This is Jamie with Out of Bounds and Jamie and Abby. I am Jamie Robinson, the wife of RGM, John Robinson. And I'm Abby Flitner, the co-founder of Nashville Guru, a local website about Music City. Today, our episode, episode three officially, was with Caroline Bryan, Luke Bryan's wife, and Amy Davis. Yes, Amy is actually the owner of Les's Living, which is an amazing organization company. She's actually done two of our houses here in Nashville, not saying that we have two houses now, but we've moved around a lot. But anyway, and we just thought it would be fun to get together and have a couple of best friends on the episode and just sat around and drank some wine. Talked about all things, friendship, and Bret's Barn, which is Caroline and Luke's, I know, it was so cool. And then she has a sassy little clothing line, best bad influence. Yes, I cannot wait. There is a sweatshirt there with, it's like a hot pink, like what is it called, lightning. Yes, did you see it? We need that, yes. I love it, I love it. I can't wait to get it, but. It was great, it was super fun. They're our best friends, so we keep calling it our best friend episode and we hope you guys enjoy it. I'm so excited today, y'all, to have this episode, a friendship episode with you two ladies. Amy, I've known you now for a couple of years and because of you, I have followed Caroline and y'all just look like y'all have so much fun together and it's such a genuine friendship that I absolutely adore. And Abby and I just recently met and I can tell you right now we are gonna be really, really close. I mean, it's only been a couple of months, right? Yeah, it feels like I've known you my whole life and I feel like that's how you two. Exactly. Where did you guys meet originally? Do you want me to say this? Hit it with a G. Okay. Hit it with a G. What does that mean? It's from a movie that we saw a long time ago, yeah. But so Amy and I actually met at a bar. Was it 2004? It was something like that. But we actually met at a bar and we just hit it off and somehow that night turned into us riding a mechanical bull. Oh my gosh. And then we wound up in a Walmart and I'm not kidding. The keys were led. This was like two o'clock in the morning. The keys were left in like this little tiny bulldozer type thing. And I let it, Amy and I said, I'm driving that. Oh gosh. Well, I cranked it up and I ran over an entire display of Oreos. And I just, I looked at her and I said, we got to run. And we did. And we bolted and then we talked the next day. Yeah. Luke was in the parking lot like, what are y'all doing? And I was like, go, go, go. Oh my gosh. And the next day we talked on the phone. Like we exchanged numbers and stop. Was it a Nashville? Yeah. Of course it was. That's awesome. Well, I figured. But I did one of us too. I know. It's a good night ends with that of mechanical bull. But the Walmart's a step further. And a bulldozer. Yeah. Why not? We both love a good Walmart. And actually we knew we were a match made in heaven when I said, she goes, I want to get on that. And I said, well, the keys are in it. She's like. Is their fault? And then, yeah. They shouldn't leave them. They left the keys. They should leave them. Yeah. I'm sorry. I agree. I'm on your side. So, yep. But then Oreos went down. And we ran. And we ran. Yeah. What the husbands do. Now, at this point, let's back up a little bit. Your husbands, y'all, they are friends. They are childhood friends, correct? Yes. How long? College. College. Since college. And were you married at the time? Were y'all married? No. I actually had just gotten engaged. I had met Luke before I met Caroline. And probably it was maybe a year after. Yeah. It was about a year. And then I had gotten engaged. And I met Caroline. And we just hit it off. And I love that. So she had known my husband at the time. Since college. Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, that's awesome. I love it. So were y'all married at the time? We were just dating. So we dated in college and dated for about two years. And then we separated for almost five. Oh, wow. And then when we got back together, we were dating for about a month. And he goes, you have to meet this girl. And so I was like, OK. I was like, sure. I was like, all right. I wasn't very excited because I didn't know anybody. But I met her. And it was a girl he was talking about. And I love that. Next thing I know, we're riding a bull. Yeah. Because she was like, she had known John forever. And she was like, hold on. John Davis is getting married. What is happening in this world? I was like, wow. He's getting married. I have to meet her. But I'm kind of, it turned out great. That's awesome. So Amy, I want to tell everybody how I met you. OK. We have a mutual friend, Tara Tans, as I would like to call her, the queen of Ziya, as I have on my legs. And she told me one day, she's, my friend is starting this organization company. And she's really good. And she knows how I am, very not organized. So I called her. And I'm like, OK, I really need her number.  And it was just so amazing.  It was your mom, your sister-in-law. And it was just so amazing. What made you want to start this company? Well, it was a lot of things. It was like a lot of different things go on in my life at the time. And I was going back to work. And I was interviewing with some different companies. And it's funny. I had told Caroline, you know, I really want to do this organization thing. Because she saw my closet in my pantry. So it was probably a lot like mine. Let's be damn honest. It's because she saw my closet. She was like, this is horrible. No, but I love that stuff. I'm going to fix this. Did she make you throw away a lot of your clothes? Yes, it was falsely. She was the worst client ever. She was not nice. I need her. So I know you know my friend, Katherine Spencer. Yes. She walked into the house randomly. And they met. And next thing I know, they have thrown away. I'm like, wait a second. I still wear that. And they're like, no, you don't. But it takes a friend to tell a friend. So she wouldn't tell a client that. But because she's my best friend, she was like, you're never going to wear this again. And I said, well, I might. She goes, no, you're not.  Back to self. Yeah. I still look for my little fringy boots. Uh-oh. Which you wear them again. I don't know. If you pause, then you won't wear it. Now I don't because now I know people don't like them. Yes, they needed to go. They served their time. They needed to go. So how long ago did you start the business? It's called less, correct? It's been two years. And but what I was going to say is I, you know, long story short, I had gone and interviewed and did my backgrounds in marketing and business. And I was like, I think I could actually do this. And she was like, just do the organization thing. Why not? Just try it. And I'm a perfectionist. I'm scared of failing 100%. And I was like, OK, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to just jump in and like really do it. So I started reading up on the industry and listening to podcasts and audio books. And somehow that little idea is now amazing. And but I do have to thank you. And all I have a couple of friends. Yes, it's all because of you. She did all the work. I didn't do it. No, but just that nudge because I would wake up in the middle of the night. I know it's in the world of businesses. Not this like huge deal. But for me, it was like I would wake up in the middle of the night and be like, I can't do this. I don't know if I can. You know, why would I do this? But then, you know, I was almost 40 at the time. And starting all over with a brand new career, I had raised my three kids. And to like go and take that job was a really big deal for me. And I think for a lot of women, it would be. But it ended up being amazing. And I would text her in the middle of the night and say, I don't really think I like the name less. What else should I do? I mean, it was just like the neurotic. And then I would text her back and say, please don't text me at three.  