Revolutionizing Beauty & Empathetic Entrepreneurship with Brooke Nichol – EP 161

Interview with Brooke Nichol

Revolutionizing Beauty & Empathetic Entrepreneurship with Brooke Nichol

Featured on This Episode: Brooke Nichol

✅ What she does: Brooke Nichol is a Registered Nurse and Certified Aesthetic Nurse Specialist by the International Society of Plastic and Aesthetic Nurses. Her background is in ICU and OR, where she spent several years as a travel nurse and worked alongside Beverly Hills’ top plastic surgeons. Brooke is currently an Allergan Medical Institute trainer, serves on Allergan and Revance Advisory Boards, and was named a top 100 Injector by The Best Aesthetic Injectors in America in 2018. She is a national and international speaker and faculty for some of the largest conferences in the aesthetic field, such as Aesthetic Next, The Aesthetic Show, AMWC – The Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medicine World Congress, and Vegas Cosmetic Surgery. She recently was chosen as one of the top 12 lip experts in the country for the Juvederm Lips Expert Series.

💬 Words of wisdom: “We are in a business of relationships, and I think it speaks for itself that we built this business and relationships and people coming back because we really care.” – Brooke Nichol

🔎 Where to find Brooke Nichol: Instagram | LinkedIn

Key Takeaways with Brooke Nichol

• Exceptional talent always captures attention
• Support from others can spark your leap of faith
• The cornerstone of success lies in strong relationships
• Perseverance through hardship pays off
• Challenging traditional gender roles in the household
• Keeping the spark alive while working together
• Building a business that doesn’t need you at the steering wheel
• The rise of men’s interest in personal grooming
• Pioneering the next wave of aesthetic medicine

Reinvigorating Personal Health with Preventive Medicine with Brooke Nichol

Free Strategy Session 

The Lifestyle Investor Insider

Brooke Nichol Tweetables

Resources

• Brooke Nichol on Instagram | LinkedIn
• Saving Face
• Saving Face on Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube
• Garth Fisher
• Rebecca Fitzgerald
• Juvederm
• Allergan
• Yellowstone Club
• Slack and Asana
• Motus9
• Sam Byrne
• Brad Buckman
• Crazy Mountain Ranch
• Gibson Street Bar

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Read the Full Transcript with Brooke Nichol

Justin Donald: Hey, Brooke. So good to have you on the show.

Brooke Nichol: Thanks, Justin. Thank you for having me.

Justin Donald: This is so fun. Well, we’ve talked about this for a little while, and I’m glad that we could make it possible. And it’s fun. You and I both take Mondays off generally and so it’s fun. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever recorded on a Monday before so it’s fun having you on the show today and get a chance to get into some stuff.

Brooke Nichol: Well, thanks for coming in on your day off.

Justin Donald: I love it. I love it. For you, anything. Everyone’s going to learn why. So, your story, yeah, your story’s incredible. And I want more people to know about it. I want them to know about you, your business, how you got to where you are today, and just some of life’s journeys where things work out better than planned, as planned, or worse than planned. And so, we can get into all of it.

Brooke Nichol: Okay. I’m an open book, so ask away. I’m excited to share my story with your people.

Justin Donald: Well, you got the nickname of the Aesthetic Queen because you are one of the most prominent, highly successful people in your space. You’ve won tons of awards. We’ll talk about that. I shared some of that in the intro but you know your stuff and I know this firsthand as well, and I want to get into that today too, but not everyone knows how you got to where you are today. You’re a successful entrepreneur. You’re running a business with your husband, a feat primarily what started as a female brand that now I think is much more encompassing than that. You’re servicing people all across the board. But it’s really cool to see what you’ve been able to build in a short period of time, and moreover than that, the huge U-turn you took to get to where you are today, right?

Brooke Nichol: Yeah, that’s a big one. It’s a big one. Yeah, it’s been amazing. It’s been a long journey. It’s been, well, ten years in the making. But I didn’t go to school. You talk about like just curveballs and not knowing really things turning out better than you expected. It has just been such a dream come true, really, and an unexpected one at that. So, yeah, we’re okay. Sorry. That’s Jason. Push pause on that. He’s making sure I’m all technically like hooked up or whatever. So, no, it has been quite the journey. And I didn’t go to school to become an aesthetics nurse. You know, I became an R.N. I moved out to California on a travel contract. I worked in ICU for five years.

Justin Donald: That had to be intense. ICU, right? Intensive care unit.

