How Childhood Memories and Big Risks Built a Toy of the Year with Kevin and Laurie Lane
How far would you go to build your dream?
For Kevin and Laurie Lane, it started with a childhood love for castles—and a $60,000 leap of faith. In this episode, we uncover the story behind Create A Castle, the viral beach toy that turned heads on Shark Tank and beyond.
From a split mold inspired by wedding cake pans to showcasing their product live on national TV, Kevin and Laurie share what it’s really like to take a bold risk, build a business from scratch, and stay married through it all. Their journey is proof that big dreams and even bigger determination can truly pay off.
We also dive into the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship, the power of faith and family, and the importance of holding onto your network. Whether you're building sandcastles or businesses, this story will remind you to keep dreaming—and keep going.
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
The Shark Tank pitch that involved hauling in 2 tons of sand
How a childhood drawing and bakery background sparked a multimillion-dollar idea
The bold $60,000 investment that launched their product
Turning a national TV segment into 500 unexpected orders
Using real-world customer reactions to validate their product
Why keeping old connections was key to their startup success
Their advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: start small, stay curious, never burn bridges
Emotional insights on resilience, grief, and gratitude from both Kevin and Laurie
How exploration and curiosity fuel sustainable career growth
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“We all have peaks and valleys in life—how we rise from the valleys defines us.” - Courtney Turich
“Your story proves that bold choices aren’t just about business—they’re about belief.” - Courtney Turich
“The people who come into our lives, they come in for a reason.” - Courtney Turich
“What you were doing as a child might just be shaping your purpose today.” - Courtney Turich
“I love that you keep saying—dream big—because we don’t do it enough.” - Courtney Turich
“Faith is taking the last step when you can’t see the bottom of the staircase.” – Laurie Lane
“The fastest way to validate your idea is to get it in front of real people.” – Kevin Lane
“We’re just two people with a dream and the guts to go for it.” – Laurie Lane
“Don’t ever stop dreaming big.” – Kevin Lane
“You never know which connection could come back to change your life.” – Laurie Lane
About Laurie & Kevin
Kevin and Laurie Lane are the co-founders of Create A Castle, an award-winning line of sand and snow castle-building toys featured on Shark Tank. Blending creativity with convenience, they developed innovative molds that make it easy for families to build elaborate castles without the usual hassle. Their products have won multiple awards, including 2020 Outdoor Toy of the Year, and are sold in stores worldwide. With patented designs and over $3 million in sales in 2022 alone, the Lanes continue to make a global impact in the toy industry.
Follow Laurie & Kevin Lane
Check out Create A Castle Indoor Sandcastle Play Sand Kit on Amazon!
Stay Connected with Courtney Turich:
A Team Dklutr Production
BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Courtney Turich: Okay. And I also like to get up in the camera like this, and I've been told I have to back that up, so, okay.
Laurie: You get all excited.
Courtney Turich: I do. I get really jazzed. I know. And I sometimes have to, like, I did Brianna last, um, Brie and I, I was really like, I, anyways, I was a little over the top and it comes out next week.
Okay. Okay. Hold on. Here we go. Here we go guys. I know you have a Saturday to get to. Okay.
Laurie: Take your time. Take
Courtney Turich: your time. Hi friends. In today's episode, we're chatting with two Shark Tank entrepreneurs who made bold moves and confident choices to build something incredible. We'll dive into their journeys, the key lessons learned, and some surprising insights along the way.
A little bit about our Shark Tank entrepreneurs, Kevin and Laurie Lane wowed Shark Tank with Create a Castle. Revolutionizing Sand Castle Building with their split mold. Design was started as a cut in half bucket, became a toy of the year winner, and caught the eye of Kendra Scott, who joined their team in 2022 with outdoor and indoor castle kits.
They're bringing families together. One castle at a time. So Kevin and Laurie, thank you so much for being on Bold Moves, confident Choices. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having
Kevin: us. We love it.
Courtney Turich: Yay. So, you know the burning question everyone wants to know before we jump into your bold moves is tell us a little bit more about your Shark Tank experience.
Laurie: It was. Crazy exciting. And Kevin always says, the thing he always says to everybody when they ask us about is we are the only ones that brought the beach to the sharks. Yes. So how many tons of it was
We Brought Two Tons of Sand to Shark Tank
Kevin: close to two tons of sand sitting on that table.
