On this episode of Controlling Your Chaos, Cortney sits down with Monica Nino and Bryan Gonzalez, co-owners of The Board Couple, to talk about how a charcuterie board on their kitchen island during late-night dates turned into a full-blown business, a wine club, culinary workshops, and a nationwide shipping operation.

Monica and Bryan share the moment a local publisher told them their concept would "never really be a business," how they opened their café doors just weeks before COVID shut everything down, and how they pivoted almost overnight to shipping boards nationwide for companies like Dell and Spotify while becoming the food source keeping Hill Country wineries open.

They open up about running two businesses while staying a couple first, why "controlled chaos" and staff structure keep them sane, how becoming certified sommeliers became their favorite excuse to travel and teach for the Napa Valley Wine Academy, and the advice they'd give anyone thinking about becoming self-employed: no one is coming to save you, so you have to figure it out yourself. This one is for every couple building something together and refusing to let anyone tell them it won't work.

You can listen to this episode of the Controlling Your Chaos podcast on all major podcast platforms.

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On this episode of Controlling Your Chaos, Cortney sits down with Adrian Galvan of Designology, a San Antonio interior designer who has been self-employed for 16 years and built his entire business on referrals and trust.

Adrian shares how three straight years of networking every single day laid the foundation for a client base that's stuck with him for over a decade, why he calls himself a "lifestyle designer" who thinks about how furniture placement affects a family's daily traffic patterns, and what it actually takes to build the kind of trust where clients hand you the keys to their home while they're not there. He opens up about his path from managing a 50-person beauty salon to going back to school for design, why he treats boundaries and extended time off as non-negotiable instead of a luxury, and the advice he'd give any creative: your craft is your craft, but you also have to be a good business person.

Adrian and Cortney also dig into navigating high-stress projects like kitchen remodels without losing the excitement, why every project teaches him something new no matter how many times he's done it before, and what's next for Designology as he steps into new national committee work and an exciting referral partnership. This one is for anyone building a creative business on relationships instead of ads.

To learn more about Adrian's design services, visit: https://www.adriangalvan.com/

Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/designologysa/

You can listen to this episode of the Controlling Your Chaos podcast on all major podcast platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Controlling Your Chaos, Cortney sits down with Bonnie Montoya, a broker/owner who went from one property management unit to nearly 100 in just five years, to talk about the winding road that got her there.

Bonnie shares how years in multifamily property management, and the friendships she built along the way, became the foundation of her book of business, why she almost got her real estate license years earlier but talked herself out of it, and how her mom's passing became the push that finally got her across the finish line. She opens up about the explosive first-year growth that scared her into building real systems, why hiring a coach and a virtual assistant were the two best decisions she ever made, and her mantra that property managers should think of themselves as CEOs, not just landlords' helpers.

Bonnie and Cortney also dig into raising two kids nearly a decade apart while running a growing company, why she keeps a dream book to remind her why she's doing all of this, and the one piece of advice she'd give her younger self: trust yourself sooner. This one is for anyone who's been sitting on a calling they're too scared to chase.

To learn more about Bonnie's services, visit: https://www.starlightpropertymgmt.com/

You can listen to this episode of the Controlling Your Chaos podcast on all major podcast platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.