Wedding Industry Burnout: How To Spot The Signs And Prevent It Before It’s Too Late With Tirzah Caffee

In this episode we’ll cover:

• The most common signs of burnout in the wedding industry and how to recognize them before they escalate
• Why burnout looks different for wedding professionals compared to other industries
• How to identify the stress patterns that lead to wedding industry burnout
• Practical ways to start avoiding burnout for wedding professionals without stepping away from your business
• How to create healthy boundaries with clients and colleagues to protect your time and energy
• What true wedding vendor burnout recovery looks like and how to rebuild your motivation
• How to design a business model that supports your wellbeing as much as your income

Wedding Industry Burnout: How To Spot The Signs And Prevent It Before It’s Too Late With Tirzah Caffee

0:00:04 – Heidi Thompson
Today I am joined by Tirzah Caffee, who you may know as the host of the Venue Success Podcast. If you haven’t listened, I highly recommend you do. It is a fantastic podcast for venue owners, but, I would also, say, other wedding pros alike. She is a 30-year veteran of the wedding industry, whose family has owned five venues across the nation, and today she’s here to talk to us about the ever-pervasive topic of burnout and how do we stay out of it. So, Tirzah, I’m so excited to have you. Thank you for being here.

0:00:46 – Tirzah Caffee
Oh, it is such an honor to be here. I’m so, so grateful. It’s great to have you actually on my show just a few months ago, so be sure listeners to go check out that episode as well. We had a lot of fun together. So, yeah, this is a topic that is extremely relevant, I think, to many of us, and not just the venue owners, but all of us in the industry, for sure.

0:01:10 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think a lot of people hear this term burnout and we talk about it and I was excited when you said you wanted to talk about it, because it is something that is just so common and I feel like we maybe normalize a little bit too much when really we could be trying to stay out of it. But tell me a bit about the early signs of this. How does someone know they are approaching burnout before it gets into like full blown, completely burned out mode?

0:01:46 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah. So I want to start with just a little bit of a story that is relevant but also not specific to this industry, but it’s something actually that just occurred to me about 0.2 seconds ago that I just feel like I’m being called to tell you. But my husband was in a career outside of the wedding industry and I just want to paint the picture of what it could look like when you’ve gone too far and you’ve kind of passed the point of no return. This is a bit vulnerable for me and I’ve never shared this publicly, but I’m just like I’m ready to just kind of say this.

But it was, I’m trying to remember it’s been about 11 or 12 years at this point, and my husband was a pastor actually, and you don’t think often about burnout in that regard, but it actually has one of the highest burnouts of any occupation and we had seen the signs of burnout that I’m going to talk out, talk to you guys about today a little bit, and we ignored them because we didn’t feel like, because of the type of job that we had and it is a job, but like kind of it being what it was you kind of feel like you don’t have the right to struggle when you’re in this professional like Christian career, right and um, I mean, think about it, even if, like, whatever denomination you are, do you think about your priests getting burnt out? Do you think about your pastor getting burnt?

0:03:11 – Heidi Thompson
out.

0:03:11 – Tirzah Caffee
Like it’s just a weird thing to think about. And, um, there was a day that I came into her bedroom and my husband was straight up staring at the wall and he had this deadpan look on his face. He looked so he did not look like himself, his face was sullen, his bags under his eyes and he literally just was a shell of the person that I married. And I looked at him and I was like, babe, like we’re done, like we cannot do this anymore, and he ended up leaving the occupation that we had gone through six years of, you know, education to be in that place and we had just gone too far. And so the things I’m going to share with you today are coming from a real heartfelt place that I’ve gone.

I have ignored the signs, when I was thinking about it in terms of my career and being in it, like you said in the intro, for three decades, like most people can’t say that it’s a really freaking long time. And so there’s really four main things that I would caution you to just be aware of in your body. But the first one is avoidance or procrastination, and to me, I think that’s one of the first things is that when we are faced with it doesn’t even have to be a hard task. It could be something very trivial and we’re just at all costs like trying to avoid things. I think that’s one of the first things that I’ve seen.

The second is a lack of energy. When we and I guess this is kind of tied to the first one but when everything makes us tired and this is also a telltale sign of depression, right, like a lack of energy is a really big one when you feel like you’re having to over consume caffeine just to function Red flag. The third thing and this really hits me as a creative is when I start seeing myself not have as many ideas Like I am a girl that dreams up new businesses in my sleep. When I’m at my best self, I am that stereotypical entrepreneur that is, I always have 10 businesses in my back pocket. And when you find yourself like even being less creative in your day to day, I think that’s a big warning sign. And the last one is just becoming easily frustrated and you know, whether it’s with our staff, whether it’s with our clients, our children, our spouse. That’s also another big warning sign. So those are the four things that I’ve seen in my life, for sure. How about you?

