What would your work look like if you stopped measuring it against everyone else’s?

In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with seasoned wedding planner Tabitha Roberts of Roberts & Co. Events for an honest conversation about comparison, burnout, and protecting your creativity in an industry that never stops moving. After 16 years in the DC market, Tabitha has seen how quickly social media can turn inspiration into insecurity—and how essential it is to find balance before burnout sets in.

Together, they explore how comparison shows up at every stage of a creative career, why awards and reviews can create misleading narratives, and what happens when we tie our worth to what others are doing. Tabitha shares the boundaries, habits, and mindset shifts that have helped her protect her mental health, including avoiding post-event scrolling, setting social media limits, leaning on trusted peers, and seeking inspiration outside the wedding world.

She also emphasizes the value of celebrating wins—big or small—and cultivating authentic relationships that create real community in a digital-heavy industry.

Highlights:

• Why balance matters for mental health and creativity
• How comparison contributes to burnout at every career stage
• The impact of social media on confidence and self-worth
• Awards, accolades, and the narratives they create
• Why reviews shouldn’t define your business
• Self-care practices that help ease creative burnout
• The importance of celebrating wins with your team
• How authentic relationships foster support and stability
• Setting boundaries with social media to protect your energy
• Why true inspiration comes from beyond the wedding industry

Connect with Tabitha:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

TikTok

LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business podcast. I'm Kevin Dennis, your host, and we're here with Tabitha Roberts, the owner and lead planner of Roberts and Co. events. So Tabitha, how are you? I'm wonderful. I'm getting over a cold like I told you earlier, but hopefully if I sound like poo poo, you guys know what's going on. anyway, ⁓ Tabitha, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

I'm good, how are you?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm based out of the DC market. I'm a wedding planner. I've been doing this for 16 years, weddings and events. You know, I love a good destination, but you know, enjoy the DC area. been planning for probably far too long. I feel like I'm a little bit of an OG and I'm trying to compete with these young girls that are coming up, but you know, been doing this for a long time.

You got it. All right. So today we're going to be talking about how to find balance in the creative world that will allow you to celebrate your wins and while releasing your negativity, negative energy on comparing ourselves to other creatives, which is, think, something that all of us in the wedding market do. We see that shiny little something that happened on Instagram and we immediately get FOMO. Like immediately, it's just, some, it's, it's, a, it's a really a disease in the wedding industry. So.

Anyway, so why is it essential for creatives to find balance when it comes to comparison?

i mean I think that especially in the creative market, we already are so hard on ourselves and we're in a constant changing environment where there's new trends and there's new things happening and being able to find that balance and that center space for whatever your brand is or whatever your clients are looking for. It just kind of creates this environment that I think produces better creativity across the board and better mental health. I'm a big advocate for mental health in your work life and out of your work life.

But finding balance in the creative space kind of trickles out to the rest of it. And I think our clients see it. I think our peers see it. And it keeps us from having burnout. I mean, I think we've all talked about burnout for the last five years since pandemic. But for me, finding that happy balance in between really helped eliminate that negative mind-working space that burnout kind of exists in.

Yeah, I agree with you. Burnout is the number one thing that we deal with here in the wedding industry. So, all right. So comparison is something many creative business owners struggle with. So when did you first notice comparison creeping into your business or mindset?

I mean, I think in very beginning, like even a million years ago, you know, I started in this industry before the, like the real emergence of Pinterest and Instagram was like a fledgling baby. And so all we really had were magazines to flip through as our creative space. And even then in the early years, I would flip open a magazine and I would be like, ⁓ I just want to be published or, look at that wedding. It's so much better than the wedding that I did yesterday or the event or the client or the budget.

You

And it's, you know, the comparing out to what other people have. And then as the evolution of this juggernaut that is the events industry has grown, it is easier and easier to find that space in spaces like Instagram, Pinterest, now TikTok, because there's always going to be something else, even on my best event days. If I don't use the tools that I'm starting to use now, I find myself comparing out to everybody else's events. ⁓ And then it sucks the joy out of it for me. So,

Yeah.