Please don't do not do just pick a name. Just don't text me at three because you woke me up.  So true. How often do you have her come in still to your house? You constantly. She's in my house every day whether I want her there or not. She's do. Y'all live like right next to each other, correct? So we see each other almost every day. But I mean, she hasn't like organized in my house in a long time because she's so busy, which is great. I mean, I just really don't have time for your house. Thank you very, very appreciate that. I actually do try, believe it or not. And then she'll be like, Amy, I don't want to deal with that right now. We're not. We're not talking about my spices right now. Just chill out and have a hammer. Stand that. Yeah. Oh my God. She started pulling out spices the other night. She came in the other night and my kitchen was a disaster. And she was like, I'm cleaning your kitchen. I was like, no, you're not. I'm exhausted. I don't feel like it. Get out of my kitchen. Literally just storms through my kitchen and it brings me a box. Where do I put this? I look at her. I'm like, exactly where you found it. I don't feel like dealing with it. She was like, OK. Oh, I'm just like, all right, I understand that. She is do. She even, she really did admit a couple of days ago it's time for the closet. It is, but let's deal with that later. So let me ask you this. Since y'all do see a lot of each other, tell us any little, any spats, any fusses amongst y'all. Do y'all fight a lot? Like sisterly fight, you know? Not really. We don't fight a lot.  And because, you know, but nothing big. No. But she'll say, like, I'll come over and I'll say, why are you in a bad mood? What is some? What did it? I'll say, I'm not in a bad mood. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So it's like, I can read her body language. You know how when you know people, you just know people. Yeah. So we can call each other out or she can even tell me, like, you need to get it together. Yeah. That's a good friend. You need to fix your hair. Yeah. Like, you need to go wash your hair. Oh my God, y'all. You need to put some powder on your nose. When she doesn't brush her hair. Well, it's a lot. It's really bad. And she has such great hair. But when she doesn't brush it, it looks like cats have fault. Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh. And because she has so much hair. I'm like, Amy, I was like, how long will it take you to get this out? She goes, you don't want to know. My gosh. I would have brushed all my little thin-ass hair out. And she still has a head full. Well, they put a, for my 40th, when we went to the Bahamas, all like, there's 12 of us. Oh, wow. And so they put a little fake roach. Well, they put three in the hair throughout the day. And it sat in there until 2 p.m. If that tells you anything that I really didn't even notice. And you did not even know it was in there. I don't brush it because it gets frizzy. It sat right there in the back of her head. And we took pictures of it. I was like, this roach is going to fall out at some point at the worst time for her. How did you figure it out? She finally brushed it. I finally brushed my hair before dinner. Did you think it was real? No, I knew it wasn't. Because you're like master prank artist, right? That's like your thing. I try. Because I follow you on Instagram. And it is hilarious. What is it? Prankmas? What is the Christmas? Pranksmas is coming up. Pranksmas, a Christmas. How many days do you do it? 12, 12 days. Oh, OK. It's like 12 days of Christmas. OK. I just went with it. So here we go. I don't know. This will be our fourth year? So you do a prank every day? For 12 days. What's your favorite one? So far, my favorite one.  And we had her really believe that Chelsea Lynn was a crazy stalker. Oh, my gosh. And so Chelsea tackled Luke. And Luke's mom just lost it. But it turned out great. So I don't know if we can ever really top that one. I liked it. Well, I saw the one of you just annoying your son in the hunting stand. Oh, dear honey. He's still mad at me about that. Epic. Because I have two kids. And I just know. I'm like, that is so good. She just was like being really loud, like slurping her drink and stuff. He was so funny. But he didn't know that she was just being annoying. He thought I was filming for a hunting show. And so that's what he thought. And then I was just being loud and horrible. I don't know how you didn't crack either. I just thought for sure you would start laughing at some point. I don't know how I didn't. But we just. She gets in character. Like we dressed up as the Golden Girls. Oh, I love that picture. That was awesome. When she gets in character, she's like, no, you do this. You do this. You should have been an actress 100%. You know how to get into character for sure. I'm a psychopath. What are your boys ages? OK, so biologically, we have Tate and Bo, Bo's 13, Tate's 11. And Till, who is our nephew. He's been with us since he was 12. He'll be 20 in a month. Wow. Yeah. And then we have our nieces, Jordan and Chris. Jordan just got married. She's 26. And Chris is 23. Wow. I will tell you that I read the story in People recently. And that was the first time I really knew exactly what had happened. And that had to have been really, really tough on y'all. And kudos to y'all for stepping up and doing that. That takes big people, you know? No, thank you. It's amazing. You know what? It was it will always be awful and horrible. But I do have to give thanks to our entire family because they get looked over a lot because the other aunts and uncles, everybody stepped up and helped. Everybody did. So they don't get talked about enough. But with these kids, even though they had a tragedy of losing a mother and a father, they had an entire family. Everybody wanted these kids. And that doesn't happen a lot. So the whole family unit is pretty amazing. That is amazing. And now, both of your boys, that's one thing. They are best friends as well, right? Oh, Lord, yes. Amy, how old are yours? They are 11, 13, and 15. So we have, between the two of us, their fifth grade through ninth grade, like one in every grade. So we're hitting up every single grade. Fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, yeah. Oh my God. So many boys, too. All boys. They smell, they eat everything, they smell. Everything is sticky. Yes, it is. It's so true. Sticky. You're going to have to prepare me. Mine's eight months. My little boy. The other one's a girl, so I don't know. Enjoy that now. But the girl is like, she's clean and not very messy.  I know. They're disgusting. Don't worry. My middle one is actually very, he's not, like, out of the three, he's always been a little bit, he was always more orderly, but now that he's become a teenager, that's not exactly true anymore. So I thought I had, like, one that was going to be, yeah, no, maybe he'll come back around. But you have two girls, so. Yeah, they're all over the place. They're clean, well, I'd say that, y'all. The other day, I got into my car and it was on Monday on the way to school. I opened the door. I was like, whoa, what is this smell? Bailey forgot her soccer cleats over the weekend in my car. And it was, I mean, a tournament, two-day tournament and it smelled so bad. I had to go get my car cleaned yesterday. Yeah.  I'll call you in a minute. I got a problem. I gotta figure this out. She's like, I'll call you in 10.  It really is. I've got a role in my car because my boys play football. You don't take your shoes off after practice because it will send your nose hairs. It will make your eyelashes just drop. It's like the Grinch. Now, don't take your cleats off in the car.   