Brooke Nichol: Yes, sir. And actually, I loved it. I loved the 2:1 patient ratio. It was just such a great field for me but it was 12-hour night shifts. I would work six in a row and then take a bunch of time off. But I ended up running into some people who worked for a plastic surgeon in L.A. and they were like, “Oh, you’re a nurse? Well, you should come work with Garth Fisher. We don’t work holidays and we don’t work weekends.” And I was like, “Oh, well, that sounds like fun.”

Justin Donald: That’s nice.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah, really nice. So, I went in there and I said, “Listen, I know nothing about circulating in the operating room,” but he said, “You know, if you can do ICU, you can basically do anything.” And so, that was really great to have that background. And so, I started working with him as his operating room nurse. And then he asked me one day in 2007, he said, “You want to go learn how to do Botox?” I was like, “No, no, I will never do Botox. I will never work with women who do Botox.” And clearly, I was really young and really judgy but I needed the CME credits. And so, I went with him to Rebecca Fitzgerald and she has a practice in Larchmont, and I was 27 at the time and she said, “Stand up.” And I stood up and she started looking at my face and she said, “If you look at her upper third and her mid-third and her lower third and the white ring around her mouth,” and she just made it an art, and my right brain went off and exploded. And I was like, “Wow, as long as I take pictures of these crazy women, they can’t blame me for something that was already there.”

And so, in 2007, that began my journey into aesthetics and I just was like a sponge. I would go to every conference and every training they would have. It was really right when hyaluronic acid launched, like right when Allergan launched Juvederm. And so, I just had access living in L.A. to all of the best trainers. And so, I did. I soaked it all up, and then about two years later, I said, “Garth, I cannot sit in your operating room anymore. I’m like bored to death.” And he was like, “Well, if you’re going to inject, come inject for me.” And I haven’t stepped back in an OR or an ICU in quite some time. So, that’s how I got into aesthetics.

Justin Donald: Oh, that’s so cool. And it’s neat that who would have ever thought you would have taken this path that you would have gone from the ICU to the aesthetics field. And from there you learn from some of the best people in the business. You were able to take all this stuff and you had the guts to leave that, leave what was comfortable, leave what was a known commodity, a known income to start your own business, and moving to a completely different state because you moved from L.A. to Austin, right?

Brooke Nichol: Correct. Yes. Correct. And Jason was a huge part of me having the courage to do my own thing because I initially wanted to work for another practice and build up a clientele and then make that leap into owning my own business. And he said, “Brooke, you’ve got it.” He’s like, “And I’ve got you. So, you can do this. I’ll help you. Let’s just start it.” And I started training for the company already, and I had my own little side training gigs going along, going around as well. And so, with a $5,000 loan from Jason, from my husband, I started Saving Face in 2013. And so, it was one room out of a 500 square foot garage apartment, basically like a carriage house I created. I was a one-woman show for about four years and then finally brought in an admin and a medical assistant and started just organically growing. And I tell Jason that was the best investment he’s ever made. And we’ve got the most return from this business by far. So, yeah, yes.

Justin Donald: It’s great to hear that. And the fun joke for those of you tuning in is that Jason is a member of the Lifestyle Investor Mastermind. So, we do a lot of investing together. He’s in a bunch of the deals that we do. So, I love, Brooke, that you can tell him, “Hey, you may be doing these great deals in Lifestyle Investor but the best deal you ever made, the best investment was investing in me and investing in our business, Saving Face.”

Brooke Nichol: 100%. That $5,000 has paid off.

