Podcast

Welcome to Episode 421 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book, also called What’s Your “And”? on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture.

Since I’m a Notre Dame alum, I’m super excited because Lou Holtz wrote the foreword, so if you want to just read the first page and a half, totally cool. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love hearing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Ford Baker. He’s a CPA and the CEO of BaCo Tech, and now he’s with me here today. Ford, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Ford: Thank you. I won’t try to imitate Coach Holtz.

John: It’s all good, man. Yeah, I was super excited when I reached out, and he was like, of course, I’d love to. That was pretty cool.

Ford: It’s domination of Donald Duck and something else. I don’t know.

John: And awesome, Donald Duck and awe — which actually is my favorite Disney character, so we’ll skip that rapid-fire question. Here we go.

Ford: Okay.

John: I’ll ask you. Here we go. How about a favorite day of the week?

Ford: I would say Saturday, college football.

John: Yeah, college football, there you go. Amen. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Ford: I play Sudoku every day.

John: Oh, really? Okay.

Ford: Every day.

John: All right, impressive.

Ford: I didn’t hit the button one day, so I’ve lost my streak in 421 days in a row.

John: Oh, my gosh, that’s impressive.

Ford: I’m like that expert level, yes, all the time.

John: Impressive, man. Yeah, it’s almost like they give you none of the numbers, and then you figure it out anyway.

Ford: That’s what I like, so, a little bit of a math geek.

John: That’s called a tax return to me. That’s how I do mine. It’s like, oh, whatever. All right, how about a favorite color?

Ford: My favorite color would be green.

John: Green. Okay. How about a least favorite color?

Ford: Burnt orange.

John: I saw that coming from a mile away. That’s awesome.

Ford: I’m probably going to get in trouble, at least for not saying maroon, but I like the energy of green.

John: It’s all good. It’s all good. How about more cats or dogs?

Ford: Dogs.

Johhn: Dogs. Yeah, yeah, me too. How about, do you have a favorite actor or actress?

Ford: Do I have a favorite actor? Right now, I would say Jason Bateman.

John: Jason Bateman, solid answer. Yeah. He’s in so many good things. This is a fun one someone asked me a while ago, and I like flipping it back. Socks or shoes.

Ford: Oh, socks.

John: Right? That’s what I said.

Ford: I need to send you a pair of accounting socks. I’ve got a debit on the left and a credit on the right.

John: That’s awesome. Very cool. I’m a huge fan of fun socks. Absolutely. Even when I’m onstage wearing a suit, I’ve still got loopy socks.

Ford: Rocking a pair today. I like socks.

John: Absolutely. Absolutely. How about more Star Wars or Star Trek?

Ford: None of the above. I guess, Star Wars, if I had to pick, but Marvel.

John: Oh, Marvel. There you go. No, that works. Totally. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Ford: I would probably say the real book.

John: Real book, yeah. I’m the same on that one. Since you’re an accountant, here we go, favorite number.

Ford: 55.

John: Yeah? Is there a reason?

Ford: We played the number game in high school, and it was my high school football number. If you could get the other guys, and we still play it. Literally, the longest year of my friends’ lives was two years ago, when I was 55, and they were as well. I call them on their birthday. How are you now? My kids literally wore 50. They literally wore, Will played safety and wore 55 in junior high.

John: That’s awesome. Yeah, the only junior high kid who really wants 55. Everyone else going for the single digits. Maybe 12, it’s like, nope. Very cool. How about your first concert?

Ford: Oh, this is going to be embarrassing, but it was Captain and Tennille.

John: Oh, there you go. That’s fantastic.

Ford: It was rough. It was my little sister’s birthday party. She went three years younger than I did. Yeah, Captain and Tennille, Love Will Keep Us Together.

John: At least it’s legendary. It could have been way worse. That’s pretty cool, man. Here we go, balance sheet or income statement.

Ford: Balance sheet.

John: Balance sheet, there you go. How about a favorite season, summer, winter, spring or fall?

Ford: I like summer.

John: Summer. Okay, all right. Impressive. How about favorite ice cream flavor?

Ford: Not knowing all the Ben & Jerry names, off the top of my head, I’d say cookies and cream and just go — I think it’s one that the late night host has, either one of the ones that the late night host has or —

John: Yeah, the Jimmy Fallon one is much —

Ford: Jimmy Fallon, yeah, it’s pretty good.

John: Yeah, that’s a good one. How about, three more, your computer, more PC or a Mac?

Ford: Oh, PC.

John: Yeah, totally.

Ford: Mac’s a great toy.

John: Right. Exactly. Would you say more suit and tie or jeans and a T shirt?

Ford: Jeans and a T-shirt. I had to change out of my T-shirt because I’ve got a meeting today. Typically I’m…

John: Nice. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Ford: I like my man cave. My daughter actually built some shelves around the top of the room. It’s got my Johnny Manziel autograph in there. It’s got my Jimbo autograph. It’s all kind of marooned out. It’s just kind of a big closet is what she actually made it into, but she went and tricked it up, and I can just — it’s a spare bedroom now that the kids are out of the house. She fixed it up, and it’s my sanctuary if I should get up early.

John: It’s got all of the cool things right in there.

Ford: All my cool stuff, yep, all my memorabilia.

John: That sounds fantastic. The TV as well as you just watch the games and, yeah, that’s perfect. Now we just need to move the bed in and a toilet and then I just don’t leave.

Ford: Yep, that’s pretty much it.

John: Right? That’s awesome, man. I love it. Let’s talk cycling. How’d you get started? Was it something where you rode bikes as a kid and just kept going?

Ford: Because of, I blamed it on busy season, I got up to where I weighed close to 400 pounds.

John: Oh, my gosh.

Ford: I had a light bulb moment where I went to the — well, actually, Will and my wife were very concerned, this was back in 2012, and so they staged a conversation. This is a long answer to that question.

John: No, no, it’s all good.

Ford: Yeah, so after tax season in 2012, they staged a conversation about doing a cleanse. I came in, and they were talking about doing a cleanse. I listen to the sports radio station here, and the guy on Saturday morning has a cleanse. I was like, oh, hey, we’ll do that. I’ll do it with you. I’m kind of an all-in guy, and so I did a cleanse. I probably took about 10 days to get all the materials shipped to us in the mail and us actually make the order then we have to start on a Monday, all the normal things. I watched what I did for those 10 days. I was probably 370, 375, something like that.

John: Yeah.

Ford: We started to cleanse, and toward the end of the cleanse, my glasses weren’t working, or my bifocals. I had just gotten the glasses. I knew it was the bifocals’ fault because I could lift the glasses, and I could read. I was blaming it on something’s wrong with the prescription, not thinking, well, if you can read, then your vision’s actually gotten better. Right?

John: Righty.

Ford: I haven’t worn glasses to read since 2012. I called my eye doctor, and I went in to see him. He was like, well, you’ve lost some weight. Maybe your blood sugar has dropped, and your near vision’s — because I was high blood pressure, had all of those things. I said, no way. I’ve been taking Metformin for years. We went in, took a look. Sure enough, my near vision was perfect. My bifocals then had a clear — my riding glasses to see the computer is just clear on the bottom. I said I didn’t understand it. He went in and showed me a beach ball-sized picture of my eyeball, and showed me how you could tell I had high blood pressure and I had high cholesterol and all these things based on the arteries and the veins in my eyes. He said, “See this brown spot in your eye? That’s from blood sugar. That’s not bad.” Then what was a clear HIPAA violation because I can tell you what street this guy lived on, he pulled up somebody else’s eye that he couldn’t see anymore. He had to go to the Texas Eye Institute to get a shot in his eye, once a month, to keep from going blind. By the time I got, shot in your eye, ringing through my head, I heard once a month. I thought, I’m just going to do this cleanse for the rest of my life.

John: Right.

Ford: That was a bad idea, but it really — all of those things that you’ve ever read before, these results are typical, these results were mine. I tried a million different weight loss ideas, and none of them worked. This one did. I started walking the dog. I told myself, when I could get four miles in an hour, that I was going to do something different. So, in the most unlikely of scenarios, the day I hit four miles in an hour, Jim Calhoun, the basketball coach at Connecticut, falls off his bike and, I think, might broke his hip. Somebody on the ticket here in Dallas said he needs to get a different hobby. He’s too old to be riding a bicycle. I said he was 72. When I’m 72, I want to break my hip — or whatever he broke, I can’t remember what broke falling off a bicycle — I don’t want to break my hip falling off a Rascal reaching for Cheetos at the Walmart.

John: Yeah.

Ford: So, I dusted off the bike, and August 22nd of 2012, I went on my first bike ride. A year later, I rode the Hotter’N Hell, a 100-mile bike ride in —

John: A year later? Holy crap, man, that’s so — I mean, first of all, 15 minutes a mile, walking, is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a pretty good clip.

Ford: The first thing you’ve got to do is just be able to make it without everything — when you start walking off that weight, it was just all kinds of issues. I was down close to 300 by the time I actually got on a bike. I was a little nervous about being on a bike and being top heavy because I tried it before. I had a bike from a couple of years ago. I took it to the bike shop, fixed it up and just started riding that. Then, like I said, almost a year to the day after my first bike ride, I rode the Hotter’N Hell.

John: That’s awesome.

Ford: People were like, be careful not to get addicted to riding a bike or anything like that. If you’ve got a consumption issue, you might as well point that engine at something, if you’re going to run hot, point it at something good. That’s what cycling became for me.

John: That’s impressive, man. Now the dog has to walk itself because, sorry about you.

Ford: You had Will on the show. That particular dog, we let him stay over because we had one that got run over. When that dog’s gone, we do have another Patootie dog. I thought we were completely empty-nesters with the dog, but we’ve got another one. Anyway.

John: 100 miles, that’s an impressive ride, in one day. That’s commitment. Has that been your favorite ride or favorite memory from cycling?

Ford: Next year, I rode from Canada to Mexico down the Pacific Coast Highway, so, 2014.

John: There you go.

Ford: I was off all my meds. I just was all in. I’ve always been fascinated by the endurance, long distance events. Even though when I ran track in junior high, everybody had to run track, I never finished anything. They called me — bring home the bacon is what our track coach would do. I was the baconeer. I was the guy bringing home the bacon, coming in last place, never ran a track meet I didn’t finish last. Ran the 800. They scoured all of North Texas looking for a kid slower than the fat kid from Addison Farmers branch, and they were unsuccessful. I was completely defeated, whatever the opposite of undefeated.

John: You thought it was golf. I was undefeated.

Ford: That’s right. I was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of…

John: Right? I had the worst score possible. No, but that’s so harsh. For you to be able to turn that around, that’s years and years of things that you’re telling yourself that other people are telling you as well. The cycling is beyond the losing weight. There are so many more layers here to it.

Ford: Yeah, you have to get past — I mean, COVID has been a tough time because you got stuck in this depressing place, and you start to play those tapes again. I call this my COVID-19. I’m going the wrong direction again. Got on the road Saturday, and it’s been raining so much here lately. You do have to turn off those tapes. Because the hardest thing, I think, about being obese is that it’s the thing that you can make fun of still. We can’t watch The Little Rascals because of the terrible things that they said. They were kind of racial, but they made fun of the fat kid. He played catcher and ate chocolate with his hands and got it all over his face. He was slow and dumb. 20 years later or 30 years later, it’s Bad News Bears, and it’s still the same. We’re going to make fun of Boss Hogg and all of those guys. They’re always going to be bad guys.

You start to get the idea that it’s okay to be laughed at, that you’re a little less than everybody else. You feel like everybody’s always whispering. You have to get past those mental hang-ups. It is a dangerous condition to have. I worry about going the other direction. I think we’re a little too — swung a little bit and been two accommodating. We need to figure out some sort of encouragement for encouraging people to make a difference. That’s initially what I started to do was just I gave away bicycles to other CPAs and tried to encourage them. We have a very high mortality rate.

John: CPAs as a whole, the profession.

Ford: Yes, yes. It’s the highest mortality rate of any profession. My life insurance, very odd statistic he told me when he said it’s higher than skydiving instructors and window washers, which means it’s more dangerous doing your neighbor’s tax return than it is to jump out of airplanes or hanging at the side of a building.

It’s so cyclical. I’m on the tax side, and every six months, here’s another deadline, here’s another deadline, here’s another deadline. So, a lot of my focus became on becoming efficient. I became a lot more efficient. I was working 100 hours during tax season, and I was working overtime all year long. There was so much work to be done. Obviously I fixed a lot of things in two years inside the practice if I could take off for a month and ride from Canada to Mexico. I found a lot of efficiencies. I was always worried about busy season and that creeping back up.

John: Yeah, and then busy season, there’s free pizzas and free food or whatever. You’re in the office, so it’s getting fast food or takeout or something. You’re just sitting the whole time. You’re not even getting up and walking.

Ford: You can’t order a salad back then either from DoorDash or anything like that. It was all pizza or Chinese food. That was everything that was delivered.

John: Right? Exactly. I think it’s so cool that you’re giving away bikes.

Ford: I had a motivation to make a difference for my industry, I really did, but giving away bikes and doing things like that, was a good way to market the firm for new hires. It was effective there. There are the guys from other CPA firms that have a bicycle that they’re nice bikes. I ride a specialized. I’m loyal to it. We spent a little bit of money on it. The staff comes in once we started the technology firm, BaCo Tech. My CPA firm’s called the BaCo Group, and that was where the word BaCo come from. The name of my firm was Baker and Company, and a nickname, growing up, was BaCo, and internally, we referred to ourselves as BaCo. We were number one on Google for Dallas CPA firm search.

I had learned from a client how to drive and so I wanted to really figure out a better way to do it so I won new clients. So we renamed the firm, from Baker and Company, to BaCo Group so that you couldn’t tell — if you’re Baker and Company, it’s either that you’re working with Baker or/and company. By being BaCo Group, the only discernible word was group. It’s actually redundant because the CO stands for company. It’s the Baker Company Group. Anyway, I got two collectives in there.

John: Yeah, but I think that’s great. As a differentiator for talent, that’s huge. Why not? What’s the difference between one accounting firm than another accounting firm? You’re both doing audits and tax returns, and you’re probably using the same software. This one actually cares about your health and actually gives away bikes. Okay, there’s a differentiator.

Ford: It was an easy way to recruit. I had a similar call today, I can. It was very much a positive mindset, what I did, but I always say is, find a big target, instead of a big goal. Whenever I would start these things before, I would say, I’m not going to eat any carbs, I’m going to meet my trainer, every day, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. Then one day, there would be bagels and you eat a carb. The next day, it’d be a donut. The day after that, it’d be a dozen. That big goal is a checklist of things that you have to do every day, and my mindset literally became, I don’t want a needle in my eye. Not very different than that mindset of, here’s my checklist of goals. If I ate that bagel the other day, but I rode my bike, and I did other things; it was, at least I got a little bit further away from that needle in my eye. Most diabetics don’t live to have that happen. Their heart gives out before their vision does.

John: Yeah.

Ford: We don’t hear as much about it. It’s also real unfortunate that we have the same name as the real actual chronic type one diabetes. My daughter’s type one. She woke up in junior high, one day, and her pancreas was off. She has a chronic condition. I can fix mine by riding a bicycle. 95% is type two, and 90% of us could control it completely by exercising and eating right. We are inundated with finding a cure, which we desperately need to do, but there is a cure. Get on a bike. Walk the dog. I did a cleanse. A couple of weeks later, my vision returned. It is a side effect from bad eating and type two. There is this percentage of people that can’t ever get off of insulin or whatever is that they’re a type of diabetic.

John: Sure, but for a lot of people, it doesn’t hurt anyway. It doesn’t hurt. I think it’s great that that positive mentality that you had, the accidental byproduct was it helps with recruiting, but it’s helping people get healthy. It’s helping be positive. It’s helping not want to just drive people into the ground, churn and burn, and I don’t really care about you. It shows that you care about them as a person, not just their ability to do a tax return or what have you. I think that’s fantastic.

Ford: The other thing that the way cycling impacted it is, riding a bike, I don’t own a car anymore, so riding a bike is always a more pleasant way to get around than driving a car. It’s fun. If you’ve done a trip like that, or I rode from Manhattan up to Boston, I’ve done a couple of longer rides, you have so much fun doing that. You really want to protect. I like the summer because I can ride all summer. It’s not raining. Right now, it’s in the spring. I know it’s going to be September by the time this is on, but right now it’s raining.

Used to be I couldn’t ride during tax season as much as I wanted to. I had become so focused on everything that was efficient in my practice that I backed into this tool that I’ve worked with, for a client, could gather data out of QuickBooks files very efficiently, very effectively. I ended up putting my clients in that same space just so I could make getting that data out of their files a lot more efficient, a lot more effective. I started thinking, I think I can actually build a functional accounting system inside of Excel. I called it the Accounting Machine. We could consolidate 70-plus QuickBooks files in about 30 minutes, and we’d create this really complicated set of financials.

As cool as I thought that was and, yes, that does make me a geek that I thought that was cool, but as cool as I thought that was, that we got to the point that we could do that, the other efficiencies I saw from having all the data for that client, I started to wonder, now doing this financial reporting, that’s not what I do. I do taxes. Could I build something to automate that process, like I could in Excel, to automate the tax return, convert from accrual to tax? Could I build something that would do that? I literally spent three, four years modeling an accounting software package.

In 2018 is probably where I started to lose those employees. I called it the Accounting Machine, and I said, I think I can fix busy season. That’s not a really great way to set vision for your firm. I hired a guy out of Puerto Rico to actually build out a proof of concept for me and see if it would work. We were on phone calls with Google Translate. That’s only Mexican Spanish, not Puerto Rican. There’s been a body of water that’s separated that for 400 years.

John: Right.

Ford: There were points, I got pretty loud, not like mad loud, but just they’ve got all kinds of chirping crickets and things in the background. He lived up in the mountains. We built a concept. I got an SBA loan, hired a CTO. He built out a really functioning one. We had fixed a lot of issues. What I was realizing was that, now I’ve got all this going, I’m still calling it the Accounting Machine. We lost her, and I knew that meant I was going to lose somebody else. I had to find a better — I had to figure out why we fixed busy season. I went home and just wrote down everything that why I thought that busy season was busy, for lack of a better word, on a piece of paper, and why I thought that I was addressing it on there.

Every time I wrote something down, the redundancy of workflow. If I do a tax plan, the balances at October 31st don’t have anything to do with the balances at December 31st. The work I do on the balances of October 31 has to be repeated on the balances — that concept of, you heard balances, I said over and over again, balances we’re in the middle of all of my problems, and I wasn’t solving them because I was pulling all these transactions. Everything I’d done and built to that point was still balanced-based. I would wait until I actually pulled the balance.

When we actually uncapped that and said we’re just going to focus on the transactions and pull the transactions; that we really saw the efficiency blew off. We really capped what we could do. We applied for a patent for a transaction-based workflow for CPA firms, and we got it in nine months. It was part of the Highway Program, which I didn’t even know existed, which meant we were designated as special.

John: Right.

Ford: We got designated as special, so we got put in for expedited processing. Our patent went in exactly, if you read our patent, it’s exactly verbatim, word for word, what we wrote. The first office action taken by the US Patent Office was to issue our patent, which is our patent attorney only does patents, and he actually worked on the Wi-Fi patent.

John: Oh, wow.

Ford: The patent for Wi-Fi are the only, what he calls, significant patents that had a first Office Action of Issuance where they issued the patent. We’re really excited. We have continuation claims in place now. We didn’t have overtime and busy season, and so Texas is extended through June 15th. We filed 90% of the returns inside the firm by March 31st, on the business returns. It all started because I wanted to be able to ride the bike, finding work in as many hours at a tech startup because I did. It’s really exciting time.

Nationally, we just got out of tax season. That was May 17th. We’re a couple of days after, and we’re at the first point since we actually started the company, December 31st, 2019. We never really have had a chance to sell. The pandemic shut us out of being able to talk to CPAs. We were ready to go to market in June, but we just couldn’t talk. This has been a very small window at the end of the year, and this is the first chance that we’ve really gotten out. We’ve been out of the BDO Alliance and so we have a couple of good-sized firms that we’re pursuing at this point.

We had a handful of people that worked with us in tax season, but just wasn’t enough time to really make a meaningful impact. We are now. We’re speaking at the AICPA conference on how accounting technology broke public accounting, and we’ll talk about the balance-based workflow and how that’s impacted us, at that event.

John: That’s awesome, man. No overtime, that’s got to be something that’s great for people that work for BaCo Group. It’s mentally healthier.

Ford: To some extent, as CPAs, especially these guys that have come in, one guy moved from New York and the other guy moved from Los Angeles to come in and help manage the firm in our place. The younger folks think it’s possible. People my age really are very doubtful that I heard one CPA here in town say it’s going to take somebody with far more resources than Excel and an act of imagination to do that. I think there’s this part of me that gets tenacious about something enough to want to be able to ride a bike from Canada to Mexico, to be pretty good on a bike for a guy who was never really athletic. I’m driven to see something all the way, if I get my teeth into something. It just became this concept that this could work.

I built out more proof of concepts. I anticipated so much more specific, how can I do this, but it’s essentially online banking for a CPA firm. The power of online banking is not that you get a PDF at the end the month with a balance on it, it’s the bank and your accounting software exchange transactions every night, real time. We’ve extended the time, every other solution, because it’s balanced base can’t start until after the end of the year. You’ve only got 60 days to work on a tax return. We’ve got 470 days, from January 1st.

We’re working right now on 21 tax returns because we’re bringing in data every night. We created a real touch at once, an alert. I can clear something that’s of tax significance or accounting significance or things like that. In less than two minutes, I can post things back to QuickBooks from our platform. I can push it straight into the tax software. I can adjust things real time throughout the year.

John: Yeah, it’s an impressive piece of software, for sure. Just to shift subjects just a little bit, how much do you think it matters, for you, it’s cycling, how much does it matter to leadership at the top to create that space for other people to be able to share what their “and” is, with the free time that they now have, thanks to the efficiencies?

Ford: I think that we have to, as an industry, have to start proactively trying to change some of that narrative, the idea that it’s always you don’t understand my clients and things like that. I think we have to start to create that space. When I started, it was a paper workflow. We were more efficient, more effective. We had less turnover when we did everything by paper than we are today. I worked for a firm that was very late on the curve, so, over the next ten years, I became the IT guy, installed the server. By the time we got to the end, I was working more hours at the end of my career than I was before. In that nine-year period that I worked, coming out of school, that nine-year period, I was the second person that left. We were 25 people at that firm. The industry average now is going to be closer to three than two people a year that would leave.

John: Oh, yeah.

Ford: We terminated people. For now, in the industry, for every one person that you fire, four people will leave voluntarily. The turnover is so high. We have a remarkable number of kids that come out of school and will hold their offer to work at one of the big firms for longer than they’ll actually stay there. There are things I don’t like about the big firms.

