Friday. Yeah.

Where you, like, encourage your community to like. Follow each other. Talk to each other. And yeah, like, so I watch that. And I'm like, oh, that worked. And then I'll DM you and be like, this is great. I'm stealing your idea. I'll 100% credit you.

But you don't need to credit. This is what you did and I took it. Steal away. I'm always looking at your page for inspiration. I just want you to do pink again. Yeah. I know. Tell me what's my favorite.

No, when you do. pink or blush. We'll have to do something. Yeah. Especially with that robe that you got that I caught in. Did you buy it? Yeah. Okay.

Good. Did Michael get one? No, he should. It's that really, that robe that looks like I'm in a murder eel. Oh, yeah, that thing. The pink fluffy ones. If I ever I see her in that, I know it's, it's only for me. I have it in two colors.

Ooh, maybe I need it in two colors. You never know what mood or red or black. Okay. So what is your favorite failure or favorite struggle? So right now, my favorite struggle or failure is YouTube, because I'm trying to do that and it's very challenging and humbling to like this is kind of the first time I've built a new platform since I started like when I started I built color me corny and Instagram at the same time like my driving traffic to my blog and driving traffic to my Instagram at the exact same time

and I was able to do so kind of pretty effectively and I didn't feel like I was like hitting a lot of roadblocks or a lot of failures but you I'm working on YouTube now and I'm publishing three times a week and it's hard. So, like, just learning, like, a whole new platform and trying to engage with a different community. And that's why it's challenging because I'm not trying to drag my current audience over. I'm trying to use it to build a different audience. And, you know, it's an uphill battle.

Before we dive into that, let's talk about beta brand. You know what's been looking good, Michael? What's been looking good, Lord? My butt. Got that sweet ass. It is looking really good because, guys, I'm telling you, I've been wearing these dress pants. I got sent them by Beta Brand. They're black and they're flattering. And the best part is they hold you in. Now, I've worn them like 50 times and I can tell you it's, it's holding you in.

Like everything is looking where it should be. So the ones that you want to get, though, are the dress pant yoga pant, okay? Very specific. It's a very comfortable style and it's designed to impress. Like Michael said, it's basically a yoga pant, but it's for work. So their pants are going to be wrinkle resistant, which I love because I feel like I'm always wrinkling everything. And the detail on this pant doesn't disappoint. So it's, it has like fake zippers, pockets, front buttons and belt loops to make everything look right. So they have options for all shapes and sizes, taste, boot cut, straight legs, skinny cropped. I'm a huge fan of the skinny gene. So is Michael. I'm a huge fan of everything that makes your ass look like that. They also come in standard colors

like black, navy, gray, khaki. You know I love a black pant. It's just like my go to, but they also have limited edition colors, too, if you're into color. These pants are it when I've eaten too much sourdough or chips and salsa. You just throw them on, you walk to get coffee, you go to work, even happy hour. You can take them to the gym to work, to whatever. They're simple, they're straight to the point, and they're everything everyone wants. They're black pants that are comfortable and make you feel tight and right. That's why I started wearing Beta Brand's dress pant yoga pants. Millions of women agree that they're the most comfortable pants you'll ever wear to work. That's betabrand.com, B-E-T-A-B-R-R-R. are A-N-D dot com slash skinny all lowercase to get 20% off your dress pant yoga pants.

Enjoy. I look at it too, and you said this earlier, is it is humbling and it causes you to realize, wait, hold on, I may be, you know, the shit over here, but I need to actually like put my ego aside and really work hard again. Yeah, and totally. Yeah, it's like the slight edge. That's kind of fun. The same thing happened when we started this show.

We're like, okay, well, we have such, Lauren, has such a massive platform on Instagram and blog, and we'll just pop over here and do this. And then we saw the numbers in the beginning. Like, what the hell is happening? They don't care. And it takes time because it's a, I mean, there's some of that community that came over. But since then, it's mostly been like a podcast community growing. And a lot of creators now on the side of dear media, they think, okay, well, I have a million followers on Instagram.

I'm going to jump over to podcast. And they see their numbers like, oh, shit. It's not as easy to move people off platform as you think. But it's so nice to see. Like, I'm so glad I did it. Even if, like, in a year from now, I decide to walk away from it and like, oh, like, wash my hands of it and do something else. Like, it's just nice to try something else. And it's a super humbling experience.