Justin Donald: Well, it for sure has because in 2023, this year, you guys were rated the best aesthetic practice, which is a huge honor. So, you went from being a one-woman show in a small room to having one of the nicest pieces of real estate here in Austin. And you have people that fly out to your property and to your business from New York City, from Los Angeles, from all the places that you would think that they have the best of the best in the aesthetic business. And they’re coming to see you.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah. I’m super honored and it blows me away every time. But, yes, I do have a lot of guests who fly out to see us from Aspen, from all over. And it’s such an honor, such a privilege to treat them, even just people driving from like Dallas or wherever because there is a med spa on every corner but I do believe this space is special. I do believe that the experience that you get at Saving Face is special. I tell my team, “We are in a business of relationships and I think it speaks for itself that we built this business and relationships and people coming back because we really care.” You know, the results kind of come along for the ride but it is something very special. This place we purchased about a year and a half ago, it’s a 1910 colonial-style home that we’ve turned into a clinic, basically, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. You know, it feels really special and homey and comfortable when you walk in. And we also have a wellness site.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I’m sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Brooke Nichol: No, so we have a wellness part, a location as well, just around the corner, and really big plans for the future with that part. So, this building here, we call it the aesthetics building. It does lasers and injectables and exosomes. And then the other practice we actually do weight loss, vaginal rejuvenation, women’s health, hormones, BHRT, that sort of thing. So, more on the wellness side.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And it’s cool because from an investor standpoint or an entrepreneurship standpoint, you went from at one point renting everything to just not too long ago you guys bought a really nice property, a nice piece of land, a nice colonial-style home, and you’ve done a fantastic job. I’ve been in both of your facilities and they’re both gorgeous. Your interior design is great but just the overall look, I think, speaks to the quality that you provide right there. It’s very congruent and I think that it’s cool that you were able to upgrade to the space that you bought here because I think part of the back story, obviously, you want to expand. You probably, you know, it always makes sense to own instead of rent. But you had clients that because of their reputation or because they’re high profile, they needed a place that they could get in and out of without being seen by just regular people, right? They had to be able to come and go, get procedures done, and have no one know of it. And you needed a facility that could accommodate.

Brooke Nichol: To go the back door.

Justin Donald: Yes, that’s right.

Brooke Nichol: Yes, definitely. It’s important to have a front door and back door.

Justin Donald: That’s cool. Well, I love that you’re able to do that. But before business was booming, business for you wasn’t always that way. You and Jason have done well financially and we can get into some of the cool stuff that you’ve been able to do, even one of your coolest memberships and purchases this summer with Yellowstone Club. But before that, there were some financial struggles, right? Like, not everyone figures it out and excels or succeeds with flying colors. So, what struggles have you had?

Brooke Nichol: So, yeah, thanks for asking. I moved to L.A. when I was 25 years old. And when you become a nurse, you get every credit card company out there wants to give you a line of credit. Right? And so, I thought, “Oh, this is great. I have credit cards now.” And I just would buy and spend and I also in the dating world and this might be a whole another podcast but I was just so independent. I didn’t want any man to pay for me or pay for my dinner or whatever. So, I just always felt very much independent, all this pride, probably too much, but I would just pay for things and pay for people or whatnot. I wasn’t really educated around how credit worked. And so, for a while I was just paying like the minimum amount due on credit cards, not realizing I was just paying on the interest. And so, after a few years of this, I found myself robbing Peter to pay Paul and, I mean, I think my financial bottom was I didn’t have a roll of quarters to do laundry.

And so, I can remember that day very clearly. And it’s still really emotional and very painful. But I ended up debt consolidating. Actually, I had advice from an attorney friend of mine that said, “Just file bankruptcy. This is what people do, Brooke.” And then if you save your money and five years from now, you’ll have this much more money in the bank but instinctively, I knew I still had my nursing license. I could still do the work that if I just worked hard enough that I could pay off this $50,000 that I owed. And so, I did. I opened up one surgery center. I would close another surgery center, and I just worked really, really, really hard to get myself out of that debt. And I think when I met Jason and moved to Austin, we got married, I probably had a positive like $5,000 in my account and that was it. And thank God he gave me 5,000 to start Saving Face. But I almost feel like the success is a reward of that hard work. Like, I don’t know, I can’t say for sure or not, but had I filed bankruptcy, would things have been different? Right? Like, just the work ethic of like, “Hey, I got myself in this debt. I’m going to get myself out of it.” And it was hard, but I did it. And now it’s just like, “Wow. The financial freedom that we have is just so beautiful and it’s so far from not having a roll of quarters to do laundry.”

Justin Donald: Well, it’s amazing the resurrection you were able to have. By the way, I admire and appreciate that you did not file for bankruptcy and you figured out what you had to do and you did what it took to dig yourself out of the hole, because there’s a lot of financial education and awareness in that, that you can then teach your kids and teach your friends. There’s just so much learning once you go into it. And hopefully, for most people, they don’t have to. They can learn vicariously through others. They can have parents that can teach them. Not all parents do. You know, my parents did not know a lot about money. They did not know, you know, I wasn’t educated on debt and credit card debt specifically. I mean, I got into trouble with the credit card very young, not understanding any of this as well. And I just had lunch with a good friend, Jason Dodd from Dallas. And he was talking about how our education system is failing us because they don’t even teach these simple things in high school. And this should be required education for any child.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah, 100%. I didn’t have the education. I think I knew how to balance a checkbook but I didn’t even realize like what credit card companies do to you, right? Zero percent for six months and then, boom, you know, it’s like, “Whoa,” and if you don’t catch it like you’re screwed. So, yeah. I do believe that we should teach this more for sure.

