0:00:00 - (Brooke Aitken): I got the marks to get into medicine, so I started medicine. Half a year later, I went, no, this is not for me. I've always wanted to do architecture. If not architecture, something in the arts.

0:00:11 - (Linda Habak): Where was rock bottom? Take me back to rock bottom in the business.

0:00:15 - (Brooke Aitken): It was actually 10 years in, I was like, I am working my guts out. It was just on throughout that process. I was on ivf, trying to have a child. Turns out I had terrible endometriosis.

0:00:27 - (Linda Habak): You've kind of got a client avatar or a project avatar of what project looks like. How do you get those jobs?

0:00:35 - (Brooke Aitken): I never used to think about marketing. I mean, I didn't even have good photography for the first 10 years of my business.

0:00:42 - (Linda Habak): How do you stay creatively inspired when you're also trying to juggle all the other demands of running an architecture and design practice? I'm Linda Habak, and this is Build Beautiful, where design meets depth. Welcome back to Build Beautiful. Today's guest is someone I've long admired, not just for her design work, but for her honesty. Brooke Atkin has been running her own studio for over 20 years.

0:01:15 - (Linda Habak): And somewhere along the way, she said something that stayed with me. I was happy but broke. In an industry that often hides the struggle behind glossy portfolios, Brooke has lived and survived the full arc. The passion, the droughts, the questioning, and the breakthrough. This episode is for every creative who's poured heart into their work and wondered if it would ever pay off financially, emotionally or otherwise.

0:01:42 - (Linda Habak): We talk about staying in the game, the myths of success, and what it means to finally find a rhythm that feels true. Because sometimes building beautiful takes time. Hi, Brooke.

0:01:54 - (Brooke Aitken): Hi, Linda.

0:01:56 - (Linda Habak): Welcome to the podcast.

0:01:57 - (Brooke Aitken): Thank you. And yes, it does take time.

0:02:00 - (Linda Habak): It does take time. Well, we're going to talk all about that, but maybe before we we get to that, let's start at the beginning. Talk me through how you ended up in architecture. Why architecture for you?

0:02:14 - (Brooke Aitken): So at school, I was very good at art, art history, and also sciences. My father was a doctor, my mother was a pharmacist, but she really was an interior designer at heart. At school, I did really well. I got the marks to get into medicine, so I started medicine, which, you know, my father had actually already in his mind, put a little sign out shingle that was polished so that my name could be under his half.

0:02:46 - (Linda Habak): That's so beautiful.

0:02:48 - (Brooke Aitken): Half a year later I went, no, this is not for me. I've always wanted to do architecture, if not architecture, something in the arts. So I cut my hair off, dyed it white, blonde, Went to work for a cafe in hip Paddington at the time I was 18, as you do and you know, just went all in for architecture. He didn't speak to me for another.

0:03:14 - (Linda Habak): I was gonna ask you, was he a little heartbroken? How did he cope with it?

0:03:18 - (Brooke Aitken): But it's okay, it's okay. I was meant to do this.

0:03:21 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, you really were meant to do this. And you have done it for many, many, many years.

0:03:26 - (Brooke Aitken): Many years. I Left University in 94. I have been, yeah, working in architectures for 30 years.

0:03:34 - (Linda Habak): And you started working in large scale practices or.

0:03:38 - (Brooke Aitken): So I started working in Dencort Commercial in Sydney and underneath the tutelage of Richard Johnson, amazing man that he is. I actually started in the interior section of dcm. At the time it was called DCMI and it had Sue Carr as the head. So effectively I've worked for car design for a year and then I transferred. I didn't move desks, I just transferred my house hat into DCM and I worked there for six years.

0:04:07 - (Brooke Aitken): And I was the crazily the project architect for the interiors of the Melbourne Museum at 28 years old. It was ridiculous. But I mean, I think about now and think, why on earth how would you give a child that responsibility? But there you go, it was amazing. I loved every minute of it and I loved all the detail of it because I've always been really detail oriented. So see that in your work. Never very interested in urban design per se, but very interested in the detail.

0:04:39 - (Brooke Aitken): So from there that was the end of 2000 and my husband had to go to London for work. So we packed our bags and went to London and I got a job with Anushka Hempel in Anoushka Hempel Design. And we stayed there until the end of 2004. And that's when I came back and started up my own company.

0:04:57 - (Linda Habak): And what was the catalyst to starting your own company and not just going back into practice for a firm through

0:05:05 - (Brooke Aitken): working at Denticoke Marshall, I actually had my own company. So I was, I was being paid absolutely nothing. So I had to support myself in other ways. And so I was doing restaurants, I was doing people's homes. So, you know, I was sort of channeling that and I loved it, I really loved it. And so when I came back, I actually already had clients going, you're coming back, let's do the next thing. So it just felt so easy that I could do it.

0:05:37 - (Linda Habak): So you come back, you go full throttle into your own business. What did business look like then for

0:05:44 - (Brooke Aitken): you in Those early days, October 2004 is when I started my own business. 2005 got very much into it. I think by then I had so much work that I could bring on extra staff. So it was me working in the dining table, people coming in and out. It was very ad hoc. I actually didn't know what I was doing in terms of business. I knew I had a very fixed vision about what I wanted for my firm. I wanted to be an interior designer as well as an architect, but I didn't do interior design at university. I did architecture at university, but I went to work for an interior designer in London.

0:06:28 - (Linda Habak): So one would say that the experience of working for someone is almost even more valuable than. Exactly.

0:06:38 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah. I mean, the level of work that Anoushka Hempel design does is slightly different to mine, but not to say that I wouldn't want that level, but, you know, came back and started doing small renovations, but still really wanting to do the interiors of the renovations as well. But I didn't know how interior designers built in this country. I only knew because he. Working for a large firm, you never get into how they're billing.

0:07:07 - (Brooke Aitken): Working for Anoushka Hempel, we were very much separated from the billing of that. So I had no idea what I was doing. Again, what I wanted to do was make beautiful rooms. So, you know, that was so exciting for me to be able to have. It was mine, and I was able to do what I wanted to do for a client, to see a client's vision come through with how I've designed it for them. So that was exciting. And then it just very organically grew

0:07:37 - (Linda Habak): from there, because I see that in your work, it's very integrated, the architecture and the interiors feels. It's such a soulful integration. It doesn't feel like someone's done the architecture and someone has done the interiors.

0:07:50 - (Brooke Aitken): You know, really, that's our thing.

