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  • Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

  • and life you love.

  • Speaking of which, my guest today is an ambitious and creative woman who has done just that.

  • Cortney Novogratz is a designer that you may know from Bravo's 9 By Design and HGTV's Home

  • by Novogratz.

  • Along with her husband Robert, she's been designing and developing spaces around the

  • world for 25 years.

  • She's a mom of seven with impeccable taste and a love of design, art and architecture,

  • which have driven her career, rebuilding entire city blocks, renovating a Hollywood Hills

  • castle, and even building a treehouse in Brazil.

  • She's an entrepreneurial powerhouse who has a passion for bringing beautifully designed

  • products to the world.

  • Cortney, thank you so much for making the trip and being here today.

  • Thanks for having me, Marie.

  • Take me back to the early days because you did not start off knowing what you were doing

  • to do today obviously.

  • From what I read from my research, you were actually an actress starting out in New York

  • City, and your career took a whole 'nother turn.

  • Tell me about that.

  • I don't know if we found our career or it found us, but my husband and I bought our

  • first building, it was a condemned building, while we were actually planning our wedding.

  • My job, of course, as an actress was ups and downs and I had a little bit of free time,

  • so I went to work on the jobsite.

  • Opening up everyday, learning everything on the job and renovating it pretty much ourselves.

  • We realized we were kind of great at it.

  • In one sense, I was only 24 at the time, but I knew exactly what I was doing and then I

  • had no clue of what I was doing.

  • It's kind of a great way to live.

  • Well, let me ask you this, how long had you been pursuing acting when you guys got the

  • place?

  • Probably about two or three years.

  • I'd had some small things, jobs, but we always...

  • The one thing is that my husband and I have in common, and still do to this day, is the

  • love of architecture and designs and flea markets.

  • We knew we would always dabble in that because it was something like a hobby that we enjoyed,

  • but we never realized we would actually turn it into a real business.

  • He was on Wall Street.

  • You're an actress.

  • Exactly.

  • You started doing this.

  • And was there something inside, and the reason I'm asking these questions because I know

  • that there are many folks in our audience who find themselves, whether they're in their

  • 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s, looking at a next chapter.

  • Perhaps having been going in one direction and then maybe want to take a right turn or

  • a left turn.

  • I would love if you can articulate what was happening inside of you that was like, "Oh

  • my goodness.

  • This thing is so fun.

  • Bye, bye acting," or if there was a bit of tension in that decision.

  • It actually was so fun.

  • I knew I was great at it in one sense, meaning that it felt so easy and comfortable.

  • Even the smallest most daunting or biggest daunting task of learning how to dig out a

  • basement or pour foundation or all these things that I had no clue about, I felt comfortable

  • doing it.

  • It felt very easy.

  • Even as scary as a new project is today, the unknown, I still know I can navigate through

  • it.

  • Yeah.

  • The same with my husband.

  • We felt pretty confident with each other, and we knew we were going to make mistakes

  • and not have all the answers or even have all the money to do a proper renovation, but

  • we knew we wanted to take that risk.

  • I think it was like a calculated risk and the fact that we knew that we would succeed

  • somehow in the end.

  • Then did help that Suzanne Vega, the singer/songwriter, approached us to rent our house out after

  • we finished it.

  • How did she know about it or how did you know her?

  • She actually a friend of hers that was a broker and he had said that this kind of fun groovy

  • couple just renovated a house and maybe they'd be up for it.

  • She kind of kickstarted our career and the fact that she believed in us.

  • She rented our home.

  • We became friends.

  • We then moved out of course and took that money and did it all over again.

  • Really?

  • It just kind of snowballed from there.

  • What came the point?

  • Was it really when she rented the house that your husband said, "Okay.

  • Bye, bye Wall Street.

  • We're doing this."

  • Was that it?

  • It took probably the second house to be honest and then it was really scary because at that

  • point we already had three children.

  • We were going to start a real business.

