Speaker 1: Welcome back to on the job. Hope you all are
Speaker 1: loose and limber, because this week we're going to put
Speaker 1: on our dance and shoes and head down to Austin,
Speaker 1: Texas to talk with Vanessa Vaught, who, as we'll hear,
Speaker 1: keeps the live music capital of the world stepping to
Speaker 1: the beat. On pretty much any night of the week
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas, you can find a dance floor full
Speaker 1: of people in cowboy boots twirling each other around to
Speaker 1: live music. The country dance scene, or two stepping as
Speaker 1: it's referred to in these parts is going strong, and
Speaker 1: a big reason for that is Vanessa Vaugh.
Speaker 2: My name is Vanessa Vaught.
Speaker 3: I'm the founder and lead dance instructor at doublin Nothing
Speaker 3: two Step and I currently live in South Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: Well, Vanessa isn't the only person teaching Austin knites how
Speaker 1: to boot scoot these days. In just two years, she's
Speaker 1: become one of the busiest and it really just.
Speaker 3: Took off quickly in a way that even immediately I
Speaker 3: was impressed with and was happy with what it has
Speaker 3: become now literally having thirty events.
Speaker 2: On the books in the next few months, is blowing
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: Four nights a week, she's teaching social classes at some
Speaker 1: of the city's oldest surviving Honckey talks.
Speaker 3: Dance is a language, so there are regional dialects throughout
Speaker 3: the South, specifically of this style of dance, and we
Speaker 3: dance a small space style that fits on our little
Speaker 3: dance floors here and that's what we call Honky Tonk
Speaker 3: two step.
Speaker 1: Other nights, she's teaching corporate events.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we work with a lot of the major corporations.
Speaker 3: I mean again, I never thought i'd have like Facebook,
Speaker 3: Meta Apple, Bevo Schlektslet recently hired us to come teach
Speaker 3: their cast and crew.
Speaker 2: That was incredible.
Speaker 3: HBO, Like my inbox is always interesting, I have to say.
Speaker 1: And then there are the bachelorette parties.
Speaker 3: Which we do line dancing and it's silly, adorable fun.
Speaker 3: It's funny because we don't socially line dance in Austin.
Speaker 3: The two steples will just run you over. And initially
Speaker 3: I had to say, probably the first four or five
Speaker 3: requests for line dance lessons.
Speaker 2: I got, I was a little bit like, uh, we
Speaker 2: don't line dance here.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and was trying to inform people and correct
Speaker 3: them and let them know, you know, we don't line dance.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, Vanessa, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Like these people want to pay you to have fun?
Speaker 3: And I essentially gave in, still a little reluctantly, and
Speaker 3: then I realized how much fun they were having, and
Speaker 3: then I was sold.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, fine, we'll line dance.
Speaker 1: There are almost more people wanting Vanessa to teach them
Speaker 1: how to dance then she can even manage. So business
Speaker 1: is going well, it's going well.
Speaker 3: It's really wild. Honestly, I feel like I'm holding on
Speaker 3: for dear life.
Speaker 2: I'm not lying. I struggle from attention deficit disorder and.
Speaker 3: Organizational skills in general and keeping up. I have so
Speaker 3: many systems and checklists just to keep up with all
Speaker 3: my clients and how to follow up with all of
Speaker 3: them afterward, review requests, getting photos, all the things I'm
Speaker 3: doing with the social community.
Speaker 1: And to think all this wouldn't have happened if Vanessa
Speaker 1: didn't suck at selling houses.
Speaker 3: I had got my license in twenty nineteen, so I
Speaker 3: was doing real estate the pandemic hit.
Speaker 2: And in real estate, it's all about experience.
Speaker 3: And how many deals you've done, and just being able
Speaker 3: to prove that you have knowledge because it's a risky
Speaker 3: it's a risky thing to undertake.
Speaker 2: I just wasn't really for me. I'm not a salesperson.
Speaker 3: In fact, I took the disk assessment that compares your
Speaker 3: work mode to like your personal mode for lack of
Speaker 3: better description, and most people that are good at sales
Speaker 3: kind of shift gears and then go into like sales
Speaker 3: e mode, right, And my personality pretty much stays the
Speaker 3: same within both, and I realize that's perfect for what
Speaker 3: I'm doing now.
Speaker 2: Was not good for real estate.
Speaker 1: Without any money coming in from a real estate ventures, Vanessa,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people during the pandemic, tried some
Speaker 1: side hustles.
Speaker 3: I was looking for another place to pivot and a
Speaker 3: form of income. In fact, I was selling vintage. I
Speaker 3: was doing all these things, so like really, anything that
Speaker 3: seemed viable, I was going to throw my effort at
Speaker 3: the vintage.
Speaker 1: Thing didn't really work out, though, and no matter how
Speaker 1: many open houses she hosted, she couldn't turn them into sales.
Speaker 1: But at least she had dancing. Each night, she and
Speaker 1: her dance partner would scrounge up enough money to pay
Speaker 1: a cover fee. Then they'd get out on the dance floor,
Speaker 1: where Vanessa could forget all about her troubles.
