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Conversations At The Well
Join us for Conversations at the Well, where Desireé & Vernon Brown blend heartfelt storytelling, candid interviews, and poignant questions to explore faith, wellness, business, family, and marriage. Our authentic conversations will leave you feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to create the life, family, and relationships you desire. Pull up a chair and join us at The Well—the journey starts here.
Conversations At The Well
Embarking on a New Journey of Conversation | Episode 001
It took months of planning and a healthy dose of courage to finally press 'record', but we, Vernon and Desiree Brown, have done it—we're taking you with us on our inaugural voyage through 'Conversations at the Well.' Our debut episode isn't just about beginnings; it's a tapestry of our family's leap of faith from Atlanta to Canton, Mississippi. From acknowledging our dance with perfectionism to taking that first step toward our dreams, we lay bare the triumphs and trials that make our story uniquely ours—and yet, so relatable.
As we peel back the layers, we delve into how faith has been the compass guiding our decisions, and how it's intertwined in the fabric of our lives, often in ways we don't even realize. We get personal about the weighty balance of action and inaction, the search for purpose that drives us, and the dynamic of our relationship that sees us through it all. There are no guests, just us—Vernon and Desiree—inviting you to pull up a chair as we engage in these weekly heart-to-hearts. Whether you're seeking inspiration to make a change or simply a companion on your journey, we're here, sharing Conversations at the Well.
Welcome to Conversations at the Well, where we talk about life, family, business, faith and everything in between. I'm joined with my co-host, my partner in life, my husband Vernon Brown. I'm so excited to get started with it. I'm gonna let you say hey.
Speaker 2:Hey, how's it going? Everyone, we are super, super excited that you've decided to spend at least part of your week with us, as we have conversations at the well, and you may be asking yourself what in the world does this mean? That means we're on a journey to figure out, to find out how we can do life well, and hopefully, by listening in on our conversations, you can be inspired, you can find yourself pushed and driven to go further, but, above all, hopefully you have a good time going on this journey with us.
Speaker 1:Well, we invite you to pull up a chair, grab your favorite drink and meet us at the well.
Speaker 2:We'll see you there. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We are actually here recording the podcast that we have been talking and strategizing and note-taking about over the past. How long?
Speaker 1:I mean it's been months.
Speaker 2:It's been a long time, it's been a year.
Speaker 1:Not quite, but it's been a long time.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, so we're here, you guys have to give us a moment to pat ourselves on the back, because we have been talking about this, we've been planning it, we've been doing everything but sitting down and pushing record, and one thing I think that we can both agree on is there's always going to be a reason to push it back further, right?
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, that's really the hardest thing about most things that you really want to do, things that you want to accomplish, is really taking that first step to push play. Yeah, yeah, get started to make the first step.
Speaker 2:Especially as I'll call myself a self-proclaimed perfectionist. In fact, there's one thing that really bothers me. I'll let you in on a little secret shadows back here. I do photography when I'm not doing everything else. These shadows back here are bothering me because my light's in the wrong place, but because we love you, because we want to bring this content to you and not have to wait another three months. We are going to, I'm going to deal with the, I'm going to deal with the shadows and we're going to move.
Speaker 1:Nobody even notices the shadows in the comments. Make sure you know if you can see the shadow or not, because I think he's.
Speaker 2:Tell the truth, y'all see them shadows. Okay, y'all see them shadows.
Speaker 1:Well, let's kind of get into it. So why are we even doing this? Like, first of all, who are you, and then we'll get into why we're doing this. I am your father.
Speaker 2:No, Okay, I'll stop being silly. So my name is Vernon Brown. You're my amazing wife. What's your name, wife?
Speaker 1:I'm Desiree Brown.
Speaker 2:My better half, Absolutely. So we're married. If you haven't gotten the picture, We've been married for quite a while. We're going on almost. Next year's going to be what Ten years, ten years, that's crazy. I'll be married to you.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's the work of the Lord.