0:05:55 – Heidi Thompson
First off, thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate you sharing like where this is coming from and that you’ve seen this firsthand from, and that you’ve seen this firsthand and I did just recently, as we’re recording this. A couple weeks ago, I noticed myself start to slip into a very uncharacteristic procrastination feeling of like dread around certain things, feeling like even just these tiny things felt like the biggest lift in the world, and I was talking to my coach about it and I was like, okay, I need to just slow down a little bit and back off a little bit and, you know, just give myself some more, some more space to regenerate, because that’s not my norm. I’m usually not one to procrastinate. I’m usually not one to feel like, oh, about the stuff I need to do. I’m usually, like you know, pretty upbeat about it. So that was definitely a red flag for me that I needed to kind of slow down, make sure I’m not putting too much on myself at once and just allowing myself to step back. Because, like that really did surprise me.

0:07:18 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, yeah, and I think it’s good to just keep a pulse on. Like what’s normal for Heidi, what’s normal for Tirzah? Like our norms are going to be different, right? Like one of my best friends, she tells me all the time she’s like Tirzah, your normal life exhausts the crap out of me. Like I do in one week what you do in one day and it’s normal for me, and for her she’s like I would die. You know, like that is just not my rhythm at all. So you can’t really compare yourself to other people when it comes to this topic as well, because we all have different capacities and different norms, if that makes sense.

0:07:52 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I’m curious like what have you learned around noticing these like early red flags and actually taking steps to mitigate them? Because it’s one thing to notice them, it’s one thing to be like, okay, this is probably not a great sign, but what do you do and what do you suggest other people do when they start to see that?

0:08:17 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, I mean, I guess sometimes I feel I’m a little bit of a unicorn. I’m self assessing myself all the time. I do have some background in counseling and therapy and stuff, so I’m probably a weirdo in that regard. But I think having good friends, accountability, a good therapist is pivotal. You know, there’s such a stigma around even having a therapist and I’m just like around even having a therapist and I’m just like, I’m of the mind that if you don’t have one, you’re the crazy one.

Everybody needs someone that is safe and in their corner, helping them hold up a mirror to how they’re interacting in their world. And I think sometimes it’s tricky that you don’t necessarily want that person to be your spouse, but, um, but they are an important person to be like hey, like, are you, are you okay? You know, um, you might not have that kind of relationship with your spouse that that feels safe for you, but it could be a friend, it could be a coworker. Like you said, you have a coach. I think having people that know you is really important and unfortunately and maybe there’s a whole podcast here about this is that a lot of us in this industry are very isolated because we’re workaholics and we don’t even have friends that we could necessarily feel like we would go out with and be like hey, like do I seem okay to you?

You know, like pulse check. I have that with my sisters. We’re like pulse check, like um, how are you, are you actually okay? Um, but I think community is the biggest place that we’re going to get. That is um and just those internal gut checks that sometimes we get, that we push down and ignore. We shouldn’t ignore. We need to investigate those.

0:10:08 – Heidi Thompson
When it pops up for you like what are your steps for getting yourself out of that? Or for at least like slowing these red flags from popping up all over the place.

0:10:24 – Tirzah Caffee
For me, and we’ll probably get into this a little bit more later in the podcast, but I think sleep is a very big, it’s a trigger point for me and I find that if I haven’t been sleeping well I’ve dealt with insomnia my whole life that it is a big problem, and so that is the first place I start. Is I need to like, like you said earlier, you got to like put the brakes on and be like, hey, okay, like I can’t keep grinding at this pace anymore, like I need to first of all take care of my body, drink more water, sleep and just pause, Even if it’s just for half of a day, to see if I could self-regulate and be able to even be able to think clearly about like, what is it that is actually going on with me and a lot of us?

We just push past it and we’re like drink more caffeine and you know, eat more junk food or whatever the thing is, but I think for me it’s just been like that, just quieting that pause, getting sleep to eating well, taking a walk. Um. For me it’s like being out in nature and getting away from my desk and, just as the kids say these days, touching grass and, um, just taking a pause for myself.

0:11:43 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I find just taking a walk can be such a good refresh and reset, and I know it’s very easy to tell yourself you don’t have the time to do that, but you also don’t have the time to like completely burn yourself out either, so you got to pick one. Is it the half hour walk or is it the you know weeks in bed staring at the ceiling?

0:12:06 – Tirzah Caffee
No, yeah, and it happens to the best of us. I mean, there is a um in the venue space, specifically with new venue owners. They are making it three to five years right now is the average burnout time for venues that’s bonkers.

That should be mind blowing for people. Three to five years and they’re like screw this, I’m out. You know, and I think a lot of that could have been mitigated if they had put the right people in their corner, right Like speaking some good truth to them and helping them, you know, and not being so isolated like a lot.

0:12:42 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a very good point about needing people that can recognize what’s going on with you, and I’m sure another cause of feeling completely burned out is lack of boundaries. You know having people take and take and take everything from you, and then you have the difficult people that drain. You have the difficult people that drain. You Tell me about what you recommend when it comes to really setting and maintaining those healthy boundaries, while still you know really giving your clients an incredible experience.

