Cheers to Finding Rhythm with partners Kendall Lockwood and Casey Whitley

Speaker 1: (singing).

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is Write Your OWN Story: Three Keys to Rise and Thrive in Life and Business. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. Hey, it's Rebecca! And today on the show, we have business owners, Kendall Lockwood and Casey Whitley, who founded a beverage called Adult Spring Break. Y'all, these cocktails are ridiculous. But I also just love a good founder story, and so Kendall and Casey are here to tell their story and how this business came to be, what they're excited about in the future, and how to overcome some of the shit that happens when you start something big. Here we go! Kendall, Casey, I'm so glad you're here. You have a new product, a new business that I couldn't be more excited about because I feel like it was made for me.

Casey Whitley: It was.

Kendall Lockwood: Absolutely was.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: In fact, I have some here! Right here on the podcast, live. We're going to taste Adult Spring Break!

Casey Whitley: Absolutely love it. You're doing it right.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Nobody needs to know it's 10:45 AM, or 11: 00, or whatever time it is. All in the name of good. Just serving my podcast guests. So tell us about what this is, how it came to be. Just give us kind of the rundown.

Kendall Lockwood: So Adult Spring Break is a passion project, and now trying to be our predominant business, I guess, on top.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: I'm Kendall, sorry. I'm a nationally award- winning bartender, and I make a mean cocktail, and I really love the creative side of cocktails. Casey and I are best friends, and we were clearly drinking quite a bit during the pandemic. Everyone was that drinks.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It was a strategy.

Kendall Lockwood: We lived half- a- mile down the road from each other, and we were drinking all of these ready- to- drink cocktails. And even though I make a mean cocktail, we were avoiding grocery stores and not going and getting fresh ingredients. I was working seven shifts, six days a week trying to keep my restaurants open. We were walking down the street outside one day, in fresh air, and Casey was like, " Kendall, you make all of these really amazing cocktails, and you batch them at work." She goes, " All of these ready- to- drink cocktails we're buying and trying are just subpar, or too sweet, or malt liquor, or they make you feel bad." And let's be really honest about our age group, okay? You can't have things that aren't quality, because it makes you feel terrible the next day.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Nobody has time for that now.

Kendall Lockwood: No. I'm hungover for two days if I'm hungover.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. That's exactly what I got excited about. Because while I'm a fan of Adult Spring Break, multi- day music festivals, drink, have fun, I'm bougie and I'm healthy, as well as being fun. So all of those have to go together, and I was like, "Oh, I feel like they get me."

Casey Whitley: Yeah, we kept that top of mind.

Kendall Lockwood: Thank you, that was definitely inaudible. We created it for ourselves.

Casey Whitley: For ourselves.

Kendall Lockwood: But then we were like, " There's so many people that feel the same way," and so Casey really was the catalyst for this. She was like, " You make amazing cocktails, why don't we do this?" And before the pandemic hit, we were actually looking to go into business together anyway with a building concept.

Casey Whitley: Yeah, a brick and mortar concept that it would've worked great before the pandemic, and thank God it didn't work out because it would've failed immediately if it was in the pandemic.

Kendall Lockwood: Yes.

Casey Whitley: I think that's one of those things that's like, " It happens for a reason," and this landed in our lap. I mean, it was just an incredibly easy segue into a business. These conversations that we had, the time we were spending together.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah.

Casey Whitley: Yeah, a couple of weeks later, we formed an LLC and started developing. It took us about a year- and- a- half, but we got on shelves December 23rd, 2021.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Wow.

Casey Whitley: Yeah!

Kendall Lockwood: We sold out of all the product. It was in Total Wine. We were at Total Wine in Nora.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's where I bought these.

Kendall Lockwood: And we love them in general, but we told them to buy a lot of product because we were going to sell a ton of it, and we sold out. We had a three- hour tasting scheduled. We sold out of everything in 45 minutes.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh my gosh! That's like a Taylor Swift moment, right?

