Season 1 -Episode #7 - From Actress to Wedding Planner

Guest: Hannah Campbell-Anderson

Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)

[00:00:00] Shannon: Have you ever dreamed of making a big in Hollywood? Our guest today worked as an actress and a producer in LA before opening her own wedding planning business. Let's hear how she did it on this episode of the Second Act Success Podcast.

Are you at a crossroads in your career or in life? Well, don't worry because life's next chapter is waiting. This is the Second Act Success Podcast. I am your host Shannon Russell. I'm a television producer, turned boy mom, turned business owner, podcaster, and career coach. If you are looking to start a new career, or begin a fresh chapter in life, then get ready to be inspired with stories of women who have done just that. We will share advice and offer steps. You can take to help figure out what your true calling in life really is. It is time to shine. So let's turn the page and get started. Welcome to Second Act Success.[00:01:00]

I'm about to introduce you to Hannah Campbell Anderson. Hannah grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. Went to a small college North Carolina to study theater and headed west to make it big in Hollywood. She worked as a waitress while pursuing, acting on camera and on stage. Hannah had some unusual jobs and some funniest celebrity run-ins all before opening her own wedding planning business. Let's dive in.

Hannah, I love having the chance to chat with you on the podcast. Thank you for being here.

[00:01:33] Hannah: It's an honor to be here.

[00:01:35] Shannon: Well, I want to let our listeners know how far back we really go. Hannah and I met at Elon College in North Carolina. We were sorority sisters and friends, and then we both ended up living in Los Angeles and had so many amazing years together, pursuing our dreams in the entertainment industry. We are now both married and both moms, and we have come a long way, my friend.. So I know your story [00:02:00] very well, but why don't you start by telling our listeners where your journey began?

[00:02:04] Hannah: My journey began had Elon College, I really appreciate that you use the old school name. It has since become Ilan university, but we went to Elon College. I was a theater major there. I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts as an actor, and like all good actors moved to Los Angeles to pursue those dreams. I spent many years doing that and had moderate success. Did commercials, TV, film. I ventured into producing. I worked on commercials behind the scenes. They did some, assistant directing and line producing and things like that. I loved the production world, but continued to pursue acting, , both onscreen and onstage.

[00:02:53] Shannon: Coming from Elon College, which is in North Carolina, small little town to Los Angeles, what was that kind of [00:03:00] adjustment for you?

[00:03:00] Hannah: Thankfully I had visited Los Angeles a number of times because of my family, but it's definitely a huge adjustment? And I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. I grew up on a farm. I went to, , you know, Elon is a very small school in a small rural town. So LA was, it was a little bit of a shock. But I have to say, I learned very quickly that, and I wonder if you'll agree with this. LA is the smallest town I've ever lived in

[00:03:27] Shannon: Yep.

[00:03:28] Hannah: If there's any advice I can give to people starting out, it is to remember that that whatever industry you're in, whatever job you're doing and whatever town you're in, never burn bridges. You never know when those people are going to come back into your life. I cannot tell you how many times in my life of 20 years in Los Angeles, people have resurfaced from 10, 15 years ago and you better hope that you left things on good terms because it [00:04:00] is a small town. You start working with someone who turns out married, someone you worked with 15 years ago, you know, you just never know.

[00:04:10] Shannon: I agree. Everyone knows someone. What was your first role you booked?

[00:04:14] Hannah: The first role I booked was on the Gilmore girls.

[00:04:17] Shannon: I remember that

[00:04:21] Hannah: After that I did a lot of commercials. Turns out I became a hand model.

[00:04:27] Shannon: I remember that. Cause you did, , sour cream.

[00:04:30] Hannah: Yeah. Daisy sour cream. I made the dollops, um, that never crossed my mind that I would get a Bachelor of Fine Arts and become a hand model, but it sure did pay the bills.

[00:04:44] Shannon: , I'm sure that paid well, and that was an easy day. You didn't have to do your makeup. You just had to get a manicure.