0:13:21 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, it’s interesting. I was just I have a coaching client that I just went through this whole like hiring process and I interviewed. I had 130 applicants and interviewed like 40 of them and it was this common denominator that I was. You know, this isn’t a coaching time for me and it was just like, oh, interesting, great information. All of them were bragging about how they basically they didn’t say no boundaries, but they were like, oh my gosh, I’m a workhorse, I work 24 seven. And it was to them. They were bragging to me about like what hard workers they were. But it was like how interesting.

This wasn’t just a pocket of people, it was almost across the board, all these people interviewing to be a wedding planner trying to tell me don’t worry, I’m a workhorse, I’m an animal Like you, I’m going to respond to emails at 11 o’clock at night. And, of course, the veteran on the other side of that is like blink twice if you need help. Okay, like this is not healthy. Um, but I think what?

There’s a few things, there’s a lot I can say about this, but I do believe that, as um wedding professionals, we’re not good at taking a day off and I know that’s not always possible for me as a venue owner had, you know, 35 staff and 120 to plus you know clients a year, and which is bonkers. It’s hard to take a day off. But having at least one day where you can unplug and not feel that you are in it as deeply as you are those other days, I think is really, really important. And teaching your team to also have regular work hours and modeling that and also kind of requiring them to have respect around work hours as well.

I was never that boss unless it was a true emergency that I’m going to be messaging someone after hours, unless I absolutely had to right Like. I also felt like sending a client an email at 10 o’clock. Really I have this thing I say all the time that you teach people how to treat you email at 10 o’clock. Really I have this thing I say all the time that you teach people how to treat you and if you send an email at 10 o’clock, then you’re saying to them when you send me an email at 10 o’clock, I’m going to be responding to that. And so I had a lot of staff that pushed back with that philosophy and then they realized, oh my gosh, like I feel like I could leave work and it actually left there and I could actually go be with my kids or be with my husband and have some life work balance a little bit too, this kind of because I have worked with my husband my whole entire career.

This one hits me. I don’t know how many listeners work with a family member, but I think when you work with a family member you really have to even work harder to have boundaries about when you’re going to talk shop and when you’re not, and when I work with coaching clients, a lot of venue owners are married business owners and I’m like the bed is not the place to talk about stuff. When you crawl into bed at night, maybe dinner is fine, but you just have to have some places that are sacred to not talk about those things. This one I don’t know how you feel about it, but I feel quite passionate. I don’t, like my clients, have my personal cell phone.

We always had a service like Grasshopper, Google Voice there’s a million of them where I could tell if a call was coming in, was from a client or not, and to be able to have boundaries around that. Sometimes they got my direct number. If it was like the week of the wedding and I knew that they were next on deck, I’d be fine with them having that. But gosh, if someone’s booking a wedding two years out, I do not want them blowing up my phone. Get a service for that so that you could create boundaries around it. But those are some of the main things.

0:17:32 – Heidi Thompson
Something interesting I’ve learned about boundaries is a lot of times we have to create them around ourselves and around our tendencies to sabotage ourselves, whether it’s responding to stuff at 10 PM, like you said, or you know whatever it is but we think like, okay, I’ll have these boundaries for other people and like that’s not really how it works, like people are going to do what they’re going to do, they’re going to email you at 1am, they’re going to text you at 1am or whatever. But, like you said, you can put these things in place, like these services, to where you’re not being actively disturbed by that, because you can only really build boundaries around how you’re going to respond to that. You can’t stop someone from.

0:18:15 – Tirzah Caffee
One of my favorite analogies with boundaries is like imagine I, you know, imagine whatever you want, but I imagine this beautiful farmhouse in the middle of this gorgeous pasture and around this farmhouse is a white picket fence. That is your boundary. Like some people have the fence really close to their house. Some people need a straight up acre around their house, but it’s not around the other people’s houses, not around the other people’s properties, it’s around my house and so I.

That is like the exact picture that I imagine when I’m having to do that and inside of that fence, I, I am at peace. Inside of that fence is where my family is protected, where I am protected and where I again, like I feel that safety and it’s up to me to not let that fence get broken down and when it gets broken down, that I fix it, and so that’s just a really to me like a really beautiful way to think about, like where you protect the safety of your humanity, because all of us are, you know, we’re not machines, we’re humans that have very basic but very important needs and we all need to have those boundaries. And people that brag about not having a fence around their house. To me I’m just like well, how unwise is that you know? Yeah, so yeah.

0:19:45 – Heidi Thompson
I like that. That’s a good way of thinking about it. And, yeah, I you know I’ve had so many people tell me like, oh well, I have to respond to this person. You know like they reached out to me at this time and it’s like, yeah, this is the part you get to control, though, and, even though it might be difficult for you to control, you can put things in place to help you control turning off notifications. I stay out of my inbox unless I’m actively using it. You know, you have to put those things in place to allow you to actually have those boundaries and to make sure that you are really fulfilled and capable of doing what you’re doing, because I think it’s very easy to think, oh, people want me to respond super fast, no, people want you to not burn out, and just because someone’s emailing you at 10 pm, I can tell you. I do this all the time because ideas pop into my head at night.