Justin Donald: I remember in college I went to this table and they’re like, “Hey, we’ve got free t-shirts if you sign up for this credit card.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” So, I signed up for the credit card because I’m like, “I don’t need to use it. I was working hard. I was making good money.” But what I didn’t know is that there was an annual fee that was charged. And then if you didn’t pay that annual fee that they threw all kinds of other fees on there and then there was interest on that. But I didn’t have any word that I was getting statements, so I didn’t know and it racked up. And I did all this over a T-shirt and then they would not like forgive the debt, all this that piled up when I had no notices, no anything, and I mean, I had these letters that were going to take me to like a collection agency. I’m like, “What on earth?” Like, I haven’t even used the darn credit card.

Brooke Nichol: It’s crazy. That is wild. I hope you like the t-shirt.

Justin Donald: Yeah, right. And funny thing is I don’t know if I ever wore it. I think in the young years, I just feel like, “Oh, it’s free. Then I want it,” versus like having good judgment for the things that you may or may not want.

Brooke Nichol: For sure.

Justin Donald: It’s funny. Now, you had mentioned that you and Jason worked together at Saving Face. And by the way, how did you come up with the name Saving Face? Because it’s clever. I like it. It’s a good play on words and it’s a good business name.

Brooke Nichol: I think so too. I really love it because I was just injectables and when you really think about injectables, you kind of associate it with this like, I don’t know, upper echelon kind of like, I don’t know, fake or whatever. And so, I really love the Saving Face just being kind of a play on words. And I knew when I was moving to Austin and if I ever had my own business, that that was going to be my name. Like, it just came very easy. And immediately when I came up with it, I was like, “Okay. I need to google who owns this name or whatever.” And we’re still trying to buy SavingFace.com. It’s like an Orange County doctor who owns it, but he doesn’t use the name for his business, but he still owns dot com. And so, we’re trying to get that. So, anyways, it just came to me and I was like, “This is a perfect name for what I do.” And I just thought it brought a lot of realness to it, right? So, it just kind of takes it off of that little plateau of like, “Oh, I’m so good,” or whatever and it just brings you down to real life. And so, I love the name as well. Thank you for saying that.

And working with Jay, you know, and you’re talking about things turning out better than you could imagine. So, I started Saving Face as a side hustle, right? Like, it was like Jason was making great money. He was in a steady career, top salesman in commercial construction and like doing his thing. Brilliant, brilliant mind. And I thought, “Oh, I didn’t want to be on a budget per se, so I’m just going to go to work and make a little like side hustle change for gifts and whatever, right?” And our journey is long but about four years in, we would start competing on who was making more money. That was always fun too. It was like, “I’m getting up there.” And then finally he was having these bouts of illnesses like monthly, like all of a sudden it ended up to be mold toxicity, but it kind of played out almost like a Lyme disease or like Borrelia. And so, he would just go down for like a week at a time. And then he was doing all these like little micro changes in his diet.

But I finally was like, “Hey, unless you change the big stress, which is your job, I don’t know if anything is going to change in your health. And so, why don’t you retire or resign for a little while?” That was my plan for a little while, “And I’ll take care of us. And then in two years, you go back and work either for the competition or somebody else but like I can do this for two years.” Well, two years came and he was kind of just getting his health under control. And so, then it was like, “Okay. Well, then like another two years.” And we went through some ups and downs like there was a lot of trial and error for like what is his purpose? What does he want to do? And it was not easy because I’m a very strong woman, right, but I know that I want to be led by a man in my house. And I put so much emphasis and respect around a paycheck. And I had to learn to look at Jason as a leader without having that. And so, there was a lot of unlearning around the traditional roles and what this looked like because my mom was a homemaker and my dad was the earner.

And so, and I thought that’s just how it was supposed to look and my family as well. So, I had a lot of unlearning to do around that, to be able to respect Jason and this role. And he grew up with a mom who was like a working mom so he was totally okay with being in a supportive role and he was like, “You just be as big as you want to be. I got you.” And I’m just like, “What? You mean you’re the primary parent? Like, you’re making lunches? Like, this just doesn’t look anything like what I thought life was going to be.” But then if I turn around and look at it, this is so much better than what it would have been if he would have stayed at his job and I would just had this side hustle. It took me a while to really understand that, but now I’m like, “Oh my gosh, of course, this is so much better.” But a year and a half ago when we bought this property is when I went from having 12 employees to 23, an 18-month span. And so, I needed Jason to come in and help me with systems.

