Cassie Petrey, Crowd Surf

💭 Thoughts on traveling to Hawaii, size inclusive athletic swimwear, and Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements.

Thought Enthusiast is an AdHoc Project where we chat with fascinating thought leaders across various facets of music, tech, and culture whose work we admire, simply asking “what’s on your mind?” and “why do you care?” 💭

Cassie Petrey and her team are the folks behind the world’s most iconic artists’ social media marketing including Backstreet Boys, Camila Cabello, Paramore, Nickelback, and more. Cassie is the co-founder of Crowd Surf, a leading marketing and music management firm. Today, Crowd Surf has evolved into a 50-person team with a presence in Nashville, L.A. and New York, and a revolving roster of accounts featuring some of the most successful artists, comedians and companies in the industry including tech giants Apple and Google, and labels such as Universal, Disney, Sony, Warner and more. Cassie is a Forbes 30 Under 30 and Billboard 30 Under 30 recipient, and she is a leading social media and artist management Hollywood powerhouse.

🎯 Current focus

At the end of 2023, I started managing a pop/r&b group called Pop Money. I absolutely adore them. I’ve loved boy bands and pop groups my whole life, and to finally be a stakeholder in a project like this makes me so happy. They are so kind, talented, and fun… and I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do this year.

🎼 Learning music theory on Duolingo 

My favorite little game right now is Duolingo’s new music course. It’s absolutely phenomenal. I loved it so much that I flew through it in two weeks, and now I’m going back through it to get a perfect score on each song you learn how to play on the digital piano. It’s actually a great little music theory course. I now can read a music staff, understand how to play things in different keys on the piano, and play a bunch of fun little snippets of songs now. Also feel like I learned some cool stuff about music history in general. I’m feeling enlightened and would recommend it to anybody who has interest in learning music theory in a fun way!

📺 Catfish: The TV Show

I’m currently on a Catfish binge. There’s something really gratifying about watching people deal with these big lingering problems they’ve hid from for a long time, and finally addressing them head on. One of my favorite parts is the follow ups they do a few months later to see where people are at. You can tell that people were able to see improvements in their life after finally dealing with this big lingering issue they had been hiding from for so long.

📚 Not taking things personal with The Four Agreements

Something I always circle back around to is The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. Right now I’m really focused on not taking things personally. People’s actions and perception are not about me. They are about their own reality. Whenever I start to feel myself go emotionally sideways in situations I can’t control, I remind myself of that over and over again. 

🩱 Size inclusive athletic swimwear 

As somebody who is plus size and getting into surfing as an adult vs learning as a kid, I’m hyper aware of brands that cater to this new interest of mine. There unfortunately aren’t a lot of options for me, but I’ve found some good ones. I love Jolyn’s athletic swim clothes, as they are size inclusive, cute, and comfortable. I heard about this brand from an awesome influencer (and now friend), Elizabeth Sneed who runs @curvysurfergirl.

🏄‍♀️ Traveling to Hawaii

I try to visit Hawaii at least 3 times a year. I've been about 20 times in my lifetime, and it is where I did my first surf lesson! I’m not exactly sure when I will be going back to visit, but I’d like to find at least a few days to visit later this month. My favorite physical activities, snorkeling and surfing, are unbeatable in that environment. Can’t wait to spend some time with sea turtles. The environment drains all of the cortisol out of me. 

Follow Cassie on Instagram & Linkedin check out her company site here.

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