0:20:47 – Tirzah Caffee
Right, right, you just need to get it off your chest.

0:20:50 – Heidi Thompson
Right, and I certainly don’t expect a response. It’s just, if I don’t get this out of my head, I’m going to forget about it. So I need to do that now and I could schedule it, sure, for the next day. But yeah, it doesn’t mean that person has an expectation, and I think communicating when you will get back to people is a really good way to make sure everyone’s clear. When you will get back to people is a really good way to make sure everyone is clear.

0:21:15 – Tirzah Caffee
Well and that’s actually something that we did with all of my clients is that I had, like it was the very first page of my policies and guidelines for our venue is I’m like here’s how you could expect communication from us. Here’s our days off. This is when we are going to respond Like, by the way, we’re, we are in wedding production, so the weekend you’re not going to hear a reply from us. Like we know that you’re off on the weekend, but we are working. You know. Like imagine if it was your wedding, would you want us to be responding to another bride? Like you know we say it really nicely, but it’s like, hey, the weekend is when we know you’re going to be emailing us, and it’s why I always I’d never closed my business on Mondays or a lot of people do because it’s one of the most important days to be getting back with people that have been off on the weekend. And so Wednesdays were always our hard closed day at our venue.

But just interesting because you know if, if they, if you’ve had weddings for you know we had four to five a weekend and you’re like not communicating from Friday till Sunday that’s a very long time.

To not hear from someone like 24 to 48 hours is pretty understandable, but yeah, so even if my girls were working from home and just responding to emails on Mondays, that was a normal mojo for us and it just helped us, you know, make our clients feel like we were giving them good care. I there was a situation it was a few years ago where a bride was just like blowing up my wedding planner’s phone. I think she called her six times on Christmas day.

0:22:50 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, my God.

0:22:51 – Tirzah Caffee
She calls and calls and calls and I always teach my team there’s no wedding emergencies, like there’s no real wedding emergencies, like very rarely. The things that these girls think are emergencies aren’t emergencies to me and you, you know.

0:23:05 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, no one’s going into labor, no one is dying, like yeah, exactly.

0:23:10 – Tirzah Caffee
I mean very rarely, are those things going to happen? The things that these girls think are so, you know are a big deal or not. So anyway, we’re like six phone calls like and we’re ignoring them. And she calls my planners, like should I call this girl back? And I was like dude, like I wonder if someone died, like what’s up? Her wedding was like in two or three weeks. We call her honest to God. She was like Christy. I needed to know what size cups to get for the bar.

0:23:43 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, my God.

0:23:43 – Tirzah Caffee
She was like are you? Of course there was all the things that she wanted to say and what she actually said, but when she called me, she’s like I cannot even believe. She called me six times on Christmas day about what size silo cups to get. I’m like, oh my gosh, so what could you do? I mean, I’m going back. I’m like we probably still would have called her back calling us that many times, I suppose. But, um, people, I say this all the time people have lost minds, like who does that on Christmas?

0:24:15 – Heidi Thompson
that is crazy and it’s a lot to deal with. You know so many wedding pros in the industry have to deal with. You know the uh, the crazies from time to time. So for sure I’m curious for you how do you prioritize self-care during peak wedding season? How do you encourage and help your staff to do that?

0:24:39 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, it’s tricky with the way that it works specifically with venues, because, well, it’s basically for everyone. Actually, it’s like you’re in this heavy production time and then all of a sudden it’s engagement time, so it’s like production may be low, but I’m like totally ramping up. For 40% of you know, engagements are happening right between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and so it’s like there never really feels for me as a boss, to care about their self-care as well, and so I really kept a pulse on how I felt that they were, and I wasn’t planning to say this, but if there are any like boss babes out there that have a team underneath you, one of the things that I made a normal ritual with my staff is that once a month, I just did a check-in with them, and it wasn’t always about business. It was like how are you? How can I serve you as a boss? Is there anything that you know you need from me that would help your job be, you know, even if it’s like a tool that they need or an app that they need or whatever, so that they could feel like they’re functioning at their best in their job, and I always wanted to have a good pulse on how they felt, and that was just something that we did throughout the year.

And so for you as a boss, I think I’ve been shocked at how many people don’t even do like a annual review with their staff and at the very minimum, you need to be checking in once a year, but I did it every single month.

At the very minimum, you need to be checking in once a year, but I did it every single month, at the very least every other month. So just checking in on them and I would do special things for them when I felt like they were tired, whether it was a massage or sending them to the nail salon or giving them an unexpected day off when I would just close the office and tell everyone to go home and take a nap. One of the big things that I did for all of my staff for a decade is that I provided all of their supplements protein shakes, vitamins, whatever it was that they felt like they needed. To help them be at their best was something that I always wanted to take care of for them, but I’m a big believer in taking care of our bodies with nutrition, and I think it’s wedding professionals are notorious at doing a very bad job taking care of our bodies.

