D.R. Fay, Mouthy Broad Media

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is D.R. Fay, the founder of Mouthy Broad Media, a podcast production company that specializes in editing, graphic design, and strategy. DR is based in Nashville, DR, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:59] D.R. Fay: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

[00:01:01] Sanjay Parekh: It's great actually having you on here because not often do I get to talk to somebody else that also does podcasts while I'm doing podcasts, so I'm sure we're going to get into interesting stuff. But before we get into that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:15] D.R. Fay: Both my parents were jazz musicians and so it wasn’t too terrible of a throw to think that I was going to go follow in their footsteps. And I wound up singing what is now referred to as the American Songbook, and I traveled all over Asia for about eight or nine years. I got hugely popular and homesick really bad. And so, when I came back to the states, I vowed that I was never going to get on a plane ever again, this is where I was going to live, I don't care if I live out of a cardboard box, I did the whole thing. And I thought, "Well, where could I go in the United States and still stay in the music business, but not have to travel? What can I do?" And I thought, "I know, I'm going to become a songwriter. I'm going to move to Nashville, Tennessee." So about 25 years ago I drove here as soon as I passed the welcome to Nashville sign. I was like, "Oh, hallelujah. They let me in, and you really cannot spit in this town without getting a songwriter wet. Every single person in this town is a songwriter."

And because of that, you just have to hustle a lot more. And quite frankly, the hustle was just not in me after what I'd been through overseas. So, you have to pivot. And so, I pivot because, the rent goes on, you have to eat, the lights have to be turned on.

So, I pivot, I did a pivot to corporate. And as it turns out, my people skills that I had as an entertainer worked very well in customer service. So, I did customer service for a long time and sometimes people get very comfortable in their own misery, you come home from work, and you complain.

You don't complain enough to actually go out and look for something else. You're just happy complaining, that kind of weird kind of window of time. And there comes a time when I get tired of hearing myself complain. So that's when I threw up my hands and said, "Okay, no more."

And I had, a couple of years ago, I had thought about this whole VA thing. I've heard a lot about VA, virtual assistant. I got to look into that. And that it lost its flame and it just fell by the wayside. And so, when I got tired of hearing myself complain, I thought to myself, "Whatever happened to that VA thing?" I got to look back into that. And so, I got a little bit more proactive. I found a course that was pretty expensive for what I was doing at the time. And I enrolled in that online course, and it just wasn't sparking for me. It was still like a round peg in a square hole. And until the creator of that course put in a tiny little sliver of a module about podcast management, I took that and boom, that just lit a fire in me.

And it was pretty amazing. That set me on to find a more robust, all-inclusive course all about podcast producing and management. And so here I am. 

[00:04:33] Sanjay Parekh: There you are. Let me ask you one question about being homesick. What was it that made you homesick? Was it the food? Was it the place?

What was it that really set you on that path? 

[00:04:45] D.R. Fay: Well, I love animals, specifically Siamese cats. I'm a Siamese cat fanatic. And after being in Asia for, I guess I was on my sixth or seventh year, and I didn't have any animals. I couldn't have any animals because I was doing too much traveling around.

And for an animal person to not have pets, not to go home to a dog or a cat and have that communication that you have with your animals because you're one on one with them and the whole bit, it really impacted me. Not being able to call my sister and say, "Hey, let's do lunch or, come on."

It's the little things that keep piling up that kind of just envelop you and I even bought a calendar — this makes me sound like the old cat woman, I'm so sorry — I even bought a calendar with cats on it. And it had, there was one month that had two Siamese kittens on it. And I used that as my creative visualization.

When I get home, I'm getting those two kittens. I'm going to walk into my apartment. I dreamed of having an apartment. I didn't dream of having my own house. I'm going to walk into my apartment barefoot. It's going to be wall to wall shag carpeting. I just really worked up this whole visualization.

What's going to be like when I come home? 

[00:06:12] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. There you go. So, is this, it sounds like this is your first kind of entrepreneurial venture, was it? Or did you have entrepreneurial stuff in the background? 

[00:06:21] D.R. Fay: And I started this business at the age of 62 when everyone around me was thinking about retiring in the next 12 months or so. I was thinking about, "Oh man, I got to get clients and I got to meet this deadline and I got to study up on how to edit and I've got to..." I had all of these things lined up and thank God, at the time I lived with the man who's now my husband, we were living together and he took on everything financial. I mean everything. And if it wasn't for him doing that, I would not have been able to dedicate 14 hours a day, literally 14 hours a day into how to do editing, how to post for promotional posts, how to do this, how to do that, reading books. And I just completely dove into the pool.

