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Donโt Rush Me is a podcast about purposefully creating more ease in your mind, body, and business. No one likes to rush through a meal, rush out the door, or rush to get ready. So why would we rush into work? You'll walk away from each episode with a little way to incorporate more ease or slowness to your life. Itโs the small, easy things that can make a huge impact on our minds, bodies, and businesses.
โHow changing your lifestyle can result in a the riving ritual based business. This is don't rush me.
โ Hey, I'm Maria Spear Ollis and I hate. It never yields good things to rush. Whether it's rushing to finish a client project, or rushing to put on eyeliner. But when we have 10, 000 things on our minds at any given moment, it's hard not to fall into that habit. I've had a lot of very specific, technical training in my life.
Hello, music school and law school, but none of that training prepared me for being a business owner, a lawyer, a wife, a mom, or really just a functional adult woman with a huge to do list. I'm no guru, but I created Don't Rush Me as a way to talk more about the slow, simple tools you can start using today to make your life and business life a little easier.
So whether you're a healer, a coach, or a business owner or professional craving that slow down, come with me as we learn about the Small, easy things that can make a huge difference in your mind, body, or business. I want you to think about your day-to-day life and think about any rituals that you work into your day. And I don't just mean lighting a candle or doing an Oracle spread or those things that we think of when we think of the word ritual. But things like having a morning cup of coffee. Or drinking a glass of water, first thing in the morning, or having a glass of wine at night. Those are little rituals. And part of my discussion with today's guest is how these little rituals work into our lives and how we can change some of those rituals that maybe they're no longer serving us in a certain season of life. In other words, there are things that we do automatically without thinking about them because we are so used to the ritual of it all. And I'll let Stephanie tell you her story, but as she entered a new season of her life, She realized a certain ritualistic habit was no longer serving her.
And that ritual was enjoying an alcoholic beverage. Well, she made a change, realized it was no longer serving her and started a business called kill joy. Which is Nashville Tennessee's first and only booze free beverage shop. But before we talk a little more about ritual and your lifestyle infusing itself into your business. Here's a little bit about Stephanie. After growing up in Nashville and studying psychology, Stephanie moved overseas, where she lived for 13 years while helping us service members get college degrees. During that time she visited 53 countries competed in the German roller Derby championships. Got her master's degree in human relations and went to India to get certified as a yoga teacher. After moving back to Nashville, hiking, the whole Appalachian trail and working at hands on Nashville for several years, she started her own business. Called kill joy. She is passionate about creating community and helping people experience vibrant health through an alcohol free lifestyle.
Oh, but before we get into my conversation with Stephanie, here is your holistic somatic history lesson on adaptogens. . ๐ Adaptogens are certain plants and mushrooms. They're technically a class of herbal remedy. And they help our bodies regulate and adapt to stressors and maintain our health. Adaptogens have been used for centuries since at least around 3000 BCE in China. But the term adaptogen is relatively young. It was introduced in 1947 by a Soviet scientist. According to an article on pub med adaptogens increase the body's resistance, not only to physical, but also to chemically and biologically harmful agents, including stress. Jen Singh is one example of an adaptogen it's hailed for its ability to improve mental clarity. Ashwagandha is another and is said to have rejuvenating properties and might support the immune system after an illness. Holy Bazell AKA Tulsi. Is used in Ayurvedic medicine for its ability to foster clarity of mind, resilience to stress a healthy immune response.
And it is said to have anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties. All of this is not medical advice, of course, but I take my ashwagandha every day and I swear I can feel a difference in my stress response when I don't take it.
Hope you enjoyed that history lesson. Now here's my conversation with Stephanie still.
Hi Stephanie. Welcome to the podcast. Hi. Thanks. Happy to be here. I am so excited to have you here. We've kind of known each other back and forth for a couple of months and you have such an interesting story. I'm so excited for everyone to hear about it. Yeah. Thank you. It's wonderful to be connecting with you.
Yeah. So I would love for you to say kind of your background and how it is. I know that you've lived internationally and all of these things and how it is that you came to doing the work that you do today with Killjoy. Yes, I have a very diverse background. I am not a person who sticks with one thing for very long.