I think

that this is something that applies to every stage of a career from when you first get into it, even nervous excitement, to when you're seasoned and you've been doing this forever or you're at the top of your game, you're still going to see somebody across the aisle that's doing something equally as comparably great. And if you're not centered in it, it's very easy to want what they had. The grass is greener on the other side.

Yeah, and do you think social media is the biggest part of that?

⁓ I mean, I definitely do. i think that for me, ⁓ the number one thing I had to start doing was pulling away from social media after events. I had to not be a part of it to be able to preserve my mental health. But I think seeing the fast paced world of Instagram, TikTok and the fact that there is easy content being created all the time, it is the largest proponent of it for us as business people. think for our clients, it's more

Hmm.

a little bit of Instagram, a little bit of social media, a lot of online sources like Pinterest, but social media for sure is, in my opinion, the place where creativity can go to die. It can be sucked right out of you.

Now, do you think there's other comparison types like pricing, aesthetics, bookings, or awards and accolades that... I love the chuckle.

⁓ that's a scary

subject. Let's talk about awards and accolades. No, I mean, I do. i think that ⁓ all of those things exist in that same space. And it's very easy that people can create a narrative of what they want you to experience, which might not actually be their reality. So then we have that comparison that happens where you assume what someone's making or you assume what their ⁓ wedding or their event experience looked like or

Awards and accolades, like talk about the million dollar topic that's been happening lately, which is, are we paying for our awards or not? Which awards are real, which ones aren't? And I think that in those spaces, it creates kind of a negative connotation around things that used to be really popular kind of milestones as a business. And so, yes, it exists in every space. And I also think it on the flip side, though,

No, I know.

can drive people into spaces they might not have always reached for because they do want to expand their business or expand their vision because they see somebody that they really respect and emulate going after an award or a business model or a thing. And then they then set the bar for that. So there is a push pull that can exist, but it's how you how you choose to use it.

Yeah, I love that. And you know what I just thought of while we were talking about, what about reviews? Like, can you... I love the chuckle.

Every conversation has a starting point.

Yeah, I mean, and that's funny because like I, we don't subscribe to reviews. Like I actually believe that if you get your business to a really great sustainable model, I think it's great when I get a review, but I refuse to let my team live and die by reviews because anybody that has something negative to say.

Mm-hmm.

I probably have a thought that can go behind it. And if a client, a future client looks at that and says, well, that's enough for me to not work with them. They probably weren't my client to begin with. Now, if you have a million bad reviews, then yeah, like we need to be having a different dialogue about it. But I do think reviews have become less of a system for that comparative tool than others. ⁓ I do think in a business to business peer to peer point of view, getting a review or an accolade from a peer that is

Yeah.

aspiring or attainable, that can help. That is something that people do want. But I think from like a client perspective, it's less so in my opinion, or just where I live with my business.

Yeah, no, and I think that's a good spot to have too. And I think reviews can be very one-sided as well, if you think about it, because you're not really comparing yourself to someone because you weren't part of that event or any of that kind of stuff. then people can always, there's a whole thing, we could do a whole ⁓ podcast on it, but people are using reviews to get refunds right now. we just recently was talking to an attorney that

absolutely

That is the thing right now where they go out and review their people and go bad. we're not here to talk about negative stuff. Well, a little bit, but anyway.

And that's the thing with

reviews. I think that there is a way that can be weaponized and you still have to be aware of them and careful with them. But if you try to,

Yeah.

drive yourself into space where it's not the thing that you live and die by, then your clients aren't also those clients that are using them. And it is a subject of taste. Like I could go out and review a restaurant, but my taste and your taste might be very different. Your idea of service and my idea of service might be different. So I will be the first one to tell somebody, hey, if you saw something, let's have a dialogue about it. But don't compare out to their experience because their experience might be very different than yours and their personality might be very different than yours. That usually offsets them.