And so, he has come in and now we’ve implemented Slack and Asana and he’s basically the COO. And he says he’s the CDO, the Chief Doing Officer because he does all the things but he’s the COO and the CFO because I do everything financially to him, which I’m so grateful for your masterminds because I think that he gets so much value out of what you guys bring to the table, and then that in return helps Saving Face. So, yeah, that’s our journey of coming together. And so, now with the help of really great executive coaches by Motus9, they have been super helpful with us as husband and wife partners to align and to get on the same page and to have boundaries and then also have goals and like keep this like beautiful yin and yang and flow and how we do things. And you know, you don’t want to come with too masculine, “I think. What do you think? I think what do you think?” Would you take the romance out of it, right? You don’t get anywhere. Now, we become stagnant in our marriage, right? And our marriage is the most important thing.

And so, we have to realize, like, when we get home, I always ask him, “What do you think?” And I always tell him how I feel. And so, I have to really work to put me back into the feminine, and so that we can have that romance. And then, we really cut out time. We do not miss a date night. We go date night every Wednesday night, and that’s by ourselves. It’s usually not with friends, just to connect.

And some days, we talk about work because we love what we do. But other times, it’s like, “Hey, I just want to talk to you.” I just needed what is needed to be asked, right? And so, yeah, it’s interesting working with your partner, but there’s no one else I’d rather do it. Who else could I trust? Like my husband. And so, we’ve really grown a lot.

Justin Donald: Well, it says a lot about the strength to your marriage that you would say, “Who else would I rather do it with? Who else could I even do it with?” So, that truly is strength of marriage because it’s not easy. And I honor you for being able to step out of what is normal or what you’ve seen in the past to say what’s best for us, what’s best for our marriage, what’s best for the business. You don’t need to be the breadwinner because it’s likely already enough pressure as is for someone that is used to being the breadwinner, maybe even thinks that they’re supposed to be the breadwinner, that that is how life is.

And we get locked into these gender roles that they’re not necessarily right or wrong. They’re just a different reality for different people, depending on how they’re raised and what the roles in their family were and what normal to one person is might be completely different than normal to the other person. And this is an important thing to work through and talk to.

I remember when my wife Jennifer and I would talk through this before we were married, like in terms of marriage prep. We had a marriage counseling couple that was like, “Hey, let’s get you ready for what marriage is going to be like. Here are the topics you should discuss.” And there were so many that we hadn’t discussed, and I’m glad that we did.

Brooke Nichol: Totally, yeah. And it’s about like what serves us now. It’s so funny because I put so much value into my mother, like being this homemaker and cooking dinner every night. And I thought, that’s the wife you wanted, right? So, I was like, I put all this on me, like I was– he married Brenda Barlow, and he finally one day said, “Brooke, I didn’t marry your mom.” He said, “I don’t need that.” He’s like, “I eat for fuel. I don’t need it to be from scratch and taste amazing.” And it took a lot because I just put so much value in that.

And so, once I realized, like, oh, I bring a whole ‘nother level of value with what I can do by being the working mom. And then it’s also just quality over quantity with my kids because I had a lot of mom guilt. And you talk about that ranch we’ve joined. Now, that’s really helping me with my mom guilt because now, I just bought my way out of Austin, Texas for two months out of the year. So, I’m excited about that.

Justin Donald: Not bad. Well, let’s talk about that for sure. Before we do, I want to share with you a story with my wife and I, because my wife and I used to work together. We started buying mobile home parks early on, and the first park that we bought replaced her income as a teacher so she didn’t have to work anymore. And so, she decided to start doing the books at the mobile home park. And then we added more and the books got bigger. And then we noticed that over time, date nights would often turn into a staff meeting where her and I would just discuss all the details of the parks and what’s going on in real estate and what’s going well and what’s not going well and we’ve got to fix this and do that. And date night kind of changed.

And so, there’s a funny story where I feel like, at one point, I was like, man, we built these rules. We kind of created a safe space where we’re not going to discuss work. We’re just going to go on date night and we’re going to talk about other things. And it was funny because at the beginning, it was like, “What are you talking about if you don’t talk about work?” Because that’s the thing that we do all the time together. And so, we had to get better at that and we did get better.