[00:04:49] Hannah: That's right. And to get a manicure and keep those nice. But I did continue to do theater. , I was a member of a group here called Company of Angels. Met a lot of [00:05:00] really good lifetime friends through that. I did a production of cabaret that was directed by another Elon, , graduate, Jason Kusner. , and, continued to do commercials and TV and independent films. I met my husband. Again, small world, a friend of mine wrote a script. I thought it was really good. I had this friend who owned a small production company. I sent it to him. His business partner happened to be Kurt Anderson. They optioned the script. I made sure that I was brought on as a co-producer and then I cast everybody, something like 130 cast members in that movie and every single one of them was a personal friend of mine. And that's how I met Kurt. And now we're married.

[00:05:47] Shannon: Do you have a favorite role, whether it was on stage or on camera from your acting career?

[00:05:53] Hannah: I do. The theater company, I was a member of Company of Angels. There was a gentleman there [00:06:00] Jamenson Newlander, and he was wrote a script called Riff Cat Polito And I got to play this woman, Lola, who was sort of a across between Marilyn Monroe and Jessica Rabbit. She just was this character that I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to let her go. And. That might be the only time I've really felt that way about a character. I think that comes from my theater background too. I really appreciate being in a character and taking them from beginning to end. And if I look back on acting, I think theater is truly where I felt most satisfied because you could do that versus film you're cutting in and out of the chronology of the story. And you don't have a live audience and there's something so magical about a live audience and riding the waves of their laughter or, being able to feed off of [00:07:00] that is just really gratifying.

[00:07:03] Shannon: And being a part of the team of the ensemble, right. That live. Yeah.

[00:07:07] Hannah: absolutely.

And about a leaven years ago, I was attending Shannon Russell's wedding

[00:07:17] Shannon: Yes, you were.

[00:07:19] Hannah: with a good friend of mine who was the photographer, Courtney Lindbergh. And we went into the hotel to check on our dear friend Shannon. And, uh, there was a bit of a snafu with the flowers, the flowers. I didn't know where she was going and hadn't arrived yet. And the clock was ticking and I saw a bit of panic on your eyes. And I remember thinking to myself, well, if I know Shannon, she's got like an Excel spreadsheet somewhere and all this information in her Blackberry. And I remember, sure enough, you had a piece of paper and your Blackberry. And I was [00:08:00] like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna borrow these for a second. And I stepped out into the hallway, found the florist, figured out where they were. They were at the wrong hotel. I gave them instructions on where to go pop, pop up. And, you know, the day went on without a hitch. And the next morning at a hungover mimosa breakfast, Courtney looked at me and said, you know, you could do. this. The a wedding coordinator, you must be joking. I don't ever want to be in the wedding industry or deal with brides or all that stuff, but that seed got planted. And she told me because she's a wedding photographer that you can smell a bad client in the first email. And I took that advice with me and off I went. And 11 years later I had built a successful company called day of gal. We did hundreds of weddings all [00:09:00] over California, , Utah, , you know, in Los Angeles and the desert, all sorts of places.

It was incredible and cut to January of this year. I sold my company and now I'm on to chapter three. Hasn't been written yet, but, uh, yes so I left the acting industry and producing industry and went into the wedding industry, having zero experience, , in that world and built a great business over the last 11 years.

[00:09:34] Shannon: That's remarkable. And then it all started at my wedding.

[00:09:38] Hannah: It did, it did, it did.

[00:09:40] Shannon: And you did such a great job that I didn't even realize there was a snafu. So, um, that was amazing.

[00:09:46] Hannah: Are you just learning this today?

today

[00:09:47] Shannon: think I am, or I just blocked it out. , I feel like there's a thread to be had between acting producing and wedding planning. What do you ?.[00:10:00]

[00:10:02] Hannah: Well, I'll add an additional, , profession in there and that's waiting tables. Theater is a live entity, right. You can practice, practice, practice, and you do for months on end. You practice every word every moment, and then you never know what's going to happen. When the curtains open, it becomes a living, breathing thing. Weddings are exactly the same. You can plan every single five minutes. And I used to tell my clients, and we will, we will know exactly what's going to happen every five minutes throughout your day, so that when things go off the rails, we have something to come back to. We have an outline of where the day is supposed to go, but I promise you something will go off the rails that you cannot possibly plan for, and we'll wrangle it.

I think production prepared me for wedding planning. Simply the, the, you know, [00:11:00] the, the functionality of it . The company that I ran Day of Gal was much more about logistics than say design and flowers and colors and things like that. I really treated it like a production. And it was a lot of fun because a lot of people here in Los Angeles that were getting married were from the production world, varying degrees. So I think they always appreciated my timelines because they were built like a call sheet.