Casey Whitley: No, it was a very proud moment after a really rough start.

Kendall Lockwood: Every speed bump we could have had, we had for sure.

Casey Whitley: Every speed bump, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Up to the hour before the tasting, we were overcoming obstacles. We still are, but that's what makes it worth it. You're like, " Okay, I do have a good product. People are loving it. They're selling out of it."

Kendall Lockwood: And I think for best friends... which I know we'll probably talk about our relationship as friends moving forward... but I think the biggest challenge with best friends is can you work together? Can you own a business together? Can you go through these insane obstacles that we've gone through and still be friends and still have a business? And the truth is that I feel like... and I don't think I'm speaking for just myself here, I know I'm not... but I feel like it's just made us stronger and closer. It's truly been the most beautiful marriage of business and friendship that I've ever had the pleasure of seeing and being involved in. And I have two other brick and mortars with a business partner who's also wonderful, but there's just a harmony with Casey and I that I think people dream of having in a business relationship or a partnership.

Casey Whitley: Yeah, it's been a great experience.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that. And what I heard from you that ties into the book I wrote and the work that I do with clients is we all have unique gifts, talents, and abilities. And when we bring those into our work, it gives us this sense of thriving and satisfaction, but they're meant to be complimentary. So your gifts and talents, Kendall, is different than yours, Casey. So Casey, you with the whole event gathering, that was your thought. It was like, " This could be a beautiful thing. People want to come and be a part of this." And Kendall, I got to tell you, Ball and Biscuit is my favorite place in the world and your cocktails are ridiculous! So I love that you brought these two things together in a way that you said, " We can kind of solve a problem or create an opportunity for a particular demographic," and that's exactly what you've done. That's beautiful.

Casey Whitley: Yeah! And I think the entire idea behind what we created is to create a cocktail that truly tastes like someone made it for you behind the bar. The ingredients are all natural. They're all premium spirits. They're not going to give you that first taste hangover, or that chemical hangover that oftentimes you can identify right away when you try something new.

Kendall Lockwood: I know I can. And I know I have a more trained palette to do so, but when you say you're bougie, I'm the bougie.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh, you've got to be the worst kind of bougie when it comes to cocktails.

Kendall Lockwood: But I'm also not a person that would go to a restaurant and dog anybody either. I know that if I look at the menu and it's something I don't want... typically a wine or beer, or vodka soda or tequila soda drinker... I'm not going to knock anybody and then certainly not going to be disrespectful to someone's program. But I can get excited about a cocktail I order, and then if it's not balanced, I'm kind of like, " Aww." I don't want to feel bad about it, but I feel disappointed.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, 100%. Okay, so I just had my first sip. It's literally like either you made it at the bar or I made it at mine. It's so fresh. So I'm tasting the cucumber basil lime because, rumor has it, that's the current bestseller. It tastes like fresh cucumber and basil. Crazy!

Casey Whitley: I mean, this is one of the things I think that sets us apart is that we are using real cucumber, real basil. It's not fake. And sometimes, those flavors are really hard to get right when they're not natural. We're very stern about making sure that everything tasted fresh and natural and-

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You love it.

Casey Whitley: We call it spa water.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It does taste like spa water! I love that!

