We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Barbe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emily, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
My profession is in financial planning, and while it is considered the ‘soft side’ of the finance industry, I’m still buried in spreadsheets, numbers, and analyses on a daily basis. However, I feel that I am a very creative person, so I have sought outlets inside of my career within the confines of our heavy regulatory environment as well as outside of my day job. My biggest creative outlet and avenue for keeping my artistic affinity alive is my wedding and event venue that I started with my husband as a passion project. The venue stretches my imagination, causes me to think of creative solutions before, during, and after events, and allows me to express my creativity through our advertising and community outreach platforms. Spending time outside in our venue, which is filled with thousands of vibrant tropical plants, and unplugging on trips and activities with my family and friends are two ways I continually replenish my creative juices.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
As humans, we’re multi-dimensional. We’re complex creatures with many aptitudes, interests, and behaviors, some of which can contradict each other at times. One of the decisions I made that surprised my family most was when I decided to go into wealth management and financial advising right after college. My parents always thought I’d end up in the Peace Corps or being a creative director at an art institution or marketing agency. However, when I unexpectedly found myself as an employee at a well-known brokerage house, I quickly took to the fast-paced, ever-changing, people-centric industry. I’ve always enjoyed helping people and solving problems, and I feel as a financial planner, I am able to do that every day of the week.
Fast-forward to the onset of Covid, I found myself in Key West, feeling burnt out from the hustle and bustle of NYC and demand of Wall Street. While “stranded” in the Conch Republic, I met my now husband, Mike, and the rest is history! Like me, he has a lot of energy, and we both enjoy channeling that energy into productive ventures, so when we bought a 5-acre property in the agricultural district of Miami, we turned a portion of the property into a wedding and events venue, where we’re able to host all sorts of events.
Opening the venue also came as a shock to my family. While I’ve always loved the arts (to include working in a 3,000+ seat auditorium all throughout college), this seemed like such a different path than I’d been down before. Finance and events are in different industries and a 5-acre rural property is vastly different than a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. However, the longer I’ve been building and running the venue, the more similarities I see between my career in financial planning and my labor of love owning a venue.
In both worlds, I feel like I’m able to help people: financial planning allows me to help clients achieve big and small financial goals while owning a venue allows me to help couples and party hosts celebrate some of life’s most special occasions. My decade+ in financial planning gives me an unique event planning perspective, and I offer to all of our wedding couples a ‘budgeting session’ where I assist them in prioritizing their goals for their wedding that will bring to life their vision while sticking within their desired budget. And in turn, building the venue gave me enough courage and skills to walk away from my corporate financial planning job and to start my own independent financial planning practice, which I just launched this month!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. I would definitely describe myself as adventurous, and I think that love of exploring and trying new things has served me well in having the courage to start my businesses. And, without my passion for travel, I likely would not have found myself in Key West at the beginning of the pandemic and I likely would not have met Mike, and who knows where I’d be without that pivotal moment!
2. I have been learning to delegate these past couple of years. Growing up and well into my adult years, I held the notion that I can do everything myself and that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Mike has really taught me that asking for help not only represents strength, but it also allows for me to get more done and focus on the tasks that I both enjoy and excel at. The business owner mentality is one that focuses on the big picture while other valuable team members can handle many of the day-to-day tasks.
3. I cannot stress good communication skills enough. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and that has allowed me to (likely over-)communicate with my clients as both a financial planner and a venue owner. And while I’m sure I give too much information sometimes, I believe my thoroughness when I correspond with clients is what allows me to build trust with the people who decide to work with me.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
For the venue, our ideal client is a couple looking to get married or someone who is looking to host a party celebrating a special occasion. Inside our venue, we have several cohesive yet distinguished hosting spaces that are large enough for our maximum capacity of 150 guests yet still intimate enough that a couple who is eloping doesn’t feel like they’re getting married in a big empty space. Our ideal client is down to earth and can roll with the punches that often come with planning and hosting a monumental event. And our clients have to love nature since our venue is currently outdoors and boasts thousands of tropical plants.
For my financial planning business, my ideal client is an entrepreneurial millennial who is navigating various life changes, such as starting a family, switching from a corporate job to business owner, or buying a home. I feel like this group of the population gets priced out at a lot of the traditional financial advisory firms but still need help as they are balancing a myriad of future goals with present rewards and challenges. I also feel like I can relate to this group since I am a millennial business owner, as well, and have recently navigated moving across the country, getting married, becoming a stepmom, buying a home, and someday retiring!
Contact Info:
- Website: thegardenswm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegardenswm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegardenswm/
Image Credits
All photos submitted are from Purely Joyous Photography