Speaker 1:It is Absolutely. We give him all the praise and glory and honor. I know you're trying to be funny, but that is a testament to him for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So we're married and we're just trying to figure out life. So, together, obviously we have two. Well, not obviously because you guys don't know, but we have two amazing sons, three and six.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And they are growing up way too fast. Yeah, full-time, daytime jobs. Yep, we're actually sitting in our business at this point called the. Well, we're going to that a little bit later. We're going to that, go into a little bit more detail about that a little bit later. Yeah, and just trying to figure out the intersection between what God's purpose for us, what we desire, our goals. Yeah, and all of that has brought us here to this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean it's kind of interesting because, as we were preparing for the podcast, you know we had conversations about like what is this going to be, and one of the the main thing is that came up is our life and faith have always collided like there's never been a time where they were really separate. Even when we thought they were separate, they were. God was doing something in the background to make things work, and so it's interesting. So I'm originally from Atlanta, um, and he's from Dover, delaware and the great state of Dover, delaware, get it right.
Speaker 1:Dover is a city babe. The great state of Delaware, in which Dover is a city babe.
Speaker 2:The great state of Delaware, in which Dover is somewhere in there. I'm sure all of you have been to it and, if you haven't, cancel your next trip to Mexico and go to Dover, delaware, instead.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, so don't do that. But in any case, so you know, we grew up in our hometowns. We met actually in North Carolina, which is that's a crazy story for another day we met actually in.
Speaker 1:North Carolina, which is that's a crazy story for another day. And we were living in Atlanta for, let's see, we've been married for 10 years, so we lived in Atlanta for eight of our married years and then, all of a sudden, we changed course and we ended up here in Canton, mississippi, and that is a story that we can get into. I don't know if we'll talk much about it today, but we certainly will tell you a little bit more about that and how that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's a story to go from living in Atlanta, where everything you would ever want is right there at your fingertips, to now. It's not that everything's not at our fingertips, but it's just a little bit different in a smaller town, much smaller town in. Canton, mississippi, just north of Jackson Mississippi.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so it's been interesting because people, even from here they're like you moved from Atlanta to here, Like most people are trying to move from here to Atlanta. But we knew without a shadow of a doubt that God had directed us here to this place for a very specific purpose. And so, again, we're living our life, we're minding our business and all of a sudden, God whispers into our spirit. You're moving to Mississippi, and specifically to Canton.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So do you want to talk a little bit more about the why, or you want me to go into that?
Speaker 2:Well, I have a question for you. I know we're, I know this is conversations at the well and you guys don't know, but we're shooting this from inside of a place called the well. What the heck is the well for those, those people who've never been here or don't know anything about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean I can talk about the business, but let me talk more about, like the concept of the well, of a well, and really like I mean of the well, yeah, of a well, and really like I mean historically it's not unfamiliar, most people are familiar with what a well is.
Speaker 2:It's a place where it's been dug out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been dug out and it has like, um, there's a body of water that goes beneath the ground and it was a is a place where people go to get water, and many times communities were built around that because it was a life source, because it provided the water for daily living, for washing, for cooking, for all of that good stuff, um. But it also was a meeting place, because everyone had to go there to get their water for their daily task and whatnot, and so, um, that's that's what a well is. It's the, the place where you go to get water, but also that meeting place, that community staple and that life source got it.
Speaker 2:Um, but that really translated to where we are now now we're around a hole with water at the bottom of it we have water, we have running water, thank you to the facilities here in Canton, mississippi, um.
Speaker 1:but it is not a well in the traditional sense. But we have managed to build a community here and it's a place of meeting of people of different backgrounds, of different cultures and they come here and they are communing around something that they're having fun doing.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 1:Right, so, like they might be, we host workout classes.
Speaker 2:We have fitness classes currently four days a week, and hopefully you guys will get a chance to meet some of our instructors, because they are amazing and have stories in and of themselves. We definitely need to invite them on, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the fitness classes, we've had paint and sips, we've had open mics, all of those different things, these different activities and fun communal things. We've also had some business classes here too, but all of these things are a reason for people to gather, but they do it and they have built a community around those activities, similar to how the well was. It was for a purpose, it was to get you know, so get water for your day, but people would gather and it became like a, a center of a community similar to our well here, which which is we call it the well. It's literally the well. We're located off of West Peace Street in Canton and that is what God one of the reasons God brought us here to do Vision came to me. We were living in Atlanta and actually we're currently recording in 2024. And it was about 2016 when I first got this vision for this community center or this wellness center and the name the Well was given to me and I completely thought that we were going to be doing this thing in Atlanta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But when God said no move to Mississippi, it made even more sense because there were not. There wasn't anything like it around, and it's been an incredible journey. So far, we are one year open.