And I remember at one point, it was like, “Okay, maybe we should just not work together anymore. Maybe that would just be best for us.” And I was thinking, yeah, that’s probably best because, and I would joke around with friends like, “Oh, yeah, I had to fire my wife,” which is not true. I just love to say that. I totally love to joke. And she gets a good kick out of it.

But one time, we were talking to friends, and this is before I started joking about it. Part of the reason I started joking about it was because of this. We’re talking to some friends and she’s like, “Yeah, the working environment just wasn’t good and I had to get out of there.” And I’m like, “You had to get out of there. What are you talking about? I never. I mean, I know sometimes I’m an observant. But you really felt that way? You had to get out of there or was that bad? Working conditions were that bad?” And she’s like, “No, no, but I had to get out of there.” So, big joke in our family of did I fire her? Did she leave? And we love to just have a good time with that.

Brooke Nichol: Right. How bad was it?

Justin Donald: It wasn’t bad at all. But it was funny that the two of us had completely different perspectives on what it was like working together. And at the end of the day, it worked fine, it worked great. It was better for us to not be working together so that way, when we were together, it wasn’t about work and that was good for us in our marriage, especially in that season.

Brooke Nichol: 100%. No, I agree. And I think, ultimately, we have a lot of plans of building this wellness center. And I really want Jason to take off in the men’s division and this. But what marriage needs is mystery. And what happens when we work together all the time is that we lose that mystery because we know how your day was. I know what you did today. I know everything you did. I heard your meeting. So, there was no mystery.

Like Jay just went to Alaska for his 50th birthday. He won’t mind me sharing. And it was like, I was so open and so happy and in love with him because he had something else to talk to me about and had something else to bring to the table. And I was like, “Oh, this is so awesome. It was just so beautiful.” So, I think trying really hard to get the boundaries right, but bringing mystery and staying curious, right? Because they say the person you wake up with isn’t the same one you went to bed with. And Jason is so good at asking a lot of questions.

Justin Donald: I love it, yeah. He’s a great conversationalist, there’s no doubt. I love hanging with him and talking with him and he is a great question asker, that’s for sure. So, talk to us about the Yellowstone Club because this is one of the most prestigious groups, this is one of the toughest to get into memberships out in Montana, kind of the who’s who of entrepreneurship, and Hollywood celebs are members at this exclusive club. So, talk to us. How did this happen? And and how is it? Does it live up to expectations?

Brooke Nichol: It’s going to. No, so I’ll tell you how. This is not the Yellowstone Club, but it’s Sam Byrne who created the Yellowstone Club. He bought the old Marble Ranch. So, the old Marble Ranch is in Clyde Park, kind of near Lexington and outside of Bozeman. And he bought a 19,000 acres and he’s building a Coore Crenshaw golf course and a huge entertainment center and country club pickleball. Then it has everything of a ranch, so like 500 working cattle and horses and all of this. It’s just so amazing and beautiful, fly fishing, archery, all the things.

And so, I was at Yellowstone Club in January with one of my best friends, Joel, and I ended up meeting Sam. And then our friend Brad Buckman is actually selling the memberships for Sam. And so, I just was kind of like, “Hey, Brad, any friends and family going on there?” Because I drank the Kool-Aid. If you go to Yellowstone Club, it is the experience that I want people to feel at Saving Face, right? So, it’s like comfort stations. I don’t know if you guys have been to Driftwood, It’s similar to that, Discovery properties.

And so, it’s just so dialed in. And I would just admit, I drank the Kool-Aid, but I found out the buy-in price and, on paper, it just looks stupid. But I knew, I said, “Jason, if we don’t do this in three years, I’m going to regret it.” And I told him, I said, “This doesn’t come. This isn’t an investment that’s going to pay us. This is not a Justin deal, like a Lifestyle Investor get your money back monthly. This makes no sense, but this is lifestyle and this is the quality of life that I want to buy into. And for me, this will be a win.” So, I know it looks stupid. He was like, “Well, let me fly out there and I’ll go look at it.” And I’m like, I can’t believe I’m talking. My golf husband who golf today and into a golf membership with fly fishing, but okay.

So, he flew out there and and he came back and he said, “Let’s do it.” And so, we got to spend our first summer in Montana. And I could just cry because the mom guilt, my kids said, “Mom, it’s like every day is Saturday. And I just wanted to–” we, because I was like, oh my God, it is because we just hang out together. And it wasn’t like put them in cans. This is like mom and dad camp. And we had so much fun. There was so much connection and it wasn’t 100 degrees. Yeah, so we did.