Laurie: Yeah. We brought You're kidding. Yeah. Into the set. And we got to go in the night before, which was pretty exciting.
And he built the castle the night before. So we knew we were first in the morning. Um. Because he built the castle. We were there till, what, like nine o'clock or something? So
Kevin: yeah, when, it was
Laurie: pretty exciting. When we
Kevin: were going through the interview process with the producers, they said, think big. I'm like, all right.
I'm thinking big. Here's my idea. And they're like, how much sand? And I'm like, let's do like two tons of sand. And they're like. Okay. And they sent this little table that they had constructed and I'm like, guys, that's not even gonna hold a ha a, a fraction of the sand that we have. So they had to find like a custom steel based table that at Sony Studios.
Oh my gosh. They were all like, this
Laurie: is a first for us. You know? So they were like trying, I mean, they were amazing. Like, you know, they kind of helped us script the whole thing and, you know, figure out what we were gonna do. Exactly. Yeah. And, but um, you were like, this is what we want. And they're like, all right, we're gonna find that stuff in the studio.
We actually ordered shovels and different things off Amazon had it shipped to the studio for. For the put our producers
Kevin: to work. When we got there, I was like, there's a shovel. Start throwing it in the table. We're helping
Laurie: and shoveling everything because
Kevin: we only had two hours to move that two tons of sand onto the table and do the build.
Courtney Turich: Oh my goodness. Yeah. But you know what's really lucky for the two of you? I don't know if this happened for you all, but the fact you had such an elaborate setup, it made you go first. In line because we were end of day and you know, they always tell you it's never a guarantee. Right. And we're getting, it's around four o'clock and we're starting to freak out in our, in our trailer.
Right. And sweating bullets. Exactly. After practicing a thousand times in our trailer, hoping we're gonna get in front of the sharks, which luckily we did, but. You didn't have that fear like you knew you were getting in front of the sharks, which is really cool.
Laurie: Yep, yep. We knew that and that was an amazing thing.
And I remember the assistant producer that we were working with, you know how you have the one that you communicate with all time? Right? And they were like, you know, chairman was like, okay, well you guys are first. You know, you're gonna be first. That is an amazing place to be. We're like, okay. Yeah,
Kevin: because we built it the night before.
We actually set the night before.
Courtney Turich: So I have chills because you are so fortunate to not have gone through that way. We were like, woo. Okay, good. Yep. So, so how long was your process to get to, you know, in front of the Sharks? Um,
Kevin: I, until I missed about a year.
Laurie: No, I applied in October. I think online. I had submitted us and then we got the call.
I remember right around your birthday in March. So that was when the first email came and then we filmed in July. So Okay. Yeah, a while. Yeah. It was a long time. It's all the different steps and you know, submit this video and this video and this video and, you know, it was all crazy and exciting and feels like a lifetime ago, you
Kevin: know?
You know how the process
Laurie: is.
Courtney Turich: Oh, I do. It's no easy task. And it's not like you just get an email and they say, come on the show, they put you, they put you through a, to even get to. Get to la, right?
Kevin: Absolutely. Yep. And then even if you do get to LA there's no, there's no guarantee as they say, you know, and
Laurie: one of the craziest parts that we will never forget with our thing is we were, so, we were 2022, so we were on the tail end of COVID.
So I, we have friends and stuff that did it during COVID, which was insanity and what they had to do, you know, I. Yeah, very, very different situation for Shark Tank. But so we were on the tail end of that, but they were still testing for COVID, so that was, I think, more nerve wracking. Everybody that was in the hotel with us that was pitching and so forth, I.
That was the most nerve wracking part is that we were probably tested four or five times in the few days that we were there because they had to extend our stay. 'cause something had happened on the set, nothing to do with us. So everyone that was in our group that was pitching. Had to stay for like three or four days, but you couldn't even enjoy it because it was, we had to stay in our room.
Yeah. Because we were tested for COVID every day, so we were afraid to go anywhere. But, um, yeah, that was the most nerve wracking is getting on set. They're testing you for COVID and you're, you're sitting there waiting, going, please, God, don't let me test positive, you know, even if you weren't sick with all the false positives.