0:27:11 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and it’s one of those things where it’s like you think oh no, I need to do this, I need to. But if you continue to do that, you get to a point where your clients are having a shitty experience because you’re dropping the ball left and right, like they want a happy, healthy professional that they’re dealing with right. They don’t want someone that’s like running on fumes.

0:27:41 – Tirzah Caffee
No, and people could tell honestly. They, they absolutely can tell if you you’re hyped up on an energy drink before their event and that’s all that’s getting you by. Like there really is a big difference. I mean, nutrition is a huge soapbox for me, but a couple other things I would say. Is we talked about like doing things you know, going on a walk to, you know take a second to gather yourself.

But I think, even before you get to the point where you’re like spiraling and you’re like I’m seeing signs that are not good, like having a more consistent ritual of doing something that feeds your soul is really important. Whether it’s like reading a book that’s not just an educational book, something that you could get lost in painting, journaling, exercise, yoga For me, my favorite spot is in my garden, like I just love having my hands dirty in the garden. It’s just does something for me. But whether it’s going out for a girlfriend, with a date with your girlfriend, like whatever it is like do something that feeds your soul. And with my husband I talked about him earlier, about him dealing with burnout. One of the things that he found in his life that fills him like nothing else is writing, and he’s written seven books. But he’s done all of that in half a day, every single Wednesday. He writes and it’s sacred to him. We close the door and we know what he’s doing and it’s what feeds his soul. And so I would just ask you, like, what is that for you that feeds your soul?

When, two years ago, I was really burnt out it’s been about two and a half years now and I contacted Terica I know a lot of you guys know of her in the wedding industry and I contacted her and I was like, hey, would you get on the phone with me? And, um, I went away to a friend’s beach house and I booked it for five days and just sat there and the only person I talked to was Terica and I had some important questions that I wanted to ask her and I I she was a trusted person to me at that time and to talk to specifically about something related to wedding business stuff. And that time at the beach, with one strategic conversation, completely changed my life. Wow, because I I desperately needed to just stop all the noise and get away, and actually I hate being alone.

I’m a massive extrovert. I was almost panic attack, freaking out, being by myself, but I knew I needed to go have a solitude, like a time of deep solitude, and have again just one person that I knew needed to speak to me, to be the one that and she’s the one honestly that if it wasn’t for that conversation, I wouldn’t have been doing what I am now, I wouldn’t have sold my venue, I wouldn’t have started the podcast, I wouldn’t have started consulting Like. None of that would have happened if I hadn’t taken that time away.

0:30:46 – Heidi Thompson
That’s huge and in the time, in the moment, like it’s so easy to tell yourself you can’t do this and it’s like you really can’t afford not to yes.

0:30:56 – Tirzah Caffee
Yes, I mean I saw I had seen all the writing on the wall, I knew what to look for. I knew I was I was on a bad path and I came back from that. So again back to what we were talking about at the beginning. Like I was feeling, like I was procrastinating and I was frustrated and I had lack of energy and all those things. I came home and I was like I felt like I was walking on clouds and I’m like, oh my gosh, you don’t even realize how much you need it until sometimes you experience it and come back to the world and you’re like, oh my gosh, like there’s Tirza there.

You were like, um, the real Tirza is back, so, um, so very important. I I would really encourage you listeners to schedule a time, even if it’s just like 48 hours, to go by yourself, like go to a hotel. You don’t have to go far, just go somewhere by yourself and bring a journal and just really take time to evaluate all areas of your life and make sure that there’s um, that you give attention to the areas that might be needing it.

0:32:01 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I mean your. Your body is calling out to you and needs you to pay attention.

0:32:06 – Tirzah Caffee
For sure. There’s a book and my everyone keeps telling me to read it. I feel like I’ve read it because my sister has told me so many little excerpts from it, but I think it’s called the Body Keeps the Score, and just even the concept of the title alone is so intriguing to me. But it’s like, you know, these things that happen in our life, like they sit inside of us, and some of us have and this isn’t a counseling podcast, but a lot of us have a lot of hurt and pain and trauma that sits inside of us that we need to deal with, and when we don’t deal with it, it comes out as migraines or autoimmune disease or any number of physical ailments. Because, you know, these things really do sit in our body and we need to deal with them. And, um, yeah, so not to get too much into psychology, but it’s so.

0:32:55 – Heidi Thompson
Oh, that’s interesting and it’s a good point because, like you, can only run from the stuff for so long.

0:33:01 – Tirzah Caffee
Oh yeah.

Yeah, and I worked with a little plug for her Her name is Diane Altomare. She wrote a book called Clarity and she’s the one that really helped me understand. She did a lot of inner child work with me and she kind of taught me how to not to be too weird about this, but how to like close your eyes, to meditate, to think about like that inner child, that person at different phases of your life that needs to have some things spoken to, that inner child, and there’s a lot of healing that could come with that, and it was for me. I mean.