I went to Texas A&M, as we discussed, and their recruiting center is named after Deloitte. The narrative at Texas A&M, if you spent that much money and you’re Deloitte and every one of the faculty just stays two years, it’s going to be terrible. If I spent that much money at A&M, I would want them to say, hey, it’s the greatest place to work in the world. You should work in the big eight, and if you’re going to work anywhere, it should only be Deloitte, and you should never ever leave. Yet, we all seem resigned to this idea that this is an absolutely terrible job. It can be manageable.

John: It can be.

Ford: In the old days back, but with John Savill and the group that was here local, we solved our own problem in a paper-based workflow. We had all these little tools our clients used. We were proactive, and we worked at the end of the year to get ready for the next years. We were getting data from clients earlier. Now, we don’t really understand the solutions and everything. We’re not fixing it ourselves. We’re not pushing back hard enough. You look at the efficiencies that are out there in the world. There’s not pushing back hard enough that you can get there. Once we do, I think we’ll have a lot more creativity. I think we’ll have a lot more space for people that think outside the box and stuff like that.

John: Yeah. When you worked at that other firm, did people actually know each other? Did you feel like sharing your “and” was the thing, back in that time?

Ford: I think so. We still had busy season. We still worked 55 hours a week, but I could bank all my overtime and take it off as additional time off, if I wanted to. You have to wonder now, can you even take all your time off? They’re now promoting at the big firms, hey, you can have unlimited time off because you can work from anywhere. If I had to work and took my laptop around on my bicycle while I rode the Big Sur but I didn’t leave the office; I’d leave the office.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Ford: I don’t want to drag work around with me. I don’t answer text messages at night. I have a different cell phone for work and business. I just believe you’ve got to set some boundaries, and I hope that we start to do that. Because if you’re working current, then you should be able to set boundaries because you’re going to solve problems before they occur. You don’t have these emergencies. We’re accountants. Why in the world is there an emergency on a Sunday afternoon, needs to get something solved? Because they waited till the last minute. So I really am excited for what it’ll do for the industry. It’ll work for large firms, small firms, whoever doesn’t want overtime.

John: Totally. How much do you feel like it’s a tone at the top sort of message, versus somebody from the bottom starting up, of actually getting to know each other? What lights you up? Talking Texas A&M football or talking cycling, things like that, or whatever someone else’s “and” is. How important do you feel tone at the top is?

Ford: I try to have that discussion with — I think the hard part is that we can be pretty introverted. I’m obviously not the typical accountant, if I was playing around trying to create something. I never took something that I should be a CPA. The idea that there needs to be a little bit more of a connection, I don’t know that we totally ignore it. I think that a lot of the resistance from people that hear about my technology is, well, busy season is when we make all our money. I don’t like the sweatshop mindset that we had. I was sleeping at the office and so was, currently my partner, but she was pregnant, sleeping on the couch at the office, because we were working so many hours during tax season.

John: Yeah, that’s crazy.

Ford: Still, everybody’s not happy.

John: Right.

Ford: Wasn’t enough. Will’s birthday is March 24th. We celebrated his birthday after April 15th more times than we didn’t because I didn’t have time to go to a kid’s birthday party during tax season. I never said I didn’t have time to go to some kid’s birthday party, but believe me, that’s what Will heard. If you’re not celebrating your birthday because Dad’s got to work, he doesn’t have time to go to a kid’s birthday party, no matter how you try to pitch it. It’s a tough business. It’s tough on us.

John: You don’t want that for the rest of your people, and I think that’s great. You’re not happy because you’re not able to go do the things that actually light you up. Doing tax returns doesn’t light you up.

Ford: Wouldn’t it be great to go, I’d love go to the Maroon and White game one year. I’d love to go to spring training and see the Rangers when they’re not pathetic like they are this year.

John: Right.

Ford: Do those things. The idea that I could have gone to spring break with my kids when they were younger, when they had a week off, never could do that. We, as an industry, know exactly what’s going to be due this time next year, what’s going to be due next March 15th and April 15th, what form, who’s going to do it. We’ve been doing it for years. Why are we so focused on those last 60 days? Why is it nobody ever said, why isn’t that a good thing? Why haven’t we built a workflow that just makes that automatic? Because there are so many standards we work with as an industry. It’s easy to create a technology that actually works, because we just haven’t focused on all the things we can set our clock by, until the pandemic.

John: Yeah.

Ford: Something always happens during tax season. There’s always something that occurs. This year, we were frozen for two weeks in the middle of Texas, all the way down to the border.

John: Oh, yeah, ice storm and everything.

Ford: California seems like it’s always on fire. A couple of years ago, all of Carolinas was devastated by a hurricane. Houston got flooded. Two years ago, Trump changed the tax law in December, and we’ve had all of these new balancing. I literally went to a training class, and I swear, there were more we asked questions on, I don’t think they thought of that yet. You’re literally trying to figure out what are you going to do, real time. Something’s always going to impact what we’re doing. We need to be proactive and be ready for next year so when it happens, you can be in the moment with a client.

We really discovered the difficulty, during the pandemic, of everybody having a different deadline. That was a lot more, everybody dealing with different banks and all that kind of stuff. It was a lot harder to deal with that, and many CPAs just couldn’t do it, than it was to get the tax returns done. It blew up our tax season.

John: Disruptive element, everything. Yeah, yeah. If anything, that just reiterates how much more important having that “and” is because everything’s always changing. Technology’s changing, and the rules are changing. Everything’s changing. Something’s going to come in and wreck it, whatever, but having that anchor point, that eye of the hurricane, if you will, like your cycling, is always there. It’s always there for you. It’s never changing. I think it’s really important just for people to have those things.

Ford: I think that this year, in a backwards way, was more evident of that than ever before. At some points during the pandemic, I could have ridden my bicycle down the middle of the Interstate and not had any traffic. I should have been out all the time, but you became so obsessed with what was happening in the news, whether it was how long are we going to be shut down, or social unrest and social upheaval and all the things that took place over the past 12 months, I eventually just said, I’m turning it off. I’m just not going to watch any of that anymore because it was eating at me so much. It was consuming — there was so much concern about things I couldn’t control, and that’s ultimately why you need that release. I think that it’s just so great to get out and just burn off that, whether it be anxiety from work or anxiety from something like a pandemic or whatever. Just get outside and —

John: Yeah, just go do your thing.

Ford: Yeah. That’s why I like riding. You just clear your head.

John: I love it, man. That’s such great advice for everybody listening too, just get out and do it. Whatever your “and” is, just make time and do it. Doesn’t have to be every day. It doesn’t have to be every month. Just make time and go do it. That’s awesome. Well, it’s only fair, since I started out the episode, rapid-fire questioning you, that I turn the tables and make this the first episode of the Ford Baker podcast. Thanks for having me on. Whatever questions you’d like to ask, I’m all yours.

Ford: Outside of Lou Holtz, who’s the coach you wish had never gone and the coach you wish you never hired?

John: Oh, wow, that’s really good. Probably, I don’t know, Bob Davey. He was the former defensive coordinator at Texas A&M, who we used to beat all the time. Then he hires as his offensive coordinator, Jim Colletto from Purdue, who we used to beat all the time. It was like, let’s just gather all the coaches of teams we all beat and then have them on as staff. It’s like, no, that’s a terrible idea. He’s a nice guy and was a great defensive coordinator but, yeah, just probably not the best head coach for Notre Dame.

Ford: We were bitter about that until now. Once we realized that he just probably wasn’t head coach.

John: Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly.

Ford: Good defense coordinator.

John: Right, exactly, with the Wrecking Crew, was it? What was the…

Ford: Oh, yeah. RC started that under Jackie.

John: Oh, okay, got it.

Ford: RC was so good, from a standpoint of — the defense was always so good under his tutelage that we won a lot of games, but we’re never going to win that game where we needed to score 21 points against a really good defense because he just was so conservative. If the wind was blowing, he ain’t throwing. We were going to…

John: That’s funny.

Ford: It was a great era, but be careful what you wish for. I love Jimbo now. He’s so much fun to just watch in a press conference. Anyway, I think he’s put together a lot of talent on the field, so it’s fun to watch. Where’s the place you’ve never been that you want to go to?

John: Oh, wow. College football-wise, I’ve been to a lot. Probably A&M actually, would probably be on that list.

Ford: We play all in two years?

John: Yeah, I think so. It’s like, yeah, two or three.

Ford: How about you take me to the Notre Dame game, and I’ll take you to…

John: Okay.

Ford: A&M game. I’ve got seats down there, so we’ll catch a game.

John: Just the tradition and the atmosphere and all of it. Well, it’s so much fun having you be a part of What’s Your “And”? Thanks so much, Ford.

Ford: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll connect, and I’ll send you over those pictures I was telling you about too.

John: Awesome. Everybody listening in, if you want to see some of those pictures, or maybe connect with Ford on social media or LinkedIn, or check out a link to his accounting machine website, you should go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out the book.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 419 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture. If you want me to read the book to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, the audio version’s out, so look for What’s Your “And’? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast, so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and if you have a hobby or a passion outside of work or you know someone that does, please reach out because I’d love to showcase you on the show and share more stories of professionals shattering the stereotype.

This week is going to be awesome with my guest Brian Dubow. His background is as a deals consultant and then a Global Talent and Impact Senior Associate at PwC. Now he’s getting his MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management. He’s also the host of a Hit of Happiness podcast, and now he’s with me here today. Brian, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Brian: Hey, John. I couldn’t find anyone cooler to hang out with, for this hour, so there we are.

John: Nice, nice. Already my most favorite guest. Here we go. We have a winner. There it is. That’s awesome, man. I’m excited to have you be a part of this, and it was fun being a part of your podcast as well, Hit of Happiness, which is very cool. Here are some rapid-fire questions I didn’t ask. Before we hang out in person, I figured, get to know Brian on a new level here. I’ll start out with a somewhat easy one. Favorite color.

Brian: Favorite color, blue.

John: Blue, nice. Mine too. How about a least favorite color?

Brian: Brown. I don’t think anyone looks good in brown.

John: I think brown is just there to accentuate the color of the other thing.

Brian: It makes things look good actually. Surround yourself with brown, you’re going to blossom.

John: That’s why they give dudes khaki pants. You can’t mess up, just this and whatever. It works. Right?

Brian: Yeah.

John: How about cats or dogs?

Brian: Dogs.

John: Dogs.

Brian: Grew up with dogs, yeah. I love dogs.

John: Totally. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Brian: Leonardo DiCaprio, man.

John: Oh, okay.

Brian: All his movies get me going, especially the psychological thrillers out there.

John: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, he’s very good, for sure. This is a fun one someone asked me, so I’d like to flip it back. Socks or shoes.

Brian: Wow, that’s a tough one because —

John: It is. Right?

Brian: I love shoes, but I would never want to wear my shoes without socks. So, what came first, the chicken or the egg here?

John: That’s exactly what —

Brian: I guess, for that reason, I need the socks.

John: Yeah, exactly. Plus, socks are fun. You get some pretty fun dress socks especially, and stuff like that. I wasn’t sure if your being originally a Miami guy, if you were like, who needs socks? No, I agree, man. I agree. How about a favorite day of the week?

Brian: I love Saturdays. Saturdays are the days, you wake up, you grab a bagel and just get after it.

John: Right? There it is. Yeah, it’s like do what you want. There you go. That’s when college football happens, so that’s even better. How about puzzles, Sudoku, crossword, jigsaw?

Brian: I would say Sudoku. I’m a numbers guy. I love numbers, so test me with numbers, we’re having fun.

John: Awesome All right. Since you have the CPA background, balance sheet or income statement.

Brian: Balance sheet. There’s something just a little nice when things all check out. It gives you that nice little high for a minute when everything balances.

John: You know if it’s wrong. The income statement could be wrong. I don’t know. It might be. The balance sheet is like, all right, it’s definitely not right.

Brian: Something’s off.

John: Exactly. It’s perfect. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Brian: I was never into either of those series, but I did go to Disney recently, and they have this whole new Star Wars Land with some cool rides. I will give the check to Star Wars for that reason.

John: Yeah, there you go. There’s no Star Trek Land. There we go. How about computer, PC or a Mac?

Brian: Wow. I like what Mac offers and their brand and their why, but all I need is an HP. I’m not a tech wizard. A PC gives me everything I need.

John: There we go. That’s basic. There we go. How about a suit and tie or jeans and a T-shirt?

Brian: That’s a tough one because it feels good to look good.

John: Right?

Brian: It feels really good, but it also doesn’t feel good when that tie is a little too tight.

John: Right. Right.

Brian: Jeans and a T-shirt.

John: Okay, okay. Yeah, fair enough. How about a favorite ice cream flavor? I love ice cream.

Brian: I love ice cream too. Coconut.

John: Coconut. Oh, okay. There we go. That’s interesting. All right. How about a favorite season, spring, winter, fall, summer?

Brian: I think I have to give it to fall. I feel like fall is just — everyone’s away for summer. Everyone’s on their own journey. Everyone comes back for fall. The excitement is there. College football is there. Life is exciting.

John: Yeah, yeah, and it’s done being gross hot. It’s just appropriately temperature outside. There you go. How about a first concert?

Brian: First concert, wow. I have to go deep in the archives for that. I would say my first concert was probably with my family, something like Britney Spears or Gwen Stefanie.

John: Oh, okay. Okay. There we go. Nice. Like a family trip. There you go.

Brian: I’ve been to a lot of concerts since then, and completely different genres, but if we’re going back to the beginning, that’s the OG.

John: There we go. Well, those are not too bad, I guess. How about a favorite number?

Brian: Favorite number, aha, my first thought is 25.

John: Okay.

Brian: It’s just the number I wore when I played high school sports. Maybe it’s because there’s 25 cents in a quarter. I’m not really sure why that’s the number, but 25.

John: Okay. No, that works. I’ve got two more. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Brian: Real book. I read before I go to bed every night. That’s part of my shutdown process, so I love a good real book. Yeah, there you go.

Brian: Including your book, I have your book next to my nightstand, John, What’s Your “And”?

John: Oh, wow. Okay. My apologies in advance, everyone.

Brian: You’re rocking me to bed every night, John.

John: Well, wait till the audio one, and it’s even worse. He’s in my head. He’s in my head. Get out. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own, besides a copy of my book. No, I’m just kidding.

Brian: That’s top five.

John: All right, all right. Fair enough.

Brian: Favorite thing, I have a bracelet I wear that says. “Manifest on it.” Someone who I coached for a little bit, she got it for me. Just looking at that on my wrist every day helps me believe that anything’s possible, and what I’ve set my mind to, I can make happen and manifest it. That’s probably my favorite item that makes other items in my life way cooler, if that makes sense.

John: Yeah. No, that totally makes sense. I love it. That’s awesome. Which leads into a little bit of the distance athlete, everything, how did you get started, the running, swimming, training for the Ironman, all of that stuff? Was it something that you grew up doing? Or was it something you got into later in life? Yeah, I do like running and cycling and all this far type of thing?

Brian: Yeah, that’s a good question, John. Running, I played sports in high school and growing up, but I was never track and field star or anything like that. I probably never ran more than five or six miles until I got to college. College, I started running a little bit more because I started gaining the freshman 15. It’s like, I got to do something about this. Sometimes it’s five miles or eight miles, whatnot. Then my mom’s 50th birthday came around. She’s a bit of a runner. As she was signing up for a half marathon, and asked if I would do with her as a 50th birthday gift, I was like, absolutely. That was my first half marathon. That opened up doors for a few more half marathons. Then, after school, I moved to New York City, and I decided to enter the lottery for the New York City Marathon. I think the odds of winning the lottery is maybe one in six or something, not great odds. I was like, this is just something that it’ll make a good story one day. I entered the lottery, didn’t get it.

John: Yeah. Oh, shucks.

Brian: Fortunately, I won, fortunately or unfortunately. It’s like, all right, I have six months to train to become one of those crazy people who do marathons. That leads you down this rabbit hole where you start talking to other people who have done marathons, teach me, how do I train, what do I do, et cetera, et cetera. Slowly, you just peel back layers of the onion where, all of a sudden, you’re changing your diet, you’re changing your sleeping habits, you’re changing various aspects of your life, and I did my first marathon.

John: That’s awesome, and New York City Marathon, which is one of the icons. That’s cool.

Brian: It was really special. All my friends were there. My family was there. Going into the marathon, I was like, all right, one and done. This will be another bucket list thing. I finished the marathon, woke up the next day, could barely walk or get out of bed.

John: Oh, yeah. Right?

Brian: Therefore, I entered the lottery for the Chicago Marathon.

John: That’s crazy.

Brian: Yeah. So, entered that lottery, of course, won that lottery, not of course, but that’s the way life works sometimes.

John: Yeah, you manifested it.

Brian: I manifested it, exactly. I envisioned it, so there I was. From that point, I got a new goal in my life. I’m a very goal-oriented person. There’s the big six marathons. There’s New York, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, London and Berlin. I was now going to do my second marathon in two years, and I said, you know what? Maybe I should do the big six. Maybe I should do the big six in six years. That would be kind of cool. That became my next goal. I did Chicago, then I signed up for Berlin. I was supposed to do Berlin in 2020. That’s when COVID hit, world blew up, to some extent, and so my plan of the big six marathons in six years kind of exploded. I started reevaluating life, as we all do, on personal level and also on my sports endurance goals.

John: Sure.

Brian: I wondered, how can I use this time most effectively? What is the opportunity in front of me? That’s when I decided to pivot and say, I’ve heard about these crazy people who do triathlons, who do Ironman, but I’ve always been hesitant because it’s 20, 25 hours of training a week. I was like, I’ll never find that time. Also, at the time, I was a consultant, Monday to Thursday, on a plane. You don’t have a bike, or you’re not guaranteed a pool at the hotel you’re staying at. With all this remote work, I was like, you know what? Maybe this is the time in my life to do an Ironman.

John: Okay.

Brian: As I hear myself saying that, I’m thinking, Brian, you’re a crazy person. Maybe I am, but that’s okay. We’re all a little crazy.

John: No, no. It makes total sense. The universe created the space, and you could be training for the big six marathons, which would be awesome to do, but doing the the Ironman is also a cool goal. You had this energy and this focus that was on one thing. You can’t do it. Alright, well, let’s just change the target to something actually maybe even bigger and badder than the original. I wish that half marathons weren’t called half marathons because they’re not half of anything. They’re still far, so, give yourself credit on that. It’s one of those where, once you hit that, then it’s like, oh, I could do the full marathon, type of concept. Does that mentality or anything like that translate to work, or the training or any of this give you a skill, or maybe vice versa, work helped you prepare?

Brian: Yeah, I think that you’re spot on right there, John, where, when you hit these milestones that you didn’t think were possible, it builds your confidence, and you start to wonder, what else can I do? What else is possible? Instead of thinking, is this possible; it’s more of, how can I make this possible? So, as I hit the half marathon, as I hit the full marathon, whatever, it keeps on pushing out the boundaries of what you think is possible. Again, then you take that to the workplace.

I used to be stressed out by any assignment I was given. All of a sudden, it’s like, I could do this. If I could do a half marathon, and that’s really uncomfortable, that’s painful, my legs are hurting; this isn’t going to hurt. It might not be fun, but it’s not going to hurt. The Excel spreadsheet, it’s way less intimidating at that point. It really just puts a lot of things in perspective. For me, it’s just getting comfortable being uncomfortable and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, then the things that used to stress you out, don’t stress you out as much. It’s more of a, I’m just going to do this. That’s piece one of the workplace and the outlook on the work, and then just, I would say, ability to connect with people in the workplace.

There’s a few facets of it where, I know you interview a lot of people about their “and”, and I guess some people have to go out of their way to bring their “and” into the workplace. For me, I train every morning, and I really can’t accept a meeting before 8:30 am or so because I’m meeting up with my training team or whoever I’m running with or biking with, until 8:30. I definitely have calendar invites at 7:30, 8:00, and I have to be honest with my team, say, “Hey, how important is this meeting? Because I am training for this goal. If you really need me there, I will be there. I’ll skip training today, and I’ll do it later in the day. If not, I’m going to go to training.” So, it comes up naturally. It’s not like I have to say to my work teams, “By the way, guys, I’m doing this cool thing,” and I don’t know if it’s cool, but I’m doing this thing. That breaks down boundaries.

I think just health is a hot topic these days, and everyone, hopefully, everyone’s at least walking. Maybe they’re running. Maybe they’ve done a 5K, whatever. When you hear that, oh, this person’s done a half marathon or marathon, that usually picks most people’s interest because everyone wants to grow. They want to do more. They just have those walls in their head because our biggest enemy is those six inches between our ears, of just, yeah, that sounds cool, but I can never do that. Then when I actually, granularly walk people through the process of what it takes, it’s like, oh, maybe I could do that. All of this is showing up, day after day after day after day after day, which, easier said than done but.

John: Right, right. No, exactly, exactly, but it’s a little bit at a time. It’s the same as probably with work. You can’t just show up on the first day and be a wizard, master of everything that I’m supposed to know. It’s like, no, no, you just get a little bit over time, every day. The same with training for a marathon. You just don’t show up and tape the number on and go, all right, I guess I’m going to do this. Holy crap, no. You’ve got to train for it.

I did one half marathon and then retired, but my whole mantra was peak on race day because I was not super dedicated to the training. I was like, I don’t want to wear myself out. I’m just going to peak on race day. I’m just going to — I got lucky. It worked out that way, and that’s why I don’t want to go back. Because I’m like, you know what? That was good, but I’m doing other things instead. It’s cool to know, like, I never thought I’d be able to run that. Good for you for being, like, hey, I did the half. I can do the full, and then I can do another full and then another one.

Brian: Yeah, it’s like a drug. The more you push yourself out there, the more you start wondering, well, what is possible? Do we have limits at all? Is there a path to anything in this world, and it’s just a matter of clearly defining the plan? Because training for these races, you just trust the plan. You build out a plan, or you hire a coach who builds a plan for you. Somehow that leads you to your goal. You look at business, let’s say. Look at a company like Google. That started from one person who had an idea, and now that company makes billions, maybe even trillions of dollars, I don’t even know.

John: Right, right. A lot.

Brian: A lot of commas in there.

John: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Brian: When I think about physical, yes, I keep on pushing, wondering, what’s out there? What else is possible? Is anything possible? Are we limitless? Then you look at that from a business perspective, is that how these businesses grew? Did they just keep on building more and more momentum until they were like, we can do anything?

John: Right? That’s when it gets dangerous, though, because then they can do anything actually. It’s like, well, wait a minute.

Brian: Yeah. Now Facebook knows everything we’re doing.

John: Exactly.

Brian: I don’t choose anymore.

John: Pretty much. They’re reminding me. Remember, you bought this? You probably need it again, don’t you? Get out of my house. How do you know this? It’s crazy. It is cool to see how much of it is our own mental barriers that we put up that really hold us back and probably even especially hold us back from even just sharing that “and”, even just the baby steps. When you think about the grand scheme of things, it’s totally in our own heads on that.