So we were like, oh my God, that's gonna be terrible if you get sent home. Just because you tested positive, that was more nerve wracking. That would not have been good than
Courtney Turich: pitching, I have to say. Wow. Yeah, I can't imagine that. And then just staying in your hotel room.
Laurie: Yeah,
Courtney Turich: it was
Laurie: good because he actually, um, he is built the website, a web developer by trade, you know, originally before, before create Castle, so he rebuilt our whole website.
In the couple days we were stuck in the hotel room, so that was good. So that worked out. Yes. Yes. It was fine. Because you never have downtime to do
Courtney Turich: that. So what was the most surprising part of your Shark Tank experience that you can share with all of us? Um,
The Childhood Spark That Built Create A Castle
Kevin: that they didn't tell the backstory. I think because we, you know how it is, like you pitch longer than what you see, right?
Laurie: Mm-hmm. So
Kevin: we, our pitch was close to, I think around an hour. And they only show like 10 minutes of it. Right. And we were just really surprised that didn't show back story. Yeah. 'cause he has a great backstory,
Laurie: which we can talk about. Um, you know, that started from his childhood and kind of when we were in there, we talked a lot about that with the sharks.
And um, we were surprised that they didn't show that part on, you know, like when they actually, when it was edited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, it wasn't anything bad, but it was just definitely like, oh, I kind of thought they would show that over some other stuff.
Courtney Turich: Right. And so Kevin is, do you wanna talk about your backstory now or is that something you wanna discuss later?
Kevin: Yeah. Share the backstory. Why not? Let's feed right into it. Yeah. The backstory is really cool. So, um, growing up, my parents divorced early. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm a twin. I have a twin brother and an older brother. And we grew up in a bakery of all places. So my mother and grandmother in their kitchen, in a bakery in literally in their kitchen.
And our house was this bakery and they, they were local rock stars in the baking world and they did all wedding cakes in the local area in Connecticut that we live in, Denver, Connecticut area. And I was sitting there watching them. Build these elaborate, beautiful stacked, tiered wedding cakes with fountains and all this stuff on it
Laurie: using their spring form pans that split.
Yep. That was
Kevin: part of the process. And you know, all of the three boys were always running around the kitchen, so they found what we loved to do. Right. So I always loved, loved art, fell in love with art as, as a young kid. And my mom found these books called Draw 50 Books and Draw 50. Lo and behold on the cover was this beautiful castle.
So it taught you step by step in like five to 10 steps, how to draw this super elaborate castle. So here I am drawing this elaborate castle, watching them bake their wedding cakes with these spring form pans. Fast forward 40 years.
Laurie: Yeah.
Kevin: Create a born
Laurie: and totally,
Kevin: yeah, totally different platform than a wedding cake.
But the same exact premise.
Laurie: It's all the concepts. And we actually, his mom found a picture of one of his, or found one of his actual drawings and it's, I think it's on our website too, and it's actually looks like create a castle. And it's from when he was 10 years old, so the seed was planted young know.
So it's always been like we tell everybody, you don't know what you're doing today. That could come out in your life tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like, not even tomorrow, like. 30 years from now, it could be any time, you know, something kind of sits, it sits in your mind and it might come back someday for some reason or another, whether it's personal or you know, something with your career.
Kevin: Yeah. And fast forward to, to now, like you said, tour of the year. Live with Kelly and Ryan. Our product ended up on The Price Is Right Showcase Show, showcase, down Showcase. So we
Laurie: were like, Woohoo. Um,
Kevin: and now we work with Disney Cruise Lines. We have a, we're the only sandcastle excursion in the world for any cruise line.
So, you know, keep dreaming big
Courtney Turich: in Incredible, incredible, incredible. And I love that you are reiterating to dream big because we don't do it enough.
Kevin: Yeah.
Courtney Turich: It's true. And this is a thought really that was in your mind not, you know, build a sandcastle then, but something that really started when you were a child, Kevin.
Kevin: Yeah.
Courtney Turich: Yep.
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I feel like, you know, we talk about divine intervention all the time, but we feel, yeah, truly feel that all of those pieces were put into place early on and we didn't even know it. And it just came out
Laurie: so many different times during this whole journey, which as you know, is like, you're high, you're low, you're high, you're low, you're, you're, you're, you have money.