Speaker 2:Over one year.
Speaker 1:Just over one year.
Speaker 2:Give me my credit, give us some credit.
Speaker 1:We are one year and one month.
Speaker 2:There we go. There we go, 13 months and counting.
Speaker 1:And it's been amazing and we've met some incredible people and we hope to share some of their stories too as we go through this podcast and our episodes. But that is the well. I hope that wasn't too lengthy.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's perfect. So the well being a place of community where people came together to gather from a resource which was water at that time, but here it's whether it's fitness, it's classes, education or just fun all the components of wellness, if you will. Total holistic wellness is a community that we've been creating here in Canton and with the podcast um conversations at the well, we hopefully want to create that with you as well. So this isn't just a one way conversation. We'll be asking questions, making fun of each other, and we want to get down in the comments and connect with you guys to see kind of what you're thinking You're going to see us kind of try out a few different segments, whether it's questions or scenarios that we want to get your takes on. So make sure that you hit that subscribe button if you're on YouTube, make sure you download if you're joining us via wherever you get your podcasts from, like, subscribe, all that fun stuff, so you can stay engaged and continue on with the conversation.
Speaker 2:We don't want this just to be our therapy session, because you know we definitely want you to be a part of it, and the conversations to go wherever you would like to see them go for yourself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, Engagement is key. So y'all like tap in please.
Speaker 2:She will lose interest real quick if it's a one-way love me. Thank you, I love y'all so this is definitely a journey for us. Like we said, we started out with just coming here, literally getting a word from God, and then what was it? Four or five months later, we were here uh, okay.
Speaker 1:So we first got that message around november.
Speaker 2:We moved in april april, yeah, so november 2020, 2019, 2020 it was 2020.
Speaker 1:What year are we in now?
Speaker 2:2024, so 2021 we moved here in 22 so we got the word november 2021, yes, and then by april 2022, yeah.
Speaker 1:We were like here, like moving in our house here literally signed the papers everything sold there and everything here that was in one place.
Speaker 2:so things have moved really fast. But I think it's just been, for me at least, and I'll let you kind of talk about it from your perspective. But when you're sure that you're in god's will and when you have that confirmation that you're doing what he's asked you to do, he'll make ways for you, he'll make your path straight, he'll go ahead of you and straighten the path out. And it's not to say we didn't run into problems, but as quickly as we would run into problems, solutions would be right there and it was the smoothest process.
Speaker 1:And we'll probably talk about it in a later episode, but the smoothest process we have had to do anything to date was getting moved from Atlanta down here to Canton, mississippi. Yeah, it was. It was a wild time, but so full of peace and like when we got the message because, like, first of all I did, I was you want me to do what, you want me to go where?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it was bigger for you because you were moving away from family, friends.
Speaker 1:That was your hometown, that's my hometown and you're telling me to pick up and go to a place. I have no connection to the only family we had here your mom and um, your uh, father, um, father-in-law, where father-in-law is. No, he's my father, yeah, yeah his, your bonus, dad, so they were the only ones that we knew here and. God's telling us to like pick up and go, and I'm like, surely, okay, let me. Are you sure there were a few?
Speaker 2:requests for confirmation. Like you sure, you sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you sure, you sure, you sure and and God confirmed it several different times in several different ways. We can talk about that on another day, but yeah, I mean we, we did it and no, I remember I asked you this question. I probably should save this for later, but I'm gonna put it in here now she giving up the goods too early.
Speaker 1:I'm giving up the kids too early. But I said, babe, what happens if we don't go? And you said, we'll probably be fine. You know, we'll just be living our life, we'll live it, it'll continue to be great. And, um, we'll be doing things with the kids basically running after them and their schedule. And I said, well, what happens if we do? And you said, we'll be doing things with the kids basically running after them and their schedule. And I said, well, what happens if we do? And you said, we'll be walking in our purpose and we'll be allowing God to direct the rest of our lives. And it almost was like a no brainer at that point. That was my turning point, because I was really quite on the fence before. I wanted to follow God, but I was also really scared to do that.
