Podcast

Plan a Luxury Retreat with Brooke Dumas of Brooke Dumas Retreats

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Want to really amplify your brand and business? Host a retreat! Retreats are a great way to bring your customers and clients together to really understand what you’re all about. While the idea of hosting a retreat sounds fun, hosting itself can be stressful, overwhelming and hard to manage alone. Brooke Dumas of Brooke Dumas Retreats makes hosting luxury retreats seamless. Learn more about how she got her start in the retreat industry and best practices when hosting your own retreat. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

  • How Brooke started to work as a wedding planner, even though she never wanted to be one. Brooke shares her journey through the corporate world and why she decided to start a business on her own.
  • Finding that thing that fulfills you. For Brooke, wedding planning was fine, but she needed something else: she wanted to help other entrepreneurs with their events.
  • What is a retreat? Why do people go to retreats? What can someone obtain from it? Brooke explains what she was looking for when she planned her first retreat.
  • Brooke and Emily share their experiences of making their first retreat: common mistakes and problems that they faced.
  • How much can you charge for a retreat? Brooke gives us her formula to answer that question. You have to start by doing your research.
  • Starting the retreat planning process: what things do you have to have in mind? Why do you want to host a retreat? Brooke has several tips to organize the activities and venues of your event and talks about different costs that you will have to pay to make it. 

Find out how Brooke can help you to plan your event in Brooke Dumas Retreat or follow her on social media.Instagram: @brooke_dumas_retreats

Emily Merrell  

Welcome to the sixth degree podcast the podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily Merrell

 

Hello and welcome back to the sixth degree with Emily Merrell. The podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host Emily and today I’m so excited to have Brooke do mass. Brooke is an award winning event planner who helps business coaches, entrepreneurs and spiritual leaders create plan and execute retreats all across the world. Wow. Brooke, welcome to the show.

 

Brooke Dumas  

Thank you so much for having me Emily. I’m so excited I cannot wait to jam out about retreats, events, all the things with you

 

Emily Merrell  

all of the things and I think that’s so cool too is you know, even before recording just finding all the commonalities that we have. Brooke is a Michigan girl and for those who don’t know Michigan holds a very very special place in my heart It’s where my family would go growing up and you either get Michigan or you don’t get Michigan right Brooke

 

Brooke Dumas  

100% I was literally just about to say like Michigan people are like ride or die either you get it or you don’t

 

Emily Merrell  

it’s funny so I went to college in Ohio and I did not go to Ohio State so please don’t hurt me. But I know the rivalry is really strong and my dad would you know we’d be visiting and we’d be out to dinner and you know at the end of dinner the waiter would say something like go Ohio want me to chip you first I’m from Michigan and you know there’s this this strong rivalry between the states and I grew up in in the East Coast and they did not have rivalries like that and it’s it’s so cool to see the college I guess yeah, is there a professional football in Michigan? I’m sorry I don’t know the answer

 

Brooke Dumas  

there. There is so there there’s the lions who never win and we just lost our star quarterback is so yes, my husband is a diehard lions fan, even though they literally never win but bless him for trying. But that’s so funny that you say that about the collegiate football level because that’s something since I’ve moved to San Diego I didn’t realize that was such a big thing in the Midwest, and how unique that is to the Midwest until moving out here and I’m like wait, who do you guys root for like was the college team that we’re all excited about? So it is a really unique thing?

 

Emily Merrell  

That’s a great question. Who is the college team that they root for? Would it be University of San Diego or

 

Brooke Dumas  

like I think San Diego State some people like them but it’s just not anything like going to like a U of M game or a Michigan State game or an Ohio State game it’s nothing like that. At least in my eyes. I’m probably gonna get a bunch of hate mail after this so diehard San Diego State fans

 

Emily Merrell  

he loves San Diego guys I know I’m in San Francisco i think it’s it’s definitely an art sere school I do not believe they have a football team but if they do my apologies because I didn’t but AI it’s definitely interesting. So how did a girl from Michigan end up in San Diego besides being just smart and rational and wanting to get out of the cold?