It seems like I grew up here in Nashville and then right after I graduated from college, I moved to Germany and I stayed overseas for about 14 years, so mostly in Germany. lived about a year in Japan. I lived in Afghanistan for about a year and then decided to move back to Nashville in 2015.
Just a lot of things were changing. And yeah, I came back and kind of wasn't sure what to do. I'd been, I'd been working for a university that had a contract with the military. And so when I came back here, I tried my hand at real estate cause everyone said, Oh, you're really outgoing. You should try this.
Did it didn't really think it was for me. So then I left and hiked the whole Appalachian trail. Smith said, you know, why not? And then after that, I really kind of settled, settled down in Nashville. I started. When I came back, my brother had just started a marketing agency. So I helped him kind of grow that from a one man show into a full on business.
And then I realized that really, like, wasn't the right role for me. And I wanted to do something that helped people. So I went to work at Hands On Nashville, worked at Hands On Nashville for about four years. But in 2020, I was at Hands On Nashville and I had a baby in 2019. Then we had the tornado, which was huge in my world.
And then we had the pandemic and my drinking just escalated. You know, I'd always been a drinker. I'm a gregarious kind of a person. And it's never been, never been a great thing, probably that I've been drinking too much, but it definitely became over the top during the pandemic.
And I was having, you know, at home with a new baby, And my 40th birthday was looming and I just had this kind of moment of reckoning with my life. Like, okay, this isn't, this isn't working. This is not how we're moving forward into a new decade. So on my 40th birthday, I gave myself a big gift and I decided to quit drinking alcohol.
So that was that represented a big shift in my life and it was during the pandemic. So it wasn't, it wasn't that hard because it really wasn't going out in general, you know, the temptation. Was a lot lower. And once I started getting back out into the world again, I, I sort of missed alcohol because when you go out and socialize, you just feel maybe kind of childish or something if you're just like drinking water.
So I started to learn about alcohol alternatives and I really, really liked them. I was very excited that you could go out and have a glass of non alcoholic champagne and like still participate in the ritual of what people were doing, but these products were super hard to find in Nashville. And I was afraid to order them.
online because a lot of them are expensive and if you haven't tried them, whatever. And so I just kept wishing, gosh, I wish Nashville had a place where you could go and there would be someone who was knowledgeable who could help you with this. And so eventually I just realized I think that person is me.
Yeah. And so in last year, at the beginning of the year, I got started and the shop officially opened on April 1st of 2023. So we have like killjoy is kind of like a liquor store. It's just a shop that has beer and wine and spirits and functional beverages, but everything is alcohol free. And I love the name.
It's the perfect name. Gosh, so that's so interesting with your experience during the pandemic and all that. And kind of, it's funny, these like big, you know, a big birthday or something to kind of say, okay, like, what am I doing here? Yeah, to get, I really, I got my whole mind aligned about who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go.
And it's, you mentioned too, I mean, I, I haven't, I, I, I've been sober curious, but I've also been pregnant. And so I know the feeling of going out and it's like, all right, like, what am I going to hold on? What's my accessory here? You know, like, what do I, what do I have to kind of clutch onto while everyone else is kind of like toasting and everything.
It's, it's a strange, Yeah, I think it's, it's very ritualistic actually. And I think a lot about rituals because I think that they can help people who are sober and sober curious. But that drinking is a ritual. When my son was like one year old, we would drink coffee in the morning out of a mug and he wanted a mug.
You know, so we got him a little tiny mug and we just put milk or water or something in it, but he would like have coffee with us. And that was really important to him before he even had words. I have a two year old and he's like, I want some coffee. Cause he sees us with our little mugs. It's just, you know, it's camaraderie.
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I think what happens is if you quit drinking, suddenly you're really othered. You're not a part of that ritual. And that is a part of, and I think that keeps people stuck even if they think drinking is not serving them. They don't know how to get out of that. And alcohol alternatives have been pretty amazing for helping to bridge that gap.
And I think two bars and restaurants are getting a little bit more, at least in Nashville, it's like all of a sudden everyone's got a mocktail list and they're like cool and fun and delicious. It's delicious. Hell yeah. Well, so you have a physical space. Can you tell us just from a business perspective, because this podcast is also kind of about, you know, kind of bridging and bringing more ease into your life and into your business.