0:07:52 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, that's your thing. That's what sets you apart. It's your. It's your usp, your unique selling proposition. We were on a panel together not that long ago, and what I do remember is being totally mesmerized by what you were saying. You spoke so passionately about the work and how much you loved the work, but also about the challenges of the business. I'm going to quote you, but you said, I was happy, but I was broke.

0:08:21 - (Linda Habak): I just remember being. You know, the honesty and the authenticity that you brought to that conversation, it was so powerful. So can we take a minute and can we just talk about the Business of. Because I know you've done a lot of work around that. Take me back to the earlier stages and where was rock bottom?

0:08:44 - (Brooke Aitken): I didn't actually have payroll for almost seven, eight years. I just had people that I would pay as hourly rates or they were all contractors, so I didn't have to think about, oh, I've got to make payroll this month. But at some point, it was actually 10 years in, I was like, I am working my guts out. I do not stop working on weekend. I can't go on holidays without knowing that I've got to be on call at all times.

0:09:11 - (Brooke Aitken): It was just on. And I was tired. I was so tired. I had just built my house in Alexandria and I had gone owner builder on that as well. And that's a lot that'd break anybody exhausted. Also throughout that process, I was on IVF trying to have a child. Turns out I had terrible endometriosis, but I had no idea because I have a very high pain threshold. And I just work. I just work through it. So nothing ever really said to me, oh, there was something terribly wrong, but I was being pumped full of drugs and I was built my house, and I just thought, oh, my God, what am I doing here?

0:09:54 - (Brooke Aitken): I didn't mind not being pregnant. It wasn't my be all and end all. It was just I was so exhausted from all of the drugs.

0:10:01 - (Linda Habak): And how did that go?

0:10:02 - (Brooke Aitken): No, it was. It was difficult. Was meant to be My. My. I. I love my life. And I. I don't know why I spent so many years trying for that when I knew, you know, I'm actually very happy. I've got a beautiful stepson. He's been with me since he was 5 years old. So I'm.

0:10:22 - (Linda Habak): That's so beautiful.

0:10:23 - (Brooke Aitken): Very lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Rock bottom happened when, by that stage, we'd moved out of the house into a new office, which is where we are still to this day. I finally had staff that I was paying P A Y G. And, you know, there were months where I'd go, oh, can I pay myself? This is just crazy. Oh, my God. And I thought, why is this happening to me? I've got amazing clients. I've got a great network. I think I do pretty good work, so why can I not just make this business work?

0:11:00 - (Brooke Aitken): And this is when podcasts just started being a thing. And I just thought, either I shut up business and go work for a big firm again, which I actually had been really contemplating, because I felt like a failure that I wasn't able to support Well, I was supporting my people in payg, but I wasn't really supporting myself and my family and I thought, this is ridiculous. Well, it turns out I actually didn't know how interior designers actually build, so I was missing a huge amount of fees just from not having any idea whatsoever because I've done everything myself.

0:11:39 - (Brooke Aitken): I'm not trained in business through a practice, through an architecture practice or an interior design practice. So I was just making it up. So it went along. That'll be fine. So I had a long heart chat with myself and started listening to podcasts and found the business of design and things just went bing. Why have I not. It's amazing that I haven't gone bankrupt already because I'm just. It's all about the work. It's not, you know, you've got architects that their dreams are always to be working in that little white eyrie by themselves. It doesn't matter about whether they get paid or not. It's about the work.

0:12:17 - (Brooke Aitken): You know, that's the sort of thing you get taught at university. It's about the work and then it's

0:12:24 - (Linda Habak): great until it doesn't sustain you.

0:12:26 - (Brooke Aitken): Right. And it's crazy.

0:12:28 - (Linda Habak): And so where was the penny drop? At what point was it that things went ping and you thought, right, I've got to really focus on this. And what did that look like in practice?

0:12:37 - (Brooke Aitken): Oh, it was the fact that I could pay my staff and I was thinking, oh God, I can't pay myself.

0:12:43 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:12:43 - (Brooke Aitken): And this is crazy.

0:12:44 - (Linda Habak): And then what was that transition point? What was the first thing you did

0:12:48 - (Brooke Aitken): to started listening to podcasts? I couldn't actually extricate myself out of the business at that because I had too many jobs on. We always were busy, so there was no way that I could close down and go right immediately. So I was like, okay, this is going to be a design exercise for me. It's a problem. I'm going to solve it.

0:13:08 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely. And so what were some of those early steps that you took? What did you extract from the podcast to then implement in the day to day?

0:13:18 - (Brooke Aitken): I extracted from the podcast that I needed to become a Business of Design member and then I just subsumed so much information. Podcasts often go money mindset. And I was like, ugh, that term just so annoys me. But it was, there's something to it.

0:13:35 - (Linda Habak): There's a mindset shift that has to happen. You almost have to believe that you deserve to make money because I think as creatives, we're not, we're certainly not taught that at college or university?

0:13:47 - (Brooke Aitken): No, in fact, in my second last year of university, I had a tutor who said to me, oh, Brooke, your designs are fantastic, but you're just going to have to have really, really wealthy clients because you really can't design something that's just acceptable in terms of a budget. Oh, my God. That whole. It was quite a socialist attitude. And I thought, I've got to always be really good about my fees and I can't design too expensively because that was the mindset of our university.

0:14:23 - (Brooke Aitken): It turns out that actually domestic architect and interior design, you. You do have to have a budget for it. You can't just be doing it on the cheap. And I don't think that that mindset is something that they teach any longer, but it was certainly something that was taught in university for me.

0:14:40 - (Linda Habak): So how did you counteract that mindset? What was the mindset shift for you?

0:14:45 - (Brooke Aitken): I think being around interior designers, because that wasn't a mindset that interior designers have, you guys. And I'm calling myself an interior designer, but, you know, you are.

0:14:57 - (Linda Habak): As a business and a practice, it's absolutely.

0:14:59 - (Brooke Aitken): But, you know, I think that that mindset is not, you know, you don't think about it, you think about how beautiful a room will be instead. And how am I going to design that room? Yeah, the penny just sort of dropped. And then I went through every single course in business of design online, and then I made all of my team go through every single. Well, at least go through the 15 steps of the business of design.

0:15:25 - (Brooke Aitken): We have now subsequently done that a second time around where we've actually really gone into the depth of it. And I changed a whole heap of systems. I actually got systems.

0:15:36 - (Linda Habak): That's a start. I mean, it's amazing, right? Once you start to document a process and you understand what is happening, you can see the holes in that process. I mean, every time something breaks down, we're like, okay, where is the hole in that system and how do we fix it?

0:15:52 - (Brooke Aitken): Am I going to fix it?