Brian: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s just sharing your “and” in the workplace. I think a lot of people are hesitant to even do that because they don’t know what people are going to think of their “and”, if people will support their “and”. What I’ve learned through my training, through other endeavors, the more authentic we can be and the more of ourselves we can bring to the workplace and the more passion we can have, on a day to day basis, and I know that when I do my racings or my training, I’m a much more energized person. I’m firing on all cylinders versus days where I don’t exercise. You don’t want to be around me. I could be a little grumpy.

John: Right?

Brian: The more I’m doing the things I’m passionate about, A, the better I feel and the better I can be in the workplace. People respect the passion. They may never want to run a day in their life, but they say, this person is onto something. I respect whatever they’re doing because they have good energy. They’re vibrating at a high frequency. I’ve seen that among tons of my coworkers who, one might be a flutist, and they like to play the flute on the weekend. That’s awesome. That’s so cool. That’s something that I couldn’t do. Maybe I could. Actually, I could do it, if I wanted to. I don’t think I want to.

John: Right. There you go. There you go. I was going to build you on that one. Yeah, it’s one of those things where, I think, because of growing up in school, and we always made fun of the outlier. We always picked on whatever, especially junior high school. You don’t want to be the odd one because, oh, Lord, it’s going to be a long rest of your life. I feel like we take that mentality out, but now we’re adults, and actually the outliers, it’s kind of cool. It’s, tell me more about that. Or, wow, okay, I don’t want to do that Ironman, but that sounds awesome. Tell me about it. Or maybe I do want to do it, how do you get started?

Brian: Something I’ve seen a lot is that people build themselves around how they perceive others want them to be. They pursue hobbies, they pursue interests that they might not even be interested in, but they think others will respect them more or whatever because of it. Then they start not even liking themselves. They bring worse energy. They become negative people. For that reason, I just think it’s so important to, for those listening, if you haven’t already, just take a step back and say, what do I actually enjoy doing? What actually energizes me? What in my life is depleting me?

I’ve studied the Science of Happiness a bit, John. The more we can do those things that energize us, A, the happier we’re going to be. I don’t know what the purpose of life is. I’m still trying to figure it out. Every time I do these endurance races, I think I get a little bit closer, but I’ll probably never get there. I think it has something to do with happiness. We want to be happy, maybe not sustained happiness, but 10% happier, year over year. I think the more we can be ourselves and, going back to that word, authentic in the workplace, in every single setting, I think the better life is going to be.

John: I agree with you totally. Because it’s like, whose game are we playing? Do the rules matter? Do they make you happy? Do they make you a better person? All that stuff. It’s one of those things that I feel it’s so easy for us to just play someone else’s game by someone else’s rules, and it doesn’t always make us a better person in the end, which, if you’re not happy outside of work, then your at-work is never going to be productive.

Brian: You’re absolutely right. It’s all about running your own race. That’s something that I have to remind myself in every single race I do, where there’s going to be athletes who smoke me every time. I can’t compete with them. Maybe one day I can because humans are limitless, but right now, in my current state, there’s going to be people who are going to beat me. I could compare myself and serve my happiness into the fact that I didn’t do better than them, but it’s not about that. It’s, I’m racing my own race. If I feel like I did my best and, as you said, peaked on race day, you won. It’s all about race your own race, whether that’s in — there are so many analogies between racing and life itself. In the workplace, are you racing your own race just because someone got promoted faster than you, just because someone has different opportunities? Are you showing up every day being your best self? If so, that’s all you can do.

John: That’s so perfect. I love, just in your blog, how you have the type two fun, which is maybe one of my new favorite phrases, easily, of 2021. If you could tell everybody what type two fun is, because a lot of these Ironman stories are giving me type two fun kind of vibes.

Brian: Yes, type two might be for crazy people, and I might be one of those crazy people. Type two fun is the type of fun that, in the moment, it might not necessarily be fun. It might actually be terrible. You might be miserable. The moment ends, you look back, and you’re like, you know what? That was awesome. That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I’ve had those moments when I’ve hiked mountains in Colorado, 14 or so. I’ve had those moments on my races where, in a marathon at mile 23, I’m in the most pain of my life. I’m hitting this wall, and I’m like, this is awful. I’ve literally made it to hell. Three miles later, I have the highest high of all time. That’s type two fun because I look back at that, and it’s like, I learned so much about myself, I got so much of that, out of that experience. I’m literally going to sign up for a marathon again tomorrow.

John: Which is great because then it doesn’t have to be fun in the moment. It doesn’t have to be joy in the moment. It doesn’t have to be happy in the moment. It’s sitting around, six months later, telling the story, and it’s like, now that’s fun. It’s laughing about it. It’s like, and then you’ll never believe what happened. That’s the type two fun. That takes a lot of the pressure off of people, of everything doesn’t have to be this world record-breaking type of thing. It’s just whatever it is that brings joy to you. Maybe it’s not joy in the moment, but type two joy, type two fun, six months later. It takes a lot of pressure off of people.

Brian: Yeah. I honestly look at, even the beginning stages of COVID where people were struggling. People were having tough times, and have not been that fun in the moment, but I look back at those stories, the way we were all interacting or not interacting, for that matter, there’s a lot of gems out of that. I would almost say type two fun is a similar mindset to everything happens for a reason, where you find the good in everything that happened. It’s an opportunist mindset.

John: Yeah, I love that man. That’s awesome to hear. Also great words of encouragement, everybody listening, as we bring this in for a landing, of just, yeah, look for the good and share. So many great nuggets in here, Brian. It’s only fair that I turn the tables though, since I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning, make you the host. The Brian Dubow podcast is different than Hit of Happiness, totally different. Yeah, so, whatever you’ve got, I’m all yours.

Brian: All right, let’s put you on the spot, John. I know you’re a huge Notre Dame fan, and I also know that you’ve only done a half marathon, not only, but so far, you’re only done a half marathon. I’m going to challenge you right now. Would you rather have to do an Ironman a full Ironman, one year from today, or would you rather experience Notre Dame never having a winning season for the rest of your life?

John: Oh, I’ll do the Ironman. I’ll do the Ironman. I’ll do the Ironman, hands down. That is short-term pain the rest of my life than never having a winning season. That is long-term. That is worse than purgatory. That’s just agony. I would do the Ironman, hands down.

Brian: Okay, I’m going to hold you accountable for that, John.

John: Well, luckily, they’re good.

Brian: That’s true.

John: Right, right.

Brian: All right, next question. Your podcast says What’s Your “And”? Would you rather always be the best at your career and the worst at your “and” or your hobby; or the worst at your career and the best at your hobby?

John: Oh, I think, probably best at my career and worst at my hobby. I think, for everybody, really, that mindset is great because, from interviewing so many people, it’s come to, instead of giving yourself a title, it’s endurance runner. Sometimes people ask your time, and you’re like, well, maybe my time isn’t great, whatever. If you say, I enjoy running marathons, well then, I’m not doing it for your approval, or you’d ask me my time. I’m doing it for me. Even if I’m terrible at it, I enjoy this. Your career is a steady paycheck and benefits and how you have a house and how you make money, so then you can go do the things that you’re terrible at. Yeah, I would definitely be the best at the career and worst at the “and”. That’s an interesting question, for sure.

Brian: Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. In the career, you have those key performance indicators you’ve got to hit along the way to succeed.

John: Yeah. It’s nice to still have a roof over your head.

Brian: Right, right. You judge your own success in your hobby. I love that.

John: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that that’s how everyone should really look at it. Brian, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”?

Brian: John, thank you. It was fun for me. Hopefully, we motivated some people to sign up for a half marathon or even a 5K to that.

John: Yeah, just a 5K, and it’s type two fun. It’s type two fun.

Brian: Hopefully some people on this call are like, you know what? Maybe it doesn’t have to be fun in the moment, but let’s do it anyway. Let’s do it.

John: Having you on the show was type one fun. I’m not going to lie. This was type one fun. There we go.

Brian: I’ve had some type one fun too. I’m smiling all ears. Hopefully everyone else is as well. Thank you for having me, John.

John: Absolutely. Everybody, if you want to see some pictures of Brian in action, or maybe connect with him on social media, or check out his podcast, Hit of Happiness, or his blog, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out my book.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 417 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiates you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want this voice to read the book to you, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture, and I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it, and now listening to it, and writing such great reviews and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast, so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Geraldine Carter. She’s the owner of She Thinks Big Coaching, and now she’s with me here today. Geraldine, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Geraldine: Hi, John. Thank you so much for having me.

John: This is going to be awesome, so much fun. I have my rapid-fire questions, get to know Geraldine right out of the gate. I hope you’re buckled in and ready to go. All right, I’ll start you out with an easy one though. Favorite color. Wow. Okay. I barely know how to spell that. That’s impressive. I like it. All right, how about a least favorite color.

Geraldine: Orange.

John: Oh, yeah, that’s a very popular least favorite. How about oceans or mountains?

Geraldine: Mountains all the way.

John: Oh, not even close. All right, all right, there you go. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Geraldine: Meryl Streep.

John: Yeah, solid answer. That’s a solid answer. She’s so good in everything.

Geraldine: Yeah. I’m not very original, I mean, on my part, in terms of answers.

John: No, no, but it’s solid. When you’re good, you’re good.

Geraldine: How can you not love her?

John: Pretty much. How about, would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Geraldine: Early bird. You won’t find me awake past 9:30, ever.

John: Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s awesome. There you go. That was an easy one. How about when it comes to puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Geraldine: Oh, ick, neither. I’m working on a Rubik’s Cube right now, but it’s just sitting on my desk.

John: That works. That’s when you start peeling the stickers off and then putting —

Geraldine: Yeah, I’m a total sticker-peeler.

John: Totally. I’m done. What do you know? That’s awesome. I thought I was the only one that did that. That’s great. Oh, this is a good one, a favorite Disney character.

Geraldine: Well…

John: There’s so many now.

Geraldine: Is Anna a Disney character? I can’t remember.

John: I think so. For Frozen?

Geraldine: I’m pretty sure, right?

John: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, very cool. No, that totally counts. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Geraldine: Star Wars if I had to.

John: Okay, all right. No, that works. How about your computer though, PC or a Mac?

Geraldine: Yeah. No, I’m a total Mac addict.

John: Really?

Geraldine: 100%, never going back.

John: A little bit of a cult almost, that bubble?

Geraldine: Well, I don’t rub it in unicorn tears or anything, but it’s just so much easier.

John: That’s fantastic. That’s what PC people like me do. That’s where all the unicorn tears go. How about a favorite ice cream flavor? I’m a huge ice cream junkie.

Geraldine: Oh, my gosh, I make ice cream. I actually have my own private label.

John: What?! Oh, that’s so awesome. Yeah, that’s your “and and”. That’s next level. That’s very cool. Do you have a favorite flavor?

Geraldine: Cookies and cream.

John: Oh, okay. I’m a huge fan of chunks in the ice cream. It’s like maximum calories per spoonful to my face.

Geraldine: That’s right, by the pint.

John: Totally. People keep the lid? I’m like, why do you keep the lid?

Geraldine: I know, all the way to the bottom.

John: Right, right. Quitters. How about a favorite movie of all time?

Geraldine: Oh, The Princess Bride, without question.

John: Yeah, solid. Oh, man, that’s hilarious. So funny. So funny. A favorite season, summer, winter, spring or fall.

Geraldine: Winter all year, please.

John: Oh, okay. All right. Winter, mountains, I’m catching on.

Geraldine: I could do without the darkness, but if I could have winter all year, I’d ski all year. That would just be the best.

John: Yeah, Anna from Frozen, all of this is coming together now.

Geraldine: There’s a theme.

John: There you go. Since you’re in the accounting space, balance sheet or income statement.

Geraldine: Projections.

John: Oh, okay. There you go. How about a favorite number?

Geraldine: Yeah, I was thinking about this one, and I couldn’t decide between 57 or 72.

John: Okay. Is there a reason why?

Geraldine: Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of nerdy. One of them is prime, and one of them is multi-factorial. I really like them both, but it’s totally random.

John: Okay, yeah. So it’s 72 and 50…

Geraldine: When I got my Hotmail address years ago, there were apparently already 56 Geraldines, and they gave me 57, and then the number just kind of stuck around. I don’t know, 72 has just been like this theme in my life. Who knows where these things come from?

John: I like it. No, no, I like it. Very cool. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Geraldine: Hmm, hardcover.

John: Oh, hardcover even. Okay, there you go.

Geraldine: Yeah. I want legit books. I want to hold on to a book.

John: Yeah, something I can throw at somebody if I’m angry.

Geraldine: Including my children. Get away!

John: Right? Paperbacks just don’t do the trick. You can’t slam it on the table and intimidate anyone. Two more. A favorite adult beverage. Oh, nice. Okay, all right. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Geraldine: My cargo bike. I ride my kids to school. I stick them on the back. They seem fine to me, riding to school.

John: Really?

Geraldine: Yeah. It’s the best.

John: That’s awesome. That’s one of those bikes with the long rack in the back?

Geraldine: Yep, exactly, and it’s got like a little hula hoop around the side so they can hold on and stuff.

John: Okay. Nice.

Geraldine: The best is when I go uphills, and my daughter, she pushes me in the back. I tell her to push me up the hill, and she pushes me.

John: Help you get up. That’s so cool. Yeah, when she grows up, she’s going to tell people like, you know, I’m so strong. I helped my mom push up the hill. That’s very cool. Let’s talk world travels, and you’ve been all over the place. Did you grow up traveling? Or was it something, after got adult money, you were like, let’s do this?

Geraldine: I grew up traveling. It runs in my family. It runs in the female side of the genes on both sides. My dad’s mom was a big traveler back in the early 1900s and everything. My mom’s side, she was born in the South Pacific and French Colonies, and her mom and her aunt were travelers. They saw an ad in the paper in France. They needed hatmakers in the South Pacific. They got on a steamer and went to Vanuatu, used to be the New Hebrides, and had my mom. That’s where my mom was born. She moved back to France and then eventually moved to the US.

John: That’s awesome.

Geraldine: Yeah, so half my family’s over there. We, of course, went back to visit frequently. No grass grows under my mom’s feet, and for a long time, none grew under mine. I just wanted to go everywhere because there’s so many cool things to see.

John: That’s awesome. Are there some favorite places that you’ve been? I’m sure there’s a handful.

Geraldine: Yeah, it’s hard to pin down what’s your favorite kid. It’s for different reasons. Apparently, I like politically complicated places.

John: Okay.

Geraldine: Burma just blew my doors off. It was so interesting. Of course, tragic, it’s been really difficult over there, especially recently. Cuba was just wild. I went in 2000 on a French passport, in case anybody from the IRS is listening, or the government. It was legal, in my view. China was just, I couldn’t get over myself. I felt like a little kid who — you don’t realize that as you get older, your sense of discoveries just evaporates over time. When you are little and you first turn over a rock, and there’s a salamander under there. You’re like, oh, my God! You take it running to your mom. You’re like, look, look, look, and she’s like, yeah, whatever, it’s a salamander. Riding my bike around China was like that, all day long, every day. What is that? I would see stuff. I’m like, I don’t even know if that’s — what’s the 20 questions game — I’m like, I don’t even know if that’s something I would eat or if that’s something that I would — is that something I would build a house with? What is that? It was like that all day long. It was just so cool. Not to mention the fact that the map I had, had no key on it because it had been crossed out. I couldn’t tell, when I had it in my hands, if it was upside down. Exactly.

John: Right?

Geraldine: Your listeners couldn’t see, but he just waved his arm in a circle to be like, which way is north on this thing? I can’t tell.

John: I can’t even tell if the letters are upside down.

Geraldine: Yeah, but eventually, I learned to recognize which way was up and down. It was other worldly to be like, I never knew that I wouldn’t be able to find north on a map simply because I couldn’t read the script. It was like that all day long, every day.

John: That’s awesome. It sounds like it’s places that are so different than the US. That’s the thing. It makes you see, oh, wow, not everyone lives like this. I appreciate where I live more now, maybe, a little bit of the things that you take for granted. Or, wow, that’s a cool idea, we should bring that back with us, type of thing.

Geraldine: Yeah, all those things and more.

John: Those are incredible places. I’ve never been to any of those three. I would imagine Cuba’s a bit of a time machine. Yeah?

Geraldine: It is a total time warp. It’s, honestly, like you’ve landed in 1950.

John: Right? The cars, the outfits, the music.

Geraldine: Yeah, oh, my gosh, the music emanates out of houses and out of backyards. It’s just everywhere, everywhere. I went with my mom. Because there are so few people who own cars, many people hitchhike just to get around. Because they’ll say the walls have ears, they don’t want to talk, right? We would pick up hitchhikers, so to speak. I hesitate to call them that because they’re just locals trying to get home. I speak Spanish. I’ve turned around. I’d sit in the passenger seat, and I would talk to them. I’d ask them questions, and I’d tell my mom, as we’re going places. We would just hear the most fascinating stories that you wouldn’t be able to get in any other setting because they won’t share freely, because they just don’t know who’s listening. That was just a wild experience. It was also really interesting. They’re so well-educated, and yet, it’s impoverished. The disconnect between those two things, I haven’t experienced anywhere else. It was a noticeable shift.

John: Wow, that’s really interesting. Yeah, you’re right. When you’re in a country like Cuba, you never know who’s listening, and they trusted you, which is cool. You get to hear the real scoop, how the locals live, which, when you travel, do you typically — I would imagine you’re with the locals, you’re where do regular people go, I’ll see the touristy stuff, too, because you have to, but do you go off grid a little bit?

Geraldine: Yeah, and this was all pre-smartphones, so we were depending on who I was with. Sometimes I was with my mom. We traveled a bunch together. Oftentimes, I travel alone on my bike. The best thing about traveling as a woman alone is you’re not a threat to anyone. You get invited inside all the time to have dinner with families. You get in. Come sleep over, sleep on the couch, or we’ll give you a bed or whatever. I got the royal treatment wherever I went. It was just the best.

John: That’s so funny.

Geraldine: Yeah, I just got to see into lives that I think you wouldn’t get in so many other circumstances.

John: Yeah, you were in a lot of pictures, I bet.

Geraldine: Well, not overly. Most people didn’t have cameras really.

John: Oh, wow. Okay. All right. That’s so crazy. Do you feel like all the traveling and all that, that gives you a skill or a mindset that’s carried over into work, even maybe before the coaching?

Geraldine: Yeah, the thing that always struck me or the thing that struck me most, especially when I was in Asia for, I was there traveling for about six months, there are more than a billion people in India and a billion people in China, and all these different countries have different religions. India is mostly Hindu. China has its own thing going on. I come from a mutt kind of relatively Christian background, and growing up in US, certainly it’s culturally Christian. I hadn’t really ever thought that much about it. When I spent that much time in Asia, I was like, it doesn’t make sense that so many other people could be wrong about what they believe and how they view the world. Because there are just too many different points of view, it doesn’t make sense that so many people could have a point of view that is incorrect. That makes no sense.

John: Right.

Geraldine: Not just religion, just so many parts of life. It just made me a more open and curious person to try and understand how people experience and see things, rather than to try and force what they think through my own lens. If there’s something that I bring to the work that I do now, it’s to just meet people where they are because you have no idea what’s going on. Just meet them where they are. It’s much easier.

John: That’s totally true. Because rather than Americanize them, or, okay, I understand you’ve been doing it this way for generations, but you’re wrong. No, you can’t do that. It’s cool that it’s, well, walk a mile in your shoes and see through your lens. You’re clearly making decisions that you think are best for you. You wouldn’t self-sabotage repeatedly like that. That’s crazy. So there’s a reason you’re doing things.

Geraldine: And what can I learn from this? What can I learn from you? What do you see that I don’t know? There’s a lot that we’re isolated from knowing, despite the internet and everything. There’s a lot that we don’t know. When you live inside the confines of the US and surrounded by giant seas on both sides, there’s a lot that we don’t know has happened.

John: Right. Yeah. No, totally, and especially like the story from their side, what the “news/opinions” that are in their country, versus the news/opinions that are in ours. Yeah. No, that’s so cool. It’s like in your own eyes and ears, and feel it, and sense it. That’s cool that you can take that to your clients now, is meet them where they’re at. I think that applies to really everyone in their career. If you’re leading a team, if you’re leading a whole company, you’ve got people, meet them where they’re at.

Geraldine: Like I said, people have a lot going on in their lives. At the end of the day — another thing that always struck me was that no matter how different we might be, what I saw, time and again, is that people want to spend time with their families and their loved ones, and they want what’s best for their kids. They want their kids to have a better shot at life. People might be being difficult or having a challenging day or challenging time or whatever, but it taught me to always remember that, at the end of the day, we are so much more alike than we are different. If you can just understand what’s going on with people, rather than get frustrated with how they’re being, it just makes interactions so much easier.

John: I love that because we are so much more alike than different. Yet, it’s human nature, I don’t know what, to focus on the differences. It’s like, but what about the 99% sameness, how about that part? No? Okay. So, is the travel something that comes up, or stories from travel, with clients or with work colleagues?

Geraldine: Let’s see. It doesn’t necessarily come up with clients too often because they’re focused on their own journey. Admittedly, it’s been a while. I put my passports down. When I was done traveling, I was done. I came home and put my passport down, and that was it.

John: 15 countries and seven continents, I feel like it’s passports, with an S.

Geraldine: Well, it is passports. I do have two.

John: Oh, yeah, well, the French one as well. So, I guess it’s not as natural for it to come up because you’re not traveling as much now, with the family and stuff.

Geraldine: Yeah, and it’s not really in the context of things. We’re trying to get stuff done. We’re trying to move their businesses forward and get them making transitions in their own work. If we have time to jibber-jabber, sometimes I’ll throw in a story, especially if it’s relevant. I have a few good travel stories that have good messages behind them, so I’ll throw them in if I find an opening.

John: Yeah, because it’s one of those where, yeah, you don’t force it. You’re not shouting it from the rooftops. It’s not anything like that. If it comes up, then why not? Because some people just feel that if it’s not work-related, then it’s not at work. It’s different when you have clients that are paying for time then there’s that, type of thing. They have issues that they need help with and all that, but sometimes, if it comes up, then it’s cool to share because it takes that relationship to a different level.

Geraldine: Yeah, and there’s more to us than just the work that we do. Like you say, when we’re able to share and open up about the other parts of our life and what else we have going on — there’s a reason that there’s a thing called social grease, and having some social grease to lubricate relationships and keep things rolling and not have everything be all work, work, work all the time; just makes things more cohesive. It makes things work better. Relationships, at the end of the day, are what drives business. If you ignore the relationship at the expense of just being all business, money, numbers all day, you won’t get as far as if you can appreciate that you’re actually dealing with a human being who has a life outside of work.

John: That’s so rich right there. Yeah, totally. You’re right. It’s social grease. It’s not technical skills grease.

Geraldine: Yes. Let me grease this conversation with some formulas.

John: Check out this Excel macro I got here. I am so good. It’s so true. It’s so true. How much do you feel like it’s on an organization to create that space to find out the rest of the other sides of the people around you, the dimensions to them? How much is it on just an individual to be like, well, I’ve got this little team, and I’m going to start within this little circle?