You don't have money. You have money. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's a crazy rollercoaster, but every time we start to doubt. And say, oh God, like are we crazy? What are we doing this for? You know? Um, I'm tired of hot dogs and mac and cheese. Different things. Yeah. Every time you say that something happens, whether, you know, whatever it may be.
And we keep saying, okay, somebody is, is guiding us in this. And his mother always says, God wouldn't have brought you this far to dump you at this point. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's like, you know, we kind, we do that. 'cause that makes me. Keep going anyways. Mm-hmm. We are very strong, faithful people.
So, you know, our faith drives us to just keep going. Even when there's plenty of times where I'm like, oh boy, okay. I don't know. I can do it anymore. And you know, and then something happens and you're like, all right, so someone is still guiding us and so forth. So, I mean, I think it's just all part of the journey.
Courtney Turich: So Laurie, when you get down in those moments, because you're right, there's peaks and valleys, it's an emotional rollercoaster as an entrepreneur and whether you're an entrepreneur or not, we all face it in life. So what do you do to climb out of, you know, the valley and to get back up?
Laurie: I look at everything that we do have.
So, you know, it's easy to focus on what you don't have. Everybody does it right. You know, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough this, we don't have enough that, you know, whatever it is in your life. Um, I look at what we do have. I look at our kids, you know, I mean, I just kind, I look the fact that we've been married 28 years, 20 what year is.
I don't, we were married in 98, so do the math. 27 years
Kevin: creeping up on 30 years.
Laurie: Yeah, almost 30 years. Congrats. You know, and have worked together. 'cause we worked with his computer business too, that we still have. So, you know, I look at that stuff. So I really shift my mind and when we talk about the 18-year-old self thing leader, that's, you know, I'll talk more about it, but I look at that kind of stuff as to what we have and it changes my mindset.
Right. Like, you know, there's people that are suffering in so many different ways and yeah, we might be suffering in something, but we have so much to be thankful for.
Courtney Turich: Yeah. So now let's, you know, before we actually get into the bold question, what is it like working with Kinder Scott? Is she active in the business?
Laurie: I mean, we've only, how long has it been? A year and a half? About
Kevin: a year and a half.
Laurie: We've had a few conversations. We work with members of her team a little bit more. You know what I mean? She's definitely excited about the product and everything, um, right. But we, you know, we hope that grows as we grow.
Right. So.
Kevin: She did put us in touch with, like her ad agency. Yeah. We're, and we're working with them now. They're giving us pointers as to, you know, the right levers to pull for Google advertising and all that kind of stuff, which is huge.
Courtney Turich: Right. That, that is big. I mean, that's super helpful, especially as the startup company.
Laurie: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 'cause they're working with companies, this marketing agency does, like Duluth trading, you know, we would never have access to them at Right. You know, a small business level. Like they, you know. So it's great. Of course, you know, that kind of stuff is definitely beneficial.
Courtney Turich: All right, y'all, we have to get into the big questions because we could talk all day about Shark Tank, which I love, and I know you do too.
What is the big, bold, confident choice that you've made in your life that's catapulted you all to the next level?
Laurie: Well, we talked about this and we kind of both settled on the same thing.
Kevin: Could be two things, but yeah, I'll let you talk to what we talked, well, we'll do the first one that we
We Risked It All to Launch Our Dream
Laurie: talked about.
But when, um, when Kevin thought of this whole idea, we were on vacation in California and, you know, watching a dad and his son. So that whole story that we tell, you know, he watched them on the beach and he would cut his own garbage cans in half, do all this stuff. We had gone through that whole process.
We had done all the designs, all the prototypes, and when we had to make that decision to pull the trigger to spend, what was it, 60,000 I think at the time, which now is like nothing with the amount we've spent multiple blows my mind that I can even say that. You know what I mean? Like you think about like people like, Woohoo, I got a thousand dollars.
I'm like. Yeah, that doesn't get you far in manufacturing. But, um, so when we had to make that decision, make that decision, and we had to tell, we had started manufacturing in Taiwan and we had to tell them that night, we were like. Do we do it? No, we not do it. We're taking a risk, you know, we had done beach to beach instead of door to door.