 

Brooke Dumas  

I mean that was the number number one motivator right there was that I absolutely hate winter I’m a sunshine girl through and through. I love laying on a beach I love being in a swimsuit that is just like what lights my soul on fire but I think a huge reason for me is I’ve ever since I was a kid I would always joke around about I was going to go to college in Miami and I was going to go live in LA and all these things and um you know once I got into college I kind of settled state in Michigan for a while and I got a career with that Michigan State or Michigan University of Michigan I did not go to either the big ones I went to Grand Valley State if anybody knows what that is, oh my gosh do me please. But um so I went there I got my degree and then right out of college I got a position where I traveled all around the United States in a corporate job. And so I got my like little bit of travel in my experience going around the US from there. And then you know, met a guy from Michigan or families both live there, there was really no reason for us to move. And then really what like struck me to move was when I started my business because I realized that I was having a really hard time finding people to surround myself with that were like minded like I was then you know really want to grow a multimillion dollar business and I’m one to have conversations like candidly about money and about self development. And you know, I do believe that exists in Michigan and I know a lot of amazing entrepreneurs that are cool, doing really cool things. But I started to find a community in Southern California that was talking about those big things, doing those big things. And so after a trip out there and you know, really getting clear about what I wanted in my life, and my business I was like, oh, San Diego is the place for me. And so we finally after like a four year manifestation of trying to live out here, we finally just moved here in November and it’s been like such a blessing. I’m so happy out here.

 

Emily Merrell  

Oh, you did a pandemic move, which is amazing.

 

Brooke Dumas  

We did. We you know, it’s so funny because I just saw the stats the other day that this is the first year in like history that the population of California is down. I think it’s down by like 182,000 people. And my husband and I are laughing and we’re like, okay, so it’s down by that many. And we’re like the quote unquote, crazy people that moved here in the middle of all of this, but whatever, we’ll take it. We love the sunshine, what? It’s good for us for now.

 

Emily Merrell  

I feel like whoever did the PR for California last year did a really terrible job. Because my mom who’s in Connecticut, she sent me a picture. I think it was the Wall Street Journal. And it was like, California is losing people, specifically San Francisco in droves. Like, everyone is back. Not what did they say? vacating? Or not evacuating California for Denver and all these places? And you’re like, No, no, I mean, yes. But no, not really into she would she would ask me question. She’s, she’s like, Oh, my gosh, is there no one outside has? Is it a ghost town? No, no, it’s fine. But the newest definitely made California look pretty bad last year. So I’m glad you’re probably populating the state a little bit, and you’re doing your part to bring it back in. So you know, tell me about your business you, you have a very interesting business and that you have two parts of your business, you have the wedding side of your business. And then you also have this retreat side of your business. So what came first, the weddings or the retreats,

 

Brooke Dumas  

the weddings did so the weddings kind of happened in a really interesting way. Once I got into my corporate position right out of college, I was traveling, I knew within a week of starting in that position that corporate life was not for me, like probably many other entrepreneurs. And was really, I considered the idea of starting a business before but you know, I always just loved the idea of a fat salary coming into my bank account every single week and quarter office. I love that dream. And so I started to toy with the idea again, and really struggled with I wanted to start a business but I literally didn’t know what to start a business in which I don’t know if a lot of people go through that. But

 

Emily Merrell  

exact same way. Like I know I want to be an entrepreneur, but I haven’t been hit with the entrepreneurial seizure quite yet.

