Are you the type of person who finds yourself texting people, “sorry, running late, on the way”? Are you typically the last one to arrive to pick up your kids? Are you “that guy” or “that girl”? The one running through the airport who only just makes it to the departure gate before they close the airplane doors?

If any of these are you, you have what behavioral scientists call “poor Executive Functioning skills.”

I asked AI, “What is Executive Functioning?” And this is the verbatim response it gave me: “If your brain is a wedding planner, Executive Functioning is the part that keeps the timeline, coordinates vendors, manages last-minute changes, prevents emotional meltdowns, and ensures the bride, groom, guests and staff all stay on track.”

For Tania Deer, it’s more than just her brain that’s a wedding planner – it’s her entire professional Iife. Tania has been planning weddings at the beach since 2005. She’s the Coordinator at Sugar Beach Weddings and she plans and executes 50-60 weddings a year. If you’ve ever been in a wedding or planned one, can you imagine doing that gargantuan once-in-a-lifetime task once a week?

While I had AI open, I asked it, “What are some other orchestrated events on the Emerald Coast?” It gave me a list of them, including the Destin Fishing Rodeo, the Emerald Coast Cruizin Car Show, the 30A Wine Festival, and a bunch of others. Strangely, the one orchestrated event it didn’t mention is an actual orchestra.

When I pointed that out, Chat GPT replied, “Great catch! You’re absolutely right. Sinfonia Gulf Coast is one of the most prominent and truly orchestrated events in the Florida Panhandle.” And so it is. Sinfonia Gulf Coast is a professional orchestra that produces a full concert season, educational performances, guest-artist events, holiday shows and special gala-style evenings.

The orchestra was founded in 2005 by a dedicated board of directors and its founder and Music and Artistic Director, Demetrius Fuller.

Entrepreneur of the Week

Our Entrepreneur of the Week is Dion Jones. Dion is a country music singer and songwriter, and leader of the band The Neon Tears. Dion is a country musician with his roots in the sand. He says “Santa Rosa Beach is one of the best music towns. It’s like a mini Nashville. But they actually pay you.”

Dion plays up and down The Panhandle, often 7 days a week. He has his sights set on Nashville and the big league of country music, but he's doing it on his own terms. So far his plan seeems to be working.

To Sum Up...

When we talk about someone’s wedding, we often refer to it as “The Big Day.” Getting married is one of the most momentous and life changing days in anybody’s life. Being the lynch-pin in the wedding of a couple is more than just a job, it’s a serious responsibility. Tania's day at the office is all about balancing the tension between the happiest and frequently the most stressful day in a person’s life. Wedding Planner is not a career for the faint of heart.

It’s interesting to note that when a bride walks down the aisle – even if it’s on the sand – to accompany the most important moment of her life, most brides choose classical music. Classical music is woven into our lives in more ways than many of us realize, and none more important than the gift a living orchestra brings to a community, including our children’s education.

And then there's the total other, super-popular end of the musical spectrum – Country music.

Dion, Demetrius, and Tania represent the wide range of events and experiences available to those of us who live on or visit The Panhandle. They're each making a vlauable contribution to the Emerald Coast cultural economy.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you live around here, you may have heard this piece of business advice: Do you know how make a small fortune in the Florida Panhandle? Start with a large one.

Over the last decade or so, as real estate prices and the cost of living have climbed, it’s become commonplace for people who have already done well financially to move here. Or buy a second home here. But there are still people who move here for the same reason most people migrate around the world and across the country: to make a better life for themselves, raise a family, or build a business.

Michael Carey had a 25 year career in law enforcement before opening a consignment furniture store, in Birmingham Alabama. He called his store Stock & Trade, and in 2012 he established the business’s corporate headquarters in Destin.

Today, Stock & Trade has an outlet in Atlanta, showrooms in Birmingham and Nashville, and at their Santa Rosa location on Highway 98 they have 60 full time employees working on administration, logistics, an allied café business, and furniture design services - from new construction to turn-key for rentals or second homes.

It’s not all that unusual to meet someone who moved here, like Michael, from somewhere in the South. It’s a lot more unusual to meet someone who moved here from Russia. Like Eve Emilianova.

Now, everybody has to come from somewhere, so it’s not always relevant – or polite - to ask where someone is from. But in Eve’s case, her background has a direct bearing on her business. Eve is the founder of Honey Med. As the name suggests, Honey Med is honey as medicine. It’s a unique formula drawn from Eve’s Russian heritage and her grandmother’s honey-based cure-all known as “folk penicillin,” combined with Eve’s affinity for Native American, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine.