Kendall Lockwood: People ask us all the time, " What's the calorie content? How much sugar's in here?" and we don't have that exact count. But what I can tell you is think about drinking a High Noon or a White Claw. Not knocking them by any stretch, but you're drinking 12 ounces of liquid, where this is a suggested four to five ounce poor, and they're all natural. No artificial flavors, colors, or sugars. And your body knows how to process natural things. It doesn't know how to process artificial sweeteners. And I understand for some people that have health issues and have to do artificial sweeteners, they're diabetic or things like that, and that's sometimes required for them.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: That's a different story. But for people that are calorie counting or they're worried about what they're putting in their bodies, it's so much better for you to put in fresh lemon, fresh lime, premium spirits if you're going to have alcohol, natural sugars because your body knows how to process natural sugars. Our cocktails range from 7. 7% to 26.6% ABV. So you're looking at a High Noon or a White Claw, which is 4% to 4. 5%, and ours are double that or more, and you're doing less than half the ounces so you don't have to drink as much. And it's better for you.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And you're right. When I hit my 40s, drinking took on a whole different thing. What I drank mattered, when I drank, mattered. And we're just more cognizant of how we feel and what we put in our bodies, and I don't want to feel like shit just to go have a good time so I'm very careful about clean. This is amazing. I'm going to try the bourbon next. inaudible I love the idea that this... I don't have to stand there and make a bourbon cocktail. I can take this with me somewhere and it's convenient and easy.

Kendall Lockwood: So this one, think spiced brown sugar Old Fashioned. So you're getting a four- year aged bourbon, and this one is a little bit higher price point than our other cocktails. All the other ones are aligned in price, but it's because of the quality of bourbon. And we all know bourbon's so hard to find, and it's expensive. We didn't want to sacrifice the quality of spirit because we wanted to have the same price for everything.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And bourbon drinkers, if somebody's going to look at all of the choices that you have... which you have rum cocktails, vodka cocktails, bourbon, and gin... if you're looking across those bottles, if you're a bourbon drinker like I am, I want it to be a good quality bourbon. Bourbon drinkers want good quality bourbon. Don't put cheap shit in there just to call it bourbon. That would not make me happy. So I love that you thought of me when you made this.

Casey Whitley: We certainly did.

Kendall Lockwood: You're the only person in mind.

Casey Whitley: Yep.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thank you.

Casey Whitley: You make a great point too about how you can take that with you. Kendall, obviously, is an expert in her craft and she can make a mean drink. I could probably make a mean drink if I wanted to, but I'm not that type of person that's going to stock my house with everything I need to make an Old Fashioned, you know what I mean? So this solves a problem for me and for a lot of people who love a craft cocktail, and they don't want to do the work for it. Or it just never tastes quite the same when you make it yourself, as it does when your favorite bartender makes it.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is ridiculous!

Casey Whitley: That one, we've sat around many a bonfire in her backyard and just sipped inaudible with a blanket.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh, it's delicious!

Casey Whitley: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm so excited! Okay, I'm going to just try to reel that in because it's so good. You talked about while you had this sellout experience, it wasn't because of lack of challenges and lack of just everything that went wrong. And I don't know a single business owner, or even just anybody trying to do big stuff within a business, that doesn't just battle it. I believe a lot of it is spiritual warfare. When you're trying to put good into the world and you care about people, it's going to have some fight, or whatever you want to call it. But that shit is real. How did you navigate all of the barriers and all the challenges as you were getting to this place?

Kendall Lockwood: We cried a lot.

Casey Whitley: We cried a lot. I think we're both in different aspects of our lives. Incredibly stubborn people who refuse to lose.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yes.

Kendall Lockwood: 100%.

Casey Whitley: Every time, it would be so interesting because we had a million different challenges. And one that would really cause me to be reactive, she was the opposite. And if she was really reactive, I was, a lot of times, the opposite. When I say reactive, I don't mean off the rails. I just mean I can think of myself being more emotional in certain times and situations, where she was like, " Look. This sucks, but it's going to be okay and we're going to get through it." And I think that's another reason why our relationship personally and professionally works really well together because we can be the calm in the storm for each other.

Kendall Lockwood: Definitely. But the things that seemed catastrophic to me certainly were not as catastrophic in your brain at all. And vice versa. Definitely, there were so many moments. Oh my goodness, when we were launching the first run of everything, none of our labels went on the bottles smooth. None of them.

Casey Whitley: In the packaging plant?