And that's

really great point because there's a venue in my market that what they started doing is they used to allow ⁓ the couples to bring their families to the tasting and they stopped because like you just said, everyone's taste is different. Therefore, one person didn't like the salmon, but three of the other ones did. And it was getting, it was so convoluted and they found when they just let the couples come and taste the food, there is...

Zero problems with the food going forward. Yes. it's anyway. All right. Have you ever had a moment where comparison almost derailed your confidence or direction? And what did it look like?

⁓

Mm-hmm.

And I'm happy with ones that I have, but I would love more. then that doubt creeps in. Right. ⁓ And so in those comparative spaces, I go back to the tools that I have to remember, you know what is it that I wanted to build for my brand? it quantity or quality? Is it, do I want to have clients that I love and have relationships with, or do I just want to be pulling in whatever I can get to make sure the calendar's full and going back into those roots help. And then when I see somebody doing

Hmm.

I have design, you know, a design centric kind of event profile. I think there's lots of different event planners, whether you're designer centric or you're planning centric. And I look at designers that I love and respect and I see the events that they're putting on and I say, I'm never going to have that. I don't know that I'll ever get to that space. And then I have to walk it back and say, well, if you want to get there.

how do I do that? And I set attainable goals to figure out how to get to that perfect client. ⁓ But it does take, it takes a little time, right? It's not, it's not going to happen instantaneously. It takes me working on those tools over and over again. And it keeps me from derailing my business because I think as a creative entrepreneur, ⁓ specifically driving through like DC, I'll drive through the city and I'll look up in the office buildings with people at their desks and I'll go, I could just like do a nine to five. And I leave my desk at five o'clock. And then my clients go,

Yeah.

you don't want this job. Like you don't want a nine to five. Like you want the autonomy of what it is that you do. So I got to stay rooted in it. 16 years, I've had some ebbs and flows where I thought maybe this isn't it. But I've had to learn how to walk it back. And that for me has really helped my mental health.

Yeah.

And do you think that has changed over the years for you from when you were newer to maybe more in the middle of your career to where you are now? ⁓

Yeah, I mean, I think in the beginning of my career, everything was fresh and new, but really overwhelming. And I think that happens with a lot of people in the creative industry. Like every milestone is everything you do is a new milestone. And I think with that space.

you can get overwhelmed by it or you can, if you have like a really bad experience, the first time you have really bad conflict or something that doesn't go well, or you get that first bad review, it's enough to maybe derail you. And then I've seen people that have left the industry from that. And so in the beginning, it was having to kind of take those hits on the chin, figure out how to work through them and then keep going forward. Unfortunately, this is like the second recession that I've worked through. And so the first time when the

bookings weren't coming, it was hard to not take it personal. And that was really early in my career. I had to find new ways to generate business. I had to hit the pavement and I had to not take it personal when people didn't give me referral bookings or didn't immediately want to jump on our bandwagon and work with us because I was fresh, new and didn't know what I was doing.

And then I think as I grew and I got comfortable and I figured out what that was, it was, okay, well now I have a couple accolades under my belt and I am getting better clients or I am getting better venues that I want to work at or, you know, it's changing, but I want more. And then you're hungry for something else, but you feel like you're established. So it's a different comparison tool. It's I see my peers growing with me. Why am I not getting what they're getting? How do I figure out?

Mm-hmm.

what that is and what I had to do in that space in my career in the middle was decide who I wanted to be. I didn't want to just be a planner who made enough money to have this career and have a family. It was, I want to be a planner and I have this point of view for my business and these are the clients that I want and these are the jobs that I would like to have. And then I had to rework my business and put money back into my business and put money back into myself or time.

⁓ and that's really when I learned to stop looking outwards with envy or like jealousy or comparison. It was, can respect what you're doing. What do I want to take from what you're doing to grow? And that's what I think has now led me to these last five years. Pandemic really changed a lot for me and how I looked at businesses and I turned inward when we weren't working to figure out what was I going to do on the other side. And now it's.