I’m a person of faith and so, like I always was, like oh my gosh, is that weird? Like should I be doing that? And I’m like no heck. Yes, you should be doing that because there’s a lot that has happened to us outside of our will right in our life that we need to deal with and if we don’t, it could absolutely unequivocally affect how we approach our employees, how we approach our clients, how we interact with the world. Like if things you get easily triggered by things, I think that’s a really big sign that there’s something going. There’s a little trauma or big trauma sitting inside of you that you need to deal with. If you are someone that would say that you are easily triggered. So I don’t know lots of deep healing work that I’ve done in my life in this regard and I think sometimes we just don’t take the time to do it and we really need to.

0:34:34 – Heidi Thompson
I feel like entrepreneurship pulls all of this out, like basically everything yeah, everything you could examine about yourself and your life and you know your brain and your body like it’s going to get examined because it needs to Like this is your operating system.

0:34:52 – Tirzah Caffee
Yes, yeah, for sure, and we’re juggling all the things right as entrepreneurs. We are bookkeeper, we are accountant, we are the CEO and the groundskeeper and we are all of the things you know, and it’s hard to feel like we have even time to like, feel selfish. Honestly. Sometimes it’s like I can’t take over myself. You know, it’s the tyranny of the urgent all of the time and you just got to jump off that crazy train for a second.

0:35:20 – Heidi Thompson
So yeah, so how do you do that In terms of like your work life balance? I know like you said, Wednesdays were shut down for you guys. That, I think, is really good advice to have a day, if you don’t already, where you’re just like. I just think of it as like it’s just vegetable day. I’m just being a vegetable. I’m just taking walks, watching stuff on Netflix like giving my brain a chance to reset but what else are you doing to create that sustainable work-life balance, both for you and for your team?

0:36:02 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, I mean it’s. That’s a really good question. I think one of the challenges that I’ve had in my life is that balance is tricky and I it was several it was probably when eight, 10 years ago where I just was like, why am I always trying to keep my life in balance? Because if you think about it, like when you give birth to a little baby and they are, they need so much of you when they’re little there’s not balance in your life when you’re caring for every need that that little baby has.

when you’re caring for every need that that little baby has, right? And so I I really that I’m a word picture person, and so, like that really occurred to me when I was thinking about my business, and I’m like, you know, there are times when I’m building something new, like right now. My husband and I are building a brand new business, something that’s never I’ve never, ever seen it in the wedding industry before. I’m like freaking out excited about it. But there’s not balance with us right now, because we are all in with that and we put ourselves on a time crunch as a good, you know, it’s so important to do that, and so we are.

Things are maybe like have we had a date night? No Hot second? No, have we, you know? Is our house perfectly as clean as it normally would be? Well, maybe. Like, have we had a date night in a hot second? No, have we, you know, is our house perfectly as clean as it normally would be? Well, maybe not, you know, but it’s.

It’s just like understanding that there are seasons but there’s boundaries around and there’s time limits around when you are going to like, give extra attention to something, right. And so I taught that to my team too, and I would always point out hey, we are in a season and this is the length for the next four weeks, these are my goals, and at the other end of this, here’s the reward. Like, this is what we’re going to do. Like, I remember one time we did a really hard crunch. We had some big financial objectives and we exceeded all of them, and I took a team of seven of us to Jamaica all inclusive state at Sandals, and so they knew that there was a reward at the end of that unbalanced time of life.

0:38:06 – Heidi Thompson
And so I really like the way you think about that, as like it’s a, it’s a container, and a container has to have an end. It can’t just be this is my life, this is what I’m going to do. It has to be, you know, for the next month, for the next whatever.

0:38:23 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah.

0:38:24 – Heidi Thompson
I know it’s going to be crazy, but I think what you are showing with that is a high level of intentionality of. This is our focus. This is what we’re doing right now and intentionally putting other things on the back burner and being okay with that. I think there is a danger that comes from trying to juggle everything at the same level.

0:38:58 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, and it’s a myth that you can, because you can’t. You can’t, you’re going to drop something, something that’s going to get the better parts of you, and I think and the the way that we’re able to do that for as long as we have so successfully is that you also have to be careful that, when you’re in one of those containers, that you’re not allowing other things to like, uh, in I don’t know like the right word, but like distract you from that objective that you have.

like, oh my gosh, like I need to do this renovation or I need to revamp this or that, or just these things that come out of nowhere that you feel like you need to deal with that it’s okay to put those things on the back burner when you’re inside of one of those like grinding seasons and I think, one of the other things for us because we have a lot of events at our venue and I say that in present tense we did sell this year, but we were having again four to five a weekend and so one of the things that was very important for me personally and also my team and taking care of them, is that earlier in the week that we were very cautious about our energy and if we were having to respond to emails on Monday after a busy weekend, that it was done at home and PJ’s, with a cup of coffee next to you.