[00:07:22] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Interesting. Love the idea that you've started what a lot of people consider later in life. So how do you view your work at this then? So, you're saying that other people are thinking about retirement. It doesn't look like to me that you're thinking about retirement, so, how are you viewing this? So, is this like your forever and last job or is it a retirement? 

[00:07:45] D.R. Fay: It is indeed for my forever and last job, my Medicare at this point — I'm not sure when you're going to be dropping this episode — but my Medicare actually kicks in 13 days. I'm counting down every day. Every day.

I asked Alexa, how many days until? So, she's counting down with me. 

[00:08:11] Sanjay Parekh: And it's a funny thing actually, because health insurance is one of those big issues for entrepreneurs. And if you've got Medicare, then that issue is solved. Most regular people, in quotes, get their health insurance through their jobs.

And those of us that are entrepreneurs, there's nobody to give us that. So maybe you've life hacked your way into solving that problem as an entrepreneur, right? 

[00:08:35] D.R. Fay: Exactly. You've just got to wait long enough. Just wait long enough. 

[00:08:40] Sanjay Parekh: That's right. 

[00:08:41] D.R. Fay: It's great. 

[00:08:42] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. When you were starting this out and you decided you know what, "I'm going to go all in," you'd never started a business before.

Was there anything that made you nervous or concerned about trying to take this on your own? 

[00:08:53] D.R. Fay: The only thing that made me nervous was, I couldn't get it fast enough. I wanted to earn money so I could start contributing to the household. Because like I said, Brian, he took over everything and I had that guilt like, "God, I really want to contribute."

But it is what it is. I delved into it 14, 16 hours. I lived it and breathed it. And again, if it wasn't for him, I would not have been able to do it. A lot of people who saw my first post about "Hey, does anyone know anything about this, production podcast?" I know podcasting because I've heard of them and I listen to them all the time, but I don't know the production.

So, when they saw my first post, compared to what I'm posting now where I'm talking about clients that I have and certain things that I'm doing that is, people say, "Oh my God, you've done this so quickly." And it's because I've really enveloped everything about podcasting. 

[00:09:57] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901.

Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:10:13] Sanjay Parekh: Let's change gears a little bit and talk about the stress of managing and owning a business and starting a business from scratch. You're full time, right? In the podcast business full time. So how do you manage that stress? Because yeah, you want to go fast, but there's also like this pressure that it causes as well. So how do you manage that for yourself? 

[00:10:37] D.R. Fay: There's different degrees of stress for me; there's the stress that debilitates you and then there's the stress that kind of spurs you on and it's the fire under your butt. And there's the good stress if you're doing something that you really love and that you're good at. I don't know if you can call it stress. Is there a word in the English language that — I don't know if you can quantify it. 

[00:11:06] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So do you like think about kind of balance and the time that you spend on the business? Like, how do you think about those boundaries for yourself? And, along with that, do you spend time on health and wellness and taking care of yourself? And how do you fit that into the day? 

[00:11:23] D.R. Fay: Okay, now we're getting into it, Sanjay. You've now opened the can and you have to live with it. When anyone who starts a business, they are dedicating a lot of time to it, especially if they don't have that nine to fiver, as I'm putting in the quotes, they don't have that nine to fiver obligation to put on and if they don't have children.

That was me, no nine to fiver, no children, and a husband that was taking care of all the necessities. So that left me an enormous amount of time to study and to do what I needed to do for the podcasting thing. And as I sit in the computer chair and learn, I could tell that my muscles were getting, I don't know if atrophied is the right word, but they weren't firing, my muscles.

My gluteus maximus was just not firing the muscles. And as a result, I have developed something called gluteus medius tendinosis, and people are calling it now the dead butt syndrome. Which is kind of funny, that's it's much easier to say than gluteus medius tendinosis. That's for sure. 

But it's a very serious thing and now I can only get around with a walker. It's really so weird, it has the sensation of, if you had the deepest, darkest, hugest bruise on your arm, and someone went, "Hey, come here," and they grabbed your arm, then they grabbed that bruise and they put some pressure on it.

Yeah. That's what my thighs, front and back feel like. And it's the weirdest sensation, but it is. I can't walk. And this is coming from someone who used to dance. People will say, "Oh, you can exercise that off." Well, that would have been great advice that I could have taken a year ago.

But now I'm so far into the syndrome, into the dead butt syndrome that, I couldn't get on the floor to exercise. And if I did get on the floor, I wouldn't be able to get up and I can't get into any of the positions. Everything that I'm reading says massage. Do you go to someone and say, "Hey, do you do butt massages?"

So, it's a weird thing. So, what I did was, I'm always trying to come up and hack different things. So, there is a very popular neck massager that they advertise on TikTok. I bought it for 14 dollars and I take that massager, and it's an awkward thing because it's technically supposed to go around your neck and draped down, but I take it and I put it on my thighs. 