[00:11:28] Shannon: Yup. They're used to it. Yeah, exactly. So it was kind of like the script in the theater world, the format or call sheet in the production world and then the wedding plan for the day.

[00:11:41] Hannah: Yeah. And then having waited tables for many years, You know, I knew how to stand on my feet for 14 hours. I knew how to be on my way to one priority and get absolutely sidelined by something else that is going to take higher priority and remember to come back. That first thing I [00:12:00] was headed to. And that's also how I trained all the women who, who worked with me. I predominantly hired women. Who'd been in the service industry, women who had waited tables or bartended because one, they were used to being on their feet. I mean, in the wedding industry, you have maybe a 10 minute break at some point in a 12 to 14 hour day, and hiring women who could handle that, who could sustain. That was really important. And being able to put out those little fires, you know, knowing that, like I said, you're on your way to one thing and something else pops up. You gotta deal with that first, but you still have to come back to that first thing. And that's all. What's ingrained in, you has a server or a bartender or that type of industry. And that's really what was more important to me than someone who had a degree in events or planning or, you know, something like that. It was really about thinking on [00:13:00] your feet.

[00:13:00] Shannon: Real-world experience of the customer is always right, because in the restaurant industry, you're waiting on your customers at the restaurant and on the wedding. You're trying to make that bride and groom as happy and stress-free as they can be.

[00:13:16] Hannah: And not only the bride and groom, you don't know who's in that, that guest count, right? When someone walks up to you and asks you a question, you may not know that it's the bride's mom everybody there is incredibly important.

When you're in the theater, you've got your lighting team, your sound team, your stage managers, and you truly become a team and something I really appreciate about. Film and television and theater, especially every production you do, you become a family. I think that's what was very satisfying to me in weddings as well, because [00:14:00] you'd start the day on a blank slate, right? Nothing is there, the chairs aren't there, the flowers aren't there, the people aren't there and you build this whole world together with all these other teams, the DJ, the photographer, the designers, the rental companies, the caterer. And then at the end of the night, you take it all down and it disappears again. And it's very satisfying to create something, finish it, tie it up with a bow and send it on it.

[00:14:30] Shannon: You're right. And it's very, it's all about the live experience too. And I think, you know, I did theater in high school and then working in production for so many years. Just the idea that when it's alive production or alive, show, you have one chance to get it right. Whereas in production in TV, we could stop a million times. You and I could stop right now if someone has

[00:14:48] Hannah: a for plane.

[00:14:50] Shannon: Yep. Yes. You know, but it's, it's when you're alive, you're alive. So it definitely is similar. I agree to production, but just a whole heightened, [00:15:00] like it is live. Like I remember doing live carpet events and award shows and you're like, okay, well, Matt, Damon's coming down. If I don't get him now, we're not getting him. So what can I do to make sure we get him? And oops, you know, I lost my chance. Like it's just now or never kind of mentality.

[00:15:15] Hannah: At adrenaline rush of this is the moment, the only moment. And I think that's, I think that's much more satisfying about live theater or live, you know, hosting a red carpet stuff than then film and TV.

[00:15:31] Shannon: Do you miss being on stage and just being on camera?

[00:15:35] Hannah: I don't miss being on camera. It was never very satisfying for me because of that that opportunity to do it a million different times. it's so like microscopic, you know, the way you move your eyeball defines the whole shot and the whole emotion. And that's just to me, wasn't, [00:16:00] I don't know. It wasn't that exciting to me to be on stage was much more thrilling.

[00:16:06] Shannon: I think that's why so many people go to LA to try to make it big. Do you find that a lot of other actors and actresses kind of decide to make a switch because they realize i t's so exhilarating, but it's just not affordable when you're living in a city like LA?

[00:16:25] Hannah: It's a very small percentage of people who can, who become the, you know, the Matt Damon's of the world. It's also a very small percentage of people in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, wherever that can call themselves a working actor and absolutely make a living for themselves or their family based on the work that they get. I think that a lot of people do find their way to something else, whether it's they also get into writing or directing, and I [00:17:00] think a lot of people leave, uh, the industry as a whole, the city. And then I think there's a lot of people who hang onto it forever and are not able to pay their bills with acting or something in the production world. And they're always working that second, third, and fourth gig. And they're unable to open their mind to the idea that there might be something else out there that also makes them happy. It's very hard.