Hey, I see that Lauryn Prattes Events has done this amazing wedding. What is it that they're doing that's outstanding? What vendors are they using that they're growing with? And how is it that I can then think about that for my clients? Not to duplicate the design, but what did she do that was out of the box? And how do I want to be out of the box? Or this entertainment company really changed the game with the reception. How am I going to think about that for my clients? And I looked at it through the lens of not comparing with them.

but how do I wanna grow inside of this industry? Because at 16 years, it's very easy to get washed out with the young kids and not be able to relate as well. And so I changed the way that I compared and I think that it's given me a more inner peace.

Mmm.

I love it. I think a lot of people forget you're not always comparing apples to apples when you're looking at this. I mean, it's probably a fruit salad that you're comparing everything to. it really gets you from the get-go because you can be someone more established that has more contacts, more relationships, like you said, that have grown with these people through and they've all kind of grown together. So I think it's hard to get stuck in something like that.

Yeah.

or that mind that mindset.

absolutely.

And I think too, when you're in the middle of the pack, right? You've been growing with the same people for 10 years. And then all of a sudden comes a lightning bolt through the community. Somebody that's been doing this for three years, but they struck gold on social media or they struck gold with the right client. It is very easy to go, why is it easy for them?

Mm-hmm.

The reality is it's really not easy. They might have a couple of moments that are flashes and they're building a great arsenal for what's to come, but they're still learning through it. They're still going through the same hard knocks we went through, but they're having to do it faster and with more visibility. And as soon as I was able to realize that and it was like, let me maybe help, not hurt, then it got to be an easier kind of dialogue because in this kind of, well, we were talking about social media earlier, that is the difference between eight years ago and now.

I think there is a lot more come up that happens faster and you get to see other people's work in a much faster ratio than we saw before where we were all grinding for years and years and years and then you might get a publication feature or you might be seen in print or you might get an award. Now it's constant like regulation of stuff. And so.

Mm-hmm.

That means that you're, you feel like you're competing with more people, but really you're not. It's, you're competing with your own inner ability to be creative and put content out there and figure out how you're going to market yourself, not against them, but just to show who you are. And that trade off takes a lot of work too.

Yeah, it really does. So, all right. So let's talk about releasing negative energy spent on comparison. So what does that release look like in the wild, in the practice?

soon.

I mean that releasing at my house looks like sitting in my car outside, out front, screaming. That's my idea. No, just kidding. I sometimes it does. ⁓ I, for me, releasing is, it comes in the form of just like self-care practice as well. So I...

huh.

you

I love that.

really believe that there are certain things I have to do for myself. And they don't apply to everybody, but I do recommend them. And when I share them with my creatives friends, they're like, oh no, that doesn't, I could never. But then when some of them pick up those habits, they're like, oh, that actually helps me immensely. If I have a great event, something I'm really excited about and I've had a wonderful night, but maybe things didn't go the way I wanted them to the whole night because that's like the events industry, right? But it was beautiful, family's happy. I go home, I'm exhausted.

Mm-hmm.

My old way of doing it used to be I would go upstairs, I put my compression boots on to like reinvigorate the soul and then I would scroll and I would scroll social media. And by the time my compression boots ended 15 minutes later, I felt like my event was nothing. It was not pretty enough. It was not shiny enough. They were not happy enough. My imagery isn't going to be good enough. My angles weren't enough. And in a content based industry, that just sucked all the joy out of my life. And I realized that for me,

scrolling social media after an event was not good. I needed to release whatever that was going to be by not allowing it to even exist in the first place. So I do not touch social media till the next day, maybe later in the day. And I'm really careful about what it is that I do and don't look at ⁓ because it's not that I don't want to like herald my friends and be excited for them, but I need the space to live in the joy of what it is that I just got to do because I got to be a part of something really great and I need to preserve that for myself.