And it's, I can tell as soon as I stop it and get up from my chair, I'm walking like 85 percent better than I was when I was sitting down. It's amazing. It is amazing. My husband and I have decided that we're going to keep this up every single day to try and get to a point where maybe I can do those exercises.

But yeah, boundaries are something that I have always had trouble with. I tell my clients, set those boundaries. And this is coming from someone who has completely blown up all her boundaries. I do stuff that I shouldn't. "Can you get this podcast out for me tomorrow?" "Sure. Okay. I can do that for you." You're constantly in that ‘I want to please you’ thing, especially when you're just opening up a business.

[00:15:13] Sanjay Parekh: In terms of this and these kind of health challenges you've got, how does sleep factor in, into like your day? I’ve got to imagine that affects your sleep when you have this syndrome happening. How do you make sure you get enough sleep? And it's easy for us entrepreneurs, like exactly what you said, everybody else's priorities become our priorities and we say yes to things that then impinge on life essentially. So how do you manage that for yourself?

[00:15:42] D.R. Fay: Well, I'm going to open up this answer by saying I'm 65, and when you're 65, sleep is relative. A good night's sleep could be four hours, a good night's sleep could be eight hours. I used to be in the nightlife and I was entertaining and I'd sleep until noon.

That is not the case anymore. I wake up at four in the morning thinking, "Well, I'm up, I might as well get some work done. Maybe get ahead a little bit." I have been known to get done with my work and say, "I think it's nap time.” So, I might take a little nap that starts at 10 in the morning, because I've been up since 4:30, right? I don't have a regular time and I would like to get back to that part of my life where I'm a little bit more regulated. I just don't have it right now. 

[00:16:36] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I guess that comes in seasons of life, right?

So sometimes as an entrepreneur and it doesn't and then other times it does and that's all what we strive to be like, if everything was perfect, everybody would do it. There's always challenges as an entrepreneur and it's just how you deal with those challenges and how you move forward.

So, thinking about that, you've learned a lot now over time. Is there something that you would go back in time and do differently knowing what you know now? 

[00:17:04] D.R. Fay: Oh, yeah. I would definitely take those breaks and walk around the house much more often, much more often. The thing about sitting in your chair for 14, 15 hours a day, the fact is, that I loved what I was doing. I loved finding out about it and it was not drudgery. I wasn't being tortured, so that's one of the problems is that I loved it so much, but I should have broken away from it and thought about, this sitting thing could really be detrimental. 

[00:17:42] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. 

[00:17:43] D.R. Fay: So, I would definitely do that different.

And I would have started a lot earlier than 62 years old. That's for sure. 

[00:17:50] Sanjay Parekh: Interesting. Yeah, this whole discussion is reminding me I've got a sit stand desk and maybe I need to make sure I put it on stand more often of the day. 

[00:17:59] D.R. Fay: Not only that but to put one foot in front of the other and propel yourself forward.

There's you know.

[00:18:06] Sanjay Parekh: A little bit of walking. 

[00:18:06] D.R. Fay: Yeah do that. 

[00:18:08] Sanjay Parekh: That's a good thing, too. So last question for you, if you were talking to somebody who was thinking about taking a leap like you did, and maybe was hesitant, what advice would you give that person?

[00:18:20] D.R. Fay: Okay, I have two pieces of advice. One is for the younger person who is thinking about pursuing their dreams. I regret not doing this sooner I had always listened to podcasts, but I was asking questions like, "Why is that audio so bad?” and “Why did the interviewer ask the same question twice surely they're not listening to their guests?" And you know, so I had that ear of a producer.

So, if you have something in you that is innate that you feel, "God, I think I can make some money at this." Do it. By God, do it. Don't wait until you're 62 to do it. And then, my other piece of advice is for the person who is close to retirement or has retired and they feel maybe their value has waned.

Maybe they feel there's just something more in them. Don't let it stop you. There is still stuff out there for you to do. I just got so tired of being older and having my immediate superior, who was always younger than me. And they had so much say on my time and what I wear and where I was going and what I was doing.

And all this time I'm like, "I could be your mother for God's sake." So, I just kept thinking of that and don't think that you're not valued, you have value you can still learn. That was a big issue. You can still learn. Yes. It's technical, but you can still learn you just have to dive in and enjoy it.

[00:20:08] Sanjay Parekh: I love it D.R., this has been fantastic. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online? 

[00:20:14] D.R. Fay: mouthybroadmedia.com, you might forget me, which I don't know how you can, because I'm the old woman rocking the purple hair. But certainly you're not going to forget my business name is Mouthy Broad Media.

[00:20:27] Sanjay Parekh: I love it. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. 

[00:20:29] D.R. Fay: Thank you. I really appreciate you. 

[00:20:31] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.