  • All of our insurance was covered under his job as a broker, but we knew no matter what,

  • we can do it on our terms.

  • If we fail, we fail together.

  • If we succeed, we succeed together.

  • And so he literally walked away.

  • With that, there was all these side steps.

  • We had to sometimes downsize in order to buy up the next property or things weren't selling

  • when it should have.

  • We definitely sacrificed to live the life we want to live.

  • Right.

  • We still do to this day.

  • It started off it sounds like more flipping than anything else.

  • It was.

  • I mean this was 25 years ago before people even called it flipping.

  • We were in the middle of Downtown Manhattan, so most people don't flip homes.

  • That's right.

  • But for us, we knew we didn't know how many children we were going to have, but we knew

  • we wanted a large family.

  • We also used to, side note, promote parties in New York.

  • Did you really?

  • We were like party promoters even though we were a couple.

  • I love this so much.

  • We've had friends that actually have gotten married from some of our parties.

  • We're talking like club party promoters?

  • Yes.

  • You know, Cortney, I may have been at some of your...

  • You probably were.

  • You probably were.

  • I'm doing the math in my head.

  • I'm like, "Oh yes.

  • My clubbing days in New York City."

  • Yes.

  • We would rent crazy spaces and throw parties.

  • We kind of just always created the life we wanted is why we even bought a condemned building

  • in the first place is we were like...

  • Before even Airbnb, we were like we could always rent it out if something goes wrong

  • and we don't have to ask our neighbors.

  • We can do whatever we want with the place.

  • Was it scary renting a condemned building?

  • I'm sorry for anyone who doesn't real estate, but I happen to love real estate.

  • Every time I seem to come across new friends, it's always like our little dirty secret.

  • I'm like, "Do you do real estate porn like I do?"

  • They're like, "Oh my god, yes."

  • I find myself on Realtor.com and sometimes it's just fun.

  • I just find it so fascinating to see architecture and to see different style homes and all the

  • things inside and outside, thecor, exterior, everything.

  • In terms of a condemned home, were you guys nervous on that first of all?

  • We were very scared.

  • It was a single room occupancy for anyone that knows Downtown Manhattan.

  • It had a fire, water damage.

  • It had been empty for many years.

  • We literally had no money to renovate it, so we would...

  • Where'd you get it?

  • We would get like beers and we would have his brothers come over and we'd rip up a beam

  • or we'd say, "It looks pretty good.

  • Maybe we should leave it."

  • We literally were going through the yellow pages saying, "Okay.

  • We need a drywall guy."

  • We just learned on the job.

  • We would lean on professionals in the business, maybe a friend that was an architect or an

  • engineer, come by and say, "Okay.

  • This looks good.

  • This looks sound."

  • We had an expediter.

  • I never even knew what an expediter was.

  • I don't know what an expediter is.

  • An expediter is what gets everything passed through the city, gets rezoning and things

  • like that.

  • He became very key throughout our career because then we walked away from traditional houses

  • and started buying gun shops, parking lots, night clubs, anything that could be a house

  • that bigger developers would have passed up.

  • We thought, "Hey, it could have a roof over our head and space and we can create...

  • Four walls can be a home.

  • We can create the home we want."

  • I wanted to go into this because I feel like no matter what you want to do, even if you

  • don't have an interest in real estate or physical buildings or physical products, there is something

  • so genius for all of us that's available if we want to do something that you can just

  • start.

  • You can start before you're ready.

  • You can figure it out as you go.

  • I think each of us can have a part of our brain where we kind of hold back or maybe

  • go like, "Oh…”

  • You're scared.

  • Yes.

  • You're like, “I need to know everything I'm doing before I get into this new career

  • or this new business or this new endeavor."

  • I think there's so many lessons in that.

  • I was smiling when I was reading about your story because Josh and I, when we got our

  • place here in New York, it was crappy.

