Admirables, Dani Grant, has a sexy new boyfriend, and his name is SpokesBUZZ! If ever a person could have a titillating love affair with music, that would be Dani. And she’s combined that love affair with her passion for community and fervor for entrepreneurialism. I’ve been surrounded with friends and family members that have had deep affections for music my entire life and I’ve never seen anyone apply it with such dedication and creativity to achieve the things that Dani Grant has.
Dani with her posse at SXSW photo by Darren Mahuron
It is possible to run into Dani in any number of settings around town, from board meetings to breweries; from shows to school functions. She juggles a variety of responsibilities with graceful ease and a cheeriness that instantly lifts the mode of a room. Dani is the mother to three beautiful girls, wife to Matt Hoeven, owner of Chipper’s Lanes, owner of the Mishawaka Amphitheatre and founder of (her sexy new boyfriend), SpokesBUZZ.
Dani and Matt at the Mishawaka Amphitheater
I’ve always admired Dani’s sprightly demeanor, her go get ‘em attitude and her well grounded sensibility. And I wanted to learn more about her story. Where does her inspiration come from? How does she juggle business, parenthood and community service? And what experiences in life have led her confidently down this trail she’s blazing? The two of us giggled and commiserated as Dani recounted the stories of her past. She vividly shared her feelings of thrill and anticipation during our interview and I left feeling giddy for the rest of the day.
Dani with two of her kids at the Sustainable Living Fair
Childhood
Opposites attract, it is an accepted rule of life. And if you’re lucky that Yin and Yang will come together to make a perfectly balanced creation. That would be Dani’s childhood. Her mother was an artist and her father a businessman.
Dani reflected that “There was constantly a push-pull on philosophies on how you proceed through life…so I would constantly be coached from an entrepreneur standpoint….but then I would have my mother who was a professional artist. My mom was somewhat anti-social, eccentric and lovely.”
The two of them split when she was young but they shared joint custody of Dani and her sister. So, Dani would spend time with her father in boardrooms, experiencing how business was done while playing with her barbies. And then she’d come home to her mother’s house to find a group of artists painting a model, posed in their “birthday suit” in her yard!
And so her love for music and business was born, “It created this somewhat artistic, entrepreneurial thing for me.”
Trail Blazing
Photo by Skippy
After college Dani traveled in South East Asia and she could have continued on to China but she had a job lined up for her. “I was so compelled to get back and meet my commitment and I did that…when I got home and I got back to work and the friends that I was with had continued on to China and I thought what was that all about – why did I do that.”
Dani doesn’t regret her decision, but she learned a valuable lesson from that experience that has helped ground her ever since. She no longer blindly follows the ‘formula’ for what a good professional or a good parent should do. Instead she reflects with intention striving to make “choices for the right reasons, not any prescribed formula, that’s a theme in my world now.”