Geraldine: Well, I think there’s something to be said for, you can only control so much, but I think wise leaders set the tone at the top. They understand how to get great work out of their employees and build cohesive teams that work well together. I’m just a big believer that everything comes from the top, and if you want your employees to behave a certain way, you’ve got to model it.

John: Yeah, and even the top doesn’t have to be the top top top. It could be, you’re in charge of a department, you’re in charge of a team, you’re in charge of whatever. Your little ecosystem can be the most awesome thing ever.

Geraldine: It’s the local top.

John: Yeah, the local top, there you go. Exactly. Exactly. That’s probably the most important because that’s the person that you interact with.

Geraldine: Yeah, that’s the person you’re looking at.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Geraldine: If you’re just business, business all the time and you’ve got to bring, maybe a personal or family concern to talk about, you feel like there’s no room for that kind of conversation. Those are the things that ding at longevity inside businesses.

John: Amen to that, totally. Because also too, if I feel like I have a somewhat personal relationship or something beyond just title relationship with that person, then I talk to that person more times than — ten times, nine of them are about normal things. The tenth one is telling me I didn’t do something right. Okay. But if the one time you talk to me is the only time you’re telling me, I didn’t — then I’m out. The critical feedback is super critical all of a sudden. The other way, it’s a friend pulling you aside.

Geraldine: The positive stuff needs to vastly outweigh the negative stuff in order for the negative stuff to just be like, okay, cool, got it. I’m on it. I’ll do it better next time.

John: Exactly. It doesn’t sting, and it’s — yeah, you’re right, actually. You’re not as defensive. It’s amazing how much benefits come from…

Geraldine: Under a heat lamp of constant criticism.

John: Yeah. Well, I’ve been there. It’s like, really? I’m not that bad. Come on now. You mess up three times in six months, and that’s the only three times that that person talks to you. It’s like, yeah, you know what? I’m out. Do you have any words of encouragement to anybody listening that might feel like, I’ve got this hobby or passion that has nothing to do with work and no one’s going to care?

Geraldine: Well, it depends on how open you want to be about things. I’m just a general believer that it’s easier to be open about things and go with the flow and pay attention to the signals that you’re getting from the other party about whether or not they’re open to hearing anything.

John: Right?

Geraldine: Right. I’m careful not to foist my own interests on other people who look like their attention wants to be somewhere else. So, that is, pay attention to the person you’re with and read their cues and act accordingly, but I’m a believer that people really like connection. We crave connection. We’ve learned that this year when we, all of a sudden, had it stripped away. Some people are not always the most social creatures, or maybe they’re not the most comfortable. Maybe they’re a little bit shy. Maybe they’re feeling a little bit reserved. Sometimes they just need an opening, and they need somebody to kind of nudge the door open. I like to kind of nudge the door open and see if there’s any reception and put myself out there and just be warm. If somebody picks it up, great. If they don’t, cool.

John: Also great. I love that where so many people are so permission-based where we don’t want to get slapped on the wrist. We don’t want to get yelled at. We don’t want to get whatever. Instead, we just don’t do anything. Then somebody actually goes out and does it and comes back alive. They’re like, wait, what? You’re allowed to do that? Yeah. There was one client that I was working with. They had a couple of different offices, and one office wanted to do this happy hour sort of thing, once a week. So they just did it. About two months later, the other offices found out. They’re like, how come we never did? Well, they just did it. They didn’t ask permission. They didn’t whatever. It was just like, we’re going to do this, and then no one says anything. 99 out of 100 times, that’s what happens. Just go do it. As long as it’s legal and not taboo, then knock yourself out. Cool things happen on the other side of that.

Geraldine: Go do things and get out of your routine because there’s so many cool things out there to do.

John: Yeah, and if not, just go to Burma and hang out for a little bit, or Cuba or China. See what I? Brought it all back.

Geraldine: Yeah.

John: There we go. Yeah, this has been awesome, Geraldine. I feel like it’s only fair that I turn the tables and make this the Geraldine Carter podcast. Thanks for having me on. Well, you do have your own podcast actually. What’s the name of that? So everybody can subscribe to that one too.

Geraldine: Yes, so my podcast is Smart Strategy for CPAs. We do only business strategy. We never talk about tax.

John: Oh, there you go. Excellent. That’s awesome. Well, I know nothing about tax, so I’m glad to be on your show. Thank you so much.

Geraldine: Yeah, I don’t either which is why I host a podcast for CPAs. It makes no sense.

John: Right? That’s awesome, but, yeah, whatever questions you want to ask, I’m all yours.

Geraldine: Yeah, so thanks for having me on your show. I would like to know if you prefer nachos or potato chips. I’m just talking like only a chip.

John: Oh, the corn chip.

Geraldine: Yeah, I’m not talking a tray of nachos with cheese and avocado in that.

John: Got it. Corn chips, potato chips. Potato chips, I’ll go potato chips on that one.

Geraldine: Okay. Beater car or socks with holes.

John: Oh, Lord, that’s… I’ll probably go socks with holes because I can mend those. A beater car is going to get me stranded somewhere and then I’m going to have to walk home with my socks and holes. It’s just going to be terrible all around. Or, yeah, after walking, all my socks would then have holes in them, so then I have both. Yeah, I’ll go socks with holes, easier to fix, easier to fix.

Geraldine: Go back to the potato chips, much easier.

John: Yeah, I’m just going to wear potato chips.

Geraldine: Okay, so you’re in Colorado. I’m in Idaho.

John: Yes.

Geraldine: So, Wyoming or Utah?

John: Oh, I’ll go Utah. I just feel like there’s more variety, I guess, maybe. I don’t know. That’s my own naive… I’ve only done a little bit of Wyoming. I’ve done more of Utah. Maybe that’s probably why. I just feel like there’s a little more variety to it, but I can be wrong.

Geraldine: Not quite a square.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Geraldine: More square and less square.

John: Wyoming cut out the corner or Utah would’ve also been square. One of you is going to be not be square, and Utah’s it. That’s how it works out. This has been so much fun, Geraldine. Thanks so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”? It’s awesome.

Geraldine: Thanks, John. Thanks so much for having me on your show.

John: Totally, this has been so much fun. Everybody, if you want to see some pictures of Geraldine from her travels or maybe connect with her on social media or get a link to her podcast, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out the book.

Thanks again for subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 415 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read the book to you, yeah, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture, and I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of the future episodes because I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Dan de Roulet. He’s the co-founder at Knowify, and he’s with me here today. Dan, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Dan: Thanks, John. Great to be here.

John: I appreciate it. This is going to be so much fun. Get to know Dan on a new level here with my 17 rapid-fire questions. We’ll start out with maybe an easy one, maybe not. Star Wars or Star Trek.

Dan: Oh, definitely Star Wars.

John: Oh, okay. That was an easy one. There you go. How about a favorite day of the week?

Dan: Friday.

John: Yeah, solid, solid answer. How about a computer, PC or a Mac?

Dan: Either one. I like both.

John: Oh, you’re ambidextrous on that. Okay.

Dan: Absolutely.

John: All right. Impressive. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Dan: Sudoku.

John: Sudoku. Yeah, there you go. How about a suit and tie or jeans and a T-shirt?

Dan: Suit and tie.

John: Nice.

Dan: I’m from New York. What can I say?

John: Right. No, I like a good suit too, man. Now it’s so much easier to get the made-to-measure, so you don’t have to look like you got it at Penney’s off the rack. It’s like, all right.

John: Yeah, right. Exactly. How about a favorite color?

Dan: Navy blue.

John: Oh, nice. Okay. How about a least favorite color.

Dan: What is that sort of ugly pinkish beige called? Mauve or.

John: Oh, right.

Dan: You know what I’m going for, right?

John: That’s nasty. You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that totally is. It’s like, why is this a color? Is this an accident? What happened? No, I agree. It’s like the crayon in the box that never gets touched.

Dan: Yeah, right. You walk into your bathroom, and it’s that color. You think, you know what? Maybe I’ll just go outside.

John: There you go. That’s awesome. That’s exactly it. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Dan: Cookies and cream.

John: Okay. Yeah, there you go, solid. How about a favorite season, summer, winter, spring or fall?

Dan: In New York, it was always spring and fall, love spring and fall. It wasn’t too hot, love the colors, the burst of flowers and whatnot in the spring, and then the changing leaves in the fall. Now that I’m living in California, most of the seasons are pretty much the same. California season, whatever that one’s called.

John: Right. Right. That’s exactly it. Here’s a good one because California has both, oceans or mountains.

Dan: Oceans.

John: Oceans. There you go. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Dan: Meryl Streep.

John: Oh, yeah, very popular answer, and justifiably so. She’s amazing. Yeah, so good. Would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Dan: Ever since having kids, it’s become an early bird thing, but that was never the case.

John: Right. It’s not by choice.

Dan: Right, exactly. Yeah, that’s right.

John: I hear you, man. I hear you. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Dan: That’s a good one. I’m really into riojas right now, the red wine?

John: Oh, yeah, riojas are great.

Dan: Yeah. I found really great ones that are actually very fairly priced for the quality, and I think great.

John: Totally. Totally. How about on an airplane, window or aisle seat?

Dan: Well, I’m 6’5”. I guess it really depends a lot on which airline I’m on. In JetBlue, with their extra legroom, window’s fine. It’s great. You lean up against the window. You can relax a bit more. In a lot of the other airlines, the aisle becomes a necessity because we’re cramming in there.

John: Yeah. I’m 6’2”, and anyone taller than me, like you, it’s like, ah. It’s uncomfortable.

Dan: Airline travel and the backseat of Prius is not okay.

John: Right. Right.

Dan: Not okay.

John: Not all. Even the front seat of a Prius, I can imagine. It’s like, man. That’s amazing. How about a favorite number?

Dan: Well, as long as it’s my checking account and they’re going up, I don’t care that much.

John: Right. Right. There you go, any positive number.

Dan: Right, exactly. What actually matters more than, well, I guess that’s not entirely true.

John: Right. Positive.

Dan: growing, right?

John: There you go. All right. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Dan: Still real book.

John: Real book. Yeah, I’m the same. The last one, last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Dan: My wife and I got this really cool painting from her parents as a wedding present that was actually done by a well-known artist who attended our wedding who was a friend of the family. It’s really cool when I see it, and every time I see it, it reminds me of the place we got married. It’s very special in that way.

John: That is very cool. That’s really neat. Let’s talk Judo with the kids. Is this just a secret way to be able to chuck them around?

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, abuse them but in.

John: No, of course not. Were you into Judo first and then?

Dan: It’s funny, in college, I studied a lot of Aikido. I did Aikido for five years. Moved out here, and by out here I mean to California, I was looking for something to do with my middle son, John. He’s very physical kid, and I was looking for a martial art. Because I knew I Aikido, I didn’t think it was quite right for him. He was a little too young. I knew about Judo and wanted to give it a shot because I wanted him to do a grappling art. We found this great local school. We went, and he had such a great time. It was really funny because he’d come home, and he’d teach his older brother some of the moves. It was really supposed to be just John’s thing. Right?

John: Right.

Dan: Because, again, as middle child, classic middle child stuff, he needed his own thing. He’s teaching his brother all these moves. His brother thinks it’s really cool because his little brother is throwing him around. He was like, Dad, can I go too? There’s a parenting dilemma. It’s like, oh, I don’t know. I’m going to chat with John, and John said, okay, fine, Henry can come. It’s turned into this family thing, and because I had done enough Aikido that I was able to pick up Judo pretty quickly that we all started doing it together. It was really fun.

John: That’s awesome. What is Judo exactly, for people like me that don’t totally know. Is it kind of wrestling?

Dan: Judo is an Olympic sport, so with the Olympics in Japan, you can certainly watch. I guess you can say it’s somewhat akin to wrestling, in that there’s no punching or kicking, no striking. It’s strictly grappling. The object is just throw your opponent. If you throw them onto their back, you automatically win the match. If you throw them onto their side or your part back, part side, you get half a point. You still have to do the same thing again in order to win. You can also win on the ground by choking them out or having them submit or pitting them. Yeah, there are aspects of wrestling like that. It’s really just about getting into a good position, using strong technique and body mechanics to throw your opponent.

John: Wow. Okay. Which, man, if I was your son, I’d be in heaven. I’m like, wait, I get to just chuck my brother around?

Dan: One of the most important lessons of Judo, and this is also something I got in Aikido because it’s similar in that way, is you learn how to fall, and that aspect of it, so, the throwing, yeah, sure, you’ll enjoy it. You’ll do sport Judo. You’ll compete, and that’s fun. They’re life lessons and great value, too, but I would say that the thing that you’ll actually use in your life is the falling. I can tell you, there was a time when I was skiing, and this guy was coming across a catwalk. He just did the most boneheaded thing. He looked up, saw me and then stopped suddenly.

John: Right.

Dan: Right? It was a total panic. I’m like, oh, crap, I’m going to hit this guy. I went sideways. I let my legs come out from under me, because I knew how to fall, and I just rolled over him. We were both ok because I’m a big guy, and you don’t have to be going that fast for that to end very badly.

John: Exactly. Especially skiing, yeah.

Dan: So, there have been a couple of times in my life. One time also, going over the handlebars of a bike, just, it wasn’t comfortable to land, but I knew how to protect myself. I was able to fall, and it was fine. That’s a skill you use.

John: Yeah. Then you get up and you go, half a point.

Dan: Exactly. Right. Exactly.

John: Right? That’s such a great lesson that you wouldn’t really think of because when you get into it, I’m sure it’s the throwing and the throwing. It’s like, no, no, no. You’re going to get thrown. It’s the landing and learning how to fall.

Dan: They don’t let you get into the throwing until you’ve practiced the falling a fair bit. It makes sense, right?

John: Yeah. Which I would imagine is a skill set for life and work. There are going to be bad days. There are going to be falls.

Dan: Yeah, Judo is like a giant metaphor for entrepreneurship. This guy’s slammed on the ground, over and over and over again. Someone’s promising you you’ll get better.

John: Right. You’re like, I thought the match is supposed to end at some point.

Dan: Yeah, right, exactly. It’s still going. Is it possible to win, or do I just get bombed over and over?

John: First to 99, apparently.

Dan: Yeah, I’m starting minus 97.

John: Yeah, yeah, by halves. Do you feel like any of that translates over to your work or the way that you think about things now that’s maybe a little bit differently?

Dan: I’ve started three businesses. Two are still operating. Obviously, Knowify is doing really well, which is really exciting. As I was alluding to before, the entrepreneurship journey is never smooth. It’s always a struggle. It’s always a fight. I think there are a lot of smart people in the world. There are a lot of folks who have interesting ideas and who might even be able to start to execute on those ideas. I think one of the things that separates people who ultimately succeed as entrepreneurs is just resilience, is just being able to get smacked around, beat up, force yourself to get up and go back and keep going. I think that there are lessons in any sport, but in this specific case in Judo, for a career as an entrepreneur, absolutely. You got slammed on the mat, get back up.

John: Yeah. Right? It’s interesting because at no point in college did anyone tell you, hey, go study Judo because it’ll make you a better entrepreneur. It’s these little things that are accidental byproducts.

Dan: It’s funny you mentioned, I didn’t take any college entrepreneurship classes. I’m aware that there are now entrepreneurship classes in college, which always strikes me as sort of a funny thing, right? The first thing, as you, day one in entrepreneurship class, as you come in, look at the students and be like, you’re all terrible. You have no business being here. You should not. You’re awful. The ones who stick around are like, how dare you say that to me. Of course, I am. I’m better than you. You don’t even know me. I’m going to do it anyway. Those are the ones who should be there, right? Everybody else who marches out after that.

John: Dude, I saved you plenty heartache and anguish.

Dan: Right. Exactly. You need the people who are stubborn and arrogant, not those who are soft and will be washed out that easily.

John: Exactly. I get it a lot with people that come to me. They’re like, hey, should I follow my passion? Should I make it my career? I’m like, no. No. It’s a hobby. It’s an “and”. You can be both. It’s an “and”. Because if you do it and you’re not good at it, I’m the first person you’re going to find to punch in the face. You said I could do this. Then I need to practice falling.

Dan: Yeah. Exactly.

John: If a stranger can talk you out of it, in a conversation that’s like five minutes long.

Dan: You definitely aren’t going to survive the first year.

John: Nope, you’ll never make it. I’m doing you a solid. I’m totally helping you out.

Dan: Exactly.

John: That would be hilarious. We should teach a class. First day, you suck. Then why are you here?

John: Right. I think we’d get fired, but it would be awesome.

Dan: It would be the best class those kids have ever taken.

John: Totally, the most effective.

Dan: What was it I was saying about? Never mind.

John: Right. Exactly, exactly. So, the martial arts, is it something that comes up at work? Do you talk about it with colleagues? Or does it come up in conversation on occasion?

Dan: It does come up a little bit. I had a colleague who heard that I was doing it, and he wanted to bring his son to do it also because he thought it sounded fun. He was a little too young, so he’s not quite ready, but it’ll happen. Yeah, we talk about it, and of course like any proud parent, I go around showing the videos of my kids bombing other kids. Check it out.

John: Right. Right. I imagine that that just brings a new level of camaraderie or relationship in the workplace where we’re going to talk about work for sure, but these other things.

Dan: There are some people, it does rarely happen that you have somebody, an employee who really feel strongly that they want to have this wall of separation between their personal life and their work life. They’re there to do their work. Some of those employees are really great, by the way. I’ve had people like that who have been fantastic. You respect that boundary, and it works out okay. I would say, in general, opening up a little bit about your personal life, developing real relationships with the people you work with, that’s a good thing, especially in new businesses that are, we’ve been talking about the entrepreneurship journey. It’s a fight every day.

If you can build the sense that you’re all in this together, that you’re a team and more than just name, that you’re obviously looking to achieve great business objectives, but you’re also doing it because you want to see the person next to you succeed. There’s a lot that can be said about that, about how, if you’re a co-founder or CEO or something, that’s really important to make sure that your people have good equity compensation because that sort of reinforces that message of we’re here together, we’re here to succeed together. To your earlier point, yeah, do I think that talking about your family’s experience with Judo and engaging with somebody at that level, or your people at that level, do I think that helps build your team? Absolutely.

John: Especially, like you said, that entrepreneur journey, when you’re a younger company, we’re going to go through some lows. It’s going to get crazy in here. The more we know each other, and the more we care about each other and have a genuine interest in each other, then the more that we’re going to be able to get through that. That brain science of the norepinephrine and the oxytocin and the, we’re in this type of thing, is cool. Yeah. It’s cool to hear that it’s not just like case study bubble world. It’s actual, something that you’ve experienced, which is awesome. How much do you think it is on the organization to create that atmosphere where it’s, yeah, we share. That’s what we do here. I care, and I want to know. Versus how much is it on an individual to just maybe, from the bottom and their little group, just start sharing?

Dan: Well, let’s be honest. It’s kind of hard for people at the bottom, as you described them, to drive corporate culture. Sure, they can have their groups, they can enjoy their coworkers, they can show little details about their lives, but it’s pretty rare that that would spread and become the defining corporate culture, if it’s not actually also coming from the top. Do I think that team leaders, do I think that senior executives have a very important role to play in defining and establishing and then disseminating the kind of culture that we’re describing, if that’s what they want to see happen? Yeah, absolutely. You can’t just sit around and wait for culture to magically happen. You have to define what you want your company to be and how you want it to feel. I think people talk too much about corporate values. There are lots of reasons for that. Do I think that corporate culture and that kind of thing is something that is very important and ought to be discussed? Yeah.

John: I agree totally. Especially, it’s not just giving it lip service, but it’s actually living it, walking the walk. I feel like so much of us are in a permission-based sort of mentality of, well, I’m not going to do it, unless they tell me I’m allowed to do it, as opposed to ask forgiveness after. Just go do it. One, they’re probably not even going to know. Two, they’ll probably be like, wow, that was awesome. I never even thought of that. Good for you. It’s hilarious. We just wait for permission for that insight. I think it’s great if someone, the leader, whether it’s a manager or whoever is there that can set that tone, makes it even easier. Totally. Do you have any words of encouragement maybe to some people that maybe they have that hobby or that passion, but they feel like it has nothing to do with their job or maybe no one’s going to care type of thing?

Dan: I would say, if it’s a very important thing to you and will help people understand you better, then absolutely, go talk to one of your coworkers about your “and”. I do think it’s true that when people know each other better and know what makes each other tick, it becomes easier to work together, I think, especially really savvy, well, managers, but also coworkers can understand your personality a bit better and either get more out of you or develop deeper, more meaningful work relationships that make any sort of collaborative work easier and more productive. So, I can say, don’t be afraid to share, unless.

John: It’s illegal.

Dan: Unless you shouldn’t. Right. Exactly.

John: Right. Yeah, exactly. Most of us aren’t doing illegal things for fun on the side, but I agree. At the end of the day, business is still humans interacting with humans. Whether you’re on the same team, or you’re with a client, or you’re with a customer or whatever, it’s still that human-to-human connection. That only becomes stronger and better by knowing each other a little bit below the surface level. You don’t have to be creepy about it, but just a little bit.

Dan: I think that’s right. If you know what makes somebody tick, your understanding of that may not arise in ways that you’re even fully aware of, but it will make collaborative work, make the team dynamic easier and better.

John: No, I agree totally. That’s awesome. This has been really fun, but I was so rude at the beginning by peppering you with questions. I feel like we should turn the tables and make this the first episode of The Dan de Roulet podcast. Thanks for having me on. You can ask me whatever you want. I’m all yours. Let it rip and see where this goes.

Dan: Okay. You asked me before, favorite adult beverage. Are you a wine or spirits guy?

John: Yeah, I’m definitely a wine guy. It’s funny because I, for medical issues, didn’t drink for a while, from like 21 to, yeah, a while. Then I would do wine with food. I knew wine a little bit better but, yeah, I didn’t know anything about drinks. My wife would order them all the time for me whenever I would have them. One time I was on my own at a bar, and they didn’t have wine noticeably. I was like, I don’t know what to order. I just said what I say to my wife, vodka and something fruity. Don’t ever say that to a bartender ever. You might get kicked out. It was bad. It was hilarious.

Dan: That’s funny.

John: It was funny.

Dan: I don’t think your podcast listeners can obviously see what I’m seeing, but what’s the gold football helmet in the back? Is that Notre Dame?

John: Yeah, Notre Dame.

Dan: It is Notre Dame.

John: Yeah. I graduated from Notre Dame. That’s actually signed by Brian Kelly, who’s the head coach. I do some work with them for their award show every year, and two of them have been nominated for Emmys, which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it’s a fun little thing that I get to be a part of.

Dan: I’m not sure you know the answer, but was Manti Te’o’s girlfriend real?

John: No, she was not.

Dan: No, she wasn’t. You do know the answer.

John: She was not. Well, I mean, it was a real person.

Dan: She wasn’t his girlfriend.