And so what has, have been some of the challenges that you faced in, in starting this business? Oh yeah. Well, I love having the physical space. I've thought, I've thought a lot about that. I'm lucky because I've got kind of a hole in the wall, so it's pretty affordable. And it's, and I think the physical space is really important for community building, which is a part of what I do.
And part of that means throwing events. So there's not a lot of events in Nashville that you can go to where there's absolutely no alcohol. And our mission is really just, it doesn't matter if you're sober, sober curious, if you drink, whatever, we just want to provide an option for people to come to events that don't have alcohol.
It also turns out if I do them like at my shop, then it's pretty good for sales. So I love, so this really helps me because there's two things that I love. It's building community and it's, you know seeing my business succeed. The challenge has been how much to do, because that's been, that's been my biggest challenge is finding balance because throwing events.
Is really exhausting. It's a lot of work. The actual event itself is not so much work, but the promotion, the setting up, the communication. Oh, I know, I know all about that. So I, I have found myself a little bit overextended several times, which is not at all where I wanted to be. But also this is the first year of my business.
So finding that balance of how much do I do. When to pull back how to prevent burnout and keep this thing going for the long term. I think is my biggest challenge. Yep. And you know, what day of the week and what time is best for everyone and just all of that, all of those considerations. I, there's so much that goes into it.
And I'm always thinking about the like psychology of people and like, what does I'm there in and what do they want? How do we get there? And do I send a poll? You know, and what kind of events are you having there? Are they mostly social or tell us about them? Yeah. We have tried, and that's the other thing.
It's been the first year. So we've tried everything. A lot of social events. We've been doing a happy hour. Every other week, and usually we feature different brands, so people get the opportunity to try something at a very, you know, low risk. It's just, you know, get one glass of something. So the happy hours are very social.
We have done trivia night. We have done karaoke. We have done book club. I have book club today. Last night we had an event. We partnered with Folks Table, and so it was kind of like a They, they bring people together and sit at tables and like play games, but we had 60 people. Wow. And we served three drinks.
We served 180 drinks last night in about an hour, which was bonkers. But it was really fun. I think people really enjoyed it. So we've done a lot of collaborations stuff like that. And we've done sound baths. With cocktails. We've done some like mindset workshops. I'm trying to think we've just, we've done a lot of things.
And that's been a lot of them have worked really well. I was trying to have a dance party, a big dance party for dry January, but I had to postpone it because of the snow and people really weren't signing up to come in February. So I just decided to cancel that. I don't know if people are ready to dance over or not.
That's the challenge. That's a different challenge. Yeah. What has been the biggest surprise? What did you what? What went beyond your expectation? Let's see. I think just. The response of people, you know, I, I knew this was kind of a polarizing thing when I first opened, like some people really don't understand it.
But in general, I haven't encountered like any, any real negativity. The people that come into our shop are so amazing. Like, I absolutely love working in the shop because of the people that I get to meet and get to talk to. It's all people who are just. working on themselves, whatever that looks like.
And they want to talk about it. And I think I've just been surprised by how wonderful and warm and welcoming Nashville has been to this, where I kind of thought, well, Nashville's not as progressive as other cities. We may just, we may not get it. And I think Nashville gets it. Self awareness is such a wonderful trait in, in someone.
And I feel like it really shines through when you, when you get into a conversation with someone. And I bet there are quite a few self aware folks that come into Killjoy. Absolutely. Well tell us about the roller derby.
Sure. I, I actually started, so I lived in Japan for a year and when I first moved there, I saw a sign that was like roller derby team. And I was like, well, I don't know anyone that sounds fun. And it was some people who were trying to start a roller derby team and it was great, but we, nobody knew what we were doing.
And our first practice was in a high rise. It's in the hallway, like skating in the hallway of an apartment building. And then I was only in Japan for about a year. So I, I learned the basics of Derby and did some clinics and stuff like that. And then I ended up moving back to Germany and I joined a team there.