  • The reason that we chose it was because we wanted to renovate it and we didn't have a

  • lot of money.

  • It had like popcorn ceilings.

  • I've never talked about this.

  • That's the worst.

  • Yeah, but I put on goggles and I was at that time bartending.

  • I was starting my coaching practice.

  • I was also teaching some dance.

  • Every time in between my bartending shifts, my coaching clients and teaching dance, I

  • would take a sledgehammer and demo.

  • It was so fun to like just take a sledgehammer and just demo the crap...

  • Finally get rid of it.

  • That's right.

  • It was awesome, but yeah, it's just that spirit of going like, "You know what?

  • I don't necessarily need to know everything before I...”

  • I'm going to figure out.

  • I'm going to figure it out.

  • Like your new book.

  • Everything is Figureoutable.

  • It may have taken a few turns from where you started and I think that's so important.

  • I try to remind myself with new things and new opportunities if I'm a little scared.

  • Just start.

  • Just start.

  • I have so many girlfriends and they'll give me great ideas that they've been sitting on.

  • I'm so pleasantly surprised with the ones they actually didn't really do and I keep

  • saying it's so great because a lot of people talk about things, but they actually then

  • don't it.

  • Yes.

  • You have to begin.

  • Everything takes a turn or where you've started, you never have it all laid out.

  • I mean even with parenting, I don't have all the answers.

  • I'm in a new chapter where my kids are entering adulthood, some of my older ones.

  • My youngest is still nine, but that's a whole 'nother new set of tools that I'm learning

  • to gain and strengthen and get.

  • Speaking of taking a turn, I'm curious.

  • You guys are going.

  • You're getting houses.

  • You're getting spaces.

  • This is all happening.

  • How did it come that you then transitioned into reality TV?

  • Did you guys want that or did that come to you?

  • What was that process like of making a decision because that's a whole different life?

  • Yeah.

  • Great question.

  • It is a whole different life.

  • Way back then, we had already gotten asked to do our first hotel.

  • We had had some Shelter Magazine, home magazines write about us.

  • The New York Times had written about us.

  • During that process, we also had signed a book deal with Rizzoli, our first book, and

  • we had a number of projects under our belt at that point.

  • Someone had approached us from one of the networks and reality TV was just starting

  • out.

  • Yeah.

  • Totally brand new.

  • Just starting out.

  • They basically said, "We'd love to do a reality show with you."

  • Well, Robert and I are like, "Okay.

  • I don't know about that."

  • In fact, his family did an intervention with us.

  • What?

  • Saying, "We really don't think you guys should do this."

  • Did they literally like come and sit you all down where you were…?

  • Separately, but in kind loving ways because they're amazing people, but there was a lot

  • of concern.

  • Robert and I were like, "Well, we got a lot of kids in New York.

  • They're expensive."

  • You already had seven kids.

  • No.

  • We had six at the time.

  • You had six.

  • Okay.

  • We thought, "You know what?"

  • They're expensive.

  • We're like, "Let's take this opportunity."

  • People can see our work more.

  • We can edit what comes out of our mouths and what we show of our kids.

  • I'm curious about that because I think I've never done reality TV.

  • I think, again, we're in a very different time than when we first started.

  • Now with social media everybody's public.

  • Everybody didn't happen if you don't post it.

  • That's right.

  • But back then, we were judged for taking that opportunity.

  • Totally.

  • But question, did you work it into your contract because I think for me understanding a bit

  • about editing, being involved and having a partner who's in entertainment, like I know

  • the power of you can get a lot of stuff on camera and then people can craft a narrative.

  • You're like, "Wait a minute.

  • That's so not what that vibe was."

  • Did you work it into your contracts?

  • We didn't have full control, I'll be honest, but what we did do is we became friends with

  • the crew.

  • We spoke with our children, to the older ones.

  • My oldest was only 12 though at the time.

  • We had a great village, a support team, that we still have to this day.

  • Nobody does it alone.