John: Manti was, he’s such a good, kind person that when you have that kind of soul, I guess, he just, and the hard part was with that is that it wasn’t technically a girlfriend at all, even in his mind, but once the media started saying it, he didn’t correct. That’s where it fell apart. That’s where the problem was. He should have just been like, yo, yo, it’s not a girlfriend. It’s just a person I talk with. That’s it. It’s not at all a girlfriend.

Dan: They say that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes on. Right?

John: Totally, totally. Yeah, especially with the media.

Dan: Absolutely.

John: Yeah.

Dan: What’s the typewriter about?

John: Oh, the typewriter. Yeah. That’s a Corona typewriter, which maybe you’re not supposed to say out loud after 2020, but it’s a Corona typewriter. My grandfather had it. I have a Royal typewriter over on this side that’s huge and weighs, I don’t know, a billion pounds. The Corona was his sister’s in Brooklyn. They grew up in Brooklyn. It was almost like a laptop. You can put a case over the top of it and carry it almost like a briefcase. When she would do secretary jobs around the city, she could just bring her typewriter to work and work in there. It was a portable style. It’s so old. There’s no number 1 key on it. They use the L for number 1 back in the day. I don’t know why.

Dan: That’s funny.

John: It’s just a cool old typewriter. The one that my grandpa used more is over on this side, just off. I just think they’re neat, just kind of cool.

Dan: All right, last one. The third business I started was actually a biotech business. That’s still going. I’m just curious, if I gave you a magic wand and said you could solve any human health problem, but only one, which human health problem would you solve?

John: Wow, that is deep. Does ignorance count as a human health problem?

Dan: Ignorance. Well, the problem with ignorance is that we always assume the other guy’s ignorant, never us, right?

John: Yeah. No, no.

Dan: That guy over there, I don’t like.

John: Including my own.

Dan: You’re not saying you want to solve ignorance.

John: Well, yeah, a little bit.

Dan: Yeah. Right. Exactly.

John: I mean, 60-40.

Dan: Yeah, right.

John: Yeah, man, that’s hard. That’s so hard because that’s part of the human condition. That’s the double-edged sword of it all is, yeah, at some point.

Dan: When none of us gets out alive, is that what they say?

John: Kind of, yeah. That would be great. Imagine that, if everyone, including me, especially me, then I wouldn’t have to ask dumb questions about Judo and be like, well, is it like wrestling? You’re like, not at all, man. Just watch the Olympics.

Dan: It’s not that far off.

John: A little bit. Yeah, it’s just wrestling with more clothes on. That’s pretty much it. Well, Dan, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you being a part of What’s Your “And”? Thank you so much, man.

Dan: Yeah. No, it’s a pleasure to have joined you.

John: Awesome. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Dan in action or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourands.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out the book, also called What’s Your “And”?

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 414 of What’s Your “And”? Follow-Up Friday edition. This is John Garrett, and each Friday I follow up with a guest who had been on the show a few years ago, to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also hear how this message might have impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited, my book is out. You can order it on Amazon, Indigo, barnesandnoble.com, a few other websites. Check it out at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read the book to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. Thank you so much to everyone who’s read it so far and been kind enough to leave those really nice Amazon reviews and, more importantly, for changing the cultures where you work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this Follow-Up Friday is no different with my guest, Kylie Parker. She’s the director at Lotus Accountants, and now she’s with me here today. Kylie, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Kylie: Thanks, John, so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to having another chat.

John: From Australia, coming in live. No, but it’s just awesome to have you back on. It’s also been exciting to watch your “and” just flourish since we talked. We’ll get into that in a minute. I have some rapid-fire questions here that I probably should have asked you the first time, but I didn’t. Here we go. This is maybe a tricky one. If you had to choose, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones.

Kylie: Game of Thrones definitely.

John: Game of Thrones. There you go.

Kylie: I actually haven’t read Harry Potter, but I have read and watched Game of Thrones.

John: Oh, okay. That’s next level. Yeah. How about more diamonds or pearls?

Kylie: Ooh, diamonds.

John: Diamonds, okay. You can just hear it in your voice.

Kylie: I’m showing my age.

John: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Very nice. Very nice. How about a favorite TV show of all time?

Kylie: All-time favorite TV show. Oh, interesting. Sopranos is actually what came to mind, which I wouldn’t have thought, but that’s what popped up.

John: That’s a good show, though. That’s a really good show.

Kylie: I like the idea that his son’s now playing him in the movie?

John: Right? Yeah, coming up. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is interesting. How about when it comes to books, audio, real book or Kindle?

Kylie: I’m a real book person. Yeah. I’ve actually listened to my first audio book recently. It was that Kevin Hart one. That’s my first one.

John: Okay. All right. Yeah. Hopefully it was him reading.

Kylie: It was actually, so it was really interesting.

John: He’s got such a unique voice. Yeah, exactly. How about a favorite day of the week?

Kylie: Favorite day. I do like Saturday.

John: Yeah, that’s my favorite too, easily. Yeah, because there’s nothing and then maybe some sports and then, yeah, cartoons when you were a kid, always Saturday, always good. Two more. Since you got the home renovation, home remodeling, all that stuff; more nails or screws?

Kylie: I prefer nails. It’s easier. Just whack it in.

John: That’s one I’ve never asked anybody, and I was excited to bring it out for you.

Kylie: Yeah, I think most people would say that’s my personality too. Just hit it. I don’t actually have the time to do it properly.

John: Kylie, that was a screw. It doesn’t matter, hammer away. That’s funny. The last one, toilet paper roll, over or under.

Kylie: Over, definitely over.

John: Over. Yeah, definitely over.

Kylie: Yeah. In my boys’ bathroom, any would be good. They can do it any way. I don’t care, just put it in there. I talked to them this morning.

John: That’s hilarious. That’s so funny. So, Episode 203, we chatted, and the pictures that you had sent in then were amazing. The ones this time, also amazing. It’s just so cool what you’re doing. How did you get started with that, for people that are new to the show?

Kylie: Yeah. I originally got started through university. I just really did like antique furniture. I think when we spoke last time, I talked about my one artistic talent was painting pansies, which was that folk art back in the day, on bottle green. I’d get old furniture, strip it back, paint it bottle green and then put these pansies on it. My first husband was really tolerant of actually having a house full of bottle green pansies. It was everywhere. It was on dresses and in the lounge room, in the bedroom. I look back now and have a bit of a chuckle.

John: Right.

Kylie: Thankfully my taste has improved. I don’t paint anything anymore. Yeah, leave it to the professionals.

John: That’s awesome. Yeah, and it’s mostly remodeling homes type of thing, from the outside, more?

Kylie: Originally it started as taking something that, adding value. If it was a two-bedroom unit, adding a third bedroom. Then it was a two-bedroom house which we originally just did a basic renovation, new kitchen. I do tend to put laundries into bathrooms, taking your laundry space and converting it into something else. That was when we spoke, was middle of 2019. After our conversation, I had an apartment still in Bondi, and I made the decision to sell it just to release some cash. That enabled me to, I renovated. I moved office. I was in a shared space in a, I don’t know, 20-square-meter office. I’ve taken 180 square meters just around the corner. I fully worked with the builder and the landlord to renovate it.

John: Oh, nice.

Kylie: I also started an attic bedroom for my youngest son. He was in this little boxed area and so we did that. That was the first lockdown. Then I opened a shop. It’s called Lotus Home. That was based on, because I had moved and then I had, at the time, the intention was to have a shared office space downstairs. With COVID and the lockdown, it didn’t have anybody else in, so I turned my boardroom into a homeware shop.

John: Yeah.

Kylie: Now I’m renovating again. I’m doing the backyard at the moment. As we speak, I was.

John: That’s great.

Kylie: Chatting to the builder as to putting a spa, a fire pit and a barbecue, moving it.

John: That’s awesome. There at the office?

Kylie: No, that’s at home.

John: Oh, at home. Okay. All right.

Kylie: The office is fully done. All that I’m doing in the office is adding gym equipment. I’ve got both my son’s in here. It now has a gym crash mat and weights.

John: Right, keep them busy and do something.

Kylie: Yeah.

John: Yeah. That’s so cool. It’s got a name now, Lotus Home.

Kylie: I know.

John: Which, when we first chatted, it was a twinkle in your eye, something you like to do a little bit on the side and whatever. Now, it’s got a name. Yeah, that’s really cool.

Kylie: I actually think, yeah, that conversation that we had and articulating in a way that I was like, well, it isn’t just a hobby, it is something that is a bit different. It is my “and”. It’s something that I’m passionate about. I don’t know. Sometimes when you verbalize those ideas and then when an opportunity comes up, you’re more likely to put it into practice because it’s, we talked about it. It was sort of promoted, what I was doing. You really kind of go, actually, yeah, I do have a skill set there that even though it might not be one that was through a traditional route of going to an interior design course, I’ve clearly got something that I like doing. Actually it’s been interesting in having the shop. I’ve got regular customers now. It’s doing things that I like to have, and they all think I’m an interior designer. I always find that funny. That still makes me laugh.

John: Right? That’s awesome. That’s great.

Kylie: Yeah. Then I tell them that I’m an accountant. They go, “Can you do my tax return?” No.

John: Now you’re getting two clients, two for one.

Kylie: I did take on one lady, did her tax return. She was a bit behind, and I thought I’d help her out. Yeah, but I won’t do it again. I’ll leave it to.

John: Yeah, yeah. That’s so encouraging to hear that I accidentally lit a fire that was like, no, wait, this is legit. This isn’t a crazy, weird little side thing. This is a real thing.

Kylie: I am probably the only accountant that can honestly say that they have fully started a new business to make sure they can test accounting technology integrations.

John: Right.

Kylie: It’s their biggest demo ever.

John: Right? Yeah, because it’d be, how do you know this? Well, because I did it myself.

Kylie: I can turn Xero to Cinder to Square. I wanted to, because I’m an accountant, it had to be the cheapest possible, the best payment services, and the ones that linked, and then also, what’s my criteria, yeah, just minimizing all the transaction, the data points as well so that that was cheaper.

John: It sounds like a lot of project you’ve been doing, which is great. Those aren’t quick and easy.

Kylie: Yeah.

John: It that takes time.

Kylie: Sometimes, I’m a little bit crazy, but if I’m not busy, then.

John: Then trouble.

Kylie: Yeah, then I’m on Twitter way too much. It’s bad enough as it is.

John: Or you’ll start painting daisies again. No, we don’t want that. We don’t need that.

Kylie: There’s an idea. You know what? Next time, follow up in another couple of years, I’ll send you a big daisy.

John: Exactly. That works. All right. Do you feel like people are sharing their hobbies more now, or you’re noticing it more, since we chatted?

Kylie: It’s interesting. I think most people have a hobby lately. Well, there’s a whole lot of things that have come up, I suppose, cooking and baking. You know your friends that have really got into, if you’re going to be able to get into a craft or something different, it’s a really good opportunity to be able to do it over the last couple of years. Yeah, hobbies have changed really, haven’t they, people that like traveling or even outdoor sports or music.

John: Yeah, anything with other people.

Kylie: Yeah, anything with other people. I’m trying to think of some of the ones, I’ve got, it’s probably more school friends actually. Some of them like, say, macrame, people that are doing some really cool.

John: Oh, yeah. Macrame or macrame, yeah. That is cool just seeing people share that.

Kylie: Yeah.

John: Yeah, I do feel like COVID had a silver lining to it in that it just blew the doors open on who you really are and what you really love to do and what art you have in your walls and just who you are.

Kylie: Yeah, definitely.

John: I feel like more people are sharing that. That’s encouraging to hear that it’s down there too, which is the same. Do you have any words of encouragement to others that are listening that maybe have a hobby they feel like has absolutely nothing to do with their job, like, I don’t know, design work and accounting, which you couldn’t have two more opposite sides of your brain really. Until you get to the math part, then it’s clearly.

Kylie: Yeah. Well, actually, I’ve said a few times that my accounting side is probably killing the creative side of the business because I have the most anal inventory system ever. Everything’s got a SKU code.

John: That’s so good. That’s so good.

Kylie: I think my words of advice would really be around, we’ve got a good opportunity, there’s a lot of things that we’re not doing or a bit of a chance to rethink how we want to live. If we are passionate about something, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that we take into a business, but also incorporating that into your day-to-day life. I’ve always been quite passionate about niching and having a specialization. For me also, since our talk, I have focused more on attracting clients that are in the interior design business as well.

John: Oh, there you go.

Kylie: I have one of them who, she’s actually just about to release a book. It was interesting because, for her, this is her first book, and because I’ve published the book, Planning Plan B, I was able to help her in just, well, this is the way if you wanted to self-publish. She has a publisher, and this is going to be a really lovely book, but having some of that experience too, enables you to have conversations with your clients because you’ve got a similarity. You’re not just someone that they have to go to, to do a tax return or financial statement. So that has been has been quite interesting, too.

John: Yeah. Plus, the conversations don’t necessarily have to be all work all the time. There’s got to be something that creates that sticky relationship. Otherwise, they’ll go to the accountant down the street next time.

Kylie: Yeah. Well, the other thing that has been really, really interesting, so at Christmastime, Lotus Accountants does happen to be Lotus Home’s probably number one client or customer.

John: That’s awesome.

Kylie: Christmas, I send, you know how you talk to your clients, I send a lot of clients a Lotus Home gift pack, and that went down really, really, really well. A lot of it was around, it’s candles or different stone beads with a lotus charm.

John: Right, your logo.

Kylie: Yeah, yeah. Our year-end is 30th of June. When I had tax planning, I honestly, I’ve been in practice 26, 27 years, and this is the first time I’ve had so many wives, spouses come along to the meetings. They all wanted to come and see the shop.

John: That’s unbelievable.

Kylie: I had them buying candles at a tax planning meeting.

John: Right. That’s so good. That’s great. I mean, why not? That’s a passion of yours. It’s a peek into who Kylie is as a person, and they loved it. That’s what’s cool about it is in all of your years of doing accounting, never once have spouses really come along. This year, it’s a conversation. People are coming. I want to know who this is. I want to meet her. Yeah.

Kylie: Then it’s led to different conversations because they’re there. Some clients, some of the guys that I’ve been looking after their accounts for 14, 15 years, and a lot of younger options traders who, if you know any options traders, but their personalities, they’re high risk-takers, so talking to them about an estate plan.

John: Right, right.

Kylie: Yeah, they’re invincible.

John: I don’t need that one. I’m a gazillionaire.

Kylie: Yeah, it is, exactly. This was the first time, in having their wives come along too, and actually came about by talking about their parents, what’s happening with your parents’ estate plan, and then that sets up. We’ve actually a lot of people now that are going through, putting in place proper wills, power of attorney. It’s interesting how one thing leads to the other, and it’s unexpected as to, yeah, because if you just got the guy in there, your normal client, we don’t tend to have those kind of conversations. It was interesting, all because of candles basically.

John: Yeah, all because of sending a candle.

Kylie: Yeah.

John: That’s great. I love it. It’s so awesome. Yeah, because at no point in your education or any training or accounting conference did they say, send something that you’re passionate about, to your clients or something, their whatever. It never comes up, and so that’s so cool to hear. I feel like, before we wrap this up, though, since I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning, it’s only fair that we turn the tables and make this the first episode of the, we’ll make it the Lotus podcast because we’ve got to keep it on brand. So, thanks for having me on. Whatever you want to ask, I’m all yours.

Kylie: Okay. Well, as you mentioned, so we’re all working from different environments, and for the audience listening, John has a very nicely decorated bookshelf that is very blue and white and has a gold, is that a football is it?

John: Football helmet.

Kylie: Oh, okay.

John: American football.

Kylie: American football. I didn’t know whether it was baseball or football. An antique typewriter and a painting that’s blue and white. Now did you do the painting?

John: My wife did the painting.

Kylie: Your wife, it’s beautiful. Is your wife a bit of an interior designer as well? Because it’s very coordinated behind you.

John: Actually, you know what? I did a lot of that, so thank you.

Kylie: Oh.

John: Yeah, I did a lot of that, but she picked up painting during 2020. She actually has had two pieces in gallery shows now, which is pretty awesome. I think she’s lobbying hard to be on the show. We’ll see. We’ll see. Maybe.

Kylie: We really should take a screenshot now to show that background.

John: Right? Go ahead, do it. It’s what Australians do. No, I’m just kidding. No, totally awesome.

Kylie: I do have a rapid, couple of, fire questions. Golf or tennis.

John: Oh, golf.

Kylie: Golf?

John: Yeah, because I grew up playing a lot of golf and stuff so, yeah, probably golf.

Kylie: Favorite golfer.

John: Favorite golfer. Wow, that’s a good one. Fuzzy Zoeller is hilarious. He is so funny. He’s just a funny, funny, funny, funny guy. He is a good golfer, but he doesn’t take it super seriously. He’s senior tour now, I think, but I don’t know. Of course. I’m Tiger Woods’ age. At the time, it’s always fun to watch somebody that’s really good just dominate because he was just amazing, as a golfer. As a person, jury’s still out. Fuzzy Zoeller, I think, yeah, he’s just hilarious. He’s just so funny.

Kylie: I used to have Greg Norman as a client.

John: Oh, yeah.

Kylie: We actually came over to Florida to meet him years ago.

John: At the Shark, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I hope he was a good person.

Kylie: Yeah, he was actually.

John: He seems like it. That’s awesome.

Kylie: One more? Do we have time for one more?

John: Yeah, yeah.

Kylie: Snow or sun.

John: Sun, yeah, sun, for sure. Although in Denver, we get both. That’s why it’s kind of magical. Yeah, I would probably say sun, not super-hot sun but like fall or spring sun because I’m sensitive. Exactly. It’s been so fun, Kylie, catching up with you. Congrats on all the success with Lotus Home and Lotus Accountants. Yeah, it’s just so cool to hear and encouraging to hear what’s going on.

Kylie: Thanks, and congrats on your book.

John: Oh, yeah. Thank you.

Kylie: That’s ok.

John: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. People are reading it, which is really cool.

Kylie: I was disappointed I didn’t make the cut but, oh, well. You’d have to another one now.

John: There’s another book. There’s another book.

Kylie: No pressure.

John: It’s probably because when we did the audio version, I didn’t want to try and do your voice because I cannot do accents at all. When I did the audio version, they kept trying to get me to do, and I’m like, I know these people. I’m not going to do a voice. I’m just going to do a different John Garrett voice. How does that sound? Because I’m not Australian.

Kylie: Good idea

John: It’s so cool to have you back on. Thanks so much for being a part of this.

Kylie: Thanks, John.

John: Yeah, absolutely. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Kylie’s projects, or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 413 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read the book to you, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to corporate culture, and I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Tim Barr. He’s a Senior Vice President, Office Practice Leader for CannonDesign in Denver, Colorado, and now he’s with me here today. Tim, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Tim: Thanks for having me on, man.

John: This is going to be so much fun. It was so cool to meet you in the book club, that was awesome, when I crashed it.

Tim: It blew my mind. I came home right away. I’m like, we had book club, and the author showed up. It’s amazing. How often does that happen?

John: No, I love jumping in on book clubs. I’m honored and flattered that people have read the book. The least I can do is jump in and chat with everybody.

Tim: That was really cool.

John: Yeah, absolutely. Several questions I didn’t ask during book club, my rapid-fire. Here we go. Get to know Tim. Star Wars or Star Trek.

Tim: Star Wars.

John: Okay. Yeah, me too. Me too. How about your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Tim: PC because I have to be.

John: Right. Okay. All right. Yeah. That’s how work happens usually. How about a favorite movie of all time?

Tim: Point Break.

John: Oh, okay.

Tim: The original.

John: There you go. Yeah.

Tim: Keanu Reeves.

John: Right. Wow. Okay. That’s awesome. Yeah, I was like that came out of nowhere. That is a great movie. Yeah. How about a favorite ice cream flavor? I’m a huge ice cream junkie.

Tim: Peanut butter chocolate.

John: Oh, yeah. That’s always a good mix.

Tim: Super good.

John: How about rain or snow?

Tim: I’ll go with snow.

John: Yeah, me too. I hate rain so much.

Tim: Yeah, it’s depressing.

John: Yeah. It’s like nothing fun, I mean, it’s good for growing things, but do it at night or something when I’m not outside.

Tim: Right. It’s raining right now, and it’s just been one of those days.

John: Yeah, exactly. It’s like, and I got to talk to John, this is just me.

Tim: Oh.

John: Exactly. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Tim: I have transitioned into drinking NAs.

John: Oh, okay.

Tim: Yeah. I found this great company called Athletic Brewing. They brew real beer. There’s no hangover, and I can have four or five and be good to go.

John: And it’s an adult beverage because you can’t just have them as kids.

Tim: Yeah, I can’t just hand them out to my nine-year-olds.

John: Right.

Tim: It’s kind of a new thing for me.

John: Cool, man. No, I love it. That’s awesome. How about a favorite number?

Tim: Any odd number.

John: Oh, okay. All right. Is there a reason?

Tim: Because I’m a little odd.

John: Okay. Right. Actually I should have known that. I should have known that. I love it, man. Okay, how about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Tim: Audio books.

John: Okay.

Tim: I run a lot and and listen to a lot of books.

John: Yeah, you probably, I mean, on those ultra-marathons, you probably put Gone with the Wind twice.

Tim: Yeah it’s done in like a run.

John: Right. Yeah, exactly. How about a favorite Disney character?

Tim: Disney and Star Wars now, right? Maybe the Mandalorian.

John: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, totally. I think anything animated or whatever counts for me. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Tim: Crossword.

John: Crossword. There you go. All right. How about a favorite color?

Tim: Black.

John: Black. Nice.

Tim: Because it goes with everything.

John: Yeah, it does. You’re right. How about a least favorite color?

Tim: Maybe orange.

John: Yeah.

Tim: Yeah. I’m a Broncos fan, so I have some orange stuff but.

John: Right, not on purpose. If they decided to change their colors, we wouldn’t cry. We’d be all right.

Tim: Yeah.

John: Exactly. Here’s a tricky one, pizza or hamburger.

Tim: Hamburger.

John: Hamburger. There you go.

Tim: Yeah.

John: Loaded up.

Tim: Yep.

John: How about a favorite actor or actress?

Tim: That’s a tricky one. I’m going to go with Robert De Niro.

John: Oh, yeah. Of course. He’s good in everything.

Tim: He’s good in everything.

John: Yeah, he really is, really is. Would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Tim: Early bird.

John: Early Bird. Okay.

Tim: Yeah, up early.

John: Yeah. Interesting. All right, two more. How about a least favorite vegetable?

Tim: Probably Brussels sprouts.

John: Oh, yeah.

Tim: I’m still really trying to like these things, but I can’t, quite. I’m like, how much can I fry this and throw it in honey? If you heat your vegetable up that much, it’s not good.

John: Yeah, exactly. This is too much work. Bacon with a little bit of Brussels sprouts, okay, then I’ll eat that. Totally. I didn’t try to fry it up with some honey. That sounds interesting. I’ll maybe give that a go. I don’t know. Maybe not. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Tim: Favorite thing I have, I think they’re one and the same. I have my first bike when I was a kid, and I restored it. It’s a 1981 Mongoose Motomag BMX. It is awesome. If the house is burning down, if the family was safe, I’d go grab the bike.