And I think we all kind of need that, especially like us as creators. We're like, it's weird because we're talking to millions of people every day, but usually like by yourself alone, like in your house. So it's this like weird juxtaposition of it's very lonely, but it's also you have this huge community. So it's bizarre. It's so weird. It's the weirdest job.

Super thankful for it. But it's really odd. And so like being able to see like what you're good at, what you're not good at, I think is like always really nice. Another thing for me, something I had to recently talk to my dad about because he's an entrepreneur and he's like very, very like strong-willed like me, but maybe even more antisocial and stuff is like hiring. So right now it's just me and then I have an agent here at DBA and then my fiance Paris helps with some stuff. And I've had assistance before in the past and it either was or wasn't good like experiences. And I was actually like watching the girl boss show on Netflix again. I would watch it the first time. And there's, all these, like, awful things that she does as a manager. And I saw a lot of myself in her and was like, crap, maybe I'm... Give us some examples so I can check the boxes to see if that's what my problem is, too.

Well, so you're like me this way where you work all the time. I see you all the time working. And I want everyone who works for me to be working the same amount as me. Like, if I'm working at 6 am., why aren't you working on the end? Uh-oh, daddy's getting mad in the corner of you know. Well, I'll tell you why. But it's not reasonable. Michael's a great manager.

You can never expect people that work for you to work as hard for you as you do on your own. Taylor, are you jacking off back there? Are you listening? Except for Taylor. Taylor has to work harder than me. No, but it's, I mean, listen, if it's your thing and you're building your personal brand, like, of course you want people that are going to come in and be excited and be aligned and work, my advice is always to put people in the best position for themselves, right?

Like, every time I have a conversation with somebody that works for me, it's like, what can I do to help you towards the goal that you're trying to pursue? whether that's going to be in a career with one of my companies for the next 10 years or whether you want to work here for a couple years and then go off and do your own thing. It's putting them in the best position for them to succeed. And along that, you can tell them, okay, while I'm getting your best work to help grow your career, I also want to get the benefit of like, while I'm helping you get there, you're giving me as much as you can to build this thing.

And I think if you have those candid conversations, people and realize it's not about you, but it's about them. Yeah. Then you'll get the most work. See, I'm a Leo. So that's hard for me. It's hard. Like the most Leo Leo.

It's challenging running a team. It's hard too because you're so creative. I think you do a good job of it. You have a pretty, no. I need help. It looks like you have. You're very, very creative. You're one of the most creative influencers I've ever seen.

I used to think of myself as being like co-creative and business brain. And I think just because I've been by my, like on my own, like working in an apartment by myself. I've kind of viewed more or skewed more creative and I've lost some of that like managerial brain that I used to have. And so realizing that has been like another thing like, oh, maybe I need someone to be on top of me and be like, you need to show up at this time or you need to do this or you miss this because I used to be really good at that stuff. And I just can't do it all. And like accepting that has been like really hard for me. Well, what it is for everybody that is in that role.

It's like, you know, I don't consider myself an expert at management. I just consider that I've had a couple more years than Lauren to do it. Yeah. But I think really like the unlock for me was realizing I don't want anybody to work for me. I want them to work with me and I want them to be excited about working with me. Yeah. And so if you, you know, like I always used the example when I was younger. I had to, I worked at this landscaping company and there was two foremen.

And one of the foremen would just sit off to the side and yell at us what to do. And I looked around at everybody and everyone was like kind of like sluggishly half-assing the job because they were just annoyed at this guy standing off to the corner. And then there was another foreman that literally got in the dirt with us. was working his ass up harder than us. And I looked around everybody was working to try to keep up his pace. Yeah. To show instead of tell. Yeah.

And to just make people feel like they're heard and working with you towards a goal, not just for you, but for everybody. And I think a lot of first time managers make them a mistake. They hire somebody like, you're working for me and I'm the boss and you're doing this. That's me. And that's discouraging to people.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think like me two years ago, if you said all that, I'd be like whatever, Michael. Sure. But like now I'm kind of open. Yeah.