It's bad. Yeah, in the same way. So what do you do when Luke goes on tour? Do you guys hang out and kind of like co-parent together? I feel like that'd be so fun. We're both so busy if we can. I mean, we'll hang out at night but there's just so much. Everybody has a game. Everybody has a practice. There's something that we really just don't see each other really. Not a nut. Our kids are so busy they all have football and on the way here I was like, so what do you have tonight? Because it's always someone has some practice or a game. Are they on the same teams or no? Oh, okay. So everybody spread out. Yeah, that's hard. Oh, that's fun. Do y'all want to do that now? Yeah, why not? I say we do that. So I guess while I'm opening it, I can go ahead and talk about this a little bit. This is a couple of the NFL owners, including Bud Adams, our original owner, Amy Adam Strunk's father used to be called the Foolish Club. And so the Titans have decided to do a wine club and it's reds, it's whites. So we're gonna try it out today. I'm so excited. I actually, I'm a big, I mean, Amy, like we were just talking about, she has done my wine cellar. It's not even a cellar, it's a closet. No, it's awesome. But she knows I just absolutely love my wine. So I'm so excited. But they're all named something. Oh yeah. So that one's rough and dressed. Amy's promise. They're from the valley too, which is a short name. Oh my gosh. Did y'all open that one too? Should I shout out the winemaker? Yeah, do it. Thank you so much for this. What did he promise you, Amy? I don't know. What did he promise me? What's your guys' favorite restaurant when you go out? Girls' Night. At night? We don't go out at night a lot. We'll go eat at like 4 p.m. Oh, I do that. Oh yeah. We're the early percs. I wanna be home by 8 in bed. I mean, that's how we are. Yes, that's my goal. Yeah, goal. No, I mean, close to where we live, we're always with the kids and go to El Sembrero, like all the time. We gotta break, well, the breaktops is our place, yeah. We're gonna drag so long. If I ever, like, I'm like, hey, do you, it's usually, we never set a lunch date. I'll just text her at 1030 and say, hey, I'm available, are you available for lunch? I'm gonna eat lunch. For like one hour? I love breaktops. I don't know if this is a heavy pour. This is like an odd glass. I do like them though. That's not a heavy pour. That's not a heavy pour. I don't know. Do you want it all the way to the top? No, because I'm gonna try both. Remember? Yes. Oh, I thought you wanted white. Here, you want it white. Well, I was gonna try both. Oh. Jamie's like, I'll take it. I love it. Cheers, I love it. Cheers, guys. Cheers. Oh, yummy. Oh, that is so good. Amy's promise was very promising. This one's really good. They delivered. They delivered on that promise. This is actually a funny story. What? Tell me about going and picking up kids, how you were driving Luke's truck and you opened up the door and like the, didn't like a beer can and a knife. No, I bought you a beer can. So I had to. Oh my gosh. My car was in the shop. This past spring and so I was driving. So I carpool with neighbors. So I drive four kids to school. Anyway, so my car is in the shop. So I had to use the one of Luke's annoying big step up like you need a trampoline to get up in there.  Well, teachers stand there. Cause, you know, last year they would check temperatures and ask questions and you know, welcome.  And I looked and I was like, holy, I probably shouldn't say the other word, but. All I could do was like teach, could you get that? Have y'all seen back in the day? Oh, I'm sorry. Nightlife, Pat. Yes. Yes. All I could do was go, how would you shake it? She just hopped her little booty right back up there in the truck. No, I never left the car because they opened the doors. So you never even got the stuff out? I know. The back end? The teachers did. That's even worse. Cause you're not allowed to get out or we're not. They like, I mean, I could have, but I was just like. That is hilarious. I was like, I'm in Luke's truck. It's not me. Was it me? But yeah, beer cans, a big knife and cigars fell out every weekend, right? I was like, I am the absolute worst parent, but they know us. And so I drove off as like screw it.  No, hopefully not. Oh my God, that's hilarious. That actually happened at soccer last year. One of the moms had her chair out and she even heard her pass a comment to her husband and I hadn't met her yet. And she said something about her wine glass sitting right there. She's like, you did not empty out my chairs. And sure enough, as they relieve, as they relieve, and she closed up her chair in the wine class just fell out. So I went and I gave it to her. She absolutely mortified. It was hysterical. It was so funny. It happens. It's very common. I wouldn't. Well, you have a good street. Your street is amazing. I remember that when my kids were young, we lived in Boston and we had one little cul-de-sac street and it was four houses. And it was, well, all four of us, by the time we left, all had young kids and we would. We would stand out in the cul-de-sac or my neighbor across the street used to build a snow sofa whenever it would snow and we would stand out there in our snow suits around the fire. It's so fun. It's just so good to have amazing neighbors, you know? And I bet y'all have a blast. Oh, the snow, the last big snow we had, we. Oh, I saw a video of you. Oh, what'd you do with it? It was so much snow. Well, it's our fault, by the way. It's always our fault. Why'd I do it? It was not. I got on the top, well, the car hood. Was it a car hood? It was not. Oh, yeah. To do the sledding. That was so much fun. And I was like, I needed like 18 helmets because on the way down, I was like, I could die. I mean, it could happen. You ever thought it? Yeah, I always ever. I'm actually very cautious. People think I'm not. And it's so funny. I actually am, aren't I? Like, I cry on roller coasters. Yeah, it's terrible, it's so annoying. I can't do roller coasters. I can either. She's like just a thrill seeker, jump off the edge of a cliff. No, now I wouldn't do that. You know I won't do that.  What? Do you? No, like a lake or something. At the lake. At the lake, but not a cliff. I'm not gonna go. That is a cliff, I wouldn't do that. It's not that high. I did, and I thought I was literally gonna die. I think I cried then too. I don't cry very often by the way. I sound like that on this podcast. Until she's on a roller coaster. Just when you're scared. God. How do you when I get really scared and I don't know what to do with myself? Yeah, I cry on a roller coaster. And I'll laugh at you. Oh my gosh. Where are y'all originally from? I'm from Georgia. What part of Georgia? Sandersville, Georgia. Never heard of it. I know, you probably never will. It's a small town, but it's wonderful. It's just a great small town. Do you like Nashville? You like living up here? Oh yeah, I'll never leave. Yeah. How many years has it been now? Oh my God, I guess this summer will be, well, we're leaving summer. I guess it's been 17 years. Oh wow. Yeah, I think so, 17. Wow, what about you, Amy? I'm from West Tennessee. Okay. In a little town called Rutherford, Tennessee. That's right. Which is amazing. I still keep in touch with so many friends from there and it's, I think there's one stoplight still to this day and we could drive 30 minutes each way to Walmart. Like there was different cities, you could just choose your city. It was 30 minutes to get to Walmart. Is that by Union City? It's 30 minutes away. Union City has a Walmart. Yes. Union City has a Walmart. Yes, that was one of the three. If nobody knows, this is where my husband is from. Oh my gosh, I haven't either. Yeah, you didn't know that? Yeah, he's actually, he is. He's from Troy, Tennessee, but Union City is the big town with the Walmart. So maybe y'all can find something