And it was amazing. I played, I don't know, for about three years with this team, my roller Derby name was rude McClanahan. I'm a fan of the golden girls. Hmm. Rue McClanahan is a Blanche. Some, some people get that right away and other people don't, but that's, so my nickname has been rude since that was about in 2011 that I started playing Derby and then I, I pretty much stopped when I came back to Nashville because the team here was so hardcore team in Germany was definitely I mean, we practice three times a week, but like when we had a wave out, they were in Paris or.
Ireland or Barcelona, you know, and here they were like, all right, well, you're going to have to spend the weekend in Clarksville. And I was just like, yeah, so I'm, I'm, I think I'm done. It's really fun. It is hard on your body. Oh, I bet. So that's so interesting. Well, speaking about bodies I would love to know just as a business person and getting into the mindset of, you know, running a business, how have you, what, what not habits, I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, but what's something that are kind of things that are kind of non negotiables for you.
When you're in your day to day and kind of running your business. Yeah, you know I would say less, it has less to do with being a business owner and more to do with what I considered like healing myself and my recovery from, from drinking, because I really realized that I needed a lot of tools to do that.
And I've, I've been doing yoga For a long time. I actually did. I'm actually trained as a yoga instructor. But you know, I was doing yoga and drinking and doing this and this. And so I'm really getting into a morning routine where in the mornings I do, I do yoga, I meditate, and I write in my journal if I have time.
Sometimes I do an abbreviated version of that, but I try to do that every day. And these, these little rituals and touchstones, touchstones are are huge for me. And if I don't do them, and that ha it happens a lot where like, my kid wakes up in the middle of the night or early or something, and you just like, can't do the thing you thought you were going to be able to do.
My day does not go as well. I'm not, I'm not grounded. I'm just quicker to react. So I have found that for me, like my morning routine is not negotiable. Running on the weekends, I do a lot of trail running now. That's been one of my favorite things is being out in the woods and I have a lot of wonderful friends and we go out there for hours and talk and it's just absolute therapy.
And that was great. I trained for a race last year. So I was able to do that pretty much every weekend and figuring out how to get in like a long, a long time in the woods, the actual exercise doesn't matter as much as spending a long time in the woods every weekend is another thing and giving me that to look forward to and time that I know I'm going to get to spend with my friends connecting honestly, those are things that helped me with my business tremendously.
And it's so funny because even the trail running community have become great collaborators for my business. And I never, that wasn't my intention at all. I was just out there to enjoy my time in the woods, but then it's like, Oh, guess what? I own this business and I do this and we should collab on this.
And you've got an hour to sit and talk about it and what that could look like. So Yeah, you just never know where that's going to come from, but I have found that kind of taking care of myself and I mean, giving myself permission to put myself first as a woman and as a mother is really hard to do.
But I think that, you know, It's you have to do it, especially if you're somebody who's trying to use healthy coping mechanisms. Yes. It's funny what you said about the trip. I was going to say trailblazing community trail trail running community is, you know, you do these things for yourself and I can relate in terms of creative soul sisterhood.
You know, you start something because you really want it for yourself because you need it. And then it's like, Oh, These other people need it too. And isn't that funny. And then you all kind of bond over this thing and, you know, the rest is kind of history.
Well, Stephanie let everyone know where we can find you online. Sure. The best places on Instagram, we are at killjoy underscore Nash. Our website is killjoyclub. com. There are a couple of other killjoys out there. So make sure you go to killjoy club. We do sell everything online and we do ship. But we would love for you to come into the shop and come say hi to us or come to some of our events.
I am taking a break in February. I'm not sure when this is airing, but we've been going so hard in December and January that I am in. In the spirit of self care taking a little break from events to just be a normal person for a minute. And then we'll get right back into it in March. It's great. I love that.
I support that you deserve a break. I really do. Well, thanks, Stephanie. Thank you for being here.
I hope that that inspired you. Not only to take a second look at any rituals or ritualistic behaviors you have in your own life, but to dream into what things in your life might inspire a new business idea or a new take on your business. And as I am recording this, , Stephanie is actually raising money to launch Nashville's first ever booze free bar.
So I will drop a link in the show notes on how you can support that endeavor. If you are local to Nashville, or if you just want to support a fellow female owned business. I hope you enjoyed this episode and Hey, if you learn something new, you want to tag me at, Hey, so Maria that's H E Y S oh, Maria.
And I will see you next time.