Mmm.

to live in the win. ⁓ When I'm in a creative negative space and I need to release it, I go find an outlet that is a creative outlet that has nothing to do with my job. And so it sounds like wild. I love a smash room. If I had like a really tough season, I will get a bunch of my girlfriends together and I will go to one of those break rooms and smash stuff and listen to crazy music and let it out, which isn't really creative, but it's fun. I will go to like a paint class or a pottery thing, or I

Mm-hmm.

We went to a glass blowing class this summer, like something that's creative that has nothing to do with my industry, that allows me to put everything I have onto the table that maybe is bothering me and then outlet it through a creative process while also filling the tank with something else. And those give me a sense of balance. I just need to have something that's a give and a take and a push pull. As well as my number one tip is I have to have peers that I trust.

that put authenticity back into me and I into them that are a sounding board. And that is not a place for me to dump on them. Calling somebody and just dumping all my stuff, that's not it. It is, hey, let's go to lunch. Let's share what's really eating our lunch. What's killing our soul. Get a different perspective from an outsider because I'm too close to it. I'm gonna help you, you're gonna help me. And then we both walk away from it and being like, that really isn't as bad as I thought it was, or, hey, they're...

Hmm.

they really amped me up about what I'm doing and I really amped them up about what they're doing. And we walked away from that feeling good about ourselves. And I think that goes back into different communities have different mindsets and the DC community. are much, we are very much a community. Like we are all try to be kind to each other and friends with each other to some degree. In my early career, I did not have that when rising tide society was a thing. And it was like rising tides, lift all ships. I was like, no, you're not lifting my boat over here.

Hmm.

yeah.

Hehehehehe

I'm hustling, I'm grinding, I don't need you. And that actually didn't help me in the long run. And now I have people, I had a conversation yesterday, there was an hour drive into the city and she hyped me up and I hyped her up and we didn't do it intentionally. That's just having great peer systems to be honest with you. And that helps me creatively because then I'm dumping the negative and the fear and I'm picking out something positive. And it all sounds very like woo woo, but it does, it in practice.

Yeah. No, no,

I think it's real because you got to have people, but you also have to have the right people, I think, because ⁓ for a while I had someone that was very negative in my life that I would talk to. And it was I found that I was becoming more negative and I had to end that relationship for that very reason, because you know, can't have we can't be negative in this, you know, in this world that we live in. So I mean.

I mean, there's definitely

a place to like commiserate and gripe, but it is true. Like we, I recently released somebody from my life that is ultra negative and I didn't realize how much of my life it was pulling down until that person was gone. And then within a couple of days, my spouse looked at me, we were driving and he was like, now that you are not on the phone six times a day with this person dealing with their mom.

Well, yeah, no.

Mm-hmm.

and their nonsense and their constant commiserating and complaining about their workload and having to dig out their problems, you are lighter. You are easier. You are better. You have more to give us as a family. You have more to give your clients. And when I was able to see that perspective shift, I was like, man, like I wasn't even living the principles that I preach all the time. And then once it was removed, it's like, this is actually great. I miss that person immensely.

but I do not miss that negative energy and it allows me to try to be more positive. And then I'm aware when I'm being negative, cause I don't want to do that to somebody else.

I agree. And it sounds like you and I have the same exact situation because my wife said the same thing to me. It's like, my god, you're happier, nicer, and all of the above. So all right, how do we personally separate inspiration from ⁓ imitation or comparison?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was eight and I agree with you. It's like everything's coming back.