Speaker 3: Once we're moving, once we were like the bodies are
Speaker 3: moving around, it kind of washes it all away.
Speaker 1: And the more Vanessa dancer cares away, the more an
Speaker 1: idea started to take shape, because she could see that
Speaker 1: there were all these great live music venues around town,
Speaker 1: and all these great bands to play in them, but
Speaker 1: on most nights there weren't a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: of people on the dance floors.
Speaker 3: We were some of the only people and by only
Speaker 3: I mean maybe four people total in the bar dancing
Speaker 3: at the Sage Brush, with more people on stage playing
Speaker 3: music than we're in the crowd.
Speaker 1: So Vanessa started thinking that what Austin needed was a
Speaker 1: dance teacher, and why not her. If for nothing else,
Speaker 1: she could at least get some more friends out on
Speaker 1: the hard work, and then if they wanted to give
Speaker 1: her a few bucks for her efforts, that'd be great too.
Speaker 1: And right around the same time as COVID regulations started
Speaker 1: to ease, the owner of one of those bars that
Speaker 1: she was frequenting came up to her.
Speaker 3: He asked me if we would like to host the
Speaker 3: social classes and we said yes. That gave me essentially
Speaker 3: a goal, and in the six months it took to
Speaker 3: actually have that come to be, that's when I really
Speaker 3: started laying the foundation for this business, like social media website,
Speaker 3: starting to teach private lessons, really starting to just build
Speaker 3: awareness that this was something that was.
Speaker 2: Going to be a thing.
Speaker 1: And how did that first night go?
Speaker 3: We had eighty people at our first social class. It
Speaker 3: was overwhelming.
Speaker 1: But Vanessa could see right then and there on that
Speaker 1: first night, looking out over that crowded dance floor, that
Speaker 1: she'd tapped into something so true to her business name,
Speaker 1: Double or Nothing. She didn't leave it at that. She
Speaker 1: went to another country bar in town and said, hey,
Speaker 1: do you all need someone to teach your customers how
Speaker 1: to dance?
Speaker 3: And they told me that they were hesitant at first,
Speaker 3: but I actually used to go there.
Speaker 2: In my early twenties, so a while ago. Same staff
Speaker 2: still there and they knew me.
Speaker 3: I think through seeing that I was teaching the classes
Speaker 3: at Sam's as well, essentially extended an offer for me
Speaker 3: to come and try teaching at dance.
Speaker 2: Now we're about to hit the two year mark. I believe.
Speaker 3: And we've literally had seven plus people at those classes
Speaker 3: and that is not a big dance floor.
Speaker 2: We've had them definitely spilling out over the dance floor.
Speaker 3: It is. It's been amazing, and they just when I
Speaker 3: leave the bar on Wednesdays are like.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It's just crazy. It makes me
Speaker 2: emotional now.
Speaker 3: I still feel out a lot, actually, but it's overwhelming
Speaker 3: that just the gratitude people had, and somehow it was
Speaker 3: attributed to myself and my Ben dance partner. We're not
Speaker 3: we're here too, you know, this is awesome for us
Speaker 3: to like it felt It just felt odd to be
Speaker 3: credited with again what we were so.
Speaker 2: Grateful to have as well. It was lovely and it
Speaker 2: still is sometimes. I still just like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it gives me emotional.
Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, we'll step out
Speaker 1: onto the dance floor. So if you don't already have
Speaker 1: your cowboy boots on, go grab them.
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Speaker 1: Every Wednesday at six pm, Vanessa Vaught separates a crowd
Speaker 1: of inexperienced, somewhat nervous dancers into two groups, leaders and followers.
Speaker 1: Since founding her dance company Double or Nothing Back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, these social classes, which she does four
Speaker 1: nights a week across Austin, have become incredibly popular, and
Speaker 1: tonight is no exception, with dancers spilling out towards the.
Speaker 3: Pool taping's that hart I beget You're here?
Speaker 2: Thank it?
Speaker 1: Whether we want to give credit to a post COVID
Speaker 1: desired get back out amongst the people again, or the
Speaker 1: TV show Yellowstone or Beyonce's new album. The country scene
Speaker 1: is thriving these days and Austin, Texas and Vanessa Vought
Speaker 1: are right at its center.
Speaker 2: Fine, I'm not here to make you uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: I want to make you that are the really fun
Speaker 3: opportunity to enjoy the city. Well, specifically, what's happening here
Speaker 3: is a massive live music scene and just the opportunity
Speaker 3: to go out and see so much live music every
Speaker 3: week really has created a strong dance scene. There's tons
Speaker 3: of them, and it's very intimidating for a lot of
Speaker 3: people to come in and see that. But that's kind
Speaker 3: of where I step in and encourage them that everybody
Speaker 3: starts at the beginning. Some of the best dancers I've
Speaker 3: been around now for about eight years, some of the
Speaker 3: best dancers out there I've saw at the beginning. So
Speaker 3: I just try to encourage them that they can do
Speaker 3: this too, and it's just consistency over time, like anything else, repetition,
Speaker 3: muscle memory.