 

Brooke Dumas  

Exactly, exactly. And so you know, I probably spent a few months just toying around with different ideas, I thought about oh, maybe I could start a subscription company that’s when those subscription boxes were really starting to take off and you know, maybe I could do all the like all these random things. Then I had I got my degree in hospitality with an emphasis in event planning so that I knew that I wanted to be an event. That’s what my corporate job was leading me to was being in corporate events. And as I was going through school, I was always the girl that said she wanted to be a corporate event planner, when the majority of the people in my major wanted to be wedding planners. And I literally was like you guys are insane. I don’t know why you want to work with brides. I don’t know why you’d ever want to do that. That was sound so hard, so difficult. And then as I was going through school, I had a really hard time finding internships in corporate positions but I found internships at wedding venues with like a catering company so I started working all these weddings. And you know grateful I did because I met my husband at the wedding venue so grateful that that all happened but I ended up getting a lot of experience in weddings I had a few friends asked me to plan their weddings to coordinate and so when I got to this position where I wanted to start a company I was like well, I’m really good at wedding planning like I don’t want to be good at it but I am really good at wedding planning and so let’s give it a whirl. Let’s try it so I started it very on a whim of like I guess I’m good at this and people want me to do it and they want to pay me money to do it. So let’s give it a whirl. And so I started it and did it on my own for the first couple years and then was like okay, this is not scalable on my own anymore. Let’s bring in a team so grew a team brought them all in and now we execute weddings all over Michigan. We’ve done them in South Carolina, Colorado. We’re doing one in Mexico, just Indiana all over the place and this is actually my last year doing weddings myself because I had a lot of 2020 it was supposed to be my last year doing weddings but you know thank you Coronavirus and so this year 2021 is my last one doing weddings and then my team is taking over 100% and I am focusing 100% on the retreat side of the business.

 

Emily Merrell  

Wow. As someone who has you know planned a wedding and I think heavens for hiring a wedding planner. I think it’s interesting planning, planning someone else’s event or like planning someone else’s day versus planning your own did you end up hiring someone or at least hiring your team to plan your wedding?

 

Brooke Dumas  

Yes, so I could not hire somebody to actually plan it because I’m too big of a control freak when it came to that. But I did hire somebody to execute the weekend, it was one of my really good wedding planner, friends heard her husband came up and just executed the weekend for us. So I literally I will never host an event ever in my life again, without having somebody there to coordinate for me, whether it be you know, a wedding, or a party or a retreat, I’ve hosted my own retreats in my business and always had somebody there helping me as well. Because even event planners know that you need to have somebody there with you the entire time, there’s so much that goes

 

Emily Merrell  

into so much that goes into it. And I was to, you know, give you a little bit of the story beforehand at our our wedding, we were evacuated 30 minutes before the ceremony started. And we had to relocate to a friend’s house, my wedding planner is seven months pregnant, she has like a mask on because fires are nearby. And she was calm as a cucumber and cool as a cucumber. And I was just so so so grateful for that, for that strength. And I was strong, and we all had a good sense of humor about it, fortunately, but having someone like that in both your wedding and your retreat, because I think the commonality between both of them is is people managing and people you know, managing expectations, managing different personalities and managing there’s that person who wants a glass of Chardonnay and feel like things are literally on fire. And then you know, there’s the the person who needs direction for every single step of the way. So with your wedding planning business, at what point did you realize you wanted to do more and pivot into doing retreats?

 

Brooke Dumas  

Oh, man. So I would say it was always in the beginning when starting the business, I knew, you know, weddings are something I’m really good at. But this doesn’t feel like it’s going to be my end all be all. So I definitely went through that fun like honeymoon phase. In the very beginning though, where I was like, This is so fun. I could do this forever. I’m going to grow this and I’m only going to do 10 really large weddings a year and like that’s that’s all I want to do in the beginning. And then after about a year I was like, Huh, nope, nope, nope, nope, don’t want to do 10 a year large ones a year. And we actually started to niche our business into we specialize in coordination services and execution versus full service wedding planning, because we’re just really good executioner’s. So I would say probably about like a year into it, I started to realize, okay, this, really again, bringing it back, that honeymoon phase is over. This was cute for a while. But when I look at what I want my life to look like 10 years down the road, I’m not spending every weekend at a wedding. And I’m not running around, you know, doing all these small tasks, I really want to travel I really want to like run a team I want to be like really fulfilled and what I’m doing. And as much as I love weddings, I work with the most amazing couples in the entire world cannot express that enough. But weddings, just at the end of the day, I was like I’m so happy to see them have a great time. But it didn’t feel really, really fulfilling to my soul. So then that’s when I started to explore. Maybe I should host my own retreat for entrepreneurs, I’m super passionate about entrepreneurship. And so I hosted my first event and realize how much I love doing that for entrepreneurs. And then started to realize the entrepreneurs needed help planning their own retreats and events in their business, and then started to step into that. And once I got my first taste of helping another entrepreneur were put on their own retreat. It was done. I was I was like, This is what makes me feel fulfilled. This is what makes me feel happy. And this definitely feels like the path for me.