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah, we're at the final phase. We're like, " We're finally bottling. Everything else has been so, 'We can't get this. We can't get that.'" Shipping our product, getting our base spirits shipped to our co- packer. Timing just from the pandemic, everything was behind. It came over on a boat. It was sitting on a boat in a shipping container for months and we were like, " How are we supposed to launch when we wanted to launch right before the holidays? And we didn't get on shelves till December 23rd because of all of these delays." But the biggest one was we were in Iowa and our co- packer and these labels... We were like, " We're at the final base. This is great. Everything's awesome." And then they go to start putting the labels on all of our bottles and none of them laid flat.

Casey Whitley: No, they were crinkling. By the way, we don't have backup labels, right? So we've paid thousands of dollars for this.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I was going to say, and you don't get that money back once they're on crooked. That's sunk.

Casey Whitley: So we were watching this happen in real time and we were just freaking out.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You literally were there watching it happen on the bottles. That's so cruel.

Casey Whitley: It should have been very exciting.

Kendall Lockwood: It should have been exciting.

Casey Whitley: We had our phones out and we were taking all of this behind the scenes footage. As it started happening, we were like, " Oh, God. This isn't right."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I literally just have that feeling in my stomach of, " What the hell just happened?" that I can't imagine.

Kendall Lockwood: Running a race and getting to the final stretch and seeing the finish line and tripping.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. Right!

Kendall Lockwood: It was like, " What else?"

Casey Whitley: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: We cried, we were emotional, we were kind of angry, and then I think finally we were like, " What else? What else? Let's go."

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: "Come at me, bring it. We're ready." I've come to appreciate, now, that kind of struggle because to me, if you're not having some of those struggles, it's not as big as you thought it was. The bigger it's going to be, the more fight that's in it, I have found. So now when I feel the struggles coming on, I'm like, " Oh, this one's good. This program's good because it's getting fought."

Kendall Lockwood: I also think at that point we just had hit so many speed bumps, as I like to call them. Yes, we were upset and it was one thing, but there were so many other things that we overcame, and I was like, " It'll be fine." It'll be fine because it has to be fine and everything else has been fine. Even if it wasn't signed, we made it work. And it's just knowing that you have a partner that's going to build you up and you're going to build them up, even in times where it feels like you're just like, " Bring it on."

Casey Whitley: What else could possibly go wrong?

Kendall Lockwood: What else can we say but, " Bring it on"?

Casey Whitley: Yeah. I will say too. As much of a headache as we've had at times, I think it's made us better at dealing with obstacles because we've had so many now that now, we're not just immediately panicked. We're like, " Okay, what do we do about this? This is very bad," but we immediately go into problem- solving mode as opposed to sitting there and just freaking out for hours on end.

Kendall Lockwood: Oh, yeah.

Casey Whitley: We're stronger that way.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that you're even complimentary in what gets you, right? That's a beautiful partnership, that you can settle the other one down and be like, " We're good. Everything's fine. It's going to work out." That's amazing. I miss that part of being on a team. I think about growing my business for the sheer opportunity to bring on more people to have the opportunity to have those conversations.

Casey Whitley: I would never do this by myself. But if I had tried, I probably would've bowed out long ago because I didn't have someone in my corner saying, " You can do this. We're going to get through this."

Kendall Lockwood: Well, vice versa. I think that where you said that we're both people that just don't quit... And I don't want to say we don't take no for an answer, but if we want something, we really don't take no for an answer. She is so strategy- focused and she's so numbers and spreadsheet and planning- focused because that's her background. And I'm so much the creative side and, of course, I have the experience in business with spreadsheets and all that stuff. But while I've been still trying to keep Babies open and making sure Ball and Biscuit survived the pandemic... which we have and we appreciate the community so much for backing us and supporting them as much as they have... there's still obstacles and hurdles, and I'm still managing and running two full- time businesses while Casey's still doing contract event work. She's really picked up the pieces in times and places where I didn't have the time, and so I'm so appreciative that we've been able to get to where we are so far with Adult Spring Break, just solely because Casey has taken on a lot of the admin workload. And I know she really likes that and this is something we agreed to as a partnership.