But it's, i think that knowing the space of finding inspiration comes from.

the way I look at inspiration is where is it being sourced from? Is the inspiration coming from like another event, for me, another event planner or another person that I aspire to be like, or is it coming from, which to me is kind of copying and creative piracy, if you will. There's always going be a little bit of that overlap in our industry, but true inspiration comes from a place that lives outside of the scope of the work that we're doing. So when I talk to my clients about what they want their wedding to look like or feel like, it's

What arts in your house? Where do you shop? What do you like to do for fun? What is your origin story? Show me if you're going to show me Pinterest, which I don't love to be in that space because I do think that's like the death of creativity. But if you're going to go in there, I want you to show me pictures of like.

and colors and I don't want to see wedding imagery. I want to see everything but wedding imagery. And that's where you find inspiration. And I think the greatest designers of this kind of generation of weddings come from that same space. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

comparison or copying comes in the space when you're just looking at what somebody else did and said, how can I rinse the colors off of this and redo it? And that does exist. It's not wrong, but it's how are you going to spend it for your clients to make it for them? Because some clients are really aesthetically pleasing and some clients are flat like paper. And we have to find the space in the middle to create something for them.

Yeah. No.

Well, yeah, and I think there's a lot of clients that'll go, I want this for my what, know, and or I want that. You're like, great. I've only done that 58 times, but OK, we'll do it again. You're going to pay the.

Duplicate this.

Yeah, we all live

through the white and green wedding. I don't need a lot. The venue so pretty. It's it's that idea, but it's trying to push the boundaries. And that goes back to if you're building a business that is your dream client.

Yeah. Yeah.

not every clients are dream clients. Some clients were just filling the bills, right? But most of them should be clients that you get excited about and they should get excited about you. And that's what makes a good connection. And there should be some give and take, but there's always a little bit of pull in there where we're trying to figure out how to make things happen the way they want it versus the way we want it.

⁓ But I try to drive my clients to inspiration sources that are not wedding. So I'll say, show me other things. Tell me your story. Tell me what your house looks like. Let's have a dinner and I want to hear more. And then let's grow together. And sometimes that works. It does kind of create something that's different.

Well, and then it creates something that's probably more of that couple and not just rinse and repeat of this with different colors. So, all right. So boundaries, you know, so we were talking about boundaries a little bit ago about like social media and you made me think of something like how you don't scroll after. Sometimes I'll find myself at a wedding, I'll scroll like during dinner or something, social media feed. And I found that to be a very negative to me because I'm like, wait,

Right. Exactly.

My wedding's not as pretty as ABC Company's wedding today. And so what kind of boundaries you have to put in place to help your social, emotional, even your business, you got to protect your creativity and your mental space.

think it is a very fair thing to use the mute button on social media. You can follow whoever you want to follow, but if somebody is pushing into your mental and emotional health, you can mute them. They don't know that you've muted them. So there are people for me that maybe I feel like in parallel to inside of our world. And I really do respect what they do, but sometimes they just, they get my goat.

Mm.

They bother me or I'm jealous or I know there's something they're doing. It's roughly my feathers that I haven't worked on and I have to mute them and that's okay. And that for me is having a boundary to say, I respect you. And in this weird transactional world of how many followers people have, I'm going to still give you that follow, but I need to mute you today because I can't see it. There are, this is really applicable in business to business. There are parties, there are events.

There are awards, there are things that we go through in very specific timing. And this one doesn't bother me, but if engage!, really bothers you because that is not how your business is aligned, but you know that everybody you know goes, you can silence that down for the week everyone's at engage!. For me, I like the creative genius of it. It doesn't phase me and gives me a little fumble, I might go one day. But it's really a push and a pull on the boundaries. And it's also...

when I go to events where I know people are going to be. I have very careful boundaries about what I want to talk about and don't want to talk about. I know we have to talk about work, but I don't want to do the comparative, how many weddings do you have? How many weddings do I have? Did you get this client? Did I get this client? That doesn't serve a purpose for me because it's not filling my cup and it's not giving us a better authentic connection. So I make it a point as somebody who has a little bit of social anxiety to have my own talking points that I bring to the table.

Yeah.

if I know that there are spaces where I'm gonna be interacting with somebody who's like that so that I can protect my boundaries about what it is in my business to feel secure. And it sounds crazy, but I have emotional anxiety about certain things and I wanna protect that space.