[00:17:33] Shannon: Especially being in a city like Los Angeles, where everyone's in the industry in one way, shape or form. When we moved back home to my home state of New Jersey, it was very shocking for my husband and I, when we would make new friends and we would go out and we would be like, wow, we are wondering what to say to these people, because we're used to, you know, talking about what show are you on? What's your next gig? And here we are and people are [00:18:00] talking about being a banker or being a real estate agent. Fine, normal people jobs, but in Los Angeles, I feel like we're just in a different kind of bubble.

[00:18:07] Hannah: Something I don't miss is, is engaging socially with people and them saying, "oh, what do you do?" And you say, "oh, I'm an actor." And , they'd go, "oh, where do you wait tables?" And it's like, okay. Also don't assume that I don't, you know, have a career, , but there's nothing wrong with waiting tables. I think it is an incredibly valuable experience that everyone should should engage in at some point in their life. Kurt, my husband was a bartender for nearly 20 years, and also running a production company and being an actor himself. I also, while waiting tables and auditioning and producing things, ran a management company for actors. I, , worked at an advertising agency in west Hollywood for years as a receptionist. Then I worked at an advertising agency in Venice as their head of HR, [00:19:00] while there I developed, they have gal and started doing Day of Gal as a second job before it became my primary job.

[00:19:07] Shannon: Well, let's talk about that transition. So you're at my wedding. Courtney brings up this idea of you could really do this. What got your wheels turning to actually bring it to fruition?

[00:19:20] Hannah: Courtney was a friend who'd been a friend for years, had also waited tables, and she had become a photographer and was launching her own photography business as a wedding photographer, very talented. And the idea of having something that was my own was very appealing. And so watching her come into this world simultaneously, a good friend of ours, Amber Moon was designing invitations for weddings. So two of my really good friends who had launched themselves into. industry that none of us had any experience in and we're starting their own [00:20:00] companies. When Courtney pointed out to me that I had all the skills in the world to do weddings, it was kind of a no brainer. And that same year I attended 14 weddings as a guest. I very much started to realize what people needed, you know, and I was, I was a guest, I was a best friend. I was a bridesmaid. I was a sister. So I saw the inner workings from lots of different angles

[00:20:28] Shannon: That's your, your research into it, right?

[00:20:30] Hannah: Absolutely. Your aunt doesn't actually want to be hauling trash bags out at the end of the night. She wants to be a little intoxicated and having a good time. And you as the couple, you don't want to be worried about this job that I gave a friend or family member, is it going to get done or are they off enjoying themselves like they should be. I started to really notice that and be like, yeah, you know what nobody [00:21:00] wants to be doing that. You need somebody whose job it is to be there from the beginning to the end. To make sure all of this gets taken care of. So you can all enjoy your day. Not just the couple who's getting married, but all of the people you love and care about, let them enjoy their day.

[00:21:21] Shannon: It's money well spent by the bride and the groom. So I think it's a brilliant business idea. How do you turn it into an actual business? You've never run a business before?

[00:21:32] Hannah: I knew nothing Thankfully Kurt, my then new boyfriend, had launched his production company. So he had a little bit of knowledge about, you know, filing an LLC, getting yourself set up with the Secretary of State, all that kind of stuff. And introduce me to his bookkeeper and accountant, a wonderful woman named Jeanine who I would not have survived the last 11 years without. The administrative [00:22:00] part of a business is a whole thing as well. It's not just all, you know, pretty weddings and things like that.

[00:22:08] Shannon: Where did you come up with Day of Gal? Cause that's a great, great name.

[00:22:12] Hannah: That is a great question. A lot of what happened with day of gal was once that seed was planted, so many things just started to click and it's why I kept going with it. You know, the name came to me quickly. The concept came to me quickly, what my business model was going to be in the sense that I was not going to do full service planning because I had zero interest in that. And, um, that you needed to be on board with your clients for least a few months beforehand to hone the timeline with them, to visit the venue with them. And make sure that you knew in your mind what they wanted on their day. The concept and, and my own personal boundaries came to me very, very quickly. [00:23:00] And it just all started to click and continued to move forward on its own. And one of my very best friends, Jay was getting married, right around that same time and she had a planner who she was feeling a little iffy about. So she asked if I could shadow her planner under the guise of Hannah's thinking about becoming a planner herself. Can she shadow you on the day? AKA, make sure shit's getting done. And so I did.

