Desi Perkins: mom life, brand trip drama and more babies?!

Episode Overview

• The hosts welcome Desi Perkins, their most requested guest, who shares personal updates and the reasons for her long-awaited appearance on the podcast.
• The conversation delves into a series of candid and humorous personal anecdotes, including stories about relationships, family interventions, and embarrassing moments.
• Desi discusses her journey as an entrepreneur, from the motivation behind starting her own brands to the process of developing products inspired by her personal life experiences.
• The group explores the nature of influencer culture, brand building, and what true success and fulfillment look like beyond social media fame, culminating in Desi sharing her ultimate life dream.

Key Concepts

• Guest Introduction: The episode features Desi Perkins, who explains her delayed appearance was due to focusing on her family and new children.
• Personal Anecdotes: The group shares deeply personal and often hilarious stories, including the spiritual connection behind her daughter's name, Manny's dating pet peeves with texting, and Laura's story of chipping a tooth on a dog toy.
• Relationship Stories: Desi tells the detailed story of how her mother orchestrated her reunion with her now-husband, Steven, after a breakup, leading to them rekindling their romance that night.
• Entrepreneurship & Product Development: Desi discusses creating her new "belly balm," which was directly inspired by the extreme nausea and itchiness she experienced during her second pregnancy. She details how she incorporated specific ingredients like tangerine butter to address these issues.
• Brand Building Philosophy: The conversation covers the motivation to start her own brand (DEZI eyewear) after a collaboration extended for years, and the ultimate goal of building a brand that can stand on its own, separate from her personal identity.
• Influencer Culture: The hosts recount a story from a past brand trip where a PR representative was fired on the spot for forgetting the company credit card and being unable to pay a large bill.
• Life Aspirations: Desi shares her dream of using immense wealth to buy a large plot of land and build a self-sustaining compound where her entire extended family could live a simple, close-knit life together.

Quotes

• At 0:22 - "To the point where I was like, I'm sick of it! I'm sick of it! Get her on the podcast!" - Laura Lee humorously describes the overwhelming fan requests to have Desi Perkins on the show.
• At 0:30 - "I was like having babies. I was really busy." - Desi Perkins playfully explains why it took so long for her to come on the podcast.
• At 1:38 - "When you guys asked me, I was like, 'Um, it's about fucking time.'" - Desi Perkins humorously recalls her reaction to finally being invited on the show.
• At 24:34 - "She lives on, and she's like always around to protect Harley." - Desi shares her sweet belief that her dog Harper's spirit is watching over her daughter.
• At 25:34 - "A couple texts throughout the day, I feel like is like bare minimum." - Manny MUA shares his pet peeve about a recent date, explaining his expectations for communication in a new relationship.
• At 29:35 - "My mom forced us back together." - Desi Perkins begins telling the story of how she and her now-husband, Steven, got back together.
• At 32:55 - "He hugged me and I swear to God there was a spark that I was like gasp." - Desi describes the moment she reunited with her ex, Steven, which reignited her attraction to him instantly.
• At 33:05 - "We ended up going downstairs in the bathroom while my family was upstairs." - Desi reveals the shocking and funny detail that she and Steven hooked up during the family dinner her mom arranged.
• At 36:51 - "I put the rawhide dog chew in my mouth... and the dog came in and like pulled on it... and it ripped half my front tooth out." - Laura Lee shares a shocking and hilarious story about how her sister chipped her tooth.
• At 54:53 - "I told Steven, I looked at him sometimes and I was like, 'I feel like I'm carsick for three months straight.'" - Desi Perkins explains how the severe symptoms of her second pregnancy influenced the creation of her new belly balm.
• At 55:17 - "We found that like tangerine was a natural way to kind of calm nausea. So we added tangerine butter into the formula." - Desi Perkins details how she tailored her product's ingredients to address specific pregnancy-related issues.
• At 58:25 - "When they don't know that you are the person behind it, because then that means that your brand has expanded past you. And that is like the ultimate goal." - Desi Perkins shares her perspective on the ultimate success of a brand she has created.
• At 1:02:26 - "At that point I'm like, yo... you're an investor." - Desi Perkins recounts how a sunglasses collaboration that extended for years ultimately motivated her to start her own company.
• At 1:04:00 - "I have this dream, and I will live this dream one day... I want to get a really big piece of land... and build a compound for like my family." - Desi Perkins describes her dream of creating a family compound if she were given a billion dollars.

Takeaways

• Use personal challenges and specific life experiences as direct inspiration for creating authentic products that solve real-world problems.
• The ultimate measure of success for a founder is to build a brand so strong that it thrives on its own merit, independent of their personal identity.
• Recognize when a long-term collaboration has evolved into a one-sided investment and have the courage to build your own equity instead.
• Consistent, minimal effort in communication, such as daily texting, can be a critical baseline for showing interest and respect in a new relationship.
• A long-lost connection can sometimes be successfully rekindled, but it may require an external catalyst or a perfectly timed "spark."
• True wealth can be defined by the freedom to create a simple, self-sustaining life surrounded by loved ones, rather than by material luxury.
• Meaningful connections and tributes to those we've lost can appear in unexpected ways, like a phonetic similarity in a name.
• In a professional capacity, especially when representing a brand, meticulous preparation and responsibility for logistics are non-negotiable.