to go right on. Oh, I love Walmart. Columbia, Tennessee, Walmart. They take the keys out now. Yeah. They have, they've already spotted us. Well, you can always find one of those. What are those things whenever we used to, they're a little, you used to put. But like hover around on the, that's what, yeah. Yeah, they take those from us too. We're not allowed to. Lock it up. We can't even put a quarter in the horse. It can't. That's funny. Yeah, I did not. I had no idea your husband was a West Tennessee boy. Well, that's why you love him. West Tennessee people are the best. Yeah, but I met him in Louisiana, so there you go. He's still got those roots. He still has the roots. You were correct. I love it. I have to hear more about the mother-in-law. Okay, because I just feel like she's hilarious. She's crazy. Your relationship is really sweet, though. It is, it is. It's not normal, but it's very sweet. It's very fun. Yeah, we have a unique relationship. It's so funny. I mean, we can, like she called me two day and I was driving, because I tell her this all the time on the phone. I can't say this, but anyway, I answered the phone in a very naughty way and she answered back in a very naughty way. And all we can do is laugh. She goes, did you really just say that? And I was like, well, you said it back. And so that's like our, just kind of how. I love it. That's how we, I don't know. It works. I love it. My favorite was whenever she got on the plane recently and she was just cussing up a storm. Yes. I died. I've watched it multiple times. I thought it was so funny. Because she wasn't picked up. Well, it's a long story, but time's got switched up. And so she was a little bit aggravated, but then, you know, within 20 seconds, she's fine. She's, she's good. Yeah. She's back to it. She's like, bad morning. Yell at me all you want. I don't care. I'll take it. I'll yell back. I just love real people though. I think it's just so funny. That is our relationship. She's seen us fight and then we're good and then we fight and then we're good. So she's seen Luke and his mom fight. Oh, it's hilarious. It's hysterical. I mean, and there's no. You can't make it up. No. And then she'll storm out and she's the best. She's the best. That's awesome. So funny. And then she, so you said y'all met in high school? College. College. So are they from Georgia? Is Luke in? He's from Georgia. So we grew up two and a half hours apart. I met him my first Thursday night out in college. Oh, no kidding. Are y'all the same age? He is three and a half years older. That's me and John. Yeah. That's awesome. We dated for almost two years and then broke up for five and then got back together. Wow. That's probably meant to be though.  It was the best thing that could have ever happened to us. Yeah. Oh, totally. Because if you meet that, I mean you guys met that young too. But it's like. We were 19. You just don't know. Like I just didn't know. I didn't know. Yeah. So you would have been 18 or 19 as well. I met him when I was 18. Yeah. How old were you when you met John? I was 22. So that's young too. And then we were married when I was 23. OK. So yeah, we met, we were together for about 18 months before we got married. That was, yeah. But I've heard the story, especially after I've had a couple glasses of wine, I'll be like, you know, Luke was the first brand I ever met. But it's so funny. This is back before Luke had a record deal or, he was a songwriter in town and. He's still a songwriter, Amy. Well, I mean, yeah. He's still right. Get it. Luke, we love you.  He would take much offense to that. I know. He is an amazing songwriter. Let me go ahead and say that. Let me just back up. He's an amazing songwriter. But back before he, you know, was Luke Bryan, it was so cool because I just knew Luke is like the funny just friend that did not care about what anybody thought about him. And he still doesn't. He's the same person that I met that many years ago. And you're the same way. I mean, you're still the same girl that would climb on a. But they take the keys out now. But now they take the keys out. Yes, that's true. What's the easiest way to like maintain organizing once people are done it? Cause I feel like I'm really good. Like I'll get in there one weekend. I'll do the whole thing. Okay, Jamie. You bring him back in. You bring him back now. You gotta bring him back in. Honestly, I've done really well. Yes. As long as you create on the front end what's functional for the family and know like what they're going to be able to upkeep. Don't make unrealistic expectations in the very beginning. Why are you looking at me? Because she cracks me up. No, but I've moved her. Well, I haven't moved you twice, but I've done two houses. Yeah. And I mean, I feel like the second round, you were much more pared down. Well, because you just did the other house. Which is, did it not make it easier whenever you moved? So much, so much. And then it was my second move. I was like, I called her right away. I'm like, Amy, you won't believe this. Cause I had just moved into that, to that other house. And I'm like, you won't believe this. I'm moving again. I'm like, okay, mark this on your calendar, please. I'm like, I just knew right away that I didn't want to undo everything and try to organize it myself whenever I can't, I don't have that skill. Not everybody has that skill. I'm horrible. Wait, I just don't. I bet you do. I'll just, well, I'll like copy like a photo, but then my husband will mess it all up because you know, I'll do like the glass containers with the pasta and the cereal and the stuff you have to dump. And he's like, why are we dumping stuff out of a box into another thing? And I'm just like, I don't know. I just do it. It's called mice. That sounds like it. Mice get in there. Yeah. So this is mice get in there. Okay. It's happened. It's what you got by. Just wait. What? It's called mice. That's why. It's called mice. So Jamie told the story about you protecting me. So right after Amy was there, literally, right after Amy was there, I went into my, I went into my pantry. This is at our old house. I went into the pantry and all of a sudden I could tell there was like stuff everywhere. And I'm like, oh no. And I lifted up some stuff that was in boxes. And sure enough, there were little holes everywhere. And so I'm like Titans, y'all better pony up something because Jamie's got mice. That ain't okay. We need an exterminator. Y'all got to do something. She got mice. Y'all got a lot of money. Jamie can't have mice. I can't have mice. So I immediately texted Amy and I was like, oh gosh, I got to go, I got to go to a container store and I did it myself. Yes. She was like, give me. She gave me inspiration. She's like, this is happening. So then when you moved. We were like, okay, everything is going in containers. But is it not, do you feel like it's easy to keep? Oh, absolutely. And now I'm kind of a little bit, not neurotic with it, but I'm like, that does not go in the chip bin. These are not chips, you know? Like I need stuff in the chip bin. See? But I need somebody like that to, I need somebody like Amy to that has the vision. I don't have the vision. I don't either. Yeah. And then you can keep it from there. Yeah. And then you can adjust as needed, you know? Right. But your sweet daughter, I remember I walked in in the middle of organizing and we had like. This is Miss B, Bailey. Yeah, we had, you know, the labels from chips were like up at the top and it said fruit or something. And she went and put her apple in the fruit thing way up top because she was looking at the labels, which I thought was so cute. So it shows like even kids, they really do once they kind of learn, but she was on it from the very beginning, so. She's a mess.  Yeah. She, let me tell y'all, this is really funny.  