John: Right. A Mongoose, man, that is solid.

Tim: It is awesome.

John: Yeah, I was Team Murray. That was the generic Mongoose. Mongoose is amazing, man. That’s awesome. Very cool.

Tim: I think my parents mortgaged the house or something to buy this bike.

John: Right? Good for you, man.

Tim: I still have it. It looks brand new.

John: That’s really cool. Leads into, I guess, ultra running, ultra marathoning, ultra whatever. Anything with the word ultra, and it makes me nervous. Ultra running, how did you get started with that?

Tim: The story is funny because my son was really young, less than a year old, and I was working in Golden. When you have kids, you’re not sleeping, and you’re just trying to do whatever you can to stay fit. I found that I could go out and run South Table Mountain, which is a mountain here in Colorado, and get 45 minutes of running in, and it was probably the best workout I could get in without having to go to the gym and do all that other stuff.

I got into trail running. I had a couple of friends that were into doing longer distance stuff up in the mountains. The ultra-running people were their own thing. I had read Chris McDougall’s Born to Run book. I read Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. Really cool to read about but it was like zero interest. Miles like that, that’s crazy stuff. I’ll do my 45 minutes. I’m good.

In, I guess it’d be like 2014, I had the opportunity to pace at the Leadville 100. An athlete that I, it was like a friend of a friend, and she needed a pacer. She wanted someone to pace her from mile 50 to mile 75. Further than I’d ever run on trail before, and it’s the infamous Leadville 100 run, which is world-famous, probably one of the bigger 100-mile distance events here in the US. I’m like, yeah, man, I’ll go and just experience it all. So I trained to pace her, and I was like, I don’t know how this is going to go. Hopefully she gets to the top.

John: You don’t even get the T-shirt. You literally didn’t even get, right?

Tim: No. I just went for the experience of it all.

John: Just a dude hanging out in the woods and then a lady comes along. You’re like, hey, I’ll run with you. All right.

Tim: My wife’s all right with it, let’s go.

John: Right. Right.

Tim: Leadville is a magical place. It sits at 10,000 feet above sea level. It’s this really old mining town. There’s a lot of history there. You can kind of feel it as you walk down the streets. The architecture is still super old. There’s just something kind of magical about all the energy at that race. So I picked up Christina, was her name. I picked her up. You go over Hope Pass which is like 12,600 feet. She was really struggling to get up this thing. We got up, and you could just see the world from up there. The sun is going down. I was like, this is amazing. Probably some of the cooler scenery I’d seen out on a trail and just seeing all these athletes out there running. We had a huge adventure getting her to mile 76. She wound up finishing the race.

I got in the car at two in the morning at this station called Outbound. It’s freezing cold. I just sit in the backseat. My wife is there, my friend Seth, my friend Lauren. Julie’s my wife’s name. She looks over at me, and she’s like, how was it? I just had a look in my eyes. She’s like, oh, God, are you serious? I was like, I didn’t say anything. I don’t know. I think you have this thing. I just had this thing of like, this is freaking possible. It didn’t seem so scary. Just watching her come out and do this and watching all these other athletes do it, that kind of turned me onto the sport. The next year, I trained, and I did a couple of 50k’s, which was like 31 miles. I did a 50-miler that summer. Yeah. Then in 2016, I went and did the Leadville 100. That was my first 100 marathon.

John: Congrats, man.

Tim: Yeah.

John: That’s very cool. Mostly is it trail running? Is that like just trails that are out in nature, and then they block them off for slowpokes, and you actually run on it? Is that basically the idea?

Tim: Yeah. The trails aren’t really blocked. They’re still open. It’s essentially just trail running. It’s a combination. You don’t run the whole time. They call it 100-mile foot race. You head out from Leadville at 4 am, and you run. You have 30 hours to finish. At 10:00 the next morning, they shoot a shotgun on the main street in Leadville, and the race is over.

John: Whoever is here is here.

Tim: Whoever is here is here. I encourage anybody who’s even, even if you’re not really interested in ultra-running, but just to go up there and volunteer for a weekend. It’s right in our own backyard here in Colorado. It’s pretty fantastic.

John: That’s awesome. 100 mile, is that like from here to Canada and back?

Tim: Yeah.

John: We run to the ocean, and then we run New York City. No, but that’s far, man. That’s impressive.

Tim: It is far. Yeah, it’s far. Since then, I’ve ran Leadville twice, I’ve done the Tahoe 100 and a few other 100k events and stuff, which is 62 miles, but your normal gauge just gets shifted. It’s like someone could be training for a 5k, and that’s a big thing for them. It’s awesome. Then they train for a half marathon and then the 5k doesn’t seem like as big a deal. They’re like, I finished this thing. It’s the same thing. I know it sounds crazy, but ultra running is going crazy right now. There are 250-mile events now.

John: Holy cow, man.

Tim: Yeah.

John: That’s impressive. You just run 24 hours or something or more?

Tim: Yeah. The 200-milers, you usually have four or five days. It’s still a continuous clock, but there’s a bunch of sleep strategy worked into that. The pros are trying to figure it out because they’re like, how far can I push it without sleeping? They’re hallucinating at the end. It’s like sleep deprivation. They’re seeing things. As of now, I have zero desire to go that far.

John: Right. Right. You said that eight years ago, buddy.

Tim: Never say never, man. Yeah.

John: Yeah, that’s really cool, just to push beyond what you thought was impossible because you were able to see just a little bit and then be like, oh, I could do that. These ultra-athletes are also struggling and working their way through it and at their own pace as well. When I hear 100 miles running, I’m like, what? It’s not. It’s walking some. Some days are bad days. No, that’s cool, though. Do you feel at all, the ultra-running is a skill set that you’ve brought to work, over the years?

Tim: Yeah. There are so many parallels to an event. Some of the stuff I’ve learned about myself, because you’re out there solo a lot and really hurting, I probably made my lowest lows during some of these races. Then something will happen, and you just keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, and get some nutrition in. Somehow, the wave turns, and you go over the next hill, or the sun comes up or whatever it is. You realize, I was at death’s door, and now I’m fine.

With business, a lot of times, especially this last year was really tough on a lot of people, and it’s been a roller coaster with COVID in the world. We’ve seen recessions in the past too that have really impacted our economy, but the emotion of it all never really got to me because I think, as a leader, the reality that I saw is we were just hit in a low point in the race. We’re going to hit multiple low points. Really, you just put one foot in front of the other, and you just keep going through and make decisions that hopefully are going to help propel us in a direction where we don’t have to DNF the race. The parallels there are really big. I pull from that so much. I have so much mental strength now to deal with adversity and down times that I never had before I started all this.

John: Yeah, because, like you said, it’s just pushing what you thought was the ceiling or the boundary or the whatever, and be like, oh, it’s not even close actually. Or I’ve been through this before, I felt this feeling, and I’m alive. I made it, so we’ll make it too, type of thing.

Tim: I think the other big thing too is a lot of, and I’m a planner myself, but I think it’s Muhammad Ali, he’s just like, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

John: Right. Which is a great quote.

Tim: It’s like, yeah, I plan. You always have a race plan. I don’t care. It doesn’t have to be an ultra marathon. I tell that to people all the time. It can be anything, any event you’re training for, something you want to do, but it’s always good to have a plan. It’s always going to change. It’s always going to be a little bit different out there. The weather could be bad. The weather could be good. How are you going to persevere and get through it? Some people want that so scripted out that they’re scared to even start.

John: Yeah, that’s true.

Tim: How do I take the first step? If you want to be a runner, or you’re sitting at home and you’re depressed about your whatever, your weight or your this or your that; really, you have to just lace up your shoes and just go. That’s the beauty of running to me is like it’s just such a purest form of that thing. You don’t have to go out and buy a bike and all this other stuff to be a cyclist.

John: You don’t need a team, uniforms even.

Tim: Just go get a pair of shoes and go running, or go walking or hiking or whatever it is you want to do. It’s a beautiful metaphor for work because there’s a lot of hard decisions that you have to make or initiatives that you want to start. Nothing’s really scripted out. You don’t know how it’s going to end up. It’s like, you know what, let’s just try to start this thing and see what we can learn from it. It definitely plays into work every single day.

John: I love that. That’s awesome. Is this something that comes up at work? Do people know that you just ran half the State, when you come into work on Monday or whatever?

Tim: They do. I think that the trick with running and ultra-running in particular, is just making it relatable. Because it’s the joke, there’s Tim doing his thing, but you’ve got to bring it back into some things that make sense. We’ve got to keep moving this to the low point. Once a month, I send just an update out to the office. Hey, here’s big picture stuff, what’s going on, here’s what we’re seeing I try it. We have a bunch of maxims which are like values at our organization. I usually tie a theme to a particular value. Most of my stories are running stories that I relate back. I’m like, hey, this is what was happening at this point. There’s a healthy respect for stuff that I’m out there doing.

John: Yeah, definitely. It also opens that vacuum for other people to then fill it with their “and”. You’re sharing, and I think it’s cool that as an Office Practice Leader, you’re openly sharing. It’s showing them that, hey, you’re allowed too, as well. It’s not just you giving it lip service and then not doing it. It’s, no, no, I’m actually just going to walk the walk. I think that’s cool.

Tim: Yeah, it’s definitely cool. It doesn’t matter what you’re into. We have some Ironman triathletes in my office. They’re, oh, yeah, I just had this adventure. Really, the whole thing for my running is that I get to see more. The big excuse is that I can go out, see 20, 30 miles of trail or some mountainous area over a weekend that it takes somebody else five days to hike.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Tim: It’s my excuse to just get out and see a lot and have an adventure.

John: And then you’re efficient. I love that. It’s efficiency.

Tim: There’s so much of the world to see. I just need to go out and see it.

John: Listen to the audio book on double speed. I run a trail. I’ve just got things to do. I love that, man. I think that’s awesome. As an example for people in the office, I really like that. That’s cool. Then people know that, actually, this is the norm. We do talk about these things. They come up, and that’s how it goes around here, which I think is cool. Before you got into the ultra-running, was there something else that you would share? Or was this the thing that kind of kicked the door open?

Tim: Yeah, I’ve always, well, not always, but I got into more just traditional endurance sports, a little bit of triathlon, some cycling and stuff like that. Probably, I was in my mid-20s when I started doing that, and it was cool. I discovered this whole community of people that like to ride bikes, as opposed to play golf. They’re like, well, you want to go ride bikes? I’m like, yeah, let’s go ride bikes.

John: Right. Yeah.

Tim: It’s always the sport aspect is I was just so unhealthy, physically, after college that I found endurance sports as a way to get healthier, start just being better about my mind and my body, and bringing that to the work. It’s always been a cool point of conversation with people. People are always curious. How does this all work?

John: Right. Yeah. Because so many people, there’s a demon in our head, or whatever it is, that tells us, don’t share, don’t talk about it, don’t tell anybody that you do anything besides more work when you go home, or whatever the lies are that we tell ourselves. Did that ever cross your brain? Or was it just, well, you asked, so I’m going to tell you?

Tim: Yeah, totally. I think I’ve always looked a little bit younger than I am, and so I think there’s a tendency, when I was getting started in my career in leadership and management and those sort of things, that I just wanted to be professional Tim at the office.

John: Oh, yeah.

Tim: My wife, Julie, she’d make fun of me because she’s like, you have two separate wardrobes. You’ve got your cycling and surfing wardrobe, we were in San Diego at the time, and then your work stuff.

John: Yeah.

Tim: I was like, well, maybe I should start wearing my Chuck Taylors with my suits.

John: Right?

Tim: She’s like, you should. Just be yourself.

John: I would remember that, that’s for sure.

Tim: So I have. I haven’t worn a pair of dress shoes to work in, I don’t know, 20 years because I’m like, that’s just part of me, but it’s taken a while to embrace that because, I don’t know why. It’s like a weird, like, I’d love to book for that reason because we all have these things that we do. Somebody in my office that paints pastel paintings. I’ve another person that crochets, and they’re like, nobody’s going to care about my crochets. We started doing show-and-tell on Mondays that are stand-up.

John: Yes.

Tim: People were like, look at this crochet. Someone brought a baby Yoda, Mandalorian crochet thing that she made for a boyfriend. It was awesome. Awesome.

John: Now she has an order for 20 more for everybody else.

Tim: Can you crochet me a beanie? That would be so rad.

John: Right?

Tim: Yeah.

John: Yeah, that is so cool to hear. That’s such a great example. We did show-and-tell in preschool and kindergarten, and then stopped. Why? Now we’re adults, we have all the cool things.

Tim: Totally. Yeah.

John: I love that, man. That’s so cool to hear, the reactions from people.

Tim: COVID had a lot of really positive outcomes in that regard because we’re all virtual and so people can just walk across their house and grab something. Be like, this is meaningful to me, or this is what I’m into. Looking back on it, I should have just been open, just be myself and be authentic the whole time because no one really cares. You’re still professional and do your job. I thought there was some sort of game to be played that didn’t really need to be played.

John: Yeah, you’re not alone, man. You’re not alone. I was sort of there, but I was also too dumb to know. When somebody’s like, hey, so what did you do this weekend? Well, I drove to Springfield, Illinois, and did a comedy show. It’s like, wait, you did what? I’m like, well, you asked. I didn’t know I was supposed to say nothing. Yeah. It’s so cool because that person gets to light up when they’re talking about knitting or crocheting, because I know there’s a huge difference and somebody just flipped their lid. Also too, it’s interesting. Now we have something to talk about and ask about and all that stuff. We’re not in seventh grade anymore where the outlier gets made fun of. Now it’s, celebrate that and shine a light on that. That’s cool to hear that that’s what you’re doing in your office. That’s cool, man.

Tim: It’s really cool. Personally, outside of it all, I’m personally really interested in what people are doing. I’m like, that’s awesome.

John: Right? Tell me more.

Tim: That’s awesome. Yeah.

John: No, I love it, man. I think that’s so great. How much is it on that organization to create that space where this is the thing that we do? Or how much is it on the individual to maybe start in their little small circle?

Tim: I think, as leaders, we can create the space and then the individuals need to put themselves out there and be vulnerable enough to be like, okay, here’s the light into my personal life, and to break down that wall. Because it can be hard, and people are hesitant for a number of reasons. They might have had a bad experience getting too close to somebody at work at some point, and they don’t want to do that again.

I really look at it, from my perspective as a leader, and not all offices are the same as CannonDesign, but we have a stand-up every Monday morning that’s half an hour. We can do anything we want in that half an hour. It’s like, hey, here’s what’s happening in the office. Here’s what’s happening in terms of marketing. We have this thing that we just created a year ago called Connect, and we have a once-a-month Connect meeting. It’s an hour and a half of space that we can do a variety of exercises, bring in guest speakers, whatever we want to do there, and we have a microcosm of that on our Monday morning meetings. We have our five minutes to connect. For a while, everybody put in their favorite country, and then we had Connect trivia. People voted on it. Oh, my god, Jericho went wherever. You get to hear about what other people are doing, or their favorite vacation or whatever it might be. Show-and-tell is like that next progression. I like show-and-tell a lot more. I think it’s way more fun and individualized.

John: No, I love it, man. Those are also perfect examples for people to take with them tomorrow. You can literally do these. These are simple. They’re almost free. I mean, they are actually free. It’s just a little bit of time. As a leader, how much is it okay to take the foot off the pedal? Sure, sometimes there’s really hard work that needs to be done. We’ve got to buckle down, and let’s do this. That’s not every day, five days a week, type of thing.

Tim: Right, and it matters. I got a text from somebody. I went to Grand Canyon this last weekend to do a round-trip with some friends, and I got a text from one of my senior coworkers last night, with some sort of TikTok video. Because we did the rim-to-rim-to-rim run, so we went across, and then we came all the way back. He’s like, hey, I found this TikTok thing, so cool you did that.

John: That’s awesome.

Tim: Not work related at all, but it was like, stuff means something. It’s cool.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s what lights you up, and so if you’re asking somebody about that thing, then, wow. They get me Tim. They don’t get me senior vice president, office practice leader guy, whatever. No, no. You get me, which is cool.

Tim: I need you to make that introduction next meeting I have.

John: Right. Right.

Tim: There’s two, mister. There’s Vice President guy.

John: Matt Foley from, Chris Farley, SNL, a little bit of like office practice leader guy, living in a van down by the river. That’s awesome. I can totally do that for you. Yeah, so before we wrap this up, though, because this has been so, so good, are there any words of encouragement to others that maybe have a hobby that feel like no one’s going to care because it has nothing to do with my job?

Tim: Yeah, man, I would just say, take the first step. People are interested in you as a human being, first and foremost. It’s hard to put yourself out there, but just take that first step. Put yourself out there, share with somebody, talk to your office leader, and see if you can’t find a space for that. Those would be my things.

John: No, I love that. It’s one of those things that’s simple but not easy, that’s what I found, especially in the work that I’m doing with companies and firms is to help them implement this on the regular. It’s like, wow, and it’s like, well, it’s right there. If you have an idea, then bring it up. Why not? Because they probably haven’t thought about it, and that’s probably why it’s not happening.

Tim: Like what I said about the running thing, don’t wait until the whole thing’s fully baked. Just put your shoes on and head out the door and see what happens. Course-correct. You’re like, hey, this isn’t working. Just course-correct. Do what you’ve got to do.

John: I love that, man. That’s awesome. Well, it’s only fair, since I rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning, that I turn the tables and make this the first episode of the Tim Barr Podcast. I didn’t know it was happening either, but thanks for having me on. I’m all yours.

Tim: Welcome to the Tim Barr podcast.

John: Right. There we go.

Tim: Office Practice Leader, big-time VP something or other.

John: Right.

Tim: So, John, what would you do on Mars for fun?

John: On Mars, I would probably, I don’t know, there’s a big part of me that would like to take the rocks and spell out some random words so then people that are looking at it through a telescope, what it says. Not know that I had done that. I don’t know, the junior high boy in me is very strong. There would be some sort of practical joke or something. I don’t know.

Tim: Like, help me, or something like that.

John: Yeah. Help me. SOS. What? How did that happen?

Tim: All right, Back to the Future or Indiana Jones.

John: Oh, wow. That’s good. I think I’m going to go Back to the Future on that. Just Michael J. Fox is, I don’t know, he’s just so good.

Tim: Absolutely.

John: I also worked a fair amount in comedy with Tom Wilson, who was Biff, super nice, super cool guy, absolutely hilarious.

Tim: Did you make him walk to your car?

John: No, no. Actually, he has a whole song when he gets on stage. He wrote this song. He plays the guitar as well. All the questions he gets about being in Back to the Future, like what this person’s like. The chorus is, I don’t know. It’s just a movie. He’s like, they’re not real. He’s great.

Tim: Maybe along the same vein then, if you had a time machine, what time would you go visit?

John: Oh, a time machine. Wow. That’s a great question. I don’t know. Maybe Ancient Egypt so I can tell everybody how they built the pyramids. I can come back and be like, it wasn’t aliens, you weirdos. It was whatever. Maybe that. Plus, it’s a cool time. I mean, it was simpler times.

Tim: Maybe. Yeah. Cool, I like it.

John: Yeah, maybe that. I feel like a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure all of a sudden, where it’s just.

Tim: If you had a time machine

John: Right, right. Exactly, exactly. No, that was really good, man. I’m going to be chewing on that for a while. Yeah, who knows? There are so many different good times.

Tim: Don’t forget to wind your watch.

John: Right. Exactly. Oh, man, what a great movie. Well, this has been so much fun, Tim. Thank you so much, number one, for reading the book, but also for being a part of this. It’s really cool to just shatter the stereotype, and you’re a perfect example for that. Thanks for jumping on.

Tim: Cool, man. Thanks for having me on. It was a lot of fun.

John: Absolutely. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Tim in action or connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links and pictures are there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to check out the book.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 411 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book, also called What’s Your “And”?, on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading you the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth at the research on why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture, and I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and now listening to it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Kaitlyn Kirkhart. She’s the Chief Communications Officer at Baco Tech in Dallas, Texas, and now she’s with me here today. Kaitlyn, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I’m excited to be here.

John: Yeah, this is going to be awesome. I have 17 rapid-fire questions, get to know Kaitlyn on a new level. They’re questions I probably should have asked when we met virtually at the BDO Alliance Conference, but I figured, why not wait for the podcast? I’ll start you out with probably an easy one. Favorite color.

Kaitlyn: Gosh, I feel like I have to go back to what brings me joy. If you know me, you’ll find that my glasses, my cell phone case, my wallet, everything in my, not really in my room, but a lot of things in my room are this pastel pink. It’s funny because I’m not even really, I feel like I’m somewhat girly, but I’m not overly girly. There’s something about that color that really calms me down, so I guess it’s a pastel pink, if that’s my favorite color.

John: Yeah, but it’s soft. It’s not —

Kaitlyn: Yes. It’s not hot pink, and I’m blonde. I’m actually a lot darker now that I’m older, but I’ve always told myself I would never wear a hot pink dress. I still, this day, have not, but would you find me in a light pink? Yeah, I’d probably be caught in a light pink pastel power dress.

John: I like it. On the flip side then, what’s your least favorite color?

Kaitlyn: Least favorite color? Oh, gosh. Maybe orange. I’m not a big orange person, especially burnt orange, which is funny because some people think of University of Texas. I’m from, as you said, Dallas. I actually went to a school very close to there, Texas State University, but I hate that color. I love Austin. I love that school. I just cannot stand the color. I think it’s so ugly unfortunately.

John: It’s a pretty nasty color, and that’s the only place you ever see that color, on purpose.

Kaitlyn: I guess it’s very intentional. It’s on brand for them. It’s really not on brand because they’re a cool city and their color does not fit them very well, unfortunately.

John: Exactly. How about, would you say more cats or dogs?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, that was so easy, 100% dogs. Yeah. My favorite animal is a dog.

John: Okay. All right. How about a favorite day of the week?

Kaitlyn: Probably Friday because you’re super, it’s more Friday night. Friday during the day sucks because you’re just sitting there, and you’re twiddling your thumbs and tapping your finger, oh, my gosh. Or if you have a meeting on Friday, you’re like, this is the worst. I have so many other things I could be doing for tonight. I get super jazzed and energized on Friday nights. I have had to tell people recently. I’m like, I’m really sorry. I’m really hyper because I just know I’ve got two days to have so much fun, and I want to just hit the ground running. Definitely Fridays, but specifically Friday nights.

John: Okay, all right. How about puzzles, Sudoku, crossword or jigsaw?

Kaitlyn: Probably none. If I had to pick a puzzle, I like Solitaire. That’s not really a puzzle, but to me, it’s like puzzle pieces a little bit. I really like, I think it’s called mahjong. Do you know what I’m talking about?

John: Yeah, yeah, online.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, online. I don’t have the actual big pieces.

John: Domino-type pieces.