I hope and like really like watching that TV show with like being like oh she's awful she did this she did that and then me being like wait that's all me it was like really like I need to watch it another remark is I got to love it okay people like managers feel like hey you're lucky to have a job with me yeah like that's the attitude they take yeah and my thing is I'm lucky to have somebody with that skill set working with me so like I flip it and I just if you look at it like honestly like me and Taylor change your perspective yeah me and Taylor like we bicker back forth and like working with but I always look at Taylor and just a compliment that I'm lucky to have someone on my team like him that can do all the different things that he's done and help with- He just woke up from his sleep. Oh, hi, Taylor. But it's important because, you know, gratitude to the people that are helping you move the ball forward for the thing that you're working on is extremely important where people get in trouble as they think that the other person should be grateful to work for them. You say you're not organized, but I'm going to, I'm going to say that you are because

I'm just going to guess that you have some balls to the walls calendar system. Yeah, I love a good calendar system. Tell us about that. But, you know, I started time patching, I think, based on you. And it's changed. It's changed my life. It's really been great. I think you actually posted out this recently, how you, like, schedule every second

of your life. And I'm that way. Like, I first started doing it when I was studying for the GMAT because I decided to study for it in, like, 30 days before I went to grad school. And usually people, like, study, like, six months. And so I had this, like, insane schedule of, like, wake up at five. Like, I would schedule my bathroom bakes. I would schedule, like, when I would drink water.

And I always. also at the time kind of had this like unhealthy obsession with working out. So I'd like work out for like two hours on the treadmill and then like be doing math problems and then like doing like this other like crazy things. So like going back and forth. But I would literally schedule every second of my day to wear like, oh, here's when you can go to the bathroom. Here's when you can like rest for 15 minutes. Here's when you can change your clothes. Like these are the things. And I'm not as crazy about it now, but I have to have to do that. You're a really confident person.

Where do you think that comes from? I don't know. Because a lot of people struggle with it. Yeah, no, they definitely do. And I kind of wish I struggled more growing up than I did with confidence because I feel like I would be able to maybe relate to some people who are going through it more. I'm not sure if it's something like that's like tied to me being a Leo, something that like my parents instilled within me. I was a competitive dancer.

So I like grew up dancing on stage. Like I don't get stage right ever. I've never been like nervous to perform. or anything. My mom tells the story of I had to walk in this like fashion show in Vegas in front of like 10,000 people when I was like 10 and she was sitting there like because she's like doesn't want to be the center of attention. She says she doesn't want a funeral like she doesn't ever want to be the center of attention. So she tells the story of her being like, oh, I'm so nervous for the person who has to walk out first. Like that sucks for that kid and then it was me and like, you know, I didn't care. I just have never, I think I've always just been too busy to care. like what people think. So I'll like make a mistake. I'll like mess up. I'll fall in my face.

And it just never has bothered me. But there are things like that I've been unconfident about like, you know, we talked about my hair like not wearing my hair like curly for a long time. Recently like a few years ago, I started wearing my hair curly because my fiance kind of was like, you know, you're kind of a hypocrite. And I was like, what?

And he's like, you're kind of a hypocrite because you talk about like all this stuff, like accepting your body and like celebrating the things that like you used to be insecure about, but you don't wear it. You straighten your hair every day. And I was like, damn, he's right. Like, I can't let him be right. So I literally started wearing my hair curly just to, like, get the better of him. And it was like a huge, like, I didn't know how to dress.

Like, I didn't feel like myself. Like, it was like a huge, like, blow to my confidence. And then I was mad, too, because I was like, I'm not, like, why do I care so much about my hair? Like, that shouldn't determine what I'm wearing or how I'm feeling or if I want to go out. It would take me twice as long to get ready every day. And so there are things that like, you know, I think we've all been through and struggle But nowadays, which is like so interesting, Derreet from from Housewives and Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian are wearing their hair like you.

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. It's very interesting. Well, the reason I ask about confidence is I mean, I think that's one of the top questions we get to the show. Like, how do you get confidence? Yeah. And I don't think we've ever been able to really like quite answer it concrete. I mean, there's so many different things. Okay, good. This is actually, it's something that I used. It can work one of two ways. It's like my favorite method. I use it for so many things.

You can use it to break a habit. I used it when I was building like branding. You can use it for confidence. So I take a sticky note right down like specifically when I was building Color Me, Courtney. I decided these are the five things that are going to be true to color me, Courtney. Like it's going to be colorful. It's going to be about positivity. It's going to make you happy and two other things that I'll keep proprietary.