They don't lie about anything. And she's, no, she really, like really good. I was walking into a board meeting at school and she left her to your bag in my car.  And she's like, mom, can you bring it to the office after school? And I'm like, look, I can bring it to you right now. Just meet me in the comments and I'll bring you your bag. And she's like, I'm already sitting in class. And I'm like, well, Taylor, we have 10 minutes left. And she's like, no, I just really can't. So I'm like, okay, well, I'll just go. We'll have 10 minutes left. So I walk to where the office is and I see two of her friends coming. And I'm like, can y'all let me into the school because it was love. And her friend looked at me. She goes, Ms. Jamie, what do you need in school for? I said, because I have Taylor's cheer back. And she goes, well, why don't you just give it to her? She's right there. I'm like that little buster. She's walking up through the comments, just looking around. She was not in her class, was not in her class. So anyway, I was so, I looked at her. I looked at her.  I'm like, you are so busted. Caroline threw her in the water. So funny. That's great. That's so great. And then I gave her, I know this isn't really a bad punishment. I mean, punishment y'all, but she's just that good. She never gets in trouble. So I told her, I was like, that's it. You have dishes for a week. And so that afternoon, Bailey is eating and Taylor was doing the dishes and Bailey drops her plate into the sink.  John and I about peed on ourselves. We're like, that little rat, she didn't clean her dishes.  She's like, here you go. It was hilarious. That's what I would've done. That's what's called brilliance. Yeah, smartness. She's a genius. She saw an opportunity. She sure did. To dig one. She sure did. Smart little cookie. Okay, I want to talk about Brett's mom. Yes. Because we have the shirts on. Oh, that's very sweet. I know. Yes. Good on y'all. Well, my name's Brett. She passed away when she was seven months. She had CHD, which is congenital heart disease, but she also had Down syndrome. And so we started a barn, a rescue barn, to honor her and to help animals that have been abused or that needed a home. And basically that's it. And so we have a foundation and we do a big charity. So who visits? Or like, do you have kids come visit? We do. What do you, okay. We can have, well, as of now, Brett's barn is on our private home property. So we have to be careful. But we do have plenty of family children, like once they're out of the hospital, or I mean, if they're able and healthy enough and so they can come see the animals and play with them. And it's just a good spot to let. It's kind of amazing to watch parents that have been in the hospital for up to a year or more and they can just breathe and watch their children run and play with animals. Yeah. But so that's kind of how it started. And hopefully someday it'll go public. You know, we're thinking about things, but so that's kind of what it is. It's just to honor Brett. Well, I was reading about it. And what I liked is, is it your sister or sister-in-law? Sister-in-law. And law, okay. And my brother, yes. Yes. She was like celebrating Down syndrome and like talking about how like great, like it's a positive thing. It's wonderful. I like think that that's something that should be talked about because you don't, you know, you don't often think of that, especially like when you're having another baby.  And when Ellen found out, that's my sister-in-law, what's so great about Ellen when she called me, and this is sounds bad, but it's not. I was, I was parking at a liquor store to go. I was picking up stuff for a party and she called me and I was like, Hey, what's up? And she was just crying hysterically. I was like, what's wrong? And she said, I found out that the Brett, that's obviously Brett. She goes, I found out Brett will have Down syndrome. But Ellen never once said, why me? Why us? She goes, I can't stand the thought of somebody making fun of her. That was, that was Ellen's, that was the only thing that she ever said. And my brother looked at her and goes, why not us? And that just floored me. And ever since then, once we knew that Brett was, we just wanted her here.  And that's what took Brett is her little body just couldn't take the surgery. But just like our family, her surgery was supposed to be smooth, boom, boom, boom. We were that 1% that it just didn't happen. But you know what? But God, he goes, take this, do something good, change the world. And we always knew Brett would somehow change the world. And she's doing it. Yeah. She's doing it every day. That's amazing. It's hard to think of, God gives you something you can't handle. And even though you feel like you can't handle it, deep down you really can. And there's a reason and there's a purpose that it has been brought to your family from Luke's tragedies from Brett and it's so hard to take. My daughter was handed down a couple of horrible things. Alopecia, type one, rheumatoid arthritis. And that's the way we take it. And I just love this Brett's barn. And it just, it warms my heart so much. We have our foundation. It's in the works of coming. And it's always been our dream to be able to do something like this. So I just, I love what y'all are doing and doing it for the little one. She's beautiful by the way. She is, she is. The pictures are beautiful. She's beautiful. And she's an angel and she has changed our family completely for the better. And every tragedy that we've been given, we still don't understand. But it's not our job to understand. It's our job to accept, to move forward and to try to, even though every day is not perfect, you know, I mean, because to try to stay positive and make something good out of something bad. That's probably why you guys are so lighthearted and amazing because you understand like life is so precious. And then comes the anxiety. Yeah, yeah. But the key part about that too, I love that you always told Brett, you're like, I'm gonna buy you a pony. Oh yeah. So that's kind of how it started. I joked around when Brett was born, I was with my brother because, you know, I was like, I'm gonna ruin her because she was the first girl on our side of the family. She had a cardiac bracelet or domineering before she was born. No, I did. I don't care. I will not apologize. It was a tiny one, whatever. I don't care.  I was like, I'm gonna buy you a white pony named Kilo. And it was just a joke in our family. And a friend of mine, she volunteers for a rescue place and she called me and she goes, Caroline, you won't believe this, but we just rescued a many white pony. She goes, I'm holding it for you. If you don't want it, I'll put it online or I'll tell everybody about it. I said, no, I want it. So we rescued two ponies that day and a goat and then three turned into like 30. And is this how you were like, okay, it's gonna be Brett's barn? Mm-hmm. That's amazing. He left town. Oh, God. Oh, God. He came home and I had a fence bill and they were at their ponies and he was fine. He didn't care. He loves that those animals too. So were you raised with animals? Yes. Okay. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, so that wasn't anything new. Okay. Cause there's no way I could just, hey honey, I'm getting a pony. We've got, I mean, we've got plenty of help. Like that one over there helps out a lot. And then a sweet lady named Karen, she's the animal whisperer. So we have help because it's a full-time job but we love these animals and they're spoiled. They're not abused anymore. They are perfectly happy. That's amazing. You rescued on my love it. That's great. Well, let's talk about your other, your little clothing line that you have. I say little, it's not little. Oh, the Best Bad Influence. Yes, yes. It's still a baby company, Best Bad Influence. It kind of happened. Well, at first I said no. Nicole over there said I'm gonna do a website because that's been a joke of mine for years. I'm the Best Bad Influence, which means you're gonna have fun but you'll be home by like nine o'clock. I don't stay out late. I'm not a nine o'clock. Yeah, very boom-a-boom. I'm not bad. I like that saying. I mean, I'm just, it's gonna be fun but I'm not staying out until two. So we just did a website, designs, hoodies, shirts, et cetera and it's done better than we ever imagined and we're expanding. So I love it. It's in the works, we're expanding. Would you ever do a storefront in Nashville? I don't, I don't know if I found a dive into that. I think online is as much as we can handle right now. Yeah. I love it.  