  • We relied on those people if I was say doing an interview or out in the field something

  • and somebody else was maybe capturing my child and I couldn't be there, I had eyes and ears

  • on the ground at all time.

  • It still was a little bit of a risk.

  • I had twin boys that are like puppies at that time.

  • They could wrestle and fight and that could have been taken and turned in a whole different

  • direction, but we showed ourselves of who we are, our best foot forward, and we protected

  • ourselves with the people around.

  • To this day, we still have great friends that were on that show and that worked on that

  • show.

  • Our children learned that creative process a little bit differently than what we do.

  • It's creatives as well, but it's such an incredible experience.

  • It's better than what they could have learned in school.

  • We only had a great experience with it.

  • Yes, there's haters and weird things and people make crazy comments, but I just...

  • We don't get caught up in that, you know?

  • From that, we got incredible job opportunities that would not have come our way.

  • Then we also knew you can do a little bit or you can do a lot for a little bit of time,

  • but we knew there's a time to step away then and really be with our kids more and develop

  • our full real job.

  • You know?

  • Anyway, it was a great opportunity.

  • Building on that, I would expect that having two hit shows that would open up the flood

  • gates in terms of business opportunity.

  • I think for anyone watching, when you're working really hard after a certain time or even if

  • you're just in the beginning of your career, sometimes it's difficult to be able to know

  • from all this incoming opportunities how do you know what to say yes to.

  • I would imagine that you guys had a lot of incoming.

  • What was some of the criteria that you used to say, "Oh, here's like five or six deals

  • on the table.

  • Here's all these other things that people are saying, 'Come work with us.'"

  • How did you navigate that?

  • What was your decision-making criteria?

  • I still have to do that today.

  • Yes.

  • We're in a creative field, my husband and I. I don't really know what the job is next

  • year.

  • We get a lot of opportunities that come our way fortunately and some years more than others

  • especially right off the show.

  • But what we did is and we still to this day, do we want to do the project because they're

  • cool people or it's just a great opportunity or we want to travel to that place.

  • Do we want to do this job because it's really lucrative, but it may not be as fun?

  • We may have to compromise.

  • Every job we weigh the pros and cons of why we're taking it, who we're working with.

  • Sometimes I'll be honest, having seven kids, I've had to do a few projects that haven't

  • always been fun, but they're still engaging.

  • Well, you have a family to support.

  • Exactly.

  • I still hold my head up high through those projects, but I know the reason I'm doing

  • them, why I'm doing those.

  • Then that offsets because maybe because it was a financial project, I really needed the

  • money.

  • It allows me to do the cool stuff that I love.

  • There's a fine balance always.

  • I love my work, but there's still things I do that are kind of crappy and aren't as fun.

  • Well, let's talk about that for a second because I think that's really important for people

  • to hear.

  • I've tried to say that on so many conversations we've had on interviews where it's like I

  • love what I do so much and it's not all rainbows and daisies and skipping around.

  • They're like I don't wear a green sequin dress.

  • Everyday.

  • Oh my good...

  • This is a show.

  • This is my...

  • Next time give me the memo.

  • Yes.

  • I'm casual Cortney today.

  • Honey, you look real cute.

  • We're going to hang out in LA.

  • We'll get you in sequins.

  • But my point is most of the time especially...

  • I wanted to talk about this with you and I'm so glad that you brought it up.

  • If they see you, it's like, "Oh my god.

  • This amazing family, working with her husband, her children, was on reality TV.

  • So successful.”

  • But it's like that's just the stuff that people see.

  • Some of the day-to-day, it ain't fun.

  • I mean I think I try to give my kids the advice, you may not know what you're passionate about

  • right away.

  • But if you find something you truly love and that you're passionate about––and I loved

  • acting just as much as interior design and now I love interior design more, I can't imagine

  • my life without it––then the tedious part and the bad part still seems pretty fun.

  • But there's still headaches involved.