0:15:53 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, absolutely.

0:15:54 - (Brooke Aitken): And where am I in that process?

0:15:57 - (Linda Habak): Have I.

0:15:58 - (Brooke Aitken): How have I affected that process? What have I done wrong? Not what has my team done wrong? What can I do to change it?

0:16:06 - (Linda Habak): You're the bottleneck in that process. How do you unstick the bottleneck, actually? How do you clear it so that things can keep moving? Or what's the. It's challenging. There's a lot of moving parts.

0:16:19 - (Brooke Aitken): And I actually think that first 10 years of business, certainly as an architect, you're learning to do Architecture in a region. You're learning gutter details. You cannot stop learning either as an architect or an interior designer. The details, the documentation, the what's out there, the new everything is. There's so much information. It is such a wealth of information that you have to constantly, you know, just the fire hose of information you've got gotta turn on.

0:16:49 - (Brooke Aitken): So where in that do you have time to actually learn how to run a business? There is the issue. You've got to actually have some runs on the board. I think you've got to be able to do architecture or do interior design before you actually can at least, you know, a few years in, really understand how to take time out to really

0:17:08 - (Linda Habak): understand your business and understand the process. You've had to have run it a few times to really then understand what it is. Because it's all well and good to learn these things at college, university, whatever it is, until you've actually lived through it and run a whole process, you just don't know what you don't know. I say you're building the car as you drive it. So now you're driving the car. It's built.

0:17:33 - (Linda Habak): Tell me about.

0:17:35 - (Brooke Aitken): It's got a few things falling off the back of it.

0:17:37 - (Linda Habak): Oh, don't worry, we're all in the same boat. So where are you now? Obviously we've moved on from the I'm happy but broke moment. You're clearly not broke anymore. You're making great goals.

0:17:50 - (Brooke Aitken): We are.

0:17:51 - (Linda Habak): What does it look like now?

0:17:52 - (Brooke Aitken): So I certainly don't think I am an incredible businesswoman. I've got so much more to learn. I know when to say no when I can. I certainly think that we're 21 years into Brooke Aitken Design and we've got another 19 to go and that'll be 40 years.

0:18:09 - (Linda Habak): I love how prescriptive that is. Like that is. I've never even thought about it like that, but wow. So 19 years to go.

0:18:15 - (Brooke Aitken): We're on the top of the hill. Well, no, maybe we're just going to go plateauing. Yeah, there might be a few bumps. So I feel like the last last 20 years, I've really trying to work on beautiful things that we can be proud of that we can really showcase and say this is what we've done. And now I just want to throttle up the engine and go, okay, great guns. So with that, I've got a team. There are eight of us and then there's actually one in America. But I don't think we're going to get much More American work at this present moment in the current climate.

0:18:53 - (Linda Habak): We did do a beautiful project.

0:18:54 - (Brooke Aitken): We did two.

0:18:55 - (Linda Habak): Oh, two. I saw this San Francisco one.

0:18:59 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah, amazing.

0:19:00 - (Linda Habak): I mean, amazing.

0:19:01 - (Brooke Aitken): Well, we won two American Society of Interior Design awards for that project. And yeah, it was so weird.

0:19:08 - (Linda Habak): How did you get that work? So, like, tell me about the US market and how you.

0:19:13 - (Brooke Aitken): So my closest friend from school, she married an American and they went to live in Palo Alto. I then did up their house and their friend came to the house and went, I love it. Okay. This is very different from Australian design, is actually quite different from American design. And just being able to see that there is something new and different. Yeah, she just, she started texting me and said, I'm looking for a place to buy. And then she bought this incredible place that was right up my alley. It was a studio for a photographer that. He loved Japan and he did this studio that I then turned into a two bedroom house.

0:19:53 - (Linda Habak): I know, and you did it so beautifully and the aesthetic and the detailing and I can really see that story. It felt like a story. You were telling a story actually in that project. How did you find designing for a different market in terms of material specifications? Did you have any challenges with that?

0:20:12 - (Brooke Aitken): No, same. Same really is. And I mean, there are obviously requirements, particularly in an earthquake zone that I didn't know about. But you just learn from your builder. If you've got a really good builder, then that's fine. But you know, the electrical system is the same. It's the. Everything really was the same. I would say, oh, I'm looking for something like this. And then we'd find out that this was actually being sold in America. So I think we are far more international than we think.

0:20:44 - (Brooke Aitken): Global.

0:20:45 - (Linda Habak): Sorry, global. And what do you think it is about the Australian aesthetic? Because I had Aidan Anderson on season one. The local project has launched in New York and it's doing extremely well because Australian design is really sought after. It's really interesting to the Americans. But from your perspective, what do you think it is?

0:21:05 - (Brooke Aitken): I think we take risks and I think that it's very homogenous in. Mainly in America. And it depends on where you are in America, really.

0:21:17 - (Linda Habak): That's right.

0:21:18 - (Brooke Aitken): We revel in difference, we revel in new design. Whereas I think that most, and I'm going to be incredibly terrible and just say most interior designers or architects, they're looking at just the standard in. You know, there's no real inspiration that I can see. I think Australians just really love color. Really love. There's a Lightness and a brightness to our work that I don't think.

0:21:45 - (Linda Habak): And I think our light is different here. It's a bit like New Zealand, the light is so different. And that impact color, it really does colour combinations and. Yeah. And then the courage to actually execute on that, because that can be challenging. Actually.

0:22:01 - (Brooke Aitken): I actually think that we feed off each other. I think that we're at a really interesting stage of Australia being a design hub. We're a small country and we are all very connected visually to each other in architecture and interior design. And I think we're all growing very exponentially in our design skills because of that. I think it's a really exciting time to be here.

0:22:25 - (Linda Habak): And what are your thoughts on trends versus?

0:22:29 - (Brooke Aitken): I hate trends.

0:22:32 - (Linda Habak): I know, I hate that term too, but. Well, how do you navigate things that are of the moment versus things that are. Cause I don't. I look at your work and I think some of the projects I was looking at, I still think will look amazing in 15 years time. You cannot tell that it's been designed of a particular time, but we'll open up a local magazine and you can see there is a rhythm and a language and I think that in five years we'll look back at some of that work and go, it was of that time.

0:23:04 - (Linda Habak): So how do you and your team members approach that?

0:23:07 - (Brooke Aitken): Totally. I mean, like millennial Pink just does my head in. Is that the name of it? I didn't even know that, as I call it, what I got on my nose. I have always believed that design has to be classic and has to be incredibly long lasting. My architectural training was looking at the masters of modernism, so Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, Kahn, all the Japanese architects, I mean, their work, when you go look at it, it's just incredible to this day, the detailing.