And I wrote these five things and I put them on a sticky note and I put it everywhere. It was the, it was on my bathroom mirror. It was on my door in my bedroom, door in my closet, on my phone case, like everywhere, laptop, everywhere, you know, refrigerator. And I would look at it and any time I would post any content for the first year, it had to check three of those boxes otherwise it didn't get seen. So there was about 30% of the stuff that I was posting, creating, that I was like, this doesn't fit these.

Why am I posting this? Get it out. And so it's something I used really specifically to create this, like, clear brand. And now I could probably get away with like missing. a few. But the way it ties to confidence is you can do the same like sticky note method. You can use it for everything. You can use it to stop biting your nails. You can use it to like anything. So I would write the five things that you like most about yourself. Put it everywhere. And then you have to see it before you do anything. And I think just seeing it written down can really help.

I also, I wrote a post about this on Valentine's Day. So it's colormeycourtney.com backslash love yourself. It's color me, Courtney.com backslash love yourself if you want to look at it. Where just use the people in your community. Like, use your friends.

They usually already think these great things about you so you can do an exercise where you guys write each other notes, write each other things. Like, these are the five things I like most about you. And a lot of times

you won't see it unless someone else says it, which is so silly, but it's just like human nature. And then the last thing I'll say is that anything you're insecure about, if you can find a way to turn it into your superpower. So for me, like, I have a Lisp, obviously, growing up as a kid, I got teased about it all the time.

And people would say, it makes you sound dumb. I went to speech therapy and, like, learned how to talk without it. Like, I could talk without it right now if I wanted to. And then when I started, like, blogging, I, but, like, when I say I could talk without it, it was like you're speaking a second language. So I could, but I had to think more before I would say everything. And I couldn't be myself as much. So when I started blogging, I made the conscious decision to bring it back and like stop kind of like putting on this and deciding to be my full self because I didn't want someone else to feel the way that I felt about it growing up.

So if you find something that you are insecure about and you turn into your superpower, your Lisp for me also my lips were really big. I got made fun of so I never wore. I know now, but like as a kid, you know. I don't feel bad for you. Well, now I wear lipstick every day. my big lips to like celebrate them. My curly hair, something I was ashamed of. I'll celebrate it. I'll celebrate it.

I'll take some of your lips in your curly hair. I think that's really, really solid and powerful advice to take insecurities and turn them into superpowers. Yeah. I think it's very, very smart. Because it's there anyway. You might as well like shout it, right? I love that.

It's like Howard Stern on air, how he always talks about his small penis. Why does make it a branding decision, right? I respect that. Well, it takes what I think, you know, it takes the power away from others. 100%. but they would try to say or do things to harm you. It's like it takes all of it away. How do you deal with trolls?

I actually don't get a ton of trolls, which is nice. I like obviously there's like the get off my internet thing, which I haven't been on for years. But I guess that was my first like interaction with them is I didn't have a page for a long time. And then someone told me that they had made a page for me. So I went on and there, it wasn't a lot. There were maybe like 40 threads. And if they were like valid, I like, the, the, they're,

the only time a troll comment hurts me is if it's true. Like if someone says like she's ugly, I'm like, great, that's like your opinion. I don't care what you think. But if someone's like, she has bad grammar and I'm like, oh, crap, I need to work on my grammar. Like, then that's the only time that I like, that it hurts me. So all the things that people said that were true, I like put them on a list. I like prioritize them in terms of like things that like I could work on. And I took them as constructive criticism.

And then all the things that weren't true or like we're just like completely wrong. I like went and I actually responded to like 30 of them and was like, hey, like, this website is like kind of lame. Like if you want to say something to me, I love feedback. I love that you guys are so obsessed with me that you're writing about me. Like, thanks. But like if you want to give me feedback, you send me an email, send me a DM, post a comment on my page.

I won't delete it. I don't care what you say unless you're attacking someone else. I don't care if you're attacking me. But let's not do this here on this page. So I like went and responded to like all of them. A lot of them were like the typical things, like, she must just have a rich boyfriend who's paying for everything. You know, people think bloggers don't make money. And I'm like, do you want to see my tax returns?

Like, I don't know what else to tell you. But like, that doesn't matter to me. And doing that, like, helped me, like, push it away. Like, I know I only responded to, like, 30, 40 people. And then at the end of each one, I said, I'm not coming back here again. Like, I'm not going to give this website another view. You now know how to contact me if you're interested. But, like, you know.