  • Anyone that has success worked to get there.

  • I don't care what job they've done.

  • They work to get there.

  • Really hard.

  • If you want success, you have to work for it.

  • You have to go for it.

  • It's not going to fall on your lap.

  • But if you find something you really love, then it's pretty fun I would say 90% of the

  • time.

  • So you guys spent 25 years in New York City and then you moved to the West Coast.

  • I read that part of it was like you know what, you were feeling like you were hitting a wall

  • work-wise and wanted to grow your network.

  • What exactly did hitting a wall look like for you guys at that moment?

  • Was it in concrete terms such as like, "We're a little bored," or is it like, "You know

  • what?

  • Not as much business.

  • Let's go drum it up over there."

  • It was a little bit of both to be honest.

  • Every city changes.

  • New York City's the best city.

  • It always will have my heart and it provided the life I wanted, but it was changing as

  • well.

  • A lot was happening on the West Coast.

  • A lot of creativity, a lot of...

  • Unfortunately, a lot of the guys I was doing business with financially were getting pushed

  • out of the city.

  • Just the grind got harder and harder.

  • It was also important.

  • You know, Robert and I, neither one of us are from New York City.

  • We moved here.

  • Our kids were born and raised here.

  • Even though we traveled, I felt like let's mix it up a little bit.

  • Let them have a story.

  • We took off to the west and it was great because it kind of kickstarted our relationship in

  • work and in life again.

  • You just see things through a fresh set of eyes.

  • It was still very hard though I'll be honest to build everything we had built here and

  • just kind of take off.

  • My footing was off a little bit and so I had to dig deeper, work harder, but I'm so much

  • stronger from it.

  • Our whole family brought us a lot closer in ways that I could never had imagined.

  • The hardships got outweighed with blessings that happened.

  • We will eventually get back to New York.

  • That's really our home, but maybe my kids, some of them, will make a life out there.

  • I just wanted them to see that there's such a big world and to really kind of experience

  • both sides.

  • I feel so lucky.

  • Does it feel like the kind of hitting a wall work-wise got refreshed?

  • It did.

  • That's cool.

  • I mean it really is so cool because there's so many neat...

  • I'm in Los Angeles right now and so there's so many neat things happening there.

  • It's a great time to be in the city.

  • Question for you about partnering with other brands because you've done so much partnering,

  • CB2, Old Navy, Tempaper.

  • For anyone watching who may or may not be at the level that you're at, any advice that

  • you have for creatives or entrepreneurs when they're getting into any kind of partnership.

  • Are there any tips or do's or don'ts where you're like, "Gosh.

  • I wish someone would have told me this before I did this."

  • Well, I do recommend whatever that partner is going to be maybe go out and have some

  • tequila with them.

  • I like this.

  • I like this.

  • Get to know them.

  • That way you really can share and trust each other because it becomes a family.

  • Even if it's a big corporate company or it's a small mom and pop team, you have to have

  • a trusting relationship.

  • The goal is for both parties to win in the end.

  • Really leaning on each other with every partnership or collaboration we've done.

  • For example with CB2, we were able to take that opportunity, design our first product

  • line.

  • We didn't want to come in and say, "Oh, we've been doing this for years.

  • We know exactly what we're doing."

  • We knew exactly what we wanted to create, but we let them teach us and guide us.

  • The price points, the size, how it could be made, what materials, and we went back and

  • forth.

  • It was great.

  • It was a win-win in the end of how they came to us and we brought our tools and we leaned

  • on their tools.

  • That's the biggest thing is just communicating.

  • Then also, try to make it easy for that partner.

  • You can't be a perfectionist.

  • The world is not perfect.

  • You can really have strong opinions and try to make it the best you can the way you're

  • visualizing it, but you have to let go a little bit and you have to trust them and let them

  • run with it and have some control as well.

  • I like it.

  • I have a lot of friends.

  • It seems like there's a growing...