You know that having shorter work days earlier in the week in preparation for a really busy weekend is important, and I think a lot of us, like, have worked for bosses that were very uh, that just super, super high expectations, that we are like some kind of robot and that people were kind of disposable. You know, and I never looked at people like that. I looked at them as human beings that were like a plant that I needed to care for and water and nurture and give them sunlight so that they could continue to be thriving, beautiful plants, and so don’t think of your staff as disposable. I mean, that’s a common but really gross way to treat people and I think the last thing that I would say is like, don’t burn people out because you’re not willing to go hire another staff member. That sometimes, just because we can work 80 hours a week and do what we’re doing doesn’t mean that we should, and learning how to scale your business and hiring the appropriate people to relieve some of that burden is a really big deal.

0:41:29 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about that like managing your workload, managing your capacity, because I know a lot of times people will have something come up and it is going to kind of push them over the edge of what they can really handle right now. But it is a good opportunity and they don’t necessarily want to say no. What’s your advice for managing that?

0:41:56 – Tirzah Caffee
So one of the things I learned from a coach really, really early on is if you can find someone to do something 70% as well as you could do it then you should hire them to do it. And I hated that concept in the beginning because you know I’m giving 120% right. No one’s going to care more than you do as owner. What it did is for me, and it wasn’t just for me, it was for my staff too, and so an example for me is about four years ago I was still coordinating weddings. After all these years, I was still coordinating, and so things would kind of shift at the business and all of a sudden I would find myself back into this like coordinating role which I should not have been in, like coordinating role which I should not have been in, and um, and I realized I need to hire someone to replace me because I am not giving my best to my business.

Like coordinating weddings is like not a good use of my time when there’s so many other people that could do it just fine. And so I hired someone and when I brought her in, I told her exactly I’m like you are replacing me so I don’t have to coordinate weddings. I want to be fifth string. If you all get sick or get in a car accident, I’m fifth string over here, and so being okay with letting other people do things that I was doing so that I could work higher level on my business was really important, and the same goes for my my staff too.

Like I saw that how much they’re running around my wedding planners and I’m like I need to have day of coordinators assistance because I’m like we can afford it at this point. And so I just got to the point where there were certain weddings that I knew that they needed to have an assistant and they felt so seen by me when I’m telling them hey, I see that you can’t do this, you shouldn’t do this yourself, and I’m giving you some help Was a really great way to build rapport with my team too. So being willing to spend the money. A lot of people are very afraid to do that. But I mean, if you want a sustainable business, you’re going to have to spend money on good staff. You can’t do it all yourself.

0:44:13 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and it’s like you’re either going to spend time or money, so you really need to balance this out one way or the other, and you don’t have infinite time, as much as people like to think that they do.

0:44:24 – Tirzah Caffee
Well, let me just give you a very short example. We’re building this new business right now. It’s not launched, I’m getting it trademarked Like I have very rarely spoken the words of this new business name out loud, but I’m actively hiring this week a person to be my assistant building that business. And it hasn’t made a penny. Because I know myself and I know that the fastest way to scale a business is to have someone do some of those trivial tasks so that I could keep my skill set at the point where I know it’s going to help, like the marketing and the connecting with people and just the things that only I can do. And bringing someone in that could do some of those tedious tasks is going to 10x my business. But I’m going to have to spend some money before I make it in order to scale fast and I’ve just built so many businesses, I know this to be true and a lot of people aren’t willing to do that at the beginning.

0:45:21 – Heidi Thompson
They don’t, you know, if you’re getting a loan it’s like plan for having someone help you from the very beginning and not do it all yourself. Yeah, I think the wedding industry is an interesting one, because there are a lot of people that can start with incredibly low costs. You know if they’re not building a venue, if they’re not buying a venue, and there is an apprehension to spending money. But you are literally buying speed, buying growth 100%. Yes, every single person, when they finally do it, are like why didn’t I do this sooner? It’s one of those lessons that everybody learns and they’re like why didn’t I do this sooner? It’s one of those lessons that everybody learns and they’re like why didn’t I do this? This is so much better.

0:46:09 – Tirzah Caffee
Yes, and it can also be someone that is in another country. That is a virtual assistant that is literally just doing your emails for you, and just a true virtual assistant that is allowing you to not waste an hour a day cleaning out your inbox. I mean, these are maybe not the perfect example, but it’s just. Again, it’s like let someone else do those tedious tasks. It’s like with my podcast. I would never have done it if I had to be the one editing it and uploading it and doing all that stuff. I just never would have done it, because I know all of the things that I’m juggling, and so I put someone in place before I even started it that was going to do that for me, and you just got to know yourself.

0:46:56 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think that mindset shift of realizing how much further you can get, of realizing how much further you can get like so much faster when you actually free yourself up to do the growth activities, is one of the biggest, most important mindset shifts you can have in business.