 

Emily Merrell  

Wow, it lets you know, let’s start at the beginning of whatever treat is I think, you know, you and I are so familiar with the term retreat being tossed around in the coaching world and entrepreneurial world. But for those listening, what what is retreat and what does it mean to you? And typically Why do you find people are booking retreats and we’re planning retreats?

 

Brooke Dumas  

Totally. So retreats are definitely one of those words that can be used to describe a lot of different things. I hear a lot of people you know, they might call it a conference, they might call it a live events, they might call it an experience, whatever it is, but what i would i would say a retreat is is it’s a live experience or an event when you’re gathering people together in a room and walking them through an experience whether it’s you know, you’re just hanging out and getting pampered for a few days or you’re doing some deep transformational work or you’re focusing on your business or you’re doing these excursions so I mean, it could be a one day event. It could be a week long event. It could be a month long event, but it’s really just bringing people out of behind screens. their day to day and bringing them into a really unique experience.

 

Emily Merrell  

And do you find that the people I guess people are attending them at least answer that question beautifully. It’s like all different reasons, you know, retreat from, like a Couples Retreat. We’ve seen couples. I think that was the whole movie, too. It was called like the couple’s retreat. And, you know, people have the retreats for masterminds, or they have retreats for yoga retreats, where you’re just getting better at yoga. So starting at the retreat that you planned, what was your impetus to create a retreat? Where did you? Where did you guys go? And what do you do?

 

Brooke Dumas  

Totally. So my real reason for wanting to do it was I wanted an entrepreneur event in Michigan, I wanted to gather female entrepreneurs together, talk about business, create, like sisterhood and community. But it wasn’t seeing anybody else doing it. So I decided to jump in and do it myself, because it’s what I wanted. So I just created it myself. So we just did a one day event. We had around I believe there was 30 of us. We gathered in a beautiful venue on Lake Michigan also for I know you get Lake Michigan, Emily, but for anybody, anybody that doesn’t get I’ve realized a lot of people think Lake Michigan is just like a small little lake, it basically looks like an ocean. It’s ginormous. So we were on the beaches of Lake Michigan. And we had speakers that talked about, you know, building a six figure business money that talked about like social media, all of those things. And so we just had this like fun experience all together, where we connected, and we learned and we spent a whole day together. So that was the first one I did. And I literally had no clue what I was doing, because I know how to plan an event, no problem. But I have never been in a position where I was selling tickets, collecting money paying speakers paying for the catering, like I wasn’t ever the one writing the check. So that was a really unique situation for me. And I learned very quickly that I way under charged, I went way over budget I ended up I’m pretty sure I lost money on the first one. And but even with all that stuff, and I was exhausted, and I was tired, and I got sick afterwards, because I worked myself to death. Even after I was done with everything. I was like, Oh my gosh, that was so fulfilling that lit my soul on fire. Like, I can’t wait to do this again. And so we ended up doing more and more. But I think that’s when you know you’re really on to something is when you know you don’t even make money and you’re exhausted and you’re tired and you realize that you want to do it again. So from having that first experience, I started to learn a little bit more about what goes into hosting retreats, how to price them to make money. And that’s part of what I do in my business now and with my course retreat with ease as I teach people how to plan a retreat from start to finish, how to price it properly, to actually make money, how to make sure that you don’t get to the end of it, and you feel like you’re gonna fall over and die and get sick and all of that because I know Emily, you had a very similar experience with your first retreat.