[00:23:31] Shannon: Wow. That's amazing.

[00:23:33] Hannah: Yeah. And this woman, is it fantastic planner and became a little bit of a mentor of mine? I think the reason my friend thought she was flaky was because she was actually moving across the country a few days later. So I think her mind was elsewhere. Then she started sending me business in Los Angeles, people who would contact her and she wasn't here to do it. I started getting some of her clients. One of my very first weddings that I did [00:24:00] completely on my own. And I, after that, did every single one of her bridesmaids sweating's because in the wedding industry, there's, there's no repeat customers.

[00:24:10] Shannon: That's very true, but it goes back to what you were saying about not burning bridges. It's you never know who you're going to meet and who you can make a good impression for that's going to come back for you later.

[00:24:20] Hannah: The number of times I would get email inquiries from people who would be like, hi, my name is so-and-so and I was at so-and-so's wedding as a guest. And I watched you all do day, do an incredible job. And like, I know for sure, I never interacted with that person. Never met them, they were watching me and I would tell the women who worked for me, I would tell them that all the time too, you. are always being watched and that is future business.

[00:24:48] Shannon: What exactly do you do on the day of the wedding?

[00:24:51] Hannah: We're the first to arrive the last to leave. And we would make sure that every vendor arrived on time loaded [00:25:00] in and loaded out the way that they were supposed to, so your job is usually sort of being the ping pong ball between all of the vendors all day long of, you know, Hey Hannah, where do I get access to water? Where do I get this? You're navigating between all of the different vendor teams, making sure they all have what they need. Making sure that they're all staying on time, and that the, the timeline is moving according to speed. On wedding days, emotions are higher than ever for everyone, not just the, the two people who are getting married, but for, you know, your cousin who just broke up with her boyfriend of 14 years and is like utterly devastated and doesn't want to be around love, or, you know, your parents who are divorced and one of them brought their new partner and they're going to have to sit next to each other and you know, all this emotion and stress, or just simply, you [00:26:00] know, parents who are overwhelmed with concern that this day go perfectly for their child.

[00:26:07] Shannon: Yeah,

[00:26:08] Hannah: Things like that. You're the captain.

[00:26:11] Shannon: It's 11 years later. You probably have a huge team underneath you at this point. Tell me about when your brain starts thinking. Okay. Maybe it's time to take a break from?

[00:26:23] Hannah: Well, in 2018, I slowed down the number of weddings I was taking because I was pregnant. I didn't know how long I was physically going to want to do weddings while pregnant. And then I also knew once my daughter Charli was born, I didn't know when I was physically going to feel confident getting back on my feet again.

Something that needs to be talked about a lot more for all women and industry is postpartum. [00:27:00] What happens to you physically, mentally? What kind of feeding journey you're on? The wedding industry is predominantly female dominated yet. There's not a lot of talk about, you know, where are you pumping? You know, sometimes we're doing weddings in the middle of a field and there are no places to hide. You also can't take breaks when you want to take breaks because the day is dictated by the timeline of the wedding. So I just didn't know when I was going to feel confident in myself to be able to do a full day's work. So I started delegating a lot of weddings to the other women on my team, which was great because when you have to delegate, then you are able to let go of a little bit of control, which is always healthy for yourself and your business.

I also started to recognize that I was working seven days a week and then we have a [00:28:00] child and I knew pretty quickly that I was not going to want to give up my weekends. I really wanted to have those as a family. I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't something I wanted to do forever. I often thought, you know what the goal of a business, right? Is just start it, get it going, begin to delegate, begin to be able to trust other people. Then you kind of get to take a bit of a backseat while it continues to grow with the team that you've built. In the wedding industry that would have left me with like the administrative duties, which are not what I like to do. I love being on the ground at a wedding. That's my favorite part. So I really struggled with, what does my role look like as this grows. That didn't give me much room to step back.

[00:28:55] Shannon: Yeah, you were really left with working weekends. If you were going to continue. [00:29:00] Tell me about the decision to get rid of your baby to sell?