Most of them, yes. That's incredible. We do keep some to be able to order more and buy more.  That's incredible. 100%, yes. I love that. Do you wanna tell them where they can find you? www.lessesliving.com and then on Instagram, less is living. Your new pictures, by the way, are beautiful. Oh, thank you. It's called hair and makeup, lashes. A shower. A shower. I washed my hair. Deodorant. I washed my brushing hair. Hairbrush. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. They are beautiful. Thank you. We are at Bretts Barn, at Best Bout Influence, at Lana Braun. It's not Lena. Everybody calls me Lena and I'm like, no, it's Lana because that's a long story from college. Lana Braun. What else? Am I forgetting some? What, the Bretts Foundation? Or what is the? At Bright for Bret. Okay, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Well, thank you all so much for doing this for us. Thank you. I really appreciate it. But now, like, I need to hang out. I wanna go to Bretts Barn, so. I know, I know. And I'm coming to your neighborhood, by the way. Yeah, come with me tonight. I'd like to thank the Foolish Club today for supplying our wine. It was absolutely delicious. I have been so anxious to try it. If you would like more information, go to www.foolishclub.com.


Mwenakisha zaakwa kwenakisha tami kupilatia kwewaria. Kopilatisha zaakwa pamaweha mwainkha pangalako. Kupilatisha zaakwa pasha kwawe eni kuningunga na kwawe wa na kwawe maqalei kwawe kupilatia na kwawe. Ni nukika na mwenakisha zaakwa mwainkha kwenakisha na mtawe. Because generally I don't speak very much about matters or processes. I am not very clear about. But I kept on receiving more calls from religious leaders, from more juniorists and other residents of Monmouth. And yesterday I received a video of someone who has been attacked, or who was attacked by Jankys. It's time the leadership of this country responded to this crisis. When there is a crisis, when there are criminal activities of this nature, leaders cannot keep silent, cannot keep quiet, they need to be heard, they need to lead, they need to assure people something is being done about it. The police and our political leaders and indeed other leaders, religious and otherwise, need to come together and try to address this issue. The issue of jankies is becoming more and more complex. It is a complex socioeconomic issue. Whose roots we know is poverty. But even without addressing poverty, we can do something about it. To save the lives of our people. The attacks are growing beyond the Mongol. People are complaining but nothing is being done about it. We age the police to try and address this matter in a very, very urgent manner. Lives are being lost. People are living in fear, perpetual fear. I also age the political leadership of this country. To move in and do something about it. Even it has to pronounce themselves on this issue.


My name is Thomas Grönbeck. I'm a senior manager on bank data and managing a few platform teams, one of them being the developer portal team working with Backstage. OK. So my talk is called, how did Backstage make 500-plus developers happy in a highly regulated enterprise? And when I said in December, we had founded our developer experience initiative. We were all high hopes. We wanted to conquer the world. And yeah, check mark with bold and flashy title for the talk. And then, are we there yet? Three months later? No, we are not there yet. Is it hard to validate and measure developer experience? It's freaking hard. So we are on this journey, and I want to share what we learned along the way and bring it to you guys so that you can learn from it. So yeah, that's what we are up to now. So just quickly about bank data, because it's a little bit important for this story. We are a regulated enterprise. What we're going to do, our mission is actually to build the future of a digital banking. We are operated out of Denmark. Any Danes in the room? Perfect. So yeah, the green dots, it's our eight banks. We actually owed by eight banks. These banks have close to 2 million customers, a lot of business customers as well. And we make all the products they need. We make all the products for the end user, for the Danish citizens, and all the products for the banking employees. And the light blue dots, that's bank data. That's where we are situated, close to 1,000 employees. And when you make banking application for a lot of Danish people, it is a critical business. So we are highly regulated. These are just some of the things we have to put up with. So all our teams need to be really, really certain about how they do the implementation of their solutions. And when you make banking applications for eight banks, then you also have these eight banks making sure that you make their business in the right way. So a lot of weight on our teams. We actually want to solve this problem with developer experience. We want to build and bake compliance demands into the way that we do stuff. So that is into our developer experience initiative, into our developer portal. And I'll come back to the two tracks that we have made, making sure that our developers are happy. And yeah, just a little more story. We bank data was founded when IT was starting to get important for banks. So we were started in the 60s. And we took all the way up to now microservices AI cloud. But we also have mainframes. So this is a big landscape. And that is also important to know when we speak developer experience, because teams own stuff on different tool stacks. I imagine that's the same with a lot of your companies out there. So why did we start that? It was actually partly because of all these different tool stacks. So this could be the experience for a developer in bank data. Because these teams, they might have an entrant responsibility for mainframe applications, maybe for mobile application, front end applications, and also microservice in Java running on our OpenShift container platform. So it's a wide tool stack. And as you probably know, when tooling are made at different times by different teams, the experience is getting fragmented. And we are there as well. So maybe you need to find your logging here. You're logging over there on another tool stack. That is complex for our developers. Of course, we went the DevOps way as well, putting more complexity into the team. You build it, you run it. Shift left on testing, security, compliance. So even more cognitive load. You could just see the heads. Little fuses exploding in the heads of these developers. We wanted to do that better. That's also why we speak about developer experience and backstage. So what did our developers ask for? They asked for this, among other things. So we wanted it to be easy to find documentation. I don't know you guys. You maybe also have confluence. Confluence it for everybody. So our centralized managed documentation was kind of lost in there, along with all the team documentation. Developers wanted that it was easy to find the templates they could use. They say, please make it easy for me to follow best practices and be secure and compliant by design. And also very important, it's that other experience with the cockpit. It's very difficult to onboard new people if you have a fragmented developer experience. So they wanted them to be able to take a new person into the team and that they could be effective and help the team faster. And of course, also reduce the complexity and the cognitive load. Help me feel effective in my daily work. So this was some of the demands. Some of the things we took into our developer experience initiative, yeah, good. So with this data, what did we actually do? So we actually already in 2023 started to look into how to set up an initiative around developer experience. And we got our upper management to approve this. We actually found funding as well. And we set up these five core values for our developer experience initiative. So we wanted to make sure that our developers would have a highly available tool stack. The tool stack needed to be there when they needed it to be effective in the daily work. So we speak a lot about SLAs, SLOs, SLIs. And we actually really put our efforts from the platform teams into giving good and stable platforms. We also wanted to reduce wait times. So if you had a ticket, you shouldn't wait for it. You shouldn't have that task switch.  