Speaker 1: The crowd tonight is a wide array of folks, everyone
Speaker 1: from twenty somethings and short skirts and skinny jeans on
Speaker 1: up to a retired couple who've got to take rests
Speaker 1: in between songs, and all of them are trying to
Speaker 1: stick to the rhythm of slow, slow, quick, quick, orreas
Speaker 1: Vanessa likes to say, I love two steps right.
Speaker 2: Another way to need about this is I love.
Speaker 3: Wow. Our beginner class is so much fun. It's probably
Speaker 3: one of my favorites. I mean, I say that about
Speaker 3: all of them. They're amazing in different ways. But the
Speaker 3: beginner class is often people that are nervous to be there,
Speaker 3: they're trying something new, maybe they're from out of town.
Speaker 3: It's generally an introduction to the scene as a whole,
Speaker 3: as well as the dance. We start off with the
Speaker 3: basic steps so that they understand kind of the difference
Speaker 3: between maybe what they've seen on YouTube, Instagram or elsewhere
Speaker 3: where they've learned Texas two step, because ours, again is
Speaker 3: regionally specific fix style.
Speaker 2: We learn how to do some spins and swing, and
Speaker 2: then we learn how to jump back to two steps.
Speaker 3: So that is really the foundation for the beginner sequence,
Speaker 3: as I call it, and that's always my beginner classes,
Speaker 3: that same pattern. My intermediate classes and advanced classes go
Speaker 3: from there.
Speaker 1: Are you still excited about dancing.
Speaker 3: I'm always excited about dancing. It's always the thing I
Speaker 3: want to do the most. It really does change the
Speaker 3: way you feel. Sometimes when I'm on the dance floor
Speaker 3: and I'm dancing with someone that's making it very very clear,
Speaker 3: and I don't have to think, and I close my eyes.
Speaker 3: I close my eyes a lot when I dance. It
Speaker 3: is it feels the same as sitting still. It just
Speaker 3: feels so good. I love it so much, and I
Speaker 3: realize it's not where everybody starts, because it wasn't where
Speaker 3: I started. But once I realized, like over time, that
Speaker 3: feeling starts to be more and more present because your
Speaker 3: muscle memory takes over and you don't have to so
Speaker 3: much manage what's happening. Your brain doesn't have to control
Speaker 3: what's happening with your body. It really becomes this meditative state.
Speaker 3: Is it is my favorite part, to be honest with me,
Speaker 3: I can love about this.
Speaker 1: When you were doing the real estate thing, you're sitting
Speaker 1: outside of a house that doesn't sell. Could you have
Speaker 1: ever foreseen being where you're at now?
Speaker 2: Not even remotely.
Speaker 3: No. I was in freefall during the pandemic, absolute free fall.
Speaker 3: I was borrowing money from my sister to pay rent.
Speaker 3: I was looking in my couch cushions for enough money
Speaker 3: to get a five dollars bill to get into the
Speaker 3: bar to go dance.
Speaker 2: I was in absolute free fall. So could I have
Speaker 2: foreseen this? No? All right, thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1: I was really cute. We're going to do? Do you
Speaker 1: think you'll stick with this business for a while.
Speaker 3: I think about that a lot. I will definitely probably
Speaker 3: ride it into the ground. We'll see, but I also
Speaker 3: realized there's so much potential that I've yet to tap,
Speaker 3: and so I guess I'm at a bit of a
Speaker 3: point where I'm just trying to figure out what path
Speaker 3: to take, and also to remind myself that it doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be perfect, and just allowing myself to kind
Speaker 3: of play a little more with ideas that I have
Speaker 3: versus feeling like I constantly need to be booking events
Speaker 3: and going and working them.
Speaker 1: No matter how good of a dancer you are, there's
Speaker 1: always room for improvement, and the same holds true in business.
Speaker 1: So this year, despite all her success, Vanessa's really trying
Speaker 1: to create more of an online presence to reach all
Speaker 1: those people out there who might be interested in dancing,
Speaker 1: whether they be near or far.
Speaker 3: I again realize it takes physically connecting with another human
Speaker 3: to really learn what it is to partner dance, but
Speaker 3: I do think there's a lot to be gained.
Speaker 2: In addition, of course, couples can enjoy this.
Speaker 3: People visiting Austin that maybe want to get a head
Speaker 3: start on dancing, learning how to do our regionally specific
Speaker 3: dance and then just go out and have a good time.
Speaker 2: So I think that there's a market there. I think
Speaker 2: that there's a market there.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure it's directly my social community, but the
Speaker 3: internet's a big place, so I'm looking forward to tackling
Speaker 3: that next.
Speaker 1: So if you want to learn how to two step,
Speaker 1: be on the lookout for double or nothing coming to
Speaker 1: a computer screen near you, or better yet, just get
Speaker 1: on a plane and come join us down here. But
Speaker 1: I'd advise you that if you're coming for the beginner class,
Speaker 1: you better show up early if you want a spot
Speaker 1: on the dance floor for on the job. I'm Avery Thompson.