[00:29:05] Hannah: Well, COVID helped because everything came to a standstill, especially weddings, and it was mindblowing. It was a very interesting time with clients. Some people in my industry started pivoting into what they called micro weddings, you know, which was just the, the, couple and a few other people. I didn't find myself wanting to jump at that pivot. I didn't find myself wanting to reinvent my business to accommodate this new world and that's when I knew when I really knew it was time. I, and I knew that Julia who'd been with me for probably nine years. She started out as a summer intern. and had been with me from the beginning. I offered the business to her. And it's going to take on brand new [00:30:00] legs. She's moving to Florida. And she's got a team here that's going to stay in California and she's going to give it a whole new life. And I can't wait to see what happens. I really feel like I did what I wanted to do with it. And I took it as far as I wanted to take it. . I was ready to give it the gift of fresh, fresh air and, and a fresh perspective. And I can't wait to see where she takes it. I'm thrilled.

[00:30:31] Shannon: What a gift to give to Julia after all of the years that she's put into helping you grow the business. That's really such a treat for her. A nd now you're sitting here and you're ready for your third act. You're ready. What are you doing now every day that you would have been planning weddings?

[00:30:49] Hannah: Right now, I'm restoring a 1923 Spanish house in California. That is taking up a lot of my time, as well as raising our [00:31:00] daughter and maintaining a household and all those things. And we just got a brand new puppy. So it's, you know, it's a lot.

[00:31:08] Shannon: You're busy.

[00:31:09] Hannah: I'm plenty busy, yes.

[00:31:12] Shannon: Is there something that you're longing to do down the road? Or are you sitting in a place where you are so happy with the two acts that you've had that you've been able to accomplish. And wait for the next opportunity to come to you?

[00:31:26] Hannah: Oh, that's such a good question. I think both, I'm very at peace with where I am, what I've done with my life. And I've learned so many times in my life that everything I've done has led me to this moment. Every job I've had has led me to the next job. Whether it was my very first job at a card and balloon store to working at American Eagle, [00:32:00] to waitressing and running a management company, and working in advertising, and running my own company, and renovating a house, you learns skills in every single one of these jobs that makes you absolutely invaluable to your next one. And so I'm both looking with like one eye open looking for the next chapter and sitting back and just appreciating every opportunity I've had in this lifetime. Every boss that I've had, every coworker I've had, every person that I've hired and what they have all taught me, because I know that the next thing is going to show up am very excited for it.

[00:32:55] Shannon: You're just sitting in peace and when your next adventure [00:33:00] appears, you'll decide if you want to go forward or not. And kind of like when you were sitting there and your friend just happened to say, hey, you would be great in the wedding industry. It just kind of appeared and it was the right timing and it just developed into this beautiful business. You have a job. You're a mom, you're raising your beautiful daughter. And the next thing you do could be volunteering. It could be non-profit. It could be writing a book.

[00:33:25] Hannah: I definitely see and sense that my next chapter will be in some sort of s ervice to others. Whether it be in the nonprofit world or bringing awareness to certain matters, certain injustices, , or other organizations, I feel in my heart that, that that will be part of my next chapter.

[00:33:57] Shannon: Any organization or nonprofit would be lucky to have you [00:34:00] Hannah.

[00:34:00] Hannah: Uh, thanks Shannon.

[00:34:02] Shannon: Do you have any, crazy stories from the acting world that you'd want to share?

[00:34:07] Hannah: So many, so many, I was red carpet hosting one time and. Again, something I had never done, never trained for. I literally showed up to an event, for a web series because my friend was in it and she invited me to go and I was there early. They were trying to set up things. Weren't going well. So I jumped into help and they had hired someone to host the red carpet and they didn't show up. And I was like, well, I can do it. And they were like, oh, do you host? And I was like, yes,

[00:34:47] Shannon: Of course.

[00:34:48] Hannah: Never had I done it before, but clearly I could do it. I've watched the Oscars, no big deal. And so there I was all of a sudden the hosting this red carpet I [00:35:00] started interviewing Robert Patrick, who's a guy who was in, the Terminator movies and somehow I told him my last name, which is Campbell. And he got white in the face. You can look it up. It's still on YouTube. Um, and was like, "You're a Campbell." And I was like, "Yeah." And he like rolled up his arm and showed me this tattoo. And he was like, "Your people killed all my people. You're the reason we left Scotland." And I was like, "yeah, I've heard that before." And so like, we go on this whole, cause the Campbells were horrible, horrible, horrible people. Not, not your typical red carpet moment, but

[00:35:41] Shannon: That is very memorable though. You can't forget that.