Okay, I love that. So do you go to like a networking event and you're like, all right, here's my five talking points for this event or?

Yeah. So

sometimes I'll write them down because I'm a little weird like that. I mean, there are certain ones I will go to where I know there are people that I can kiki with all day and I'll love them and be like, your son on Instagram or talk to, I love this event. I'm the first one to give you a compliment. I view a compliment at somebody else's wedding. Some people think it's cringy. I'm like, I respect your work. There are some people that just want to talk numbers. They want to talk about what you're doing. And I know that I need to have a different source of something. So I might make talking points about

No, I don't think that's weird.

Mm-hmm.

if I saw something from their family, or if I saw something that they went on a vacation, or what are you doing next summer for vacation, or are you going away for the holidays? I take it as far away from business as possible because while we're at a networking thing, that doesn't mean that you as a human can't still exist. And I believe that human connection is how I get past some of that other stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and I'm a big believer in relationships and in our whole wedding industry, I think is built on relationships because when you need something or you're going to call on the people that you trust and the people that you, you know, you believe in and the more you know about them, the deeper and stronger that relationship is.

Yeah, we, I think that the best connections I have are those authentic relationships. I still at 16 years get shocked when somebody is like, I got a referral from this, this, and this person. And I'm like, I love that. I love that they're saying our name because they know that like what I'm going to bring to the table is authentic or it's good. And while I'm sure after 16 years, you'd think like, it's like, great. I still get tickled pink about it because to me, it's a pat on the back that like,

Mm-hmm.

What we're cultivating is real. like to believe it's real. ⁓ We're starting up a series in DC called Round Table Talks where we're getting together small groups, intimate groups of vendors with different walks of life to have real dialogues, to make real connections because I want people to say, I have a real relationship so that we have community. Because I think even in a digital age, it's hard to have that community, which is where that creative burnout can also exist. Because if you're only living in your phone, you have nobody to bounce it off of and you need to have.

Hmm.

Yeah,

that's great. And I love that because I think as we move forward in our businesses right now, we need more connection outside of the phone and digitally, period.

⁓ absolutely. And how many times

have we gone to something and been like, let's get lunch. And then we never get lunch. Like I have a million future lunches I will never subscribe to. And the second that morning me makes plans, afternoon me doesn't want to go. So it's like, we need to have commitments to have those. And that's what I'm trying to perpetuate. And when having those conversations at networking things, it's like, no, let's actually commit to doing something together.

100%.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and it's funny you said that too, because I was heavily involved with WIPA for a very long time and we would do a free event and you'd get a bunch of people to sign up, but not everyone shows up. But then you do a paid event, all of a everyone shows up. They're like, oh yeah, I paid 150 or whatever to go to this event. I'm going to make the effort to show up. So I am, yeah. I committed with my credit card.

I'm

⁓ yeah. I'm not missing a paid event, but if you sign me up for a free thing and I signed up at 10 a.m., there's a good chance at 6 p.m. I'm not gonna make it, because I'm a very different person when the sun goes down.

I agree. I agree with you.

No, I agree with you because it's like, ⁓ I don't have to go. Yeah. Yes. And you guys have a lot of traffic there in the wonderful DC. So all right. So sometimes we focus on moving to the next task when we should be celebrating a win. So how do you celebrate wins personally or with your team?

that looks like it's full of traffic. Good.

it's something.

Yeah, I again, I think the scrolling thing is part of that. Like I like to live in the creative space that we've created for like 24 hours. We make it a point at the end of every year to get together and make sure that we celebrate what the wins are for the year. We have regular meetings as a team and constantly kind of reevaluate where we are, but also make sure to save the time for it. Because I think, you know,

in this PR kind of focused world that we have, it's very easy for me to throw something on my Instagram and be like, look, we were featured or our client got published, but did we actually take the time to enjoy it? Did we actually take the time to be proud of ourselves? And so that's a big thing for me is to get with my team to say, like, I'm really excited about it. Or, you know, on the flip side of the networking thing, if someone's celebrating an anniversary or a true launch of something, or like we are celebrating something that has to do with another person or community, like I want to show up for that. I want to make sure that I'm present. ⁓ It's making the time for