0:23:49 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah. I think that trends are just wash your mouth out with soap and water because just I hate that. I think our work, we try to do something that is either aligned to the house or the environment that the house is in or the client. And oftentimes it's both. So, for instance, we do a lot of work in older period style houses and we did one in just on Centennial park in Randwick and it was a heritage listed building and I could have been quite calm in how I responded to it, but the clients, I wanted to do something that was going to last, but the clients actually were so in love with colour. I mean.

0:24:32 - (Linda Habak): Oh, that's like a dream client to get a, you know, that wants to embrace colour. Not everybody does.

0:24:38 - (Brooke Aitken): Not everybody does. That's right. So the framework, the overall shell of what we did was very demure, but the interiors was incredibly colorful. So, you know, if the interiors to change the colors in years to come, they can. But even the color of, for instance, the bathroom, which is this multicolored blue thing that came from the blue of the fireplace that the bathroom has in it, that was from the 1800s. So, you know. Yeah.

0:25:11 - (Linda Habak): References to the history. I love that. I want to go back to the business. And you've got 19. You said you've got 19 years to go. So what does success look like, like to you? And when is enough enough in terms of, you know, how do you define success for you?

0:25:29 - (Brooke Aitken): Success has not happened yet. You know, I think we are still on that journey.

0:25:34 - (Linda Habak): So let's unpack. What if you haven't achieved it or reached it yet, then what is it that you're aiming for?

0:25:40 - (Brooke Aitken): I would like every single person in my company to be earning a particular sum of money. And I have it in my head, but I'm not telling you guys that,

0:25:48 - (Linda Habak): okay, you don't have to share that level of detail.

0:25:52 - (Brooke Aitken): And I would like to be earning a six significant sum of money. And I want to have enough to be able to retire happily. And that is the economic side of it. The design side of it is, you know, I used to think, oh, I want to be able to have awards. And when you've got awards, you're like, okay, that's fantastic. But that you realize that's not it. I want there to be projects that we look back on that we did, you know, 30 years ago and go, it's still beautiful to today. That's success to me.

0:26:29 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. So legacy projects. Legacy projects, yeah. Designing for timelessness, unpacking the fact that you've got a financial goal. You clearly have it. Do you then take. And I'm not going to ask you what it is, but do you then take that amount that you're looking to achieve? Do you spreadsheet it out and break it down, go backwards and go. Okay, in order to achieve this goal, we're going to have to hit these numbers. Do you have.

0:26:56 - (Brooke Aitken): Wouldn't that be wonderful if I did that? Yes. I meant to have done that this year.

0:27:02 - (Linda Habak): You're doing that when you leave today?

0:27:05 - (Brooke Aitken): No. Yes.

0:27:07 - (Linda Habak): Because it's great to have a goal. I think it's fantastic to have a goal, but I think it would be a really good exercise to the. Then strip that back and break it up into bite size.

0:27:17 - (Brooke Aitken): And actually, we do do this. So I'm, as you know, a part of a small group of eight called the Business of Design boss group member for Australia B oaus. And we do every six months, look at each other's figures in spreadsheeted. In fact, we're going to be doing that. We've partly done it this year and we're doing it again next year. And so we know we're actually looking at each other's figures, but in relationship to how we making our own figures, so much better. And what do we need to do for that?

0:27:54 - (Brooke Aitken): So even though I haven't spreadsheeted it, it definitely is in my brain of how many. Yeah, how many jobs we need this year? You know, what's our pipeline like? Because we've always got jobs, but we need jobs that really step up and step up and step up. Maybe not size, but in quality, in the amount of money that we can get for a job.

0:28:20 - (Linda Habak): So let's talk pipeline then. And sounds like you've kind of got a client avatar or a project avatar of what a good project looks like. How do you get those jobs? What is your strategy? Because that's a $64 million question that everybody wants to know.

0:28:37 - (Brooke Aitken): So, interestingly, I never used to think about marketing. I. I mean, I didn't even have good photography for the first 10 years of. Of my business, which is so stupid because I had great jobs that I'd done, but the photography was so bad that I just can't be showing them.

0:28:54 - (Linda Habak): Go back and shoot them. Legacy project.

0:28:57 - (Brooke Aitken): Legacy projects. We actually did shoot one that was 11 years old. And then I was like, oh, this looks like we've done it yesterday. This is great. But marketing and we, you know, we now have a person that. Lizzie Rancourt. Lizzie ran Kirk Creative, who is our media consultant and that she came on, I think it's been a year, two years now. Anyway, it's just completely changed how marketing is perceived from us and it's really flooded our, you know, Brook Aiken design into the ether, which is awesome.

0:29:37 - (Brooke Aitken): We're doing that because we want to be known. I think a lot of people didn't really know us because I used to always get clients, word of mouth and in fact, I was incredibly proud of that. And that's great. But that can only get you so many clients.

0:29:54 - (Linda Habak): It does dry up. It does dry up, definitely. I know that firsthand, actually. And so how do you transition?

0:30:03 - (Brooke Aitken): We have seen that transition already by having the consultant. By having the consultant.

0:30:08 - (Linda Habak): And what does marketing look like?

0:30:09 - (Brooke Aitken): For you in practice, that's a lot of money.

0:30:13 - (Linda Habak): Yes, it is.

0:30:14 - (Brooke Aitken): That's why I was here marketing mother.

0:30:15 - (Linda Habak): So long. But necessary. But a necessary.

0:30:20 - (Brooke Aitken): But a necessary evil.

0:30:22 - (Linda Habak): Yes, a necessary evil.

0:30:24 - (Brooke Aitken): So I didn't even have a marketing budget before, and now I've got a significant sum of money. But, you know, I didn't have a newsletter before. I never thought I needed one. That in itself has been a real remarkable. Like, people are talking about our newsletter. I'm like, I don't read anybody's newsletter. I delete everything I have to sign

0:30:43 - (Linda Habak): up to your newsletter. Cause I join newsletters. And then I unsubscribe. Unsubscribe. But there are a couple that catch me, and I go, that's a good newsletter. And I then save them. Because I'm like, one day I've got to do a newsletter. And I think the ones that really say something, and they're not just. And now with AI, a lot of it is just AI slop.

0:31:04 - (Brooke Aitken): Oh, yeah.

0:31:04 - (Linda Habak): I mean, please. You know, So I think the fact that people are saying to you, your newsletter is really good, and I've read it. That's amazing.