[00:35:45] Hannah: Actually along the Scottish lines, they waited on Norm MacDonald, rest in peace. The McDonald's and the Campbell's have a very tumultuous past and still do to this day. I know does blowing your mind today. Aren't I with this history? And [00:36:00] so I went up to his table and I said, "I need you to know that I am a Campbell." And Norm like just eyeballed me to the soul and was like, "Okay." And I was like, "So your drinks are on the house tonight." And he was like, "Understood."

[00:36:16] Shannon: You're like, I won't expect a tip from you. I totally

[00:36:19] Hannah: "Tonight between you and me, we're going to keep the peace." And he was like, "We got it." There's also plenty of like vendor horror stories. Like the chef who was blackout drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning and spit in my face called me horrible names. And I had to have him removed before he even finished dinner.

[00:36:37] Shannon: No.

[00:36:38] Hannah: I was like, he has to go. And those are the decisions that are like really hard. Cause you're like, am I screwing up the entire day? Like, am I jeopardizing this entire day by either keeping him we're having him removed? I don't know.

[00:36:50] Shannon: We'll find out.

[00:36:53] Hannah: We'll find out.

[00:36:56] Shannon: Let's talk about Charli real quick,

[00:36:58] Hannah: She's Three and a [00:37:00] half. She loves to be outside. She loves to be, she likes to talk to snails. She likes to be completely covered in dirt. Most of the time she is only in like underwear or a diaper outside.

[00:37:15] Shannon: And now you have this special moment to be with her. This time is time for you and Charli as a mother and daughter. So it's a nice time that you're at right now to just be home with her.

[00:37:26] Hannah: Yeah.

[00:37:29] Shannon: All right. It's time for our Five Fast Qs of the week. Here we go.

Name one thing that these different chapters in your life have taught you?

[00:37:38] Hannah: Resiliency

[00:37:40] Shannon: Would you recommend taking a leap into a big life change to your best friend?

[00:37:44] Hannah: Always.

[00:37:45] Shannon: Have you?

[00:37:46] Hannah: Yeah. Absolutely. If it feels right, go for it.

[00:37:50] Shannon: One piece of advice for someone trying to start their second act?

[00:37:54] Hannah: Fail quickly, which is something I remember Mark Cuban saying on Shark Tank that really [00:38:00] resonated with me. It's okay if something's not working out, but fail quickly and go yeah, that's not working. It feels like a struggle there. Moving on.

[00:38:09] Shannon: What does the next chapter of life look like for you?

[00:38:12] Hannah: I have no idea. And I'm so excited. I am so excited. I have no idea. It's wide open.

[00:38:22] Shannon: Where can our audience connect with?

[00:38:24] Hannah: I am on social media. But right now it's just me a private human. I don't represent a company or anything else. But you're welcome to come be my friend. You can find me on Instagram. @hannahbclaus.

[00:38:37] Shannon: Hannah. It was so wonderful catching up, and I know that our audience will learn a lot from your journey. I'm so excited to see what you do next, only big things. I know it.

[00:38:46] Hannah: Thank you, Shannon. And I'm thrilled to be a part of your podcast and the beginning of this new journey for you in opening up the dialogue and the world to stories of women who change their [00:39:00] life drastically and have more than just one chapter in their life.

[00:39:04] Shannon: Well, you're such a good part of it. So thank you so much, Hannah.

[00:39:07] Hannah: Thank you for having me.

[00:39:09] Shannon: Hearing Hannah stories from her time in the acting world and the wedding world, or so much fun. I can not wait to see what she puts her head and her heart into next. Feel free to connect with Hannah on Instagram @hannahbclaus. That's H a N N a H B. C L a U S.

Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act Success. To view, show notes from this episode, recommend a guest with a great story and learn more about us visit secondactsuccess.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. And if you are enjoying our time together, please leave a review in Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. [00:40:00] Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much. Thank you again for listening. I am Shannon Russell, and this is Second Act Success.