Hmm.

because like you know we were just talking about morning me and p.m. me are two very different people and I think it's even easier inside of a team to be like we'll we'll get to that and then you never do so we try to take retreats and go out of town together and travel and you know just enjoy the time off and not just talk about work like we do celebrate but we also say like how do we

Mm-hmm.

regroup ourselves and how do we do things for ourselves. A lot of those creative things that I was talking about earlier, I do with my team. I go with my associate Rachel. We try to make it a point to see each other frequently to go out and do stuff to be able to say, what are you stoked about? What is it that's working for you? What isn't working for you? Also, let's be excited about.

this feature. went to lunch yesterday. She got featured on Martha Stewart. It was her first big feature. Really excited for her. And we want to celebrate that. And if you don't celebrate it, what's the point? It's just noise.

Of course you do.

No, yeah, you got to celebrate the wins as they come because, yeah, because otherwise you get stuck in the minutia of everything there. So, all right.

Absolutely.

And I think

it's something to be said for like, we don't celebrate it up, but then we celebrate too much. And so we do it internally. like it's just the right mix.

Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. All right. So as we are wrapping up, can you leave us with maybe to release some of that negativity as we go into 2026?

No, yeah, I mean, and I think it's all perspective. So I think the biggest thing that I always say.

is like give yourself grace in that. ⁓ I think the people that know me really well know that I'm actually very snarky. I'm very sarcastic. I am the first one to make a face and do something dumb. But I'll be the absolute first person in line to cheerlead somebody and to be excited for them and to like herald their good things. And so that requires having grace in all spaces. And so give yourself the grace to say, hey, maybe this wedding I actually scrolled afterwards, but next wedding I'm going to do better or

really beating myself up but I'm gonna pick up the phone and I'm going to call somebody or I'm going to text somebody to take care of myself. I'm gonna put myself first and then I can also be of service and I think in

Mm-hmm.

You know, I think it's really easy to get bogged down and not be able to see the beauty through all of this stuff. And once you kind of strip it apart, the creativity will come.

Yeah, and I think you and I would be friends if we were in the same market because I'm the snarky one and I'm I get told to chill a lot from my staff. They're like you need

Yeah, it is really, there's such a dynamic,

like you can be snarky and you can still have positivity or you can be really dry about certain things or really sarcastic about something, but also recognize that like there's a positive other side to that. I can see both sides of each piece of the coin. It's which one I want to invest my emotional bandwidth in, which dictates how the rest of my day is going to go. I don't have to carry this into tomorrow. I can leave it right here today if I don't like it.

I know.

And that's good advice, because I'm the one that gets... There's a lot of David from schitt's Creek in me, and I'm just... You could see it right on my face immediately as it's going down. I'll even get told... I'll get told from my staff, smile, smile.

of that.

yeah, 100%.

Yeah, there's been

plenty of times I've gotten a text as I've been on a speaking stage and it's like, remember that you need to like lighten your face up, smile a little bit. And if all else fails, just scream in your car for like two minutes and it just releases it all out and you can go into the meeting and you're fine and nobody knows any different.

Yeah, I love that. All right, Tabitha,

was pleasure speaking with you. So how can folks get in contact with you?

Absolutely. you can find us @robertsandco on Instagram and TikTok. Our email is Tabitha@RobertsEventPlanning.com and our website is Roberts & Co. Events.

All right, folks, we'll have all that information on the show notes as well. So Tabitha, can't thank you enough for being here today and sharing your wisdom with everyone. was a pleasure speaking with you. All right. Thank you, guys. We'll talk to you everyone soon. I think you're getting to the end of our episodes here of the year. So I think you're going to be right here at the end. So everyone, happy 2026. All right. Bye, everyone.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah.

Bye.