Kaitlyn: Yes, yes. As a kid, I was obsessed with that game, even as an adult. It’s on my phone. When I’m on an airplane or something and I need something to do with my mind so I don’t go insane, that’s usually my go-to game, that or Solitaire.

John: That’s awesome. All right. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, love Ryan Reynolds not only because I think he’s somewhat, I guess, pretty good-looking, that’s fine, but also his sense of humor is awesome. Ironically, he’s married to someone I really like as well, Blake Lively, but my favorite actress is probably either Julia Roberts or most likely Sandra Bullock. I fell in love with Ryan Reynolds with Sandra Bullock when they we’re in The Proposal. My favorite all-time movies, that or probably also, this is super lengthy, I’m sorry, not just one, but wait, there’s more. There’s so many.

John: Right.

Kaitlyn: I love Rachel McAdams. I can’t think of the actor off the top of my head right now, but she’s in a movie with him as well. I think it’s called About Time. Have you seen that movie?

John: Absolutely.

Kaitlyn: Donald Gleason, that’s his name.

John: Donald Gleason.

Kaitlyn: Yes.

John: There you go. Oh, this one, somebody asked me, and I like to turn it around. Socks or shoes.

Kaitlyn: I guess whatever is closest to being barefoot, so I guess socks but preferably being barefoot. I’m my father’s daughter, and I get yelled at by my mother, who also obviously yells at my father for walking outside, especially in the middle of the street, being barefoot. I don’t know if I will ever change. I am the worst. It’s funny because I’ll do it, and I can hear my mom yelling at me in my head every time I do it. I could hear her also yelling at my dad, and my dad will just be, well, gotten this far in life, and I’ve got my tetanus shot, so I guess forget the.

John: Right. That’s awesome. So, neither. It’s like, you know what? I don’t have time for this.

Kaitlyn: I love to be barefoot. That’s a hobby in and of itself. That’s my “and” actually.

John: Right.

Kaitlyn: Yeah.

John: That’s awesome. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Kaitlyn: Real book, but unfortunately, I’m more of an audio book listener because I just like to go on walks and listen to them. For me, personally, who doesn’t like the touch of a book? It feels so good, especially when you’re on the beach or something, or you’re traveling. There’s something that’s so nice to actually look at and have tangible in your hands, or else I’m just wandering off and maybe dozing off.

John: You can circle back and be like, wait a minute, that actually seemed important.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, you can circle back and make notes in it. Yeah.

John: Yeah. How about a favorite number?

Kaitlyn: Probably the number six, and I don’t really know why. It has always been, I really just like writing it. Also I don’t like two sixes after the number six because that would be bad. Just one number six will be great.

John: Just one.

Kaitlyn: Yeah. I always feel hesitant saying that it’s number six because people might think of me a different way than I want them to think of me.

John: Three sixes.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, yeah. Hang on, buddy. That’s not what I was getting at. Exactly.

John: Exactly. How about your first concert?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh. Someone asked me that the other day. That’s so funny you asked that. Okay, this is so cheesy, but here we go. I’m a millennial, and I watched a lot of Disney Channel growing up. I actually thought I was going to be one of the Disney Channel stars. Was I? Absolutely not, but I tried. I went to none other than a local concert here in Lewisville, Texas, which is in the Dallas area, and I saw Raven-Symone in concert, and I thought she was killer, which she was. She’s a very good singer. Also looking back, it’s very funny to think that we sat in the hot sun in, probably July in a parking lot for about six hours to be how far back we were. For me, I think that it was so bomb, and she did not bomb.

John: And you had to wear shoes.

Kaitlyn: And I had to wear shoes, what a bummer.

John: How about a TV show you would binge-watch?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh. Okay, I’ve got two. I am such an Office girl, oh, my gosh. I love The Office. I have probably watched it through too many times to even be okay to say out loud. Obviously now it’s off Netflix, which is such a freaking bummer. Thankfully, I just re-watched it once it got taken off Netflix. Another one which has to, I have to watch The Office because I’ve to cleanse my palate a lot from the other one I binge a lot, which is Parenthood. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of it. They’re the same creators of This Is Us, which I love This Is Us. That one makes me cry way more than Parenthood, for some reason.

John: It makes the actors cry too.

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, I know. I just watched This Is Us with my mom a couple nights ago, and I was like, this show is just too much compared to Parenthood. Parenthood is so good. I feel like I’m a part of their family, but, man, after three, you’re like, I’ve got to watch something to cleanse my palate. It’s like Parks and Rec, The Office, whatever, but me, my go to-comedy is The Office if it’s a little bit more dramatic and I want to feel something a little bit more, it’s Parenthood.

John: No, fair enough. Those are all great shows. We can be friends.

Kaitlyn: I’m so glad.

John: Here we go. Star Wars or Star Trek.

Kaitlyn: I love that. I think because I was raised on Star Wars and my brother would kick me if I didn’t say Star Wars, I’m going to say Star Wars.

John: Okay.

Kaitlyn: Plus, I’ve actually never watched Star Trek, but I know my aunt is a huge fan. I just haven’t gotten around to watching that show.

John: How about your computer, more PC or Mac?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, 100% Mac. I’m talking to you right now on a PC. I very much know how to use them. Man, when I work from home on my personal laptop and, boy, do I just think it’s the bee’s knees. My parents are both in advertising, so I literally was raised to use a Mac. I will go to elementary school not knowing how to use a Mac, which I’m sorry, looking back, who the heck is not proficient in PC when you’re that young? Looking back, it’s just hilarious that I grew up solely using something that’s so user-friendly and not having something that breaks all the time. Sorry, Dell, but you do. You break all the time.

John: All right, diamonds or pearls.

Kaitlyn: I want to say pearls because that sounds cooler, but I honestly do like diamonds more. I’m also indifferent. I’ll wear either and be happy with it, but probably diamonds.

John: I’m not going to complain.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, no, no.

John: Three more. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Kaitlyn: Oh, man, probably mint chocolate chip, but I feel like that’s such a common answer. I wouldn’t want to trick it up or something, which is funny because there’s already chocolate chips in it. I’m like a five-year-old when it comes to donuts or ice cream or candy. I love sprinkles. I literally love rainbow sprinkles. I’m not sure if it’s the visual appeal or if it’s the crunch that comes with it. It’s low-key embarrassing. My mom, anytime we go out or get donuts or whatever, she’s always like, did you get the sprinkle Kai? I’m like, oh, my gosh, I am so embarrassed. I am a young professional, and I still like what I liked when I was five.

John: Yeah, but at least you’re consistent.

Kaitlyn: Man, you’re so right. I’m authentically myself, right?

John: That’s very funny, very funny. How about, ooh, do you have a favorite Disney character?

Kaitlyn: Wow. Do I have a favorite Disney character? I probably do, but I can’t think of who that would be. Maybe, oh, man, probably Sleeping Beauty. Okay, I don’t know. I’m like, Disney is so freaking broad. Can we do an off brand and do King Bob from Minions 2. King Bob is so freaking cute, oh, my gosh. I’m not going to lie to you when I say that I watched that movie, and I literally got puppy fever. What? I’m sorry, how does that happen? It did, and guess what. Literally, literally, three minutes later, I got a dog, and she’s still mine to this day. I don’t know. I saw King Bob, and I was like, man, he’s freaking cute. Maybe I just got baby fever, but I also don’t want a kid. I’m not ready for that. Plus, I’m single so that would be really hard on me and financially really hard for me. Why not get a dog like a typical millennial? I got a dog because of King Bob. Isn’t that so funny?

John: That’s funny. That’s hilarious.

Kaitlyn: Sorry about Disney, but that’s my go-to guy.

John: Counts for me. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Kaitlyn: The favorite thing I have. Can they not be tangible things?

John: Yeah, whatever.

Kaitlyn: Can they be things in my life?

John: Yeah, anything.

Kaitlyn: I love that because, honestly, the favorite thing I have I want to say my phone, but that’s so terrible. I hate that. Isn’t that terrible?

John: As long as it’s an Apple phone.

Kaitlyn: Right? That one really got me. You’re actually not wrong, unfortunately. I’m so biased. My favorite thing I have is probably my family. I love my family. I think that I’ve come to find, and it really was when I was in college, family is tough to come by and to be close with. I’ve got a really solid family. We’re definitely, by no means, perfect. There are still things that we’re still working through. I think moving back Dallas to be closer to my family, when I decided to do that, I moved from San Antonio to Dallas, four or five years ago, it was one of the best decisions of my life. I’m not saying I would never move again, but I think that I become a stronger person because of them. The favorite thing I own is, circling back to King Bob, is definitely my dog. She’s freaking cool.

John: A part of the family.

Kaitlyn: She is 100% a part of the family. She loves the family. The family loves her. She’s a rescue I got while I lived in San Antonio. It was typical millennial, very lonely out of college and didn’t understand that there would be, oh, wait a huge learning curve out of college and not have your friends spoon-fed to you, so I got, like a typical millennial like I said, a dog. She’s so freaking fun. She’s a golden retriever, dachshund, chow and terrier mix, so she is literally a dog that you’ve never seen before. She looks like a baby, baby golden retriever. She’s got the face of a golden, but she’s the size of a Corgi. She’s got the coat of a red golden retriever and then a tail that swirls up. Her tail’s her personality, we’d like to say.

John: Yeah, yeah, like Dr. Seuss’ tail.

Kaitlyn: Like a Dr. Seuss tail, I love that. I’m going to use that. We usually say, from Bambi, Flower, the skunk that has its tail up. Because in my parents backyard, she’s obsessed with being out there and trying to find rats and stuff, which is weird but that’s my dog, but you’ll always see her tail. You always know where she is because of her tail. It’s really cute. I’m like, ah, found my girl. That’s my favorite thing I have and my favorite thing I own.

John: Very cool. No, that’s great. That’s great. I knew it wasn’t going to be a pair of shoes.

Kaitlyn: Yeah. Again, at least I’m consistent, my goodness.

John: Right. Let’s talk travel. Did you grow up traveling? Or was it something that came later? How’d you get bit by the travel bug?

Kaitlyn: I know. It is such a bug. Let me ask you, have you ever been bitten by it?

John: Quite a bit.

Kaitlyn: Okay, so you get it. Yeah, it’s so interesting because, did I grew up enjoying it? Yeah. To be honest, my family, we wouldn’t, we went on vacations, but vacations are, during a recession, pretty dang expensive. If anything, we went to just visit family in Chicago. We didn’t really go downtown. We just went to the suburbs. I always liked getting away though. I always liked airplanes. I liked the whole experience of it. Little did I know that I would eventually become just obsessed in trying to get out all the time. I leave Dallas about once a month at least, whether it’s going just an hour away to Fort Worth for the weekend, or three hours south to Austin is probably my go-to. I have a lot of friends out there because of school. Yeah, I just try to leave as much as possible. I got bit by the bug really when I was in college. I went on a mission trip to a very, very popular country that everyone goes to, called Macedonia. I’m sure you’ve heard of it because everyone talks about it all the time.

John: Right? How did you pick Macedonia?

Kaitlyn: I know. One of my friends, when I got back from my trip, she goes, “How was macadamia?” I was like thanks for donating to my mission trip. It was awesome.

John: I thought we were going to get nuts. What’s going on?

Kaitlyn: Why didn’t you go and have any presents for me?

John: That’s hilarious.

Kaitlyn: I know. I think just going overseas, I mean, I went to Mexico with my family when I was three years old. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of that. When I was in college, we got this opportunity to go overseas on a mission trip to Macedonia. The reason we went was because not only did they have the biggest Gypsy camp in the entire world, in Skopje, which is actually where Mother Teresa grew up and did her missional stuff there, but also we wanted to help a local church there expand and really do a sports camp in order to help grow the church. Because there, you actually can’t publicly say or, I guess, “evangelize” as you would here in the States, which is not normalized here it, but it’s not abnormal to see that happen or against the law necessarily.

We had to go under wraps and say, hey, we’re doing a sports camp, which if you know me, people did laugh at me when I told them what we were doing. I’m not athletic. My friends were like, hold on. You’re going to do what? I was like, listen, I was literally assigned to be the social butterfly with the moms because they knew I was not going to be coordinated enough to do well with kids. These eight-year-olds would be beating me so bad at dodgeball or whatever else they played, which is so true. I even try. I was like, you know what? I’m getting paid by someone else to be here. The last thing you want is my time spent on the court with a child, or I’m going to get my butt whooped, which I guess I could have used the Lord in that process. Oh, man, God is just so merciful that he would let you as an eight-year-old win. Isn’t that just His will? I don’t know. You could have been really funny about it.

John: Yeah. That’s over, I mean, it’s Eastern Europe, sort of.

Kaitlyn: Yeah.

John: Greece, Bulgaria.

Kaitlyn: Yeah. Okay, sorry. Let me tell you where it is. It’s a country literally right above Greece.

John: Okay.

Kaitlyn: Very much, they have this big, we’re not the same but whatever. It’s almost like Texas with Oklahoma. We think that we’re better than Oklahoma. We’re very much the same people. I’ve got so many friends in Oklahoma. It’s this rivalry thing and a lot of politics goes into it. I think just being in cobblestone ground, just seeing architecture that I know has been there, 1200 years, just something crazy like that where all of a sudden my eyes started to be opened up, and I thought, oh my gosh, these people and all these people around, they’re true Macedonians. Who am I? I’m a freaking mutt from Europe, probably. Right? I’m like English, German, Italian probably or whatever.

John: So, Kaitlyn, let’s never forget it.

Kaitlyn: You’re right. You’re right. Me, as a Texan, I’ve got all that pride, man. I just started thinking, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Also, Europeans got it right. They’re cool. I don’t know. I was just like, they’re just the coolest people. I have so much to learn from them. Their food is fresher than ours. Their food is better than ours anyways, or at least Macedonian food was. Although I do like Texas barbecue, don’t get me wrong, I just had it for lunch, but whatever, that’s beside the fact.

John: Right.

Kaitlyn: That’s really when it hit me. I was like, I got to get the freak out of Dallas and out of Texas and just expand my horizons while I can. I’ve got the health and really was, when I graduated from college, I was like, I have a disposable income now. I’ve got, literally, paid time off. I can just go and do this. It really wasn’t until I started working for Ford Baker, he’s owner of Baco Group, they literally do not compensate you if you don’t take PTO because they want you to take PTO.

John: That’s great.

Kaitlyn: They don’t roll it over intentionally because they want people, especially CPAs, to get away from their desks. Guess who started to mooch off that? Me. I, in summer of 2018, I went back overseas. I went to Barcelona for a week with a girlfriend of mine, and we had a freaking blast. Same thing, I fell in love with the culture. The people, they’re so nice, and all of them were from all over. Some of them were Germans. A girl we stayed with in our Airbnb was from Venezuela. We just learned so much about different cultures. Thankfully our common language is English, which, thank goodness. That’s another thing. I think Americans need to learn another language besides English. That’s also on me but whatever.

John: They can also start actually learning English.

Kaitlyn: That’s a whole another political debate. You’re right.

John: Take all the classes I did.

Kaitlyn: You’re right. You’re right.

John: That does give you a different perspective to appreciate things. Is it something that you do talk about with colleagues or clients? Or is it something that comes to the office?

Kaitlyn: Absolutely. Oh, my gosh, I’m known for that. They’re always like, so where are you going next? It’s funny because I really do light up when I talk about it. Before, when we had met, the BDO Alliance, we were talking about how you just have anyone on. I was like, wait, I want to be on your podcast. Can I be on it? I thought I’ll do yoga because I’m very into yoga. I do it at least three to five times a week. I’ve been doing it consistently for about three years, and it clears my head, whatever. Ford, my boss was like, “Kaitlyn, come on. You know it’s traveling.” I was like, gosh, he’s probably right, but he’s also the one that gets, I have to ask him directly for PTO, and it’s all the time.

I’m also a planner. I like to plan out my, as much out in advance as I can, not only for the sake of my employer, but also for the sake of me. It really does help because I’ll crunch, I’ll grind for two months, a month, whatever, and take even a four-day weekend. I’ll come back, and I’m totally different than if I didn’t take it off. I do work harder at work, and I’ve told for that. He can say the same thing, is when you get away, especially because I get such tunnel vision in my Dallas life that is just so fleeting. It can dissolve in two seconds. Not only can, I hate to get super morbid, pass away, whatever, but also it could all crumble in two seconds because of whatever. I really think getting away, for me, is one of the healthiest things I’ve ever done in my life.

When I travel, I’m always with someone I really care about, or I’m going to go see someone I really care about. My goal this next year is to go and do a solo trip and see how I like it, see if I like traveling as much. Even next week, I’m lined up to go see two of my best friends from college in LA, and I’ll spend just four or five days there. I’ve been there, I think, three or four times but, hey, why not go see friends that live in a really cool city and I can mooch off of to go to the beach and hang out with?

John: Exactly.

Kaitlyn: Yeah. Yeah.

John: That’s very cool. Going back just really quickly on Baco Group, if you don’t take your PTO, then how does that work? Because I think people listening, that’s a simple thing that you can apply where they work.

Kaitlyn: I love that that became implemented because the place I was at before, I didn’t get paid out when I left, and that rocked. I was like, oh, my gosh, it’s more than I expected. I was like, oh, that’s because I didn’t take any PTO, but then I was really tired. Obviously, I needed at least two weeks off before even looking for a job because I spent about nine months, taking one day of PTO. That’s crazy. Looking back, I’m like, man, I can only maybe go a couple of months without taking a one-day PTO now because I’m so, you grind so hard. It’s not healthy for your body and your mind.

Yeah, so they made it a company standard for the sake of our firm really implementing work-life balance. They completely rebranded in 2014 or so. They literally went from being called Baker and Company, to being called Baco Group so that Baker, Ford Baker, who’s the CEO and now my direct boss, he didn’t get contacted as much as everyone else at the group side. So, if they don’t speak to Baker, they don’t feel like they’re being underserved. They rebranded a lot of other things, organizationally and operationally, and that’s one of them, is they said our whole industry is completely, and I know you understand this, being a CPA, is completely overworked and rundown. In order to help that and help also with recruiting expenses, my goodness, again, it’s a big four firms or whatever, we’re going to make it be you have to take PTO. You have to pay for your desk.

I only started out with maybe ten days of PTO. Now I’m up to who knows how many days I have, because I actually had them all rollover from COVID from last year, which I know is against our policy, but no one could take them, which I’m glad I didn’t get paid. I want to use that PTO. I want to see the world now. I’m like, yes, it serves something. For me, it gave me the option to go and have my employer applaud me when I go and take off. How cool is that? That’s someone I want to work under and serve really well, is someone that applauds me for doing something that I really like to do.

John: No, that’s such a great example of you have to take it. If you don’t, then you don’t get it. It’s not like you’re going to be able to cash it out. It doesn’t roll over. It’s just you have these days, and it’s strongly encouraged that you do this, which I think is awesome and such a great example where everyone’s doing it, the leadership and even the new person that just started. We’re all in this. That’s such a great example. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that maybe has a hobby or a passion but feels like no one cares because it has nothing to do with my job?

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Just very much from what we were talking about before we started recording this is just you have to have one. I would encourage anyone that’s currently in college, talk to someone that is a new grad or, I’m five years out of college now, and just ask them what was the first two years like. Because I don’t know about you, John, but for me, it was really hard. It was grueling. It was exhausting. It was much harder than I thought it was going to be, and a lot of it is because I didn’t have a hobby yet. Right?

John: Yeah.

Kaitlyn: In college, I was actually really active in a college ministry. I’m really grateful for the opportunity. I obviously still apply it very much to my life every single day, but you’re kind of in camp, all four years. Then you leave camp, then what? There are people that can’t be like you. You’re all of a sudden in the corporate world, and you feel like your joy is getting stolen. It’s like, oh, I guess I should probably do something to fix that. My hobby went from my college ministry and singing there, I sing in the worship team. That was a huge passion of mine. Then all of a sudden, I became really tired after work, and the last thing I wanted to do, unfortunately, was sing. I’ve never experienced that before. I’ve been singing my whole life. Then this passion came along.

I would just recommend finding a network. Gosh, travel, that is literally the most trendy millennial thing you could probably do. I almost hate that it’s my thing that I like because it’s unoriginal to me, but also it’s what clears my head. There’s got to be a network. Heck, there are freaking Facebook groups for everything. I’m also the kind of person that if I meet someone, I like them, I will, two of my best friends I’ve met, and I was like, I like you. I think you’re funny. Can I get your number? Can we grab dinner? I’m just very direct like that. To me, it’s be bold and try to find those people because I think that it is so beyond worth your time and energy. What is one hour a week to devote to this potential passion and figuring it out? It really just fell on my lap, this thing of traveling was an accident.

John: No, but it’s great, and maybe it’ll change over time. It doesn’t have to be the same thing forever, but it’s something.

Kaitlyn: Right, because it used to be singing for me. It’s crazy. I feel almost bad that it’s not, but it really does drain me now. I hate to say that. It’s not that I don’t like music. Of course I like music. Oh, my gosh, I listen to music all day. It’s just not the same passion I have. I’m like, would I rather spend my Sunday mornings traveling or singing in a church? I’m like, ah, probably traveling. Not that I don’t go to church still, your girl definitely does, but you know what I mean. It’s just different now for me. It’s a different mindset, different season, and I think that the Lord blesses that. Just like you, you’ve got so many passions. One of them is ice cream.

John: Totally, which is awesome.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, that’s such a cool passion. I’m almost like, should I start dabbling in it? That sounds so fun.

John: It’s a slippery slope though, watch out.

Kaitlyn: I bet, yeah. I have to have dairy-free ice cream, so that might be a little bit easier for me to do that.

John: Yeah. Elastic waistbands if ice cream is your “and”. I feel like, since we started out the episode, before I close it out, it’s only fair that I turn the tables.

Kaitlyn: Yes.

John: Make this the first episode of The Kaitlyn Kirkhart Podcast. Thanks so much for having me on.

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, thanks for having me, John. This has been so stinking fun.

John: Yeah, so whatever you got, if you have any questions for me, I’m all yours.

Kaitlyn: Are you ready? Get prepared.

John: I don’t know if I’m ever going to be ready.

Kaitlyn: They’re pretty crazy. Okay. Would you, John, rather have bug spray or sunscreen on you and you feel it and smell it for the rest of your life?

John: Oh, wow.

Kaitlyn: Speaking from experience. I’m just kidding.

John: Well, since my cologne is coconut, actually probably sunscreen just because it smells tropical or whatever. Bug spray smells.

Kaitlyn: Terrible.

John: Yeah. Well, it does what it’s supposed to do, but it also repels humans.

Kaitlyn: I need friends. Yeah. For the sake of my sanity and my friendship and not being lonely, I literally think the only option is, process of elimination, it has to be sunscreen. That’s so funny you thought of the smell too, because I thought the same thing. I was like, oh, I wonder if he’ll think of it. You did. You are a smart guy. There was a right answer to that. No, just kidding.

John: All right.

Kaitlyn: All right, next question. Which do you use on a daily basis, a brush or a comb?