We wanted to make that less than before. And we wanted to minimize cognitive load. We wanted to enforce self-service that's speaking a lot into backstates as well, and also enhance discoverability that it is exactly what backstates can do for us. So when we started to define these five core values, we could see, yeah, we can work with that. So what we did was actually to fund two teams to start on this journey. So our developer experience initiative is two teams right now. Two small teams, three person each. To make it more effective, we wanted to focus on outcome instead of features. A lot of other talks have been about that as well. Know your problem. Start by fixing one problem. That's what we wanted the teams to do. They should be working in an experimentation and way with fast feedback loops. And they should try to set up a north star, a guiding star for where they wanted to go. And last but not least, they should build one slice of cake at a time. So one problem, fix it, move on. And I'll come back to the lessons because when you take platform engineers that could build a whole portal and give them an approach like this, it's not easy. Let's come back to those lessons learned. So these are our two tracks in the developer experience initiative. We call them Automation Highway and our developer portal. I'll just give a brief introduction to Automation Highway. I'll go much further down in Developer Portal. So Automation Highway is actually the way to make the effortless journey for a developer. We create. We make it easy for them to create a service. Right now, we support a Krakos Java microservice running on our container platform. We make all these set up for them. So in two and a half minutes, they can spin up the shell for the business logic and they can put the business logic into the shell. With observability and Argo and SonarCube put in by default. So they really like this and they want more of this. So after Krakos, after we support Krakos in a good way, we will move on to probably spring microservices that we also have a lot of teams using. So Developer Portal, we use backstage for that surprise. And yeah, I'll go much further down to that one. So to make this a thing in bank data, we actually started to make some marketing. Because we had upper management support. But now we needed to get the support for bank data. Because yeah, these are new products. These are new ways of working. These are something new for teams to start to use. So the last Tuesday each month, we make a one hour review where we invite everybody between, yeah, we are five to 600 developers. So they can all come and see what we have built in the last month. And we also had the yearly summit here in February. So that was also an event where we did some talks about these two tracks, showed it. How can you use these products? What are we building? And we actually had 100 people joining in the last Tuesday in February. So we are pretty OK with that. And it really helps to pave the ways for adoption on these products. Good. So going into backstage a little deeper, our ambition for backstage is actually, yeah, one stop shop. So it's the end goal. And it's the picture we are painting. And it's the story that we are telling. So one stop shop, single pane of glass, where you go when you need to do your daily work as a developer. So I just want to share our track vision. This is a track vision that was founded in a workshop with the developer portal core team and stakeholders. So the product is for all bank developers. But we are especially catering for profiles that are new hires or new in a domain or new on a tool stack. And our assumption is that if we can make a great product onboarding them, then it can also be effective for more experienced profiles. So we are optimizing for onboarding. We make sure that they can find everything they need. So that could be the service catalog templates that can make it easy for them to develop. The developer portal is the one stop shop, the single pane of glass. And yeah, our product provides easy updated and sociable access to golden path. And golden path, that's important. That's actually what we want to optimize for. So we want to have a golden path for front end, a golden path for back end. And yeah, and we are getting closer and closer every day. So just to share a timeline on how we started this journey. Actually, in 2023, we used it quite some time where we had some interns, because this was before we got funded. So we did a lot of proof of concept. We looked at a lot of the different plug ins. We started to set it up, but we didn't put it into production. I didn't want to have expectations from 500 developers with interns and student workers. We wanted to have a funded team before we took that thing on us. And then when it was the 1st of January, we actually set up a new CTO area. And the CTO area got ownership of the developer experience initiative. Then we started the core team with backstage. And they set a north star metric. And the north star metric was inspired by Spotify and other people. This commitment to start to measuring time to 10 pull requests. And as I said, we chose that metric. And as you see in the end of the line, we still need to establish that baseline. It's been harder than we expected. We also said that what we are actually the first piece of the cake that is developer onboarding for front-end developers. So it was to set more, what can you say, one goal, not conquering everything, one goal. And that was make a great developer experience for developer onboarding for front-end developers. And then we built. And actually, our first release is planned here in start of April. And I'll come back to lessons learned, because I didn't expect that it would take three months to get here, because we came out of an experiment with a lot of knowledge. But back to the learnings later. So this is actually the timeline up till now. Yeah, our first release, as you can see, a little bit bigger slice of cake. So of course, we want to make the golden path for the front-end developers. This automation highway, our another track in developer experience initiative, we want to make the golden path for them as well. And we want to make a software template where they can trigger and start the GitHub action that built this Krakus Java microservices so that we can standardize the way that all the developers that can use that tool stack will do that. We will also have the software catalog in the first release. It will be a subset of services and APIs. We will integrate with Azure AD, bring all the users, the team, and show ownership. And then we hope that we can make the first inner sourcing model for pilot teams, because we really