We had gone beach to beach with this one prototype that we had had 3D printed, uh, 3D printed and the one from um, China. Right. So the machine one? Yeah, the machine one, you know, testing the product. So we knew it was great. People were, you know, so receptive to it. And um, so we kind of knew that we could have a home run.
But we were like, oh God, like, do we spend this amount of money? And like, totally, we're jumping off a cliff, you know, like, you don't, you don't know. So that was our big, like, okay, we're, we're going all in. You know, like once we do this, there's no turning back, you know, like, so that was our
Taking the Leap: Betting on Your Big Idea
Courtney Turich: big thing. So Laurie and Kevin, what was it like, what was that feeling when you made that choice for the $60,000 investment?
I. What was going through your heart, your mind, everything.
Kevin: Yeah. I mean, you're basically, back then, that was like a year's salary for us almost. Right, because she was home with the kids and
Laurie: Yeah.
Kevin: I was working so, you know, close to a full year salary and. You're like, wow, I'm taking up a full year's worth of work,
Laurie: like
Kevin: to step into this great unknown.
I'm basically stepping into a fire not knowing if I'm gonna get burned or not,
Laurie: you know? And it was, I personally wanted to throw up, but it was like, you know, you kinda like, you're like, oh God, but you know what is, um, your mom always says like, faith is like taking the last step when you can't see the bottom of the staircase or going, you know what I mean?
So it's like. We were like, okay, here we go. We're in this together and we're just gonna see what happens. You know, we had done our research. It's not like we didn't do any research prior, but we, um, yeah, it was definitely a leap of faith too.
Courtney Turich: Yep.
Laurie: And what year was this, Kevin and Laurie that you did?
Kevin: 17,
Laurie: 20 17 or 20, yeah, 2017.
The product came in 2018, so 2017.
Courtney Turich: Okay, so how soon after you made this investment did you get the product on the market? 2018, right? 2018. Yeah. We
Kevin: ended up on a segment with Live Kelly and Ryan, and that's when. It all popped
Laurie: and uh, we actually, it was funny 'cause we got our PR guy, Barry Schwartz, who is amazing, like definitely, um, in the toy space.
He had connected us with Chris Byrne, the toy guy who is like big part of the, to, he's the history channel. He's amazing. He's, and they were both our biggest cheerleaders from the beginning and so. Having them in our corner was incredible. So Chris Burn is like, I'm gonna bring this on live with Kelly and Ryan for like a toy segment in, um, it was May, right?
Yep. And so we're like, okay, so how many should we expect to sell? Like, we had no clue. And um, he's like, ah, people usually sell maybe 30 you'll get from the segment or something. We're like, okay. Wow. Like, you know, we had sold like. 30, you know, two months like, so we were like, okay, this would be really cool.
So I remember we were sitting in the green room. It was um, a bunch of us were in there. Our son was actually home and. So it airs and it airs in the three different time zones. And so we're sitting there and we're just like, oh, look it, it was so awesome. The audience clap and our son is texting. He's like, did anybody look to see if anybody's ordering?
And we're like, oh. So we pull up the phone and it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You could see the orders, boom, boom,
Kevin: coming from the different time zones from this time
Laurie: zone. And we sold 500 and not just 30. And we were like, okay, that was great. Now, how do we do all that? We were like, did you have the inventory?
Yeah, we had the inventory. We did, but we had no infrastructure to process 500 orders. So we had every friend and family member come and our friend Paige, who has since passed away from cancer, I remember Paige came in and she, we were like all over the warehouse and she's like. That's it. Line up, do this.
She took charge of that warehouse and like got everybody doing a process and we were like, okay. And we got 'em all out, but it was like, okay, like right into the fire. It threw us. But it was an incredible exciting, you know, so exciting. When we were seeing those orders, we're just all just sitting there going, oh my God, now, oh gosh, now we gotta process them.
Yeah. You know? So that is
Courtney Turich: awesome. Yeah. And that you were able to get that national publicity right out of the gate. Oh, and then once you, yeah. And once you got that national publicity for, I mean now you've had multiple. Abilities to get out there. Yeah. Yeah. What did that do for your business? You sold 500 then, but then did it really start to make you.