0:31:14 - (Brooke Aitken): I know. And I look at them and go, you have?

0:31:17 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:31:17 - (Brooke Aitken): Really?

0:31:18 - (Linda Habak): Really. Okay, say again. That's right.

0:31:22 - (Brooke Aitken): So that's a good one. She's also been really fantastic in that she does all of our writing for awards. And I mean, I used to take that on myself and, oh, my God, I'm just not a great writer. So that just stress has just. And she pushes me because I'm always head focused in, you know, the gutter detail, or.

0:31:45 - (Linda Habak): We're gonna talk about the gutter detail. We're gonna talk about the gutter detail and all of that in a second. With the marketing budget. Now, on reflection, do you see that that's been a really good return on your investment?

0:31:57 - (Brooke Aitken): 100%.

0:31:58 - (Linda Habak): So you have seen a direct. Okay. You've seen a direct impact to the bottom line, to the turnover and the profitability. Great. Love that. This is good stuff. Excellent.

0:32:09 - (Brooke Aitken): Yes. Remarkable.

0:32:11 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. Really? That's amazing.

0:32:13 - (Brooke Aitken): We've had clients come to us going, yeah, I've seen you from xyz. And I think, well, that wouldn't have happened without. Without.

0:32:20 - (Linda Habak): Without that you see.

0:32:22 - (Brooke Aitken): No.

0:32:22 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, that's amazing. Where are the clients mainly coming from? Are they seeing. Where are they seeing you? Or is it just because you have a holistic strategy?

0:32:31 - (Brooke Aitken): It's the black arts of marketing. Right. It might be in a magazine, it might be the newsletter, it might be the new Website. It might be Instagram, it might be LinkedIn. It's just so much.

0:32:46 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely you do. I find Daniel Priestley. He's a business coach of some sort and he's all over socials. But he. I was watching one of his podcast interviews and he was saying that clients need 11 touch points actually to build. To really convert and trust and build the trust. 11 touch points. And that's a lot of touch. That's a lot of touch over a period of time.

0:33:11 - (Brooke Aitken): But then that's a whole mess up. Exactly.

0:33:15 - (Linda Habak): But you are trying to build trust and credibility. So if they're seeing you you in a lot of different places, then that's exactly speaking to your point. That's. Yeah.

0:33:25 - (Brooke Aitken): And trust is so important because they're giving over an unbelievable amount of money and so they need to trust that you've got their best interests at heart and they can see a vision for them that is going to make them want to go, huh, honey, I'm home.

0:33:43 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, absolutely. And trust in is as designers or architects, you have to build it, you know, once you have the connection and they've walked through the door and they're your client, you have to build it quickly actually, and then take them on the journey.

0:33:59 - (Brooke Aitken): And that is, that is something that you have to have innate with you. You've got to be a salesman.

0:34:04 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely, absolutely.

0:34:06 - (Brooke Aitken): And have a lot of humor and

0:34:08 - (Linda Habak): A lot of humor. That's right. But we are salespeople at the end of the day. I think creatives generally think it's very crude to talk about money and know we have money issues and. But we are sales. We're selling a design, we're selling. We're justifying the value of a material selection or a design or whatever it is. But we are having to sell. We're selling a dream at the end of the day.

0:34:31 - (Brooke Aitken): We're selling a dream and we're selling ourselves that we can make that dream.

0:34:35 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, absolutely. And the conviction you need to have. So were there any points in the journey where you felt wobbly on your feet and you felt like you couldn't sell, sell, or do you think that comes quite n. Yeah, I think that

0:34:50 - (Brooke Aitken): comes naturally to me. There is quite early on. It was awful. I hadn't got registered as an architect yet at the time. And I had these clients that had a beautiful site overlooking a bay, I won't say which bay. And I had designed an extension and I had said, your budget is way too small. There's no way that we can build for this. This and they said, well, we'll just keep on going. And then finally we had a Qs on board. And of course, it was three times the price. And I'd said, it's going to be three times the price.

0:35:26 - (Brooke Aitken): And then they thought that I had been. What's the word for it? Untruthful, which was entirely not the case. But they were just so shocked that as Sydney would be this. And think about it now, that was pre. Well, well, pre Covid. And so they tried to get me disbarred from the Institute of Architects, which was just so unbelievable. And, you know, if I had known now what then, what I know now, yes. I would have just gone, dudes.

0:36:00 - (Brooke Aitken): Well, actually, I probably wouldn't have taken on the job in the first place, because there were there red flags. There were red flags. And do you know what they built for actually literally even three times the cost of what my building was going to cost in the end. So they just needed to be taken on a journey. But I was too young at that time to go, actually, I need to stand in my space and say, this is. You are wrong.

0:36:25 - (Brooke Aitken): This is wrong. Instead, I just went, oh, okay. I'm not going to fight it. They can't disbar me from the Institute of Architects. This is ridiculous. But I just withdrew. And so I lost lots of money and thought, okay, that's a learning curve. Now I'd be like, no way. No.

0:36:46 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. So do you look back at that time and do you think it was almost like a necessary evil?

0:36:52 - (Brooke Aitken): No, I wish that it was a necessary evil. I just had the. Actually, it probably would have been.

0:36:57 - (Linda Habak): I'm saying, did you need to have the experience in order to learn from it so that you can grow from it?

0:37:03 - (Brooke Aitken): I wish that I would say yes to that. What I needed was more time. It's not. I didn't.

0:37:09 - (Linda Habak): Time as in experience.

0:37:11 - (Brooke Aitken): Experience. Yeah. I didn't need to have them at that point. But the design was beautiful.

0:37:16 - (Linda Habak): I'm sure it was. Yeah. But she picked yourself up and you kept going. So you're here now.

0:37:22 - (Brooke Aitken): Indeed.

0:37:22 - (Linda Habak): Stick it.

0:37:23 - (Brooke Aitken): That's right.

0:37:25 - (Linda Habak): Okay, let's talk about your studio, because when we spoke, you spoke so beautifully about your team, because I think you spoke so beautifully about the team and that it's a family. And I think that's a really interesting conversation to have, because I have lots of conversations with people about staff. And you either have great experience. From my experience having the many conversations, what I find is either you're having a wonderful experience with your team or it's super challenging and there's nothing in between, but you're having a wonderful experience. Cause they feel like family. So let's talk about that and tell me.

0:38:04 - (Brooke Aitken): So my sister Sam has been there for many, many years. Lisa is another. Another graduate of architecture who actually went through university with me. And she's a sister from another mother. And then Melissa is another sister from another mother who I met in Tokyo in 92. And Lucy's our bookkeeper. I went to school with her. And there is Vivian and Wren. They both came to me straight out of university.