 

Emily Merrell  

I’m shaking my head right now. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, I think it was, I don’t know if it was my first retreat or my second retreat, but we had a lawyer speaking and she was talking about event insurance and this is probably your two in my business. And she’s like, you know, like, you have event assurance insurance for this retreat, right? And I was like, What isn’t event insurance? I had no idea I no one had told me I’d hosted probably 200 events at that point and I still had never even known about event insurance. And you bet your bottom dollar I went home and I like bought insurance retroactively just to make sure I had it moving forward. But you know, that was something I didn’t know about I booked my first retreat. My first retreat was hosted in the Hamptons in October so as offseasons I wanted and I felt like I had to do every everything and deliver everything from like paying for it how people got to to and from the retreat, because they were yeah Oh yeah. Oh yeah. From New York City that I paid for there. What did I pay for I feel like I paid for Ubers I paid for Gosh, I think they took the train some of them to the train. Some of them took like a Jitney. But I reimburse them for those costs because I wanted to really take care of them the whole time. I paid for all of their food for not sponsoring but donating like we had alcohols donated all this stuff donated and then I booked it on Airbnb and I don’t even know if that’s legal I’m not gonna lie but it’s probably not even legal to book her. I mean, is it it’s a girls get together kind

 

Brooke Dumas  

of Yeah, that’s that’s actually it’s so funny. That’s a common question I get. I always say if you book a house that it says it can accommodate the number of people that are going to be at your retreat, then in my eyes, it’s legal. It says no party an event but you know the house accommodates 25 people and you have 25 attendees in my eyes. That’s fine.

 

Emily Merrell  

That’s a good point. It’s like what’s the difference between an event and are that a retreat in a bachelorette party really, at the end of the day, it’s kind of the same difference. So that, you know, there’s just those are some things that I just didn’t know about. And I was so fortunate for the first one. I had a chef that donated her services. And I, we went shopping grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, and I think I was able to borrow my mom’s, I was able to borrow my mom’s car. But also, I have to say, planning things from New York was such a schlep, because everything was just harder from New York, it felt like, and then my second retreat was in Hudson Valley, and it was with another person. So it was nice that we were able to split things. 5050. But we also had to split things 5050. And we had a videographer with a photographer, but those were individuals who donated their services in exchange for like a spot at the retreat. And yeah, both of them, they were just exhausted, they were really exhausting. So having someone like you, and having a service, like you would be extraordinary. But I also like what is the typical? What is the typical cost to charge for a retreat, because it feels so overwhelming to ask someone to pay 15 $100? And yet, that’s nothing in terms of effort and energy you put into

 

Brooke Dumas  

things totally so yeah, there, I get this question a lot. And there are not like standard, this is how much it cost. I mean, I see people charging $500, I see people charging, like 10,000 plus dollars for a retreat. So I think that’s what I actually have a free retreat pricing formula that like walks you through actually how to figure that out. And in that it starts by asking you like, okay, let’s figure out some of your costs, like you have to do some research first, before you figure out how much you’re going to be charging. So let’s figure out your cost. What are your fixed costs, like your accommodations, your venue, your, like chef services to come on site, like, what are some of those fixed costs, and then let’s talk about some of those variable costs that are going to change by the number of attendees. So you know, gifts and cost of food, and like any of those little small bonus things. So you figure out your cost. And then from there, you want to add on a 10% cushion, because you will end up spending more money than you think you will, I can guarantee you,

 

Emily Merrell  

I like your wedding with a 40% cushion.