As a known company in the space? Yeah,
Laurie: it definitely did in the toy space, because there were some companies, like some of the like online toy companies that we had emailed. You know, we were emailing people and, and they actually emailed us, you know what I mean? Like, so it kind put our name out there. It gave us a little work cloud put us on the map.
Yeah, and we always say that with Shark Tank too. It doesn't necessarily, you know, like some people, shark Tank, you know, is the whole part of their business, which is great if it's, you know, helping them run their business and everything. But ours definitely, you know, helped us Having the Shark Tank thing helped us with Disney.
Having, you know, the live with Kelly and Ryan thing helped us get on QVC, so, you know what I mean? So each of those steps kind of helps the next, the next step of your business. It just solidifies
Kevin: you as a business, you know, like gives you a little more
Laurie: Yeah. Clout and credit. You know, every,
Kevin: it's all part of the piece of the pie, right?
Like Shark Tank is a sliver, QVC is a sliver, H sn is a sliver lot. Kelly and Ryan. Price is right. It's all slivers of the pie to make the greater whole.
Courtney Turich: So when you talk about starting a business, because lots of people have ideas, Kevin and Laurie, right? Help us understand how, how do you get started when you have an idea and then once you bring it to life, you mentioned a PR company.
How do you get yourself out there? I know this is a very complex question, but how can you tell our listeners to get going themselves with their ideas and get out there to market? Um, I can, I mean, it's
Laurie: up to you
Courtney Turich: if you
The Power of Market Testing
Kevin: wanted to. My take on that would be to get started is. Let's find your niche, right?
Like Laurie said, instead of going door to door, we went beach to beach. That was our market research with a simple 3D printed prototype, uh, belt buckle strap. I was out there in the beaches getting reactions. There was at points, I mean, we would find the busiest sections at the beach we could, with these small cylinders that we had at the time, but a prototype of working product.
I mean, I would look up, we would have 50 people around us being like, we can't believe what you just built. Oh my God. Whatcha where can we get this?
Laurie: Yeah.
Kevin: So we knew from that research going beach to beach like that and constantly getting the same reaction. At one point, we had investors out of Boston. We were on some beach up in Boston.
He is like, I wanna invest in your business, get that data early on, because when you get that data from real people. You know, seeing the product in action and actually, you know, actually functioning, that's invaluable. I mean, like that, that's, that's a huge telltale sign for you whether or not you're gonna have success.
Laurie: Yeah. And you have to have that, you know, you have to before you, you take that step. Forward. And also too, like we talk about, like you said, the PR agency and, and all of that. The thing that I tell kids, like when we talk in high schools and talk in schools and stuff, is never burn a bridge with any contact that you have in, especially in business.
I mean, I've worked for different companies. I worked for Disney, I did work for Disney, I worked for the Gap, I worked for, I have connections with all of the people that I previously worked with, some of the bosses. We're crazy back in the day. That probably would never, you know, some of this stuff like we laugh at in these jobs.
No, I won't, but I'm still connected with those people. Never burn a bridge because you never know where your paths could cross again. And Kevin worked for, um, internet.com. It was like when the internet was first getting like really big back in the day. Nineties. Yeah. Yeah. And um, you know, his contact there, the owner of the company, that's how we got the PR guy had done his pr and Kevin was also working with an engineer because, um, the owner of the company had designed something and Kevin just happened to be working with that engineer and he said, I have this great idea and Joel.
God bless him, designed the our first, you know, model of it and stuff. So it was all from our connections is how it happened. So it goes back to the divine intervention, which definitely somebody was guiding us to have all of those connections at the time that we needed them. But it also comes back to keeping those resources.
In your back pocket no matter what. I don't care how much you don't like somebody at work don't like, if you need to move on, move on with a smile. 'cause you never know when you might. You know, they might benefit you, you might benefit them someday in the future.
Courtney Turich: What great key tips here? So Kevin, what you said again, everybody.
Is hearing that you got on Kelly and Ryan, that wasn't out of the gate. You did a lot of pre-work to get there. You were knocking on doors before you even brought, made the huge investment. Mm-hmm. Into producing more inventory. And then Laurie, reiterating, your network is powerful. We all have to lean into our network.