0:38:33 - (Brooke Aitken): Vivian's now been with me. She's into her 11th year, and she is just remarkable. And Wren is now four years in, I think, and. And now an architect. And Lucas, who is another friend from university. He is connected to her by family. So there's always been somebody in the office that we have known of that person that you know. So we employ them because they're part of some group that we know of other than Ren and Vivian.

0:39:07 - (Brooke Aitken): And I think it's a very small firm. We work in a small, small space. We need people that really want to be like us, because if there's a. A person that just doesn't fit in the. The room, it's not going to work.

0:39:23 - (Linda Habak): Have you had that? Have you had someone?

0:39:25 - (Brooke Aitken): We did have one, yeah. And they didn't last that long, but yeah, everybody else is just. They. We actually have a WhatsApp group that's the BA design alumni. So those that have left have gone on to different things that we still connected with them.

0:39:41 - (Linda Habak): That says a lot.

0:39:42 - (Brooke Aitken): Right? That's am. Yeah.

0:39:44 - (Linda Habak): And what's your role in the business? Obviously, you're the principal. How does the work get disseminated amongst the team?

0:39:51 - (Brooke Aitken): I'm a benevolent dictator, So I am the face. Sometimes work comes in from somebody else, like Sam or Lisa. But I will always be at design meetings. So I say to the clients, clients, you'll always have me at those big meetings, but you may not have me through the. The rest of the process. There'll be a project architect and that person will be the person that runs the job. There's always a WhatsApp group for clients, and I'm always in every single one. There's always a WhatsApp group for builders as well.

0:40:28 - (Brooke Aitken): So we've got multiple WhatsApp groups. It does my head in, but it's good. I also get every email that goes out of the business. I get every single email. Whether I read it or not is another matter that you're I'm across it and I can see the whole slack channel as well of every single job. So I do know what's going on in every single job at a high level and sometimes in a very detailed level. So, you know, there are jobs that I will run myself.

0:40:57 - (Linda Habak): Are you proud of the fact that your team feels like family? Is that something?

0:41:01 - (Brooke Aitken): Hundred percent.

0:41:02 - (Linda Habak): Because that's the sense that I got when we spoke on the phone.

0:41:05 - (Brooke Aitken): I love my team. I love working with my team. I mean, why work if it's gonna be a drag, man?

0:41:14 - (Linda Habak): I know, I agree.

0:41:15 - (Brooke Aitken): Life has to be fun and I don't see that we can make beautiful things if we're so we've gotta enjoy our lives. And so, you know, most of your life you're working. If you don't love what you're doing and love the people that you are spending so much time with, then stop.

0:41:34 - (Linda Habak): Yes, stop, stop. Do you feel like you learn from them as it's a two way?

0:41:39 - (Brooke Aitken): Absolutely. Yeah. There is very. That I do by myself that goes out without anybody seeing it. It is really a group, group effort. Yeah. And I've made it that way over

0:41:53 - (Linda Habak): the years because it's not always like that in other practices. So what? I guess it'd be interesting to understand what is working for you. Cause it's clearly working well.

0:42:02 - (Brooke Aitken): We do well. Everybody knows roughly what everybody's doing because we are in a small room. So if there is something, something that somebody designs that goes, oh, look what I've done. This is beautiful. We'll all crowd around and go, oh yeah. Or you know, you can't just say this is going to be mine. No one else is going to work on it. And no one has just one problem. Either there's a problem, there's everybody's problem. If there's a design, it's everybody's design.

0:42:29 - (Brooke Aitken): One person will be running it. But we're always looking at each other's screens. And as I say, I'm sort of the benevolent dictator because I can walk around and go, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. You know, sorry. Yeah, so there's gotta be somebody at the top that says, okay, no, this is the direction we're going in or you know, filtering down. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at saying, not that we're going to do this way or we're going to do that.

0:42:53 - (Linda Habak): You were saying you are the conductor of the orchestra. So it's a beautiful analogy actually. And you do that and we do

0:43:00 - (Brooke Aitken): a Lot of design charrettes. So we'll get to a point in sketch design where the project architect and myself knows what's on the books. And. And then the whole team will sit at the table and the project architect will explain the design and then we'll pick it to pieces and go, what if we did this? What if we did that? Da, da, da. So, and you do that for every project? We do that for every project, yeah.

0:43:21 - (Linda Habak): Amazing. So it's quite a flat structure.

0:43:22 - (Brooke Aitken): Really flat, yeah. There's very little hierarchy.

0:43:27 - (Linda Habak): That's good, you know, So I think you get the best out of people when they feel like they're in a safe environment and they're all part of something bigger. You need to, as a leader, I think you have to take people on a journey and they need to feel like they're part of a bigger story than just doing this small bit.

0:43:43 - (Brooke Aitken): So I think that's wonderful. But they also need to know that if I don't like something, it's not going ahead.

0:43:48 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:43:49 - (Brooke Aitken): As much as you can find it. It's still the boss. It's still the boss. That's right.

0:43:53 - (Linda Habak): I want to talk about the stretch of being a creative. You talk about wearing many hats and, you know, you have to be across the gutter detail, but you also have to be across the P and L. Talk to me about how you manage the. The juggle.

0:44:08 - (Brooke Aitken): And you've also got to know what fabric is going to be right in what scenario. Wow.

0:44:12 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely. That's right.

0:44:15 - (Brooke Aitken): How do I juggle it?

0:44:16 - (Linda Habak): How do you stay creatively inspired when you're also trying to juggle all the other demands of running architecture and design practice?

0:44:28 - (Brooke Aitken): How do you stay inspired? I think that is having a team that has multiple inputs so that each person is coming with their own design ideas and they're bringing them to the table. And I foster that and I say, come to me with different ideas. Let's sort through them. And, you know, it may not be a BA design aesthetic, but then sometimes. What is a BA design aesthetic? I actually don't know what a BA design aesthetic is.

0:44:56 - (Brooke Aitken): So, yeah, I think that having everybody's got to be up for the challenge. You just got to, you know, really, if you're coming to work for me, you got to be really wanting to bring it. So that's one way of staying inspired. I certainly, certainly can't be doing a Instagram scroll every day. That just does my head in.

0:45:17 - (Linda Habak): It's a little soul destroying.

0:45:19 - (Brooke Aitken): Soul destroying. It really is. So, no, don't do that. I do love travel and, you know, I just came back from Japan. That's like my happy place. And I think that's one of the most important parts of getting inspiration, is going out into the world and finding it, particularly from Japan. And the second question, how do I juggle it?