Honey Med has anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties. And it has a growing number of consumers who buy the product online, locally at stores from Panama City to Destin, and in retail stores in other states including Alabama and Tennessee.

Entrepreneur of the Week

Our Entrepreneur of the Week is Rachel Simmons, Founder and CEO of Yoga Balm, an all-natural anti-inflammatory cream that you apply to your skin for treating the muscle aches and pains that come with exercise, or pain that comes with age, like arthritis pain.

Rachel started making Yoga Balm at her home in Navarre in 2004. Today, Yoga Balm has a devoted following across the country. Rachel has 6,000 direct to consumer clients. And 3,000 retail outlets across the country sell Yoga Balm – mostly health spas and yoga studios.

There’s a well-known saying in the world of working out: no pain no gain. And while it’s true that sometimes you have to push yourself a little beyond your limit, the goal for most of us is to live a life that’s primarily about the first half of the saying: no pain.

Eve and Rachel are focused on simple, direct, natural cures for decreasing pain and discomfort, and for Michael's contribution, there’s no doubt that the peace that comes from comfortable surroundings is itself a form of beneficial meditation.

These three local business peple are working every day to make life here on the Emerald Coast peaceful, happy, and pain free.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1988 Nike was one of many sports shoe manufacturers when they launched a marketing campaign with the slogan, “Just do it.”

It wasn't so much the words themselves as the spirit behind them - an enthusiasm for life itself -that captured the attention of the American public and catapulted Nike into a position of market dominance and extraordinary financial success.

Nearly 20 years later, in 2007, a similar thing happened here on the Emerald Coast when Jeff Archer and his partner founded a company called YOLO Board.

YOLO stands for “You Only Live Once” and the word “board” referred to a stand-up paddle board.

The image of standing up on a board on the Gulf, or paddleboarding to explore the waters of inland lakes, captured the spirit of the moment here. And it seemed for a time like everybody was paddle-boarding every minute of the day they possibly could.

Like Nike’s sneakers, YOLO used the success of its paddle-board manufacture and sales to diversify and create a lifestyle brand that today includes bikes, accessories, and even a branded coffee and a coffee shop.

It wasn't long after the Nike revolution that running shoes became fashion footwear. And then the flood gates opened.

Pioneered by apparel company Lulu Lemon, and popularized by young women who wanted to go straight from yoga class to the organic supermarket to Starbucks to picking up kids and who would rather sit in their SUV in traffic than waste an entire 5 minutes changing clothes, a new style of clothing was born, called “Athleisure.”

In 2019, Kurt Tobias gave athleisure a Florida Panhandle flavor when he launched his clothing line, Choona. Choona – which is a contraction of Choose Your Nature – blends our outdoor lifestyle and coastal colors with everyday wear.

Choona is branded as “Outleisure” – intended to go from the beach, hiking, or fishing, to everyday activities. Choona is ethically sourced, designed and manufactured in the US, has an estimated multi-million dollar revenue, and is headquartered right here in Santa Rosa.

Our Out to Lunch Entrepreneur of the Week this week is actually two entrepreneurs, Jennifer and Brandon Favano, known collectively as That Kiteboard Couple. Actually they’re a trio. The third member of the team is Tiki, the Marmoset monkey. Tiki is the mascot and for most people he's the social media introduction to Brandon and Jennifer's kiteboard lifestyle which they promote from their homebase in Navarre.

And talking of home, unless you have a job that takes you outdoors, a great deal of your life is spent inside. When you live here, there’s an element of torture to that, because the outdoors is, after all, mostly why we live here. So we make the most of any time we can get outdoors.

Beyond the beauty, tranquility and rejuvenation of the spirit and soul that comes from just being a part of the natural environment, there’s also something to be said for being comfortable and having fun. Jeff, Kurt, Jennifer and Brandon are all responsible in one way or another for maximizing the experiences of living here in the Panhandle.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Farm & Fire restaurant on Highway 331, overlooking Choctawhatchee Bay. Farm & Fire is one of Chef Jim Shirley’s family of fine restaurants. It’s open from 4pm, 6 days a week, and from 11am for brunch on Sundays.

You can find photos from this show by Brandan Babineaux at outtolunchemeraldcoast.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.