 

Brooke Dumas  

Literally, I literally I hear that from every single couple I talked to in the wedding world. But same with a retreat, it’s so easy to spend extra money on things. And then I also walk you through how to like charge what you want to get paid from this event. So I tell people to charge whatever your energetic fee is, whether that is, you know, you want $5,000, that’s your energetic fee, that’s what you were being paid to put this event on. Or if you want $100 per person, whatever that is, but just writing down what that is, and then doing the math and dividing it up in just in seeing how much each ticket price is going to be. And then from there, if you look at it, and you’re like, Okay, cool, it’s $3,000 per person. How does that feel to me? Like, let’s check it? And do I feel confident that I could sell a $3,000 retreat right now in my business? And if the answer is yes, you go for it? If the answer’s no, then you say, Okay, let’s rewind, how could we make this a little less expensive? You know, do we need to find different food options do we need to find a different venue do we need to do fewer days a different location that’s a little less expensive. So it’s like really just doing the research and breaking it down prior to which I know people don’t want to do but it’s so worth it to do it. So then you don’t get to the retreat, and all of a sudden, you’re over budget, you’ve made $0, you are exhausted. And also you’re feeling a little bit resentful that you basically just put on an event for free. And your attendees don’t know this, your attendees think that you’re making money off of this, all they’re seeing is your gross revenue. So they’re not they don’t know how much the food cost, how much the transportation costs, the venue and all of that. So you’re walking around feeling resentful, like these people should have paid me more money where they’re walking around thinking this was so expensive, but I’m having an amazing time.

 

Emily Merrell  

100% and that’s why I think, okay, we’re going to have to definitely link to that formula sheet that is amazing. I feel like that’s just a formula for anything that you plan in your life, bachelorette party party. Girls trip, all of it. How How does your serve, how do your services work? In that you help people plan the retreat, but then also be profitable and having a retreat because you know, from my point of view, I’m like, Well, I have to be stingy and I have to do it all because I have my margins are so slow to be so slow, while my brain is slow. That’s what’s so so small to begin with. So how does it work to benefit them as business owners to hire someone like you

 

Brooke Dumas  

totally so I always say if you are going to hire a professional like myself to help you plan the entire thing. And to execute the entire thing, build those costs in on the front end before you decide what your ticket pricing is. So if I, if you speak with me and you decide you want to work with me, and my rate is $5,000, to work with me, then before you even decide what your ticket pricing is, go ahead and just put that in as a fixed expense right there $5,000, and then divide that up between all the ticket pricing. So you have to work it in on the front end, no, something I tell people a lot is, you hear you hear people say, you know, retreats aren’t profitable, live events aren’t profitable, you’re gonna lose money, you’re not gonna make money, you’re gonna barely break even, which can be true. But I’ve also seen clients, gross, six figures off retreats and take home five figures. But I think it’s really important when you are starting the retreat planning process of setting an intention of what your goal is. So for some people, the actual retreat is you’re not going to make money, you might just break even, or you might make a little bit of money. But it’s an opportunity to get people into your circle into your community, and have an experience with you. And then they might buy something later down the line, or you have the opportunity to sell them on a mastermind or a high level program, or coaching or something like that. There’s actually a really wonderful book, it’s called on Oh, I’m gonna forget the name. Now, of course, retreat and Grow Rich, that is the name of the book. And she has this whole method of where she talks about she has, you know, an entry level program, then she has a retreat that the entry level program people go on. And then after retreat, she sells them a higher level program. So I think it’s really important to be upfront and honest with yourself of Okay, what is my reasoning for hosting this retreat? Is it to literally just make money? Or is it to get people into a different program or do something that lights my soul on fire and makes me a little bit happy. And the other thing I like to mention, especially for first time retreat house is normally your first and second retreat are not going to be profitable, because you have a lot of first time expenses that you have, you have your website and your sales page that you’re getting built. You like you mentioned, photographer, videographer, sometimes you can work out a trade deal for them, but sometimes you can’t. So there’s a lot of first time costs that go into putting on a first time retreat that are going to help you sell and market the next one. So just know if you lose money on your first one, or you break even on your first one and your second one that’s completely normal. Just like stick with it and keep going.