Casey Whitley: Yeah!

Kendall Lockwood: But the truth is there's a lot of give and take in such a really harmonious way, and there's so much appreciation for each other. If you haven't already noticed, this isn't forced. This isn't like, " Oh, we're on a podcast so we're going to just be legally nice." My fiancé and her husband are like, "Can you guys not hang out today?" She goes on vacation with her husband and I go on vacations with my fiancé, and we're like, " Are you coming home yet?"

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love that. So the book I wrote, Write Your OWN Story, the subtitle is The Three Keys to Rise and Thrive as a Badass Career Woman, and it's story, money, and rhythm. The idea is you could have a great story, what you want to do, how you want to accomplish it, who you are, how you're going to serve your customers. That's the human- to- human aspect. But you better know your money- making model. Even if you're working for somebody else, know how you add value to the top line and the bottom line. So the complimentary nature of you two... To be able to run that money- making model with that level of scrutiny that it requires, especially as you're getting kicked off, is how you create rhythm. Because one without the other is not going to work, so you guys really are a model partnership in every way.

Casey Whitley: Thank you for saying that! I mean, we feel like it's going well.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah, we're behind closed doors so what do people see?

Casey Whitley: Yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: What's the vision of the future? So when you think about where this is going to go, give us your big vision. What could it be?

Casey Whitley: We want to be everywhere. We want to be the craft cocktail that you think of first and foremost. We know people, as we already have talked about, are much more conscious about what they're putting in their body and it's quality over quantity. We are high- end and we're premium and everything that we've seen and researched says things are continuing to go that way. We want to be that premier, ready- to- drink cocktail that you're going to think of first, that you're going to reach for first and come back for, and be everywhere. And we want to do some good while we're at it. I mean, one of our goals is to give back as we grow. A portion of our sales is going to go towards improving different organizations within our community, and hopefully that grows outside the state of Indiana and beyond.

Kendall Lockwood: Absolutely.

Casey Whitley: But we want to be big.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah. We have some really fun new formats and some new flavors on the way. We're working out just manufacturing and making sure that everything is... I mean, we take a lot of time. It took us a year- and- a- half to develop the six flavors that we have. And part of that was just not compromising on flavors and not compromising on-

Casey Whitley: Quality.

Kendall Lockwood: Quality and balance. It's amazing how many people throw money on projects like this and they just go quickly and get it knocked out in a quick manner, but they don't do it in a way that's quality. They just want to put their names on a shelf. And there's some strategy behind just a visual brand recognition. But then when you buy it and you open it and it's not delicious, you're not going to buy it again, but you bought it that one time. We want people to continue to buy multiple bottles, and they are. That was really the curating and the time that it took. And we do have new formats launching... and correct us, we're all on this similar boat... but we were those people that were Malibu Pineapple and Vodka Red Bulls, and that was in our young 20s. There's so many people that walk into Ball and Biscuit on their 21st birthday and they say, " Can I have a Sazerac? I'm like, " How do you know what a Sazerac is at 21 years old?"

Casey Whitley: You're 21!

Kendall Lockwood: What the heck?

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Because they were my kids that were watching me and my friends make craft cocktails.

Casey Whitley: Yes!

Kendall Lockwood: And that's the thing, but we really want to focus on people that can spend a little more money on quality. But at the same time, we don't want to block out the 20- somethings that are in college that don't have that big bank account where they are like, " Oh, I can buy this and keep it stocked to my fridge no problem." They're the people that are buying PBR, the people that are buying Natty Ice, or whatever it is. We still want them to have an accessible product where maybe this is their splurge.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: Maybe this is their treat for themselves. And with the new formatting, we're even trying to make it really accessible to pool parties and lakes.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Tailgates.