0:45:43 - (Linda Habak): How do you. Yeah, how do you balance the juggle of wearing so many hats, two o'

0:45:48 - (Brooke Aitken): clock in the morning, being awake for an hour.

0:45:53 - (Linda Habak): Oh, God, I hate those two. I've had a lot of those the last month. It's very annoying. I don't know.

0:46:00 - (Brooke Aitken): Actually, it used. I have this propensity for being able to work ridiculously long hours and now I'm not. Do you still do that sometimes daily? No, because my team is so good, so, you know, that's amazing. Yeah. I way more rely on my team these days than I used to, so.

0:46:20 - (Linda Habak): But that frees you up to do some other more strategic thinking about the business. And I think, you know where you're at. I would say those next 19 years, you're going to hit those goals and you need that space, right? The space and time.

0:46:34 - (Brooke Aitken): Totally.

0:46:35 - (Linda Habak): So, yeah, I think that's pretty cool.

0:46:38 - (Brooke Aitken): I do want to have. We were Talking about at 20 years, we had a. We went to Bundanon Trust and we had a retreat for ba. Design retreat. And then we did a investigation into what are we going to do for the next 20 years. And I was like, well, I don't just want to be a figurehead, I want to really design. I want to really be a part of the design, at least for certain projects over the years. So I think that the juggle is making sure that all my team can do their work really well. And they do, and they all know what they have to do. And the systems. I think the juggle is the systems.

0:47:15 - (Linda Habak): Systems will set you free. I'm really sure. Carla Middleton said that last week. Systems will set you free. And it's true. It's true. And I think that is the crux of coming back to business, of design. It's all about systemising the business. And I think there's this idea that you can't do that for a creative business, but you can. You can and you should.

0:47:34 - (Brooke Aitken): You should.

0:47:35 - (Linda Habak): Exactly. I want to just circle back a little bit, back to systems for a minute. What do you think of all the things you've put into place in the business, what's the one piece of advice you could give someone that they could go away and implement right now in their business?

0:47:51 - (Brooke Aitken): For us, Asana was a game changer. I love asana. I love asana. And I was able to write out. We've got three templates in asana. If you're doing an architecture, if you're doing a Class 2 apartment, if you're doing an interior decoration. And the architecture always has interior design in it. So we've got three templates. And if you're doing any one of those three projects, then you save that template and it is like a 101 of how to run the project.

0:48:24 - (Brooke Aitken): So it reminds you to do a sun survey or to make sure that you've not got acid sulfate soils and to check that your fabric in the curtain isn't linen and it's facing west because it will fail over time. So many problems that we've come across over the years has found their way into being. Check this, do this. There is a huge amount of checklists of things, tips for young players that have come into it.

0:48:56 - (Linda Habak): And did you build this?

0:48:58 - (Brooke Aitken): Yes.

0:48:58 - (Linda Habak): You did it yourself? Yes, I did that too, a few years ago. It. It's a. It's a lot. It's a lot.

0:49:07 - (Brooke Aitken): And we're constantly updating it as well.

0:49:09 - (Linda Habak): Amazing. Yeah. That's so good. Do you also, with your asana, are you able to track projects? Do you have like a. A bird's eye view of all the projects and the stages?

0:49:19 - (Brooke Aitken): No.

0:49:20 - (Linda Habak): How do you manage?

0:49:21 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah, it's in my head.

0:49:22 - (Linda Habak): It's in your head.

0:49:23 - (Brooke Aitken): I know. It's terrible.

0:49:24 - (Linda Habak): Wow.

0:49:25 - (Brooke Aitken): That said, sorry. Sometimes, you know, you don't know where you're going to be because it goes into da and it might be.

0:49:31 - (Linda Habak): That's right.

0:49:32 - (Brooke Aitken): One and a half years, you've got no idea.

0:49:34 - (Linda Habak): So how do you balance the workflow? Well, not just the workflow, but the pipeline. Because architecture, like design, can be very lumpy. So how do you mitigate? How do you keep projects? It's funny going when they're out of your control.

0:49:49 - (Brooke Aitken): The universe provides. Really. And also sometimes I go, okay, guys, we just have to take on 110% because we know that we. We may not have X, Y, Z in the next three months or whatever. So let's just up the ante for a little while. And it just. I don't know, it just happens.

0:50:10 - (Linda Habak): It all works out. Everything happens for a reason.

0:50:14 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah. When you say, oh, I think we're going to need just a very small job to flip in there, the small job comes along and it does, and it just works.

0:50:25 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. You talked about the next 20 years when you were in Bunden on thinking about what that looked like, and you talked about wanting to stay in the creative work. So what does an ideal project look like? Like, what is that for you? Not me, for the team, obviously, because you've, you know, you've taken mix of projects. But for you personally, what is that? What is the Holy Grail look like?

0:50:51 - (Brooke Aitken): The Holy Grail is the client is an art collector or wants to be an art collector, but that's primary. So we've got a lot of clients that. It's actually something that I look for in clients that they really love art, because I think that's an important touchstone for where a design can start from and include incredible art into their spaces. So that's number one. I think that number two would be that the house that they are wanting to build has some sort of history and that I can really feel into that history because we. I just.

0:51:27 - (Brooke Aitken): I often call it slow architecture. I love being able to see the benefit in an. In a house. And it might be a 70s shithouse, but there might be some real benefit in not knocking it down and really rejuvenating it in a really surprising way. And that, to me is just joy. So I think that the embodied energy in architecture that's already built, we shouldn't have to build again if we can, if it's done well, if it's done well, or even if it's not done well.

0:51:57 - (Brooke Aitken): But, you know, I can see a way through that. We can make that building repair itself in a new design way, then. Yeah, that's really important to me. So I think art, some sort of heritage of the building, and I'm not saying heritage in a historic way, but, you know, again, it could be a 90s building for all that.

0:52:18 - (Linda Habak): Something you can draw from or pull from.

0:52:20 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah.

0:52:20 - (Linda Habak): To inform the design.

0:52:21 - (Brooke Aitken): Yep. I mean, if it was really me, it was. It would be somebody that loves Japanese design, because that's my Holy Grail. That's my thing.

0:52:32 - (Linda Habak): Can we just circle back to the second point? How do you feel about sustainability? Because I think we're sort of touching on if there's some way we can repair, rescue an existing building or pull from it. How do you approach that? And do you get pushback from clients if you are suggesting that they keep a certain part of the building rather than. Rather than just bowl it over and start again?