Well, I think it's extremely smart to look at it in that regard. Like, for me, one, if they're not talking about you in some level, then you maybe got to find something for them to start talking about. Right. I think for anybody that's out there in the pub. People create their careers just to have trolls. Yeah, get some trolls talking about you. That's important. Because if they're not, that must mean that you're not interesting enough to talk about.

Two, it's important to look at constructive criticism. Like you said, like I still look at the iTunes reviews or I'll look at stuff and say, oh, he's saying like a lot or he's interrupting. Okay. That's really, that's actually beneficial for me to hear because I address it. I also tell people that are new to podcasts, hey, look at the bad reviews and not just the good because the audience is going to give you the feedback that you need to perfect your path, right? Like you're going to need to perfect your speech or you're going to stop saying like or interrupting. It's important for you to know that.

But the last thing I'll say for people, if you're one of these people that's out there on a negative site, like get off my internet or something, it's not hurting the people that are winning. Right. Like it's not taking, if somebody goes on that side and talks about Lauren and I, it's not slowing us down and it's not affecting us. What it's doing is it's taking valuable time away from the person that has to do it. It's just a big time suck. It's a waste of time that you could be using to put into your career, to put into positive energy. I'm jealous. Who has that much time? Exactly. Because all of the negative stuff comes back around and doesn't end up hurting anybody but the person who's being negative.

Courtney's busy scheduling her bathroom time. The first time, Lauren told me that I was on a site like that. I swear to God, I never went and looked. I just said, cool. Like, like the first Okay, but I move on. It's not like it's taken time away from me to slow me down. I had an epiphany six years ago when I was put on a site like that and I looked at it. This was six years ago. I'll never forget it. And I told Michael and Michael was like good.

And since then, I do not read my own press clippings. Good or bad, I really try to stay away from both of them. I mean, I really try. Because if you get too many good press clippings, it can go to your head. My dad always says this. And in the bad ones, it sucks your energy. It's like neither are really super beneficial. You just keep on your trajectory doing what you're doing.

There's like a hundred things that I want to do every day that I don't have time to do. And responding talking to trolls is never on the 100 list. So there's just there's just not enough time. But if you're one of those trolls, you have to sit back and be like, wait a minute. How much time do I have to allocate to this? This is where you're going to spend your time. I mean, you get one shot at this life. That's it.

Just one time. You want to look back in your life and say, hey, I spend a couple hours. of every week of my life, commenting negative things that had no effect on the people that I was commenting about. You know what I mean? Like it's, think about that waste of time. Yeah, it's crazy. And well, and I also have a pretty international following too. So I've had to learn to kind of just have a thick skin because a lot of times I'll get, or at least when I was starting out, I would start to get defensive about stuff and I realized it was like language barrier. Like they would say something and I would take it the wrong way. And I'll quote Mean Girls the musical right now

because I saw it for the sixth time the other night. It's so, you guys just see it. We saw it. Oh, yeah. Did you love it? It's really good. Yeah, it's so good. It says if you're feeling attacked, that's a feeling not a fact.

Don't jump online and react. And like, that's it. Like, it's a feeling. If you're feeling like someone's attacking you, maybe they are, but it's a feeling. It's not a fact. It doesn't have to mean anything. You can choose to, like, move on. But when you choose to instead pay attention and react to it, then it becomes something.

That's why everyone, morning I practiced stoicism and it's helped me so much. I can't even tell you. It's just, I'm sorry, I don't know. What stoicism? It's a philosophy five minutes every day and it just talks about perseverance and it's just a lot of wisdom. Today's, did you read today's? I haven't read it today. It's all about just, yeah, Michael, it's all about doing good and and how you just, you fight critics by just doing good. We should send you a copy of the deal of Stoic. We got to send her a copy. I think you'd really like it. Yeah. Also, I'm sending you Wu and a book too. Oh, please do. We normally have a wrapped gift. No, I have it enough. I haven't in my office.