Kendall Lockwood: Concerts and things like that, so we're really excited for what's to come.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I love what you said about, " It's the quality of the product," because we see this with celebrities sometimes, right? They're just using their celebrity to get somebody to buy something. I've fallen into that before. You buy it and you taste it and you're like, " Oh, hell no. Keep making movies, but I'm not drinking that." And so I love that it was quality of the product first and then, " Let's build a following," because it's so damn good. That's good stuff.

Kendall Lockwood: If you have a line to Lizzo, let us know.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah.

Kendall Lockwood: Because we'd really like Lizzo to be our celebrity.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, let's put it out there into the world! Why not? My goodness, we'll have you two and Lizzo back on the show to celebrate when that happens. Yeah. Don't forget me when you're big and famous and make sure I still get dibs on this.

Kendall Lockwood: When Lizzo becomes a spokesperson for Adult Spring Break, you're the first person we're calling because this is where it manifested.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, you're part of this manifestation now. I love that. One thing I just want to dig into a little bit more... because it is so important to the audience that I serve with professionals... is this idea that taking a break isn't selfish. And the fact that you put that on the label, and that's like one of the first things you see on your website. When did that become part of the brand? Do you remember the conversation when that came up?

Kendall Lockwood: The name Adult Spring Break actually comes from an annual trip that we take with two of our other best friends from high school every year. We go to Palm Springs and we really take that time of year for us to take a breather, to take a step back. For us, an adult spring break was that moment where we took a breath. But the thing is with that, we want people to know that taking a break doesn't have to just be an adult spring breaker. It doesn't just have to be a vacation. Maybe, you have a house full of children and you have a sip of ASB locked in your pantry. Or we all know as parents, bathroom time is sacred in your bathtub, or when the kids finally go down. I mean, at the end of a long day or at the end of just having a moment. Sometimes, having a sip of a cocktail that just makes your shoulders drop and forces you to take a deep breath. And I'm not saying alcohol needs to be your crutch or your staple, but we all have cuddled up to a bottle of wine, or the end of the week where we're looking forward to... I know that I'm not a person that drinks a lot throughout the week. And on the weekends, I tend to have time with Casey, or we plan to have a dinner. But we tend to have a cocktail or two beforehand. And so it's about you taking a break no matter what that situation is, not just a spring break. So we really love that our entire phrase of taking a break isn't selfish. It's self- care. I'm a businesswoman. Casey is a businesswoman. We're all hustling and bustling and so often, we forget to take time for ourselves or we make excuses and say we don't deserve that, and that's not the case. And on any level, it doesn't have to be drinking Adult Spring Break, but take a break for yourself because it's not selfish and we shouldn't be adolescents and be in high school, or junior high or middle school, in order to take a spring break for ourselves.

Casey Whitley: Yeah, I think that kind of the play on words there is important because when you're young, the breaks are built in for you. They're part of your life whether you like it or not, whether you stay home or you go somewhere fun. You have that break built in. As adults, you have to work twice as hard and do three times as much planning to carve out that time for yourself. And we hear it a million times, but it bears repeating. You can't serve others best until you serve yourself first and take care of yourself first and your needs. So yeah, it doesn't mean you have to have a cocktail involved with that, but the idea is taking a break isn't selfish. It's self- care. And in fact, it is quite necessary that you have that time that is sacred to you. Whether it means you're going on a trip with your friends or you have the house to yourself for a night, or you're reading a book in the morning before the house is awake and alive. Everyone has a version of that.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's the number one thing that I work with with my clients. So in my book, I have a framework of what it takes to thrive. And just above food, nutrition, hydration, is stillness. Our brain needs us to just be still and take that break. And without it, our nervous system just stays so jacked up that we can't be creative. We don't really have loving relationships. It's critical to our wellbeing. So I love the message. I love that that's a part of your brand. Super important.

Kendall Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, we never shut things off. Our phones are constantly on us. We're constantly checking our emails. I mean, do you remember when it was just landlines? And back in the day, if you couldn't get ahold of somebody, you waited until it was an appropriate time to call or email somebody. That doesn't happen anymore, and we feel so guilty all the time for not getting to someone in a couple hour fashion. But when did that become the norm and why?