Speaker 1:And when you said that and you put things in perspective and said, like this is a purpose thing, like this is a calling thing, and I realized that I would be missing out on, I mean, life would still be great, but we would have been missing out on the fullness of what God had on the other side of it if we simply trusted him, that was a game changer for me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I at that point I was like all right, we're going.
Speaker 2:And I think in any decision you know whether you're talking about choosing one job or another for yourself or talking about following the direction that God leads you. There's always two sides of that coin. You can either decide to do it and decide not to. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of times we allow ourselves to make decisions without truly counting up the cost of one decision versus the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we talk about this being kind of a two-way conversation, and that's one thing we want to ask of you. Are there decisions that you're making in your life that you know God of you? Are there decisions that you're making in your life that you know God may be telling you to move in one direction, or you may feel strongly within whatever you call?
Speaker 2:it within yourself to move in one direction. And maybe you never thought about the question but what happens if you do and what happens if you don't, and what could happen if you did and what could happen if you didn't?
Speaker 1:And we'll love to see and kind of jump down in the comments with you to see kind of what each and every one of you are kind of dealing with yeah, and one other thing just to add to that is that the consequences probably wouldn't have been bad, yeah, or severe, or, like you know, I don't think god would have been like angry or anything like that, but it would just have been more of the same.
Speaker 1:And since then and since the move, we've seen God move in ways that we, like, we didn't even, we didn't even consider, and it's been absolutely incredible, and we're, I'm just so glad that we took the step and we had enough faith to step out there, not knowing what was going to be on the other side of that decision, but just knowing that God had moved us in that direction and we were there, ready to trust him with it. So that's just the beginning of our story, well, the beginning of this part of our story there's so many other pieces, but really looking forward to sharing more with you all as we have these conversations at the.
Speaker 2:Well, absolutely One thing I want to tell you, and just I mean, I guess it is kind of public, I wasn't saying privately, but there is a camera and a microphone in front of me. But I know, like from a podcast perspective, like you wanted to do it, but you had a lot of feelings and emotions and, quite frankly, fears about it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I want to commend you.
Speaker 2:I mean just for pushing through it, because you know it could have been another three months or four. We could have been sitting in our rocking chairs with no teeth talking about oh we should have done that podcast when we could.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, If it were up to me, we probably I don't know if it would have actually happened yeah. But listen in our relationship you'll probably notice this as we tell more stories about our life that he's the gas and I'm the brakes, but you need both to drive a car, so both to drive a car safely, to drive a car safely, safely. Safely yeah, because all brakes no.
Speaker 2:All gas, no brakes.
Speaker 1:Well, all brakes, no gas, and you don't go anywhere. All gas, no brakes, you're going to end up somewhere. You're going to end up somewhere, but you might not get there safely. So we balance each other out and I really appreciate you for pushing me yet again into yet another part of an uncomfortable thing.
Speaker 2:But now wait. As we go through this conversation, I want you to remember this moment where she says I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:It's going to come back up later.
Speaker 2:I would challenge her to do something, she would be like no, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:You always do. I can count on you for that, but that's why we're good for each other. So, yeah, this is good and fun. Yeah, yeah, short, sweet, simple, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we want to thank you so much for joining in with us as we start on this journey together of conversations at the well we're going to dive into next week. So get your heart, get your mind, get everything ready, because next week I want to kind of dive into those emotions you were feeling, like what it felt like to have a desire to do something, have a desire to have your voice heard, but kind of also deal with the what if my voice is heard? Kind of feelings or or or fears that you had kind of well up inside of you. And I think that'll be a topic that a lot of people can resonate with, because the world needs more people, more voices, more perspectives, and I feel like there are so many people that have so much to say but they're allowing themselves to be muted yeah, okay, you're gonna be ready we're gonna do this all right we're in this we've been started it now on this day, I am saying that we are in this all right.
Speaker 2:So if you see us disappear, you know it's not the gas, you know it's the brakes definitely the brakes all right, so we'll be joining in with you each and every week, consistently, consistently.
Speaker 1:Consistently.
Speaker 2:Every week we'll be showing up, so we hope to see you and hopefully you'll be here to meet us for Conversations at the Well.
Speaker 1:We'll see you, then See you next time.