0:52:56 - (Brooke Aitken): So in an initial consult, which I do for clients before they become our clients, I'll walk around a building and say, look, if you're thinking this is a knockdown, I am not your person. Because I can see XYZ could happen. And I actually think that we're probably known for that now because we very rarely get asked to knock down, rebuild. I have only done one house that was from the ground up, ever, and that was my own house.

0:53:24 - (Brooke Aitken): And the only reason why I did it is that there wasn't anything on that land before. I will always find something in the house that I do an initial consulting. I'd been asked to do an initial consult for a job in Greenwich and it was an old P and O building, but it had a terrible roof and it just looked. It was really dodgy. And there was another architect that was in the running for the job. He had said, knock it down. And I came in and went, oh, my God, this is amazing. We could make it another amazing.

0:54:00 - (Linda Habak): I mean, it's a challenge, isn't it?

0:54:02 - (Brooke Aitken): That's right. And thankfully they went with me because we really. We just. I just love that house so much. It's become quite a well known house in Greenwich and. Yeah. And it really. It's the memory of what was there. And I think that's really important for people in the area of a house, the memory of that house. If you're making it better and. And. But not knocking it down and there's some form of it left over. Just. I think that's really important for the environment.

0:54:29 - (Brooke Aitken): The. The environment that it lives in.

0:54:32 - (Linda Habak): Yes. Not just.

0:54:33 - (Brooke Aitken): Not just for the green environment.

0:54:37 - (Linda Habak): This is probably a silly question, but do you think that's the difference between men and women? I don't know. I just. Because you said it was a male and he said knock it down.

0:54:47 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah.

0:54:47 - (Linda Habak): Do you think most men would. Most male architects would come in and just go, knock it down? I don't know. I'm. I don't.

0:54:53 - (Brooke Aitken): It's a simple question about that. I think that. I think it's actually something that I'd say yes in my age group, but no, for the. The younger.

0:55:05 - (Linda Habak): Yes, you're right. I think generationally there's a. Definitely a shift. Yeah. AI, what are your thoughts on AI and are you integrating it in the practice? What are you.

0:55:16 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah, so I'm using ChatGPT. I actually went the full $20 a month recently. I use it when I'm trying to write something. Actually, I used it the other day to try to write a heritage report. Yeah. Statement. Which was really incredible. It came up with things that I thought, oh, where did you get that from? I'd been doing research and I couldn't find it. So that was great.

0:55:40 - (Linda Habak): Yes.

0:55:41 - (Brooke Aitken): I think it's going to be a. I don't know enough of it yet. I have joined Fiona Kalaki's AI group. Not that I've actually joined it yet, but I have joined it. Joined it. So I am going to learn about it. We. We just came up to our years Mid Journey and we haven't got. We haven't used it again. You know, we've stopped that because we just. We don't use Mid Journey Journey, but we are using Chat GPT for doing things like throwing in an image of the sofa, throwing in an image of the fabric that we want to use and then merging it.

0:56:21 - (Linda Habak): And it's amazing, isn't it? It is great.

0:56:23 - (Brooke Aitken): So amazing.

0:56:24 - (Linda Habak): That's right. I think it's. I always say with AI, it's, you've got to be the boss. You've got to know the better the quality of the input, the better the quality the output. So I think it's really. But it's just interesting talking to different people about how are they using AI, how do you it on in your daily practice and will you create a process around it? Yes, it's probably still early, I think, in terms of how, at what point in the design process do you integrate it? Do you. You know, some architects don't like to give 3D renders at all, but now it's almost an expectation by people.

0:57:00 - (Brooke Aitken): We do everything in 3D and have everything have. Since I started, we design in 3D and we're. And now we've got the ability to visualize completely in 3D, but we're not throwing that into an AI package. We're actually doing it ourselves. So we do Sketchup and Inscape, but that means that we can actually. We test things in 3D really quickly and it's great. It's imperative. Yeah. I don't know whether AI will help us with that because we need to be able to see what's under, you know, what are you seeing from underneath the table or, you know, here's the sofa and how. What view are you seeing out there?

0:57:36 - (Brooke Aitken): I don't know whether they'll. It'll be able to do that, but we're at the forefront. Right?

0:57:41 - (Linda Habak): That's right. It is an example. Exciting time. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We're coming to the end of our conversation. It's been so fantastic. I guess I want to ask you a couple of last questions. If you could go back to your younger self, what's one piece of advice you would give her

0:58:03 - (Brooke Aitken): sleep more. You didn't have to keep on redesigning the wheels. So often. I think that I should have asked for more help and questions. I guess I should have asked questions rather than just learning the hard way by just having problems and then learning from that and then having the next problem and then learning from that. I have a real propensity for being hit across the face or being able to put my head against a wall, banging it and be able to, to go, okay, I won't be doing that one again.

0:58:40 - (Brooke Aitken): So I think, yeah, that's what I would have been telling my younger self. Possibly, you know, working for another firm that actually knew how to do business would have been a good thing, but I didn't go through that.

0:58:54 - (Linda Habak): But you also don't know what you don't know, do you? How do you know that they are good at the business side or that they would share that with you?

0:59:01 - (Brooke Aitken): Yeah, that's right.

0:59:02 - (Linda Habak): That's impossible. Maybe you need to give yourself a little grace on that.

0:59:06 - (Brooke Aitken): But yeah, it's so far in the distance now. I feel so much older experience.

0:59:13 - (Linda Habak): And our final signature question for the podcast, what does Build Beautiful mean to you?

0:59:19 - (Brooke Aitken): So when you asked me that the other day, I was like, well, you know, obviously building beautiful is building beautiful architecture and interior design, building beautiful rooms from the inside and out. But really it's so much more than that. It's building teams. It's building money that you can support your team with. It's building your clients, clients networking. It's building a place for your clients to feel at home.

0:59:44 - (Brooke Aitken): So there's. It's building a life. That's what it is. So I think that it's not just about building in terms of the physical sense. It really is building so much of a world around you that you then really love everything that you do.

1:00:02 - (Linda Habak): Brooke. Well, I think you've. You've built beautifully. And honestly, it's such a joy to have gone to, to know you, you know, the last couple of years. And your work is so beautiful.

1:00:12 - (Brooke Aitken): As is yours.

1:00:18 - (Linda Habak): Thank you for listening to Build Beautiful. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a review, or share it with someone who's building something meaningful. It matters more than you know. Follow us on Instagram buildbeautifulpodcast. Until next time. Next time, keep creating with intention and together we build beautiful.