Casey Whitley: Yeah.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. I hope that we are doing our part with your message and my message to start to flip that script back to, " It's not even an option if you want to live a great life. It's a requirement." And I think that taking an actual spring break, " Go on vacation with your girlfriends or with a bunch of friends and leave the kids behind. Leave the job behind and go have fun," is another message that we need to be just shouting from the rooftops. Because think of how many times when you all were on that adult spring break that cool ideas came to mind for your business, or for your relationships, when you just made the space to go back to being you and being fun. It's so important.

Casey Whitley: We always leave there feeling like recharged. One of our other friends we go with is a nurse. Her job is incredibly stressful. Kendall's job... Her jobs are incredibly stressful, and then our other friend is an interior designer. He has his own business with his business partner. That's time that we've carved out that we are truly just connecting with each other. " How are you? What else is going on in your life? What are you wanting to get out of this year?" We have those deep conversations that you just can't really achieve for whatever reason, for the rest of the year. So it is incredibly important. And again, whatever version of that you have, you got to have something that gives you that recharge.

Kendall Lockwood: Human connection on that trip is so important for us. And it's really funny because I think the people in our lives that are either professional people or our personal family, they all know how important this trip is for us every year. And it's like, " Go. When are you going on your annual trip? When are you taking that time?" Because you're right, it does change our mindset, and we do have brilliant ideas. And I will say that there's a little bit of childhood regression. And not in an irresponsible way, but in a way where we watch stupid movies and put on face masks.

Casey Whitley: We let loose a little bit.

Kendall Lockwood: inaudible and we play beer pong in the garage.

Casey Whitley: Yeah, we do!

Kendall Lockwood: Who does that anymore? But we definitely have a bit of regression and put on old music we listened to in high school and crank it up. Not to be super nostalgic or live in the past, but it's fun to just kind of forget that you have all these responsibilities for a couple of days.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: One of the exercises I do with my clients is to find out what 14- year- old them was doing for fun because that's a clue. 14 years old is when you first start making more autonomous decisions. You don't have to go to the grocery store with Mom and Dad. You can pick your own music. You're just kind of making your own decisions for the first time, and it's a real clue to the things that you love, not what somebody expected you to do. And oftentimes, it'll come up like dancing or music, or something like that. And my next question is, " Are you dancing now? Are you painting now? Are you reading those kinds of books now?" And the number of times that I'll just see their face go, " Why aren't I doing that?" And many of them go back and take dance classes or sign up for an art class, or start to do some of those things again. It's amazing the impact that it has on their wellbeing, just to revisit the joy of who they really are.

Casey Whitley: That's incredible. I love that exercise.

Kendall Lockwood: That's a really amazing exercise.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah. It's super fun. Super fun. Okay! So we have a date that when Lizzo joins, you're coming back.

Kendall Lockwood: Absolutely.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Absolutely. We are going to just blow this brand up like nobody's business and tell all of our friends about it. And honestly, y'all... Delicious. I am bougie and picky and my friends know that about me, so I have zero hesitation with just loading up and taking these bottles anywhere I go to share with my friends and make sure everybody knows about Adult Spring Break. This is good shit, y'all.

Kendall Lockwood: Thank you.

Casey Whitley: Thank you. That means a lot to us. We really appreciate that. We're so glad you like it.

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thanks again for being here.

Casey Whitley: Thanks for having us!

Kendall Lockwood: Thanks for having us!

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thanks for

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: listening to this episode. I would love it if you would leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, and then go to wethrive. live. First thing you'll see is a place to drop your email and join the movement. I'll send you tools that you can use to thrive in life and business.

Speaker 1: (singing)

Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Hey y'all, fun fact. If you like the music for the podcast, that is actually my son, Cameron Hession. And I would love it if you would go to Spotify and iTunes and follow him, and download some of his other music. My personal favorite is TV Land.