Justin Donald: That’s a win.

Brooke Nichol: It is a win. And I think this is where they will meet friends and we will have a community out there that they’ll just grow up with. And I feel like this is where our kids will get married and we’ll just keep it in the family as long as we can. So, I’m really excited about this space. It’s called Crazy Mountain Ranch.

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. Well, here’s the thing. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Texas summers, they can be intense. I think that there are many places that are much worse. And we’ve done a summer here before, so we know we can do it, but it is much more pleasant to go abroad. A lot of people here go to Colorado or Montana, and that’s just such a great escape from the heat. And so, I love that. We try to get overseas over the summers, but we have talked about it. We did do a summer in Colorado where we went to all the cool cities. I just had home base in Denver and drove to every other one. We’ve done some time in Montana. And so, yeah, we love kind of getting out, exploring, especially having some mountain exposure and just the beautiful outdoors that those mountainous regions bring.

Brooke Nichol: It’s amazing because I used to think I’m just a beach person. We go to seaside, we do the beach all the time, but the mountains are just as rejuvenating and just as powerful and just to be outside of nature. And I think that’s what it is, especially with the small kids. It’s like we can even take them to parks and stuff. But I just want to do a shout-out to my team because it’s building that team that can keep us afloat that has allowed me to step away from the practice and take that time off. And so, I’m just super grateful. But I do think that’s going to be– our summer is moving forward. I didn’t realize summer was like a verb until you moved to Texas. It’s like, oh yeah, we’re going to summer in Montana.

Justin Donald: I love it. That’s lifestyle right there. That’s fantastic.

Brooke Nichol: I like that. That is something.

Justin Donald: That is Lifestyle Investor approved. Nice job.

Brooke Nichol: There we go. Thank you. Thank you.

Justin Donald: So, I would love to talk about, I guess, your practice as it’s evolved to cover more than just women. What has that look like? And I’d love to speak to my own experience as well because I am a client of yours. I’ve now utilized several of the different modalities that you offer, and I’d love to hear how it’s expanding to be a little bit more wide ranging.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah, well, I was super excited that you came in. And I think you look amazing. And let’s look at your profile. You guys got to go on video and check out Justin because he looks really good. Look at that. Oh, feels that. No, thank you for trusting me and thank you for coming in. And it was an honor to treat you.

Men are about 10% of our business and it’s growing every year. It’s getting just more acceptable for men. I think what they’re realizing is that, in sales and things like that, and as much as we have cameras and podcasts and all of that is it’s important how you look, right? And it’s important that you sometimes just our genetics might have us have hollow eyes and we don’t feel tired when we look at our screens and we’re saying, “Oh, I’m tired,” right? And so, there’s things that we can do that are minimally invasive that you don’t have to go under the knife, you don’t have to have downtime, you don’t have to take off of work.

I think you came in and when did a podcast right after, it’s very easy to just do minimal things that can actually make such a difference in how you feel and how you approach a conversation and how other people approach you. And so, even it’s like sometimes men have really deep furrows between their brows even when they’re not squinting and it can appear that they’re angry or that they’re upset and they’re not at all, but that’s just over time, those etched in lines, they can say that. And so, what we can do are just small little tweaks that can help reverse some of that. Our superpower is that we’re super natural. So, my goal was that no one can tell that we did anything, that you just look better.

And so, yeah, so men have become– we love our men here. We take great care of them, but mostly they come in from their wives. So, their wives will come in first and then say, “Hey, you got to come check out Saving Face.” And then, Jason has been such a billboard for us as well. He doesn’t mind being on our Instagram and things like that. And he just looks great. He’s a lean guy by nature and he works out and he has very low body fat. And so, his face would show it.

I wish I could just lay out cards at the gym and say, “Hey, you work out your ass and I’ll work out your face,” right? But it’s like, so often, the men just get really lean and they’re just a little bit of volume without feminizing you, can just look so refreshed and just give you that confidence that you need to get out there and do your best. So, men are becoming a great part of our field.

And then we did buy another property. It’s going to be South Lamar, right behind the Gibson Bar. Our plan is to build about a 9,000-square-foot wellness center and it will have a compounding pharmacy. I will have an academy in which I can teach, and it will have a wellness level and an esthetics level with a little men’s corner, so I’m excited about that, that we can really cater to our men clientele. And so, it’s all expanding. We’ll get into the Peptide game. And so, we have peptides, peptinoids outcome-based programs. Yeah, and then also just preventative stuff, lasers, education, all of the things that go hand in hand with that so that we can prevent disease and not just Band-Aid it once it’s there.