 

Emily Merrell  

I think that’s a really important lesson to learn. Because Yeah, I liked what you said about the goal or like what knowing what your goal is leading into it, because I it is true, you think that you’re gonna make so much money, I’ve heard this 1000 times, and then people will pick the fanciest house and then they’re looking to sell tickets and like, no one’s buying my ticket. And now we have this deposit down on this fancy house. Do you recommend that people sell tickets before they get the deposit to the fancy house? Are there any strategies there? Yeah, good

 

Brooke Dumas  

question. So I think if you are picking an area that it’s not a crazy busy time of the year, there’s plenty of house options. Like I think that’s totally fine to book it after you lock in the attendees. Because you know, sometimes you don’t want to book a house that accommodates 15 people, and then only have five people show up and then you could have gotten a smaller house. So I recommend just creating like whether it’s on Airbnb, VR Bo I honestly don’t know how to say if it’s verbo or VR Bo,

 

Emily Merrell  

is it verbo verbo every every every commercial I watched like on verbo and I was like No, no, it’s VR. Yeah. I totally that

 

Brooke Dumas  

was the rbo Yeah, okay, doesn’t sound natural but perfect. So we’re on the same page as the rbo we will write them a letter and let them know um, but what you know creating like a wish list of some houses that are available on your dates that can accommodate different levels that people have plenty of options and then once you have a better idea of how many attendees you’re bringing on then booking that and I actually would do that with a lot of things if you’re flexible so if you’re flexible, like I think there’s a really beautiful balance of when you’re selling the tickets of giving the attendees some idea what to expect you know like number of days the location some like ideas of activities and things that might go on but kind of leave it open ended because you know, you don’t want to promise everybody everybody’s getting a massage and then everybody’s getting a we’re gonna go on a private boat and then promise all these things and then all of a sudden you look at the pricing and you’re like, wait, no, yeah, this is gonna This is gonna be way too much. So I think like leaving it a little bit open ended and saying like, hey, it’s going to be the ultimate girls. Actually. In Tulum, Mexico and we’re just going to have so much fun we’re going to lay in the sun, we’re going to chat and do this and then you can kind of figure out what activities fit into your budget based on how many people are coming, what your budget is looking like based on how many people are coming, versus booking everything in advance and then being stuck to doing those things.

 

Emily Merrell  

Totally. I think that’s a great great great advice. Oh my gosh, Brooke, I think you were such a wealth of information and I could talk to you for hours I’ve

 

Brooke Dumas  

so many questions but that being said, I feel like your website answers a lot of them. So how can people find out more information about you and your services and maybe potentially going on a retreat and or hosting their first retreat? Absolutely. So best way is to connect with me on Instagram at Brooke underscore do miss d u m a s underscore retreats and then my website has all the information about me my services my course retreat with ease that free retreat pricing formula if you want to figure out your pricing, so that is Brooke Dumas retreats calm,

 

Emily Merrell  

amazing and keep it simple. Well, before we go, I would love to ask you just some six six fast questions, you know, just switch it up a little bit. So my first question for you is tell us an unknown fun fact about you. Oh, okay,

 

Brooke Dumas  

so um, I my pinkies don’t stray in they can straighten but like that’s naturally how they nobody I’m sorry if you’re listening to the audio. Are you Dutch? I am. Oh my gosh, is this a Dutch thing?

 

Emily Merrell  

I don’t know. My best friend has the same thing. And she’s Dutch. Are you serious? Now connect to you. I’ll send pictures. pictures to you afterwards, only. Only one Pinkie though she doesn’t have it’s not both pinkies. So okay,

 

Brooke Dumas  

fun. So more deeper in the fun facts. So this one is on its own. This one’s a little bit straighter and I broke this one. So I don’t know if the orthopedic surgeon just worked some magic on it. But that is so fascinating. My maiden name is de pa which means peacock and Dutch. So we are very Dutch family in Southwest Michigan is super Dutch.