0:47:16 – Tirzah Caffee
Oh my gosh, yes, well, and I watched so many. And you, too, like, you’re juggling a million different things and you’re getting ready to. You know, every year you’ve got your big online summit and it’s just so much to do and I mean, I don’t know how people do that without some back end help to, even if it’s just seasonal, like during the event or whatever it’s like. There’s just, it’s not a it shouldn’t be an embarrassing or humbling thing to ask for help. It’s a wise thing. You know to be like hey, I want to give the best version of myself to this, and the way that I could do that is by getting help with X, y or Z.

So sometimes it’s as simple as hiring a housekeeper. I mean, that’s something that very early on, because my husband and I are both working and I’m very big believer in equal partnership in our family and I’m like I’m not going to work a 10 hour day and come home and be solely responsible for cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry, you know. So it’s like even something like that having someone help you around the house freeze up your capacity to even rest, right Cause, if we have one day and Wednesday’s my day off, do I really want to spend half of my day scrubbing toilets when I need to be going on a walk and journaling and sleeping.

0:48:33 – Heidi Thompson
So yeah, exactly. Yeah, this has been really interesting. Thank you for sharing so openly and vulnerably about your experience. You know your family’s experience with this. I think all of us either have a story or will have a story at some point. So it’s really helpful to know you know what these early signs are and how to prioritize yourself and really start to deal with them before they become an issue. Because if you can see the symptoms coming on and deal with it, you can prevent that massive completely taken yourself out, completely burned out situation that you’ve been in, I’ve been in, and it’s just not a place to be.

0:49:25 – Tirzah Caffee
You know, I will say, just as we wrap up today, that one of the things that I learned early on two, two big things. One is that every yes is a no to something else. I love that and I actually had that on um a sticky note on my computer. Another thing that I had was on a sticky note on my computer. Another thing that I had was it said that coach that did that inner child work with me. She said Tirza, you dictate the terms for your life. No one else gets to dictate that for you. Like you get to decide and you don’t have to live answering to everyone else’s calls, for you know what it is that you end up just pleasing everybody else and never taking care of yourself. And that was a really powerful life lesson for me.

But one of the things I learned is that fear and insecurity are often one of the reasons why we feel like we can’t say no. You know we’re trying to please people and we are afraid of what’s going to happen if we say no. But when you value, truly value yourself, and if we’re talking about business here, so if you value your business, your policies, this beautiful thing that you’re trying to create, when you value your mental health. Saying no isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity. It’s like drinking water and, you know, like eating. It’s just, it’s a part of normal life for you to say no because you know that you’re able to say yeses to all these other wonderful things. And so that’s kind of been like a huge part of who. How I have innovated and grown as a person is understanding that truth really deeply in my core.

0:51:02 – Heidi Thompson
That’s really helpful to keep in mind. I love that. Thank you so much. Where can people go to connect with you?

0:51:10 – Tirzah Caffee
Yeah, for sure, of course, you could find me over on Instagram. It is @tirzah_thevenuecoach, feel free to find me there. https://www.tirzahcaffee.com/ is my website and we are in pre-launch stage for this new, very exciting thing that we have coming this fall 2025. So be checking out my website for more information on that. But if you are a venue owner listening I do have a Facebook group. You could just DM me on Instagram and I could send that link to you.

But we have a group that I’m very, very protective of. I don’t just let anyone in. It’s all 100% real life venue owners and not scammers inside of there trying to sell you stuff. So I do a lot of great private coaching in there. It’s completely free and, of course, my podcast, venue Success Podcast, is a place and, again, it’s for everyone. But we do talk a lot about venue ownership and things like that, but this season has been all about introducing the world to all of the amazing educators and trainers and sales professionals that are out there to help you be the best that you could be. So, yeah, I’m here, just like Heidi, just wanting to serve this beautiful community and I’m so grateful for this time that we’ve had together.

0:52:36 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you so much for doing this. I will link to all of that in the show notes and thank you again for sharing so openly. Really appreciate it.

0:52:45 – Tirzah Caffee
You’re welcome. Thank you so much, Heidi.

About Tirzah Caffee

Tirzah Caffee is a 30-year veteran in the wedding industry, whose family has owned 5 venues across the nation. Tirzah established the Alexander Homestead, a multiple 7-figure full-service venue and planning team in Charlotte, NC. For the past 8 years, Tirzah has helped hundreds of wedding pros across the nation have extraordinary success! Her passion is teaching sales strategies for staying fully booked, creating efficient systems, how to add income streams, and cultivating dynamic teams. Tirzah is also the host of The Venue Success Podcast, which you can tune in to on the platform of your choosing. You can work 1-on-1 with Tirzah at multiple different entry points from a 1-hour zoom to 6 months of personal coaching.

Website: tirzahcaffee.com
Instagram: @Tirzah_thevenuecoach

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Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
Grasshopper
Google Voice
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Clarity by Diane Altimer
Getting Your Life Back with Systems & Delegation with Jamie Russell
Why You Should Start Outsourcing Earlier Than You Think
100 Things To Outsource In Your Wedding Business: The Complete Guide

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