Justin Donald: I love it. This whole push for preventative medicine, I love. The Peptide game, I think, is incredible. We just did a Lifestyle Investor event where we had, I think, 40 or 45 of our members attend an Eastwest Health two-day event here in Austin. It was really fun. It was actually just this week or just last week, rather, and it was incredible. People loved it. STEM cells and peptides and all kinds of stuff. So, I love that you’re expanding into that.

There’s another business in town called Alive and Well that I think does all kinds of really cool work. Yeah, I’m friends with the founder of that company, Michael, and am looking to finalize an investment with them. And so, I love that all of you guys are in this space, to me, that is making the world a better place. It’s reinvigorating personal health and just doing great things for people.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah. Thank you. I’m excited. I love those guys, too, yeah. This is like Medicine 2.0, right? It’s just for us and it’s really from experience from Jason having his dad passed away unexpectedly. It was a heart issue. He goes and gets his heart checked out. They want to put him on Lipitor, put him on a statin, all this stuff. And internally, he’s like, I’m not going on the drugs.

And I came from that allopathic mindset. Like, I’m a 20-year trained nurse, so I was like, “Wait, babe, this might just be genetic. You’re going to have to take a pill.” And he was like, “I’m not doing it.” And through series of holistic medicine, Ayurveda medicine, integrative medicine all finally functional, he has proven that through lifestyle and through diet, you don’t need to go on that medication. You can do it yourself. And it has changed my entire outlook. And so, I’m excited to bring this type of medicine to our community.

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, I got a chance to look at the numbers for the facility that you bought, So, I got to be kind of on the inside track and share some thoughts and what I thought made sense and didn’t make sense. And I think this is going to be a huge opportunity for you guys, for growing your business, for being another great part of town, having something that is south of the river, which is important for those that live south. And you obviously have your one north of the river, although it’s just tad north of downtown, most would consider it part of or slight extension of downtown. I think it’s going to be really good for you, for your business, for the growth of Saving Face.

Brooke Nichol: Thank you. Thank you. We’re really excited. We we want to do this, too, and maybe one out in Hill Country and then maybe expand to Palm Beach. I don’t know. I feel like there’s a few coming up. So, Jason’s like, “Let’s just build the landing gear before you take off.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine.”

Justin Donald: Probably a good idea, right? Yeah, but that’s why you’re both doing it. You both have strengths that you bring into the game, and it won’t be as good without each of your insight.

Brooke Nichol: Yeah, yeah, you’re right. You’re right.

Justin Donald: That’s so cool. So, Brooke, where can more people find out just more information about you and Saving Face?

Brooke Nichol: Oh, thank you for asking. You can go online to SavingFaceAustin.com. That’s also our Instagram handle, savingfaceaustin. We have Facebook and we have Twitter as well and LinkedIn. So, all your Saving Face Austin should be us. I think we might have a Saving Face ATX, but that’s the best way online to find us. Or you can come to 405 West 14th Street if you live in Austin and check us out. We have a cute little boutique. So, our doors are open and you can come check out the house.

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, Brooke, this has been such a blast having you on the show, hearing your story, finding out more about you and the genesis of Saving Face. And just as a proud and impressed client, I have to say that you are a magician at what you do. Your team is fantastic. The experience is great. Just the quality of work and the precision that takes place is just unmatched.

And it’s funny because I did not know much about this world. When I showed up, I was just kind of curious to learn. I didn’t know that we were actually going to do anything. And then you’re like, “You want to try it out?” And I’m like, “All right, let’s do it. Why not? I’m here. Let’s have some fun.” And then I was like, “We could talk about it on the show. We’ll make it fun.” So, I’m glad that we were able to do that. But just so everyone knows, I am a huge Brooke and Jason Nichol fan and I think the world of you guys.

Brooke Nichol: Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. And again, thank you for trusting me with your face.

Justin Donald: You bet, you bet. And I like to end every episode asking our listeners and those of you watching one simple question, what is one step that you can take today to move towards financial freedom and move towards living a life that you truly desire on your terms, so not a life by default, but rather a life by design? Thanks. And we’ll catch you next week.

Brooke Nichol: I love that. Bye, Justin.

Justin Donald: Bye.