  • A small, but growing population of folks who work together who are couples.

  • Like a lot of my girlfriends, quite frankly, who run their own businesses, their husbands

  • have joined them and now work in the company.

  • I think it's great.

  • Yeah.

  • It's not for everyone.

  • It's not for everyone.

  • There's an interesting dynamic obviously.

  • You're working together.

  • You're growing a business.

  • You're taking care of a family.

  • Obviously then there's the intimate relationship that you want to keep alive too.

  • I'm curious if there have been any things, because it's been over 25 years for you, clearly

  • you and your husband still love each other, you have a strong family, anything that you've

  • discovered with that interesting dynamic that really worked where you're like, "Gosh.

  • This is a lesson from the field."

  • Yeah.

  • I mean we actually like each other's company, so you know, we have a good time.

  • At this point, we have seven kids.

  • Even if we wanted to leave, no one's going to have us.

  • I think we definitely put our egos aside because it's...

  • What does that look like?

  • Well, for example, let's say we're fighting over a floor choice, you know, what hardwood

  • floors.

  • If he comes off more passionate and really strong, eventually I'm like, "You know what?"

  • Give him the floor.

  • I'll let him win.

  • It's like I'll put my ego in check because it doesn't matter.

  • You know?

  • We just kind of learned when to play good cop, bad cop with whatever we're dealing with,

  • whether it's in our business, whether it's with our children, whether it's with each

  • other.

  • The great thing is like a lot of people we don't have to have date nights because we

  • travel and go on a book tour together or we're with each other during the day.

  • If the kids are at school, we can have fun then.

  • We both love what we do.

  • We really chose that.

  • There are there days where we're like, "Oh, we need a break from each other."

  • If you're going to tell me no, I'm going to be, "I don't know if I believe it."

  • We all do.

  • There's definitely days, but I'll say, "Why don't you go on a trip with your brothers

  • or I'll go visit my sister."

  • We have enough sense to know we're driving each other crazy.

  • I mean we don't take it personally, but we're with each other most of the time and really

  • like it.

  • But we also realize the people that work for us, they work for a husband and wife.

  • They've got two bosses in a sense.

  • That's not easy on them sometimes.

  • We constantly remind them or try to joke or have fun and bring them in, but most people

  • realize they get all of us, all nine of us, if they're coming to work for us.

  • That's cool.

  • I hope they like it.

  • For anyone in the creative fields right now, I think one of the other fascinating things

  • about you, Cortney, is just over the year how much you have pivoted and you continue

  • to challenge yourself to do new things.

  • How important do you think that is today?

  • I think it's crucial to succeed because life is changing so fast.

  • Obviously the internet, we talk about social media.

  • There's going to be something else around the corner so soon.

  • Looking at stores.

  • Like for a long time my husband and I thought we need to have a store.

  • Then within that year, online shopping just started taking off.

  • We were like, "Wait.

  • Okay.

  • We need to alter and change.

  • We don't need to do that right now.

  • It needs to go in this direction."

  • You have to be flexible.

  • You have to stay focused on what your end goal is, but you may take a different turn

  • than what you thought.

  • We were talking earlier, even with my children I say, "Nobody's on a 30 year job anymore."

  • I don't feel like those should have even existed because if you really want balance is to mix

  • it up and to have a lot of different chapters along the way.

  • Give yourself that opportunity to do so.

  • Cortney, thank you so much for coming on today.

  • Oh, I had a blast.

  • You're an inspiration.

  • Thank you.

  • You are too.

  • I can't wait to see all the new things that you guys create.

  • Definitely.

  • I'll see you in LA.

  • Absolutely.

  • Now, Cortney and I would love to hear from you.

  • We talked about a bunch of things.

  • What was the biggest insight that you're taking away from this conversation, and most important,

  • how can you put that into action starting right now?

  • Now, as always, the best conversations happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com.

  • Head on over there and leave a comment now.

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