Don't burn a bridge. Nope. You never know when they're gonna come back around and provide guidance or assistance for whatever we need. Yep. Yep. So I wanna, again, love to keep talking in that direction, but more powerful. I need to know what you would tell your 18-year-old self, and I wanna hear it from each one of you.
So, Kevin. I want you to go first and then Laurie, I'm gonna ask you the same question. Okay.
Dream Big and Don’t Take Life for Granted
Kevin: I, I think I would tell my 18-year-old self that you can do anything you can and you know, growing up I was kind of a more of an introvert, believe it or not. Um, that's why I got into computers, right? I could be behind the scenes.
I didn't have to be out front in, in the spotlight.
Laurie: I changed that.
We've been together in a long time
Kevin: and I would, I would basically tell myself always dream big. Don't ever stop dreaming back. Yeah, that, that's what I would tell my 18-year-old self.
Laurie: I love that. And Laurie. I would say mine is more of like definitely a personal thing too, is never take people in your life for granted.
So we had a personal family tragedy when I was 18, which always brings me back to that age. My little brother was killed on a motorcycle and he was 16 and I was 18, and that changed our family and everything. But it also. Made me unfortunately have to not take things for granted. 'cause you're, you know, when you go through that tragedy.
So I would tell myself from as young as you can be, to not take people in your life for granted. And it's a good reminder, you know, as I go through life, I mean, I'm 56 years old now, and still I always think of that like, you know, don't go to bed without saying, I love you. Don't tell the people. In your life, you know, don't forget to tell people that you love them, you appreciate them because it is, life is short and it's something that stays with you, and it's so, so important to just cherish the good.
And like when you asked earlier, how do you get yourself out of the funk and stuff, when that kind of thing happens, that's what I do. I think about, okay, this is the good that has happened. This is the good that we have. And I'm very blessed in so many ways.
Courtney Turich: All right, you too. I have to tell you what you would tell your 18-year-old self.
It's interesting to think about our conversation here today, because I saw each one of those things come out through our conversation. Dream big. Think big. Like Kevin, this was something you started, you had a vision of a castle. It wasn't necessarily a sandcastle. You were gonna have, you know, a company on sandcastles.
But you were doing sandcastles when you were younger, so it was already in your mind. You can achieve anything. You're doing it now. You have a dream. You've brought to reality. You took a risk, which was a big, bold, confident risk to put a lot of money towards something you both believed in, and not to take people for granted.
Laurie, I mean, wow. Life is short when it comes down to it. Right. And the people who come into our lives, they come into our lives for a reason. Absolutely.
Kevin: I'm just happy You
Courtney Turich: too. Yeah,
Kevin: I'm happy she, I'm just happy she didn't tell her 18-year-old self don't marry that guy named Kevin.
Laurie: Oh, I didn't think of that one now.
Courtney Turich: Um, alright everybody, that is Laurie's real reason of what she would tell her 18-year-old self, but.
Hey, you too. It has been really wonderful having you on Bold moves, confident choices. Is there anything else before we leave today that you wanna tell our listeners?
Laurie: Well, I mean, I think we kinda
Kevin: covered all the bases. Yeah. What we will tell your listeners is, thank you Courtney, for having us on. Yes. We, uh, we love the podcast and as we talked about early on, we listened to one last night before we actually did this.
And we, we love the format so. A lot of fun. Well,
Courtney Turich: thank you so much. I so appreciate your time and your space, your energy, your stories, and I know it's gonna inspire others out there to be a better version of themselves. So Kevin and Laurie, where can they find you? Where can they find your business and all this good job, all this good stuff.
Laurie: Everything is. Create a castle, like, so our, all of our social handles are create a castle, all one word. Yeah. Our website create a castle.com. We're on Amazon. Those, but our website is probably the best place to find everything that we offer. Yep. All of our, you know, products and services and lessons and all of that is all@createeightcastle.com.
Courtney Turich: Super simple. Everyone you heard it, create create a castle.com. That's where where you'll find Laurie and Kevin, I wanna thank all of you for being here today and listening. And as always, go be bold, be confident, and be you. Thanks. Awesome guys. How was it?
Kevin: That was great. Good job. Good.
Laurie: Very nice.
Courtney Turich: Thank you.
Thank you. And gosh, it's just so fun to hear all these great takeaways from people. Um, and the dream big. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