You do? I'll bring it down. Michael for the win. Thank God. Okay. Okay. Michael for the wind. So I want to talk about your morning routine. Yeah. Can you walk us through that? I'm sure it's specific. It's actually not. It's kind of it's because it's different every day. I guess a meeting's day, right? Usually I would wake up. I would do emails for about an hour. I need times. You know how I am. Okay. So I'd wake up at like, usually like 6 a.m. I'll do like emails or whatever for about an hour. I pick out all my outfits like way in advance. So I don't have to worry about. about that and I only wash my hair like once a week so I don't have to worry about that kind of

stuff so then now what it's like 7 a.m. I'm really bad I never eat breakfast. It's really really bad. I know I'm supposed to and then I'll just kind of just get ready to go out and like usually shoot because we usually shoot in the morning. We'll do that from like seven to like nineish depending on how many things we're shooting sometimes we're shooting a stop motion video which takes a lot more time. A lot of times me and my fiancee will like commute together or and head over to like meetings based on your recommendation to do all my meetings in like one day. But there are now, because I'm doing YouTube, there will be days where I'll sit in front of a computer and like edit a video for 30 hours. My stop motion video is the one that took me the longest, took

165 hours to edit. Wow. And I've made over a hundred of them. There's a time where I was doing one a week. So usually every Tuesday, because I'd post them on Wednesday was a full stop motion day of editing. Like, I guess Friday is probably like my most always well organized day because I'm setting up for the weekend because we shoot all weekend. So usually Friday I wake up. I usually like treat myself and watch a TV show in the morning before I like get ready. I then have to handle like things like packages and like stuff like that that I hate doing. So I'll do that first. And then I'll plan all of our shoots for the weekend. Planning the shoots means picking out the location, picking out the actual outfit. And then I usually like to pick out like a theme or a mood board that I can

share with Paris, which has really helped from a shooting point of view because then instead of me being like, let's make something out of nothing, I can show like a creative direction of like, this is what I need. This logo needs to be visible because it's sponsored by this or this is just for me. And it's going to be going live next month. So we want to make it look more summary than it really is doing all that stuff. So that's like my Friday day, I guess. It sounds like you're proactive rather than reactive. Try to be.

Any beauty tip that you can throw us. Give us a good one. I know you have some. Those eyelashes are insane. Well, these are extensions. I love eyelash extensions. They look so good on you. Yeah, I love them.

Lipstick skin. Yeah, okay. So I love doing lipstick and an Uber. It's like my favorite thing. Literally, like, when I have to do my makeup at home, I'm like, this looks bad. Right now I'm doing like this highlighter on my nose, like in the center because I feel like it makes me look like a Disney princess. So I'm into that. What's the highlighter?

Fenty. Oh, it's very pretty. I put it on with my finger. Okay. I could use some highlights. I put on a wash right now. I put on pretty much everything with my finger. It's like very bad.

No, that's okay. I don't really wear foundation that much. You don't need it. I need foundation right now. Big time. What's a book, a podcast, a resource that you can leave our audience with

that's brought you a lot of value? Oh, I like, is it bad to say your podcast? No, I like your podcast. See, Courtney, I was going to keep you around for some of this.

Stroke the ego, please. I listen to Harry Potter a lot, which is really bad. You just like you played in the background? Like on Audible, like this is like my seventh time from start to finish. I just always listen to Harry Potter on Audible. I honestly just listen to a lot of musicals and stuff like that.

Things like that make me happy. So that brings happiness. That brings happiness. Yeah, I've been listening to Six the musical right now. Okay. Which is cool. It's you'd like it. It's Henry VIII's Six Wives, you know, because he beheaded to divorce to one died and one survived.

And they've decided to take back the microphone and perform live in concert like in a. That sounds interesting. Yeah, it's really interesting. I just saw it in London. Maybe all Henry VIII you and I can't. Hold on. It's the other way around. So it's like a really kind of female empowering songs and stuff like that.

I got to listen. Where can everyone find you pimp yourself out? Yeah. Oh, I gladly will. So I'm Color Me Courtney on pretty much all social media. My main platform is Instagram and my blog, of course, Color MeCourtney.com. I have a second Instagram account, Color Me Magic. Courtney is spelled the C.

not the Kardashian way, and color is spelled the American way, C-O-L-O-R. You are amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This is great. This is a dream come true. Come back anytime. Anytime. Thanks.

Quick fun giveaway, as always. Do you want to decorate your hydro flask with TSC cheeky stickers? Well, today's the giveaway for you. All you have to do is tag a friend on my latest Instagram and recommend the podcast to them. We want you guys to spread the word. You guys tell your friends if this podcast has brought you any kind of value. and one of us from the team will slide into your DMs and send you some cute stickers. I put them on my hydroplas, my phone, my computer, they are fun.

Let me tell you. Hope that this episode brought you tons of value. And with that, we'll see you next time.