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. And Holland, Michigan, there’s a whole area dedicated, but we’ll have to connect offline about that. I will I will ask you if you can learn more. Who would be a dream person besides my friend who has the same thinking problem that you’d want to be connected with who I

 

Brooke Dumas  

think for me, that would be Laurie harder. I just admire her like, work ethic, her charisma and just she just seems so down to earth. She’s also a Michigan girl. So you know she gets it. But she just seems so down to earth for all the success that she’s

 

Emily Merrell  

had. I could see you being a future shark as well that she’s on Shark Tank, right? I’m thinking No, no, no, no, Laurie harder.

 

Brooke Dumas  

She is. She has a book A Tribe Called bliss. She’s starting her own like alcohol company. I’ll send the link.

 

Emily Merrell  

I’m like, Okay, I’m thinking of the Laurie. I’m thinking of Laurie from QVC. on Shark Tank. You know,

 

Brooke Dumas  

that’s so funny. You say that though? Because my husband all the time is like I don’t know why but she reminds me of you of you. I

 

Emily Merrell  

can see that. 100% Yeah, you’re gonna love it. Well, speaking of shows, shows out there are there any shows currently that you’re watching? Yes,

 

Brooke Dumas  

I just started watching shits Creek. And I have to wait, do you love it?

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, I’m obsessed. But now I’ve like I’ve seen it so many times and sat I’m so excited for you. Okay, well,

 

Brooke Dumas  

I have to be honest, I did not like it in the beginning. And everybody kept saying like, oh, watch the first few episodes. You’ll get into it. And I like watched the first three seasons and I was like, I still don’t get it. I think what it is I’m on like season six. Now. I’ve been shit real hard. I do really really like it. But people talked it up way too much. And I was like expecting this to be like an experience of when I watched like the office for the first time. So it is really really good. But like people hyped it up way too much. So don’t hype it up to your friends as much everybody. Yeah, then

 

Emily Merrell  

the moral of the story. I feel you on that I feel like the first. Not that three seasons. But the first probably half of the first season I hated it. I was like repulsed by the characters. No one’s likable. And the show is like this isn’t funny. This isn’t my type of humor. Now I cry every single time I watched it and I find it really special and touching. But yeah, I was with you on that and the hype. I couldn’t get over my own hump of the hype. What about a book you’re reading anything fun?

 

Brooke Dumas  

I just started rereading. You are a badass at making money and just love it. her sense of humor is hilarious. I just it’s just so down to earth and fun. So that one I’ve read. I’ve read that a few times now but I’ve just enjoyed rereading it this time around. Yeah, I I just had a client. Read that right now and or start reading it. It’s such a good one. What is your favorite and or most used emoji, who I use the like three stars sparkle. One, like all the time Yeah, because my wedding planning business is stellaluna events. So it’s like, adds like a little star moment up in there. And I just I don’t know, I like it.

 

Emily Merrell  

I feel like we haven’t heard that one yet, at all, actually. So I love that that’s a great one. And I love that one, I think for us that for Instagram and then my final question for you is Who gave you permission and or inspired you to do to do the thing or the things you wanted to do in your life? Oh,

 

Brooke Dumas  

I feel like there’s been so many people. But honestly, in this one I wasn’t even expecting to say but my dad is the one that kind of planted the seed a really long time ago about me being an entrepreneur. And I remember I mean, I was like back in I think it was beginning in college. And I mentioned something about like, wanting to, you know, work for corporate and he was like, you’re not made for corporate, you’re made to start your own business and like, work for yourself. And I was like, you’re on crack. Like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s insane. nobody in my family was an entrepreneur. So I think that was my first like, the seed being planted that like, oh, maybe I could do my own thing. I’d never even thought about it until that point. Oh, I love

 

Emily Merrell  

that he believed in you before you believed in yourself. Well, Burke, thank you so much for joining us today on today’s show. And listeners, please check out Brooke she is just incredible. We’ll probably be seeing her on Shark Tank at one point in her future or at one of our retreats in our future when we go back to retreats safely and all that jazz. And thank you for listening to the sixth degree. If you liked today’s episode, make sure to give us a review and a like and share it with friends and we’ll see you the next time on the sixth degree. Thanks Brooke for joining. Thank you

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