believe in the inner sourcing. We have a strong inner sourcing ambition. And if we are to create a great product with Backstage, we need a lot of contributors in bank data. So we are starting to get pilots up and running. We still have a long way to go. Yes, so what did we learn along the way? Let me share that with you. So we have this ambition to bake compliance in. And developers really want that. We actually thought it would be harder because we have quite some of our Streamaligned teams that are pretty deep into the infrastructure. But when we started to tell this story, they said, please, I can see you nodding. Please take this effort away. Let me be efficient bringing value to the banks within my domain. They really want that. Make golden path the easy option because both developers and our auditors love compliance by design. And if you are able to create a cool plugin that can actually solve bad developer experience and compliance, you might have a killer app. And yeah, we have an example. So we have mainframe, as I shared. We actually have user interface in terminal. And actually, when you create a lot of change management, we have a lot of automatic flows that will start and make that ticket, that change management number, as you can say. But the approval is actually inside this horrible experience. So we built a plugin. It was actually a Bachelor product for some students. And you can see up in the top, you have an approve button. And actually, pretty in a short time, when people approve changes, they don't need to go into that bad experience. They can use a plugin in backstage. And people are really looking forward to that. We hope this can go into the first release as well. But yeah, we're not certain. So another important topic that we learned a lot of lessons around is how can we deliver value with backstage? And I must say, also, developing for three months and still not having released yet, if you are in a regulated company like we are delivering value to banks, there are a lot of strict processes around security access and data. And it just takes time to integrate these different domains, these different systems into backstage. And you need to communicate this to your stakeholders. Because when you say that you are focusing on outcomes and not features, they want to see value. So communicate if you are in a domain where this is difficult, remember to communicate it. We also had a harder learning curve than expected. Because we are three in the team, and we got one person that was in our experiment in 2023. We took him in. He was an intern, so it's his first job. So having him rub off his knowledge to two more experienced people, it takes time.  So yeah, it takes time. We also had quite a big mindset shift going from doing features to working with outcomes. And yeah, this is my point of view. But when technical people, they were probably by default think about making a robust platform, making sure that it can scale. Because they know that they will get support the minute that it goes out the door. So they will probably optimize for that. And right now, we want to see that we optimize for value. So we need to find a balance there. And we need to do coaching on that as well. Yeah. Yeah, also a lesson around please remember to validate market fit and value. And do it early with your pilots, because you can get that feedback into the team and you can create a better product. The last lesson learned is around how to measure developer experience. I just, this is my, it's a very important message for me. There is no silver bullet and no simple formula for this. But there are a lot of great inspiration. And I think I myself has read a lot of it. But if I have good stuff, yeah. Get DX has a lot of good stuff on this. And Google also say good stuff about this. They also say this is hard. And they say that you need to find a balance around soft and hard metrics. Survey is fine, but also get data, hard data from the tool chains or the systems. So you need to find your way in this. We took the approach to set a north star metrics around time to tell pull requests. We haven't established it yet. It's harder than expected, but we haven't given up. So we, and we have its historical data in our BitBug and GitHub environment. So we can, we can also find the historical data and we can also find out when we on board new front and developers, how quickly can they produce the 10 pull requests. So this is still our ambition. And then this one stop shop developers, they really like this vision. So, and they want to contribute to this. And when we shared it on our yearly summit in February, we really got a lot of feedback. And we really validated by the support that this is a product to build. And we have a lot of people, almost too many, that are going to the core team and say, oh, I know what I want to put into the shop. So focus is also very important to stay the course. Yeah, and simple surveys can be a great start. And we have an example from our automation highway. And it's very simple. When they finished driving the highway, you can say, we just make a simple survey. Yeah, did this free up your time to deliver value to the banks? And right now we have a 3.8 rating on that. So people find value in the product. And you can also always start to get feedback in a way like this. And we also want to do that in the developer portal team as well. So this is a very simple way to get value and feedback. So that was the lesson learned. And right now I'm ready for questions. Thank you for that. A colleague from Nodia here, a similar place. So I have just a couple of short questions to you. First of all, do you plan to have one big instance of back state for all the teams? Or do you plan to create an instance of back state for each development team? So do you mean a server instance for? Yes. Okay, so yeah, for these 500 developers, they are in around 100 product teams. Right now we plan to make one instance. And then we know that maybe you can set up the catalog in one instance, your database in one instance. So I think we will skate it like that, but we will have one instance. So how you actually solve the problem of SODs and onboarding to the platform. So you have those 500 teams or 500 developers, each of them having like probably five or seven repositories in GitHub slash back a bit bucket. How do you register the information? Which team, who is the member of this team who should have access to which information that comes from each repository and which repository is it? So we have a few of our repos that are very critic and that we cannot show openly. So the first step is to get, let's say, repositories that can be open. That is like the first step. And then we need to find a way of solving that who can see what part of backstage. So we have not found a solution on that. We know that we have stuff we need to shut down for just yeah, someone to see, but we have not solved that yet. Sure. So the last one for me used something about automation highway. Do you actually use a scaffolder and templates from backstage or do you, how with the security of that? Because then it's everything goes directly from the browser front end to something. So like you let your user browser to create something in the bit bucket repositories. How does it work for you? So what we do, and it's still in pilot. So we take around, I think, 10 parameters and stuff like that. We call it with a JSON string to a GitHub action and that triggers the flow in the GitHub environment. And then he built the scaffolder of this microservice. So it's just the UI, you can say, the way you trigger it with the template. I've done exactly the same thing, but with the AWX underneath, not a GitHub action, but yeah, okay, yeah, that solves my question, answers my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for great questions. Thank you so much.