John: Toothbrush.

Kaitlyn: You use a toothbrush?

John: I just do the hands because.

Kaitlyn: What?

John: Yeah, I don’t. Yeah, I just get a little bit of goop, whatever it’s called, it’s like a paste sort of thing, and then just rub it in my hands and then just style. When you don’t have a lot of hair, you can get away with that.

Kaitlyn: Pretty nice.

John: Strategically placing it so that then it doesn’t look like you’re your age.

John: Totally.

Kaitlyn: I’m trying to like way younger because of the paste in my hair. You’re individually trying to place each hair to look younger.

John: Just don’t get carried away. Yes. Tony Adams is a very funny comedian, and he has a joke. He said, when I was younger, I used to pluck my grays. Now I use them as filler, so it’s like they have to stay.

Kaitlyn: I freaking love that. It’s so funny because I look really young for my age, and I’m very well aware of that. I have to actually style my hair trying to look older. Maybe you and I could come together after this and talk about how we can help each other out.

John: I’m not sure if I can pretty much help.

Kaitlyn: Well we can try.

John: Totally. Totally.

Kaitlyn: Oh, my gosh, that’s so fun. Okay, what color is your toothbrush? Okay, well, I’m glad you know. Actually I don’t know my color. I wrote that down, I was like, I should go home and look at mine.

John: It’s an electric toothbrush. Technically, it’s a cream color, but there’s a little rubber band around where the bottom of the base of the head. I’ll switch out the color to go to blue, blue or green.

Kaitlyn: Is that your favorite color?

John: Yeah.

Kaitlyn: Man. All right, I know a couple of things about blue.

John: Red, I don’t want to put that in my mouth.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, it’s angry. You need something happy, like a light blue.

John: It tastes like bug spray.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, weird parallel there. I don’t know how that full circle humor came around, but it did.

John: Right. Also, why is he tasting bug spray? That’s gross. I don’t know either.

Kaitlyn: You put it close to your toothpaste. It’s a normal thing. It’s a normal thing.

John: Right.

Kaitlyn: Okay, last question. I’m assuming the answer to this because of where you live, but you never know. Would you vacation at a beach or a mountain?

John: Yeah, that’s a hard one. I would probably say beach only because I live in Colorado, and I can stand in my backyard and see the mountains.

Kaitlyn: Absolutely.

John: It’s not as exotic or as much of a vacation when it’s just right there. The beach involves me getting on an airplane. Of course I can get on an airplane and go to other mountains, but I’m lazy.

Kaitlyn: Yes.

John: Airplane to a beach.

Kaitlyn: I feel you. I’m very much a beach gal. I can literally sit on the beach for hours and just act like five minutes has gone by. It’s ridiculous. Not that I don’t like the mountains. Mountains are great, but I’m more of a beach bum myself.

John: Exactly.

Kaitlyn: I feel you, and I do have to get on an airplane as well.

John: That’s awesome. Very cool. Very cool. I appreciate you being a part of What’s Your “And”?, Kaitlyn. This has been a lot of fun.

Kaitlyn: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, John, it’s been so fun as well and get to know you a little more too.

John: There you go. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Kaitlyn from her travels or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out the book.

Thanks again for subscribing to the podcast on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 409 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want this voice, me reading it to you, then look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such nice reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Casey Hill. He’s the Head of Growth for Bonjoro, and now he’s with me here today. Casey, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Casey: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, John. I actually just got your book, so I’m excited to dig into that shortly. It arrived a couple days ago, and I’m just polishing off the adventure book and then that’s next on the docket.

John: Well, thank you so much, man. That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, I have my 17 rapid-fire questions that are not in the book, these are the get to know Casey right out of the gate.

Casey: Let’s do it.

John: Yeah, here we go. Easy one, favorite color.

Casey: Green.

John: Green. Okay. How about a least favorite color?

Casey: Ooh, I have not given thought to a least favorite color, but I’ll go with black, I guess.

John: Black? Okay, fair enough. Yeah, yeah, totally. Here’s a tricky one, pizza or hamburger.

Casey: I’m going to go pizza.

John: Pizza. Yeah, really good pizza is.

Casey: Hard to beat.

John: Hard to beat, yeah, yeah. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Casey: Ooh, I like Emma Watson, always liked her work and just overall as a person, seems a very, very wholesome individual. Yeah, I’m going to go with that.

John: No, that’s good. Those are hard to find nowadays, it seems, so good for, yeah, yeah. Would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Casey: I’d say probably night owl, although different points in time in life, I’ve adapted to both schedules.

John: Exactly. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Casey: I’ll go with Star Wars. When I was younger, I watched a lot of Star Trek too, but I think if I had to choose one, Star Wars is what I’d pick.

John: Okay. Yeah, totally. How about your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Casey: A Mac now, I guess. I’ve been a PC person my entire life, but as of probably five, six years ago, I made the jump. It’s funny, not to derail this conversation, but for my phone, I had a friend who was giving away an old iPhone. They didn’t need it any more. Oh, you can just have it. They gave it away. Then when I joined this current company, they’re like, your phone’s too old. We need to get you a new one. They got me an iPhone again. I had Android my entire life, but now I’ve been using iPhone now for a while because I keep getting free iPhones. I’m like, I can’t turn down free phones.

John: It’s hard to complain on that. Right? Yeah, definitely. I’m not even cool enough to be allowed in an Apple store. I can’t even make that jump, so let me know what it’s like. Yeah, it’s good to know that someone’s done it and survived. That’s awesome. Okay, how about a favorite movie of all time?

Casey: Ooh, I’m going to go with Gladiator.

John: Oh, solid answer.

Casey: I just have always loved it. It’s always been a classic for me. There’s so many good movies. It’s not the perfect movie in terms of how it’s constructed, but it’s just, for me, it’s that go-to classic. That’s what I always pick.

John: For sure. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Casey: Ooh, I’m going to go mint chocolate chip.

John: Oh, okay. Classic. Nice. I like that. All right, the green mint or the white mint.

Casey: The green usually.

John: The green. Okay. All right. Yeah, I see you. How about, oh, here we go, balance sheet or income statement?

Casey: Balance sheet or income statement. Oh, man, balance sheet, I guess.

John: I guess. Yeah, it’s like, I don’t look at those. It’s fine. Oh, here we go, prefer more hot or cold.

Casey: Probably cold.

John: Cold? Okay, interesting.

Casey: It feels like with cold, you can always layer up, right? We’re talking about weather in general, if it’s cooler. If it’s like 100 degrees, you’re in a rough spot.

John: Yeah, you can’t layer down. It’s like peeling off, yeah. No, I agree with you 100% on that one. How about pens or pencils?

Casey: I’m usually using pencils.

John: Oh, wow. Okay.

Casey: Yeah, interestingly enough.

John: I gotcha. How about a favorite number?

Casey: Favorite number. To be frank, I have not given that deep thought through my life, but if I had to go with something off the top of my head right now, I’m going to go with 19.

John: 19. Is there a reason?

Casey: No, there’s not. It was the first number.

John: Because no one said 19 ever in the history of ever. No, I’m just kidding. No, but that’s good, man. I like it.

Casey: I tried out for a game show called One versus 100 in Hollywood, and I made it to the second round where they’re doing the live read. They asked me a trivia question. I had absolutely no idea, so I just spit out the first reflective thing that immediately came to mind and by chance, got it right.

John: Nice.

Casey: They were like, how did you come up with that? I’m like, honestly, it’s top of the head. I just said something, and it just worked.

John: You went into like balloons and everything to be like, that was the right answer. 19 is it. That’s funny, man. How about when it comes to books, real book, e-book or audio version? I do a lot of e-books and regular books. When I was commuting a lot in the past, before the pandemic, I would listen to a lot of audio books as I was driving, so I got really into that. I also just enjoy sitting down and reading a physical book. There’s something about that, that I enjoy. I’d say if I had to choose one, it will be physical books, but I do appreciate audio books as well.

John: All of them. Nice. All right. How about a favorite Disney character?

Casey: I’m going to go with Maui, the demigod from Moana.

John: Oh, wow, that’s a good one. All right. I get Moana as an answer, but not Maui the character. That’s awesome. Very cool. All right, when it comes to puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Casey: I’d say crossword. Sudoku is one of those ones I’ve tried it in the past, but it never clicked for me. I think I’m more of a words guy than a numbers guy.

John: All right, I hear you. Last one, favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Casey: I don’t know if that’s a specific item or a collection, but I would say, as a collection, I would say my library. I’m really into books. I’m really into reading. That’s an important possession of mine is my book library.

John: Awesome, and What’s Your “And”? just snuck in. I’m honored. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. Very cool. All right. Well, let’s talk board games. Let’s get into this. Is it something that you grew up doing and then were like, you know what, I’m just going to start designing them and making my own games?

Casey: Yeah, so I come from a family of seven, right?

John: Oh, wow.

Casey: With a family of seven, there was a lot of us. It was very hectic, people running around, very busy house growing up. Board games became the conduit of bringing everyone together. Everyone was doing their own thing. Some people were in sports. Some were people doing this. Board games, we’d all come together. So, growing up, and I was the middle kid, older brother, older sister, younger brother, younger sister, just smack down in the middle, and board games became that thing where my parents, all my brothers and sisters would all meet up. Yeah, from a very, very young age, I was playing board games.

For me, designing a game, that transition came because my dad was an entrepreneur his whole life. He currently runs a business. He ran a different business when he was younger. My grandpa runs a business. My cousins run businesses. I grew up around the entrepreneurial world, and everyone was always saying, do stuff you’re passionate about. I was like, well, what the heck am I passionate about? I like Magic: The Gathering trading cards, board games. I’m a nerd. I don’t know what I would make a business about. They encouraged me to just go out and try something. I started messing around and doing a little bit of board game design. Eventually, that segued into the Kickstarter that I launched that went really well, and that whole started the journey. Yeah, that was kind of a connecting point.

John: Yeah. Were there other board games that you had prototyped or had tried to make before? Or was the Kickstarter the first one, that you just happened to nail it right out of the gate?

Casey: Definitely not the first one, not by a long shot. There were tons of games we had made before that, and just never anything that had made that next leap. The story of Arkon, which is the game that we ended up Kickstartering, was actually a Christmas present for my wife. At Christmas, we always do a creative gift. That’s our thing. It always has to be some sort of creative gift. I was thinking, I was like, I’ll make a game. I spun up this simplistic game, didn’t have any graphics, obviously, or just random stuff I grabbed from the web, made some basic rules, sat down with my dad, who’s actually the co-founder. He started it with me. He designed it with me. We worked and did all the prototyping together. We sat down and just went through this process of creating this game in like two days, and gave it to her as a present. We all were just playing it out of obligation. I’ve given the gift, so now we need to play it. Then we were like, wait, this is actually pretty good. This is actually pretty fun. I started thinking about it. I was like, yeah, this is not bad.

Once you get the initial, your family is almost always going to say it’s good, no matter what, right, so it doesn’t mean too much. We started there but were like, this is fun. I decided, what the heck, I’ll bring in some friends. They played it. Yeah, this is actually really good. Okay. I went through friends, check. Then I was like, alright, I’m going to spin up some just really basic graphics from the web, put it onto some cards, I’ll head to a gaming shop, and I’ll just see if people will play this game with me. I started doing that, a couple local gaming stores around where I live, got some good feedback. This is great. At that point, I was like, what if I did this thing? I started contacting artists and started looking at the whole process. It was a two-year journey from that point to when it went live. It was a long scope but, yeah, that’s how it kicked off.

John: That’s cool, man. That’s awesome. I love that out of obligation, and they’re like, yeah, sure, it’s great, whatever, Casey. Let’s have dessert.

Casey: Exactly.

John: What? Then, yeah, once you get that honest feedback from strangers almost, then it’s like, oh, wow, this is a thing. That’s cool, man. Growing up, did you have a favorite game or a go-to?

Casey: We played a lot of the classics, the Risks, the Monopolies, those types of games. Then when I was in, I want to say maybe it was middle school, me and my older brother started getting really into Magic: The Gathering, which is a trading card game, so started getting into the collectible card idea. That segued a little bit of our interest into that high fantasy style theme, like Lord of the Rings, not Lord of the Rings, but that kind of game.

John: Yeah, that, well, yeah.

Casey: Dragons and ogres and that kind of group.

John: Right. Right.

Casey: Which later influenced a little bit of the design on Arkon. Yeah, those were some of the ones we played. We had a spattering of all different types of games, growing up. We had huge cupboards of games that were based on dice, games that were based on little moving things, games where you’re placing trinkets on the board. We tried a whole bunch of ones, but, yeah, I think that those were some of the early influencers.

John: That’s cool, man. Yeah, Risk, for sure, and then that graduated into Axis and Allies, which was like the grownup version of Risk. Yeah, games that just lasted so long, though. It’s like, alright, no one touch the board. It’s like a whole weekend. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, someone’s like, screw it, I’m just going for broke. It’s like, all right.

Casey: That’s how it always ended.

John: Exactly. That’s really cool. Do you feel at all that, either playing board games or designing games, that gives you a skill set that’s translated to work, something that you don’t learn in school with your degrees?

Casey: Yeah, 100%, in so many different ways. The first thing was, my day job at the time, but even still what I’m doing now is I work with a lot of small businesses. I’m working with a lot of small businesses. The first thing that really helped me was understanding all the moving gears in a small business. When I started this whole journey of getting this board game up, I had to handle PR, I had to handle marketing. I was doing a physical product, so I had to handle shipping, I had to handle fulfillment, all of these logistics. It’s not just sales. It wasn’t just like you plop something on there, you design it, and it goes. There are so many components. I wasn’t a web designer, but I had to build my WordPress site. I learned about SEO to try to get a little bit of ranking on my page, hundreds and hundreds of these components. That gave me so much better of a connection in with my audience because that’s what these small businesses are doing. Oftentimes, you have a mom and pop shop. There are two people. They might not be super tech savvy, and they’re just trying to figure out this crazy world of all these pieces.

I think from that perspective, it gave me a ton of connection. I was spending money on ads. One of our customers spend money on ads, and I was doing the same thing with my own money. I got this direct connection of, hey, what is it like to spend $5,000 on promotion ads? What’s my ROI? What works, what doesn’t? It was a huge connection there. The other thing was we assembled a small team. We had six artists. We had a videographer. We had a person who was doing the graphic design on assets, wrote the website, as well as assets on the card itself. We had the person who designed the packaging around the product. I also learned how to manage those types of relationships.

One huge lesson that sticks out to me, I loved our final product with the video, awesome animator, but it was this guy, he was a college video professor. He was working on this as a side project. We were getting two to three weeks before launch, and we were pretty far behind. Because I was not used to this whole thing, I came at him super harsh. We need to get this done, man. The guy was basically, he came back, and he’s like, you know what, Casey, I’m not doing this for nearly enough money. I’ll just walk away right now. I’ll give you all your money back. Give you all your money back and you can go find a different person to do this video. It was like a hit to my gut. Oh, crap, that would be a disaster. I had to grow up quick in that situation and realize, okay, this is my bad. I need to handle that situation better and just set expectations better and just support them better. From there, we had an awesome relationship. We have a great relationship to this day.

It was stuff like that that took taking a step back and realizing, hey, if my creatives mess up, that sits on me. That doesn’t sit on them. I need to be someone who manages those in the right way. Just a ton of learning, man. It was super, super applicable to connecting with my everyday customers that I was working with on my day job.

John: Right? Yeah. That’s accidentally just an awesome byproduct of me loving board games was I became a better leader and better relate to clients and coworkers. That’s powerful. Because at no point during any of your education did they say, hey, go design board games because it’ll make you better at your job.

Casey: It opened up so many doors for me because I was in sales at that last job, but now I run Growth at Bonjoro. One of my big responsibilities is around marketing. Well, I had no formal education on marketing. I didn’t know anything about marketing, but I got myself featured on a bunch of podcasts, I did a product launch, I built attention around an event, I ran ads. I learned all my marketing skills that got me a position as the Head of Growth, head of doing marketing stuff at a tech company, just from that one self-learning experience of getting in the trenches and doing it myself. So, that opened up a huge doorway for me.

John: Yeah. No, that’s super cool. Are board games something that you’ve talked about during your career, whether it’s with coworkers or clients, whether it’s Arkon, the one that you designed, or it’s just other board games in general? Is it something that comes up?

Casey: I have. I’ve always been vocal about board games because it’s something I’m interested in. If I’m talking with my friends or talking with groups, that certainly would come up. I would meet with people at my work to go play board games. We do board game Friday or stuff like that. We’d go out and play.

John: There you go.

Casey: Also my work, both my last job and this current job, are super supportive, which was awesome, in terms of just all aspects of the journey. I think my last job, we had 70 people from my company who bought the game when it went live. 70 out of 200 people, I was flattered by that.

John: See, that’s really cool. Yeah.

Casey: Yeah, they’ve always been really supportive. We did a bunch of play tests. The company actually let me use their film studio to do some promo shots. I think they saw the benefit that the design process and what I was learning had on my day-to-day ability to execute my job. I think they had enough foresight, which some businesses do not, to say, yeah, Casey following his passions and doing these things that get him excited just makes him a better employee, makes him able to deliver on his day-to-day, and I was able to bring real examples to people. In so many jobs, everyone’s talking about theory. You’re talking to a business owner, and you’re advising them, but you’ve never run a business. It’s kind of this weird gap, right? Where if I say, look, I just finished running a $1,000 ad campaign, and I just learned the craziest thing, if I switch out, and then suddenly, it’s real. That’s rooted in real insights. From a customer perspective, I believe it’s so much more powerful. I’m not taking information that I read from a blog, or something I studied in a course, some other person told me to do X from two years ago, when things are always changing. This is real, right now, in the trenches insight, totally makes a big difference.

John: Yeah. No, it’s so true. It’s like the Harvard case study bubble world. It’s like, well, that’s not how things are here. That’s crazy. Or the speaker that talks about leadership but has never led a group on anything ever, even as a child. What? So it’s cool to hear, hey, I’m going through this, or I just went through this. I have real world skills. This is how things have gone. It’s just so cool to hear too, just an organization that supports that outside-of-work hobby or passion, because they see that that’s what lights you up. If we can help light up Casey as much as possible in all dimensions of his life, then his at-work skills or whatever are going to be so much better and more focused and more engaged.

Casey: It’s so huge, but I believe in that so wholeheartedly. The people that I hire and the people that I bring onto my team, I try to promote and facilitate that as much as possible, for people to go after their passions, to take time. The new world that we’re living in, in a lot of lines of work, like in my line of work in tech, there’s no reason, if someone says I want to go play racquetball at 1 pm, as long as they get their work done, awesome, go play racquetball. Do the stuff that makes you happy. You want to take a surf break, take a surf break. Do the stuff that makes you excited because when they come into work, they’re going to have that energy. They’re going to be happy, and people who are happy and connected are going to be way better producers, no question, and you’re going to get retention.

I think one thing that employers have to remember is that turnover is expensive. When you let people burn out, when you let that good, high quality talent burn out, it’s expensive to replace that person, when instead, you could have maybe taken a step back and said, hey, I need to help this person be able to spend more time on their passions or hobbies. Or I’m going to give them some conduit of support there that would have kept them on board and would have kept them engaged. I couldn’t agree with that more.

John: No, that’s awesome. My ultimate dream is for accountants and lawyers and finance, there’s continuing education credits that you have to have so many hours a year of continuing education or supposedly you’re not as good at your job, and I think that companies should have passion hours that they track. If you don’t have as many hours doing something that you’re passionate about, outside of work, then you’re not as good at your job. The company should track that, encourage that, make time for it, and it’s something that we’re actually tracking that’s part of your annual review. It’s whatever. It just shows that not only is it lip service. No, these are hard numbers. We care. I think it would be awesome.

Casey: I 100% agree. I think that’s a challenge that so many people don’t make it part. They’re not accountable. They’ll say it. Oh, yeah, you should take time. Then when people actually do it, they’re like, oh, it always feels like a distraction. Then when you create that dynamic, then employees don’t want to do it because they feel like they’re jumping through hoops. There’s so many things like that where people encourage employees, they say, oh, you should go do X, Y, Z, but then the structure of their organization doesn’t facilitate it. I think that what you said is pertinent. It can’t just be lip service. It has to be an actual, structured, supported, we’re going to ask you about it. That’s how you make people feel comfortable to actually say, okay, this company actually wants me to follow my passions. They actually care if I do this stuff. That’s the difference.

John: No, it’s so true, man. It’s so true. I just love hearing just all the benefits from not only having an outside-of-work passion, but sharing it and how much that matters. How much do you think it’s on the organization or leadership to create that environment where, hey, we share here, that’s what we do? Or how much is it on the individual to maybe just get it started in their little circle and build from there?

Casey: Yeah, that’s a great question. I always am a person who believes that you want to start as an individual. You want to start as an individual within your life, trying to put off time to do these things. Now, I think, hopefully, you’re working within organizations that when you try to make that segue and try to connect that, that they facilitate that. They’re open to it. They see the value in it. I think that, for me, on an individual level, I just think this is almost beyond this just life philosophy. You have to be accountable to yourself. You’re the only one in the driver’s seat actually take the action. If you really, really care about getting an hour in per day of X, maybe at first you have to wake up a little early, maybe you have to push it a little late, it’s not maybe ideal, but that’s something that you want to connect in because I think there’s a sense of accomplishment in saying I care about this thing. I took time, and I did this thing. I made progress on this thing.

I, throughout my life, had a lot of side projects and side businesses and side hobbies and doing consulting and wrote up a book on the design of the board game. For me, part of the satisfaction is just saying, look, I dedicated myself to doing this thing. I got it from point A to point B. Maybe it’s imperfect. It’s almost always imperfect, right?

John: Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Casey: It’s less about other people pouring in and buying tons of my stuff, as it is me just knowing, hey, I cared about this thing. I invested in it and made progress. That’s how I think about it a little bit.

John: No, no, it’s so true. As long as the organization doesn’t just completely squash it and also too, that it’s not lip service, going back to a little bit of your answer before of where it’s almost like a trap. All right, you can go do it, and then the manager walks around and takes note of who’s here and who’s not here. It’s like, no, man, that’s not how it works. Everyone’s got to do it. Or you have to genuinely care about it because people can smell through that, immediately. There’s no sugarcoating stuff anymore. People are too savvy. That’s for sure. No, this has been awesome, really awesome. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that maybe has a hobby that they think no one’s going to care about because it has nothing to do with my job?

Casey: My biggest thing is start small. Just get in there and do it. It’s almost like goal-setting in general, right? Spend 30 minutes. My mom, who I love to death, is an artist. Having five kids, she got away from art for a little while, and she’s just starting to get back at it. What I always tell her is, it’s okay, if it’s just a small, because she always has so many things. I’m busy, I’m doing this. It’s okay, just take a small moment for yourself, 30 minutes, just block it off. Make that your first thing. You’re always going to have that 30 minutes. No pressure, you don’t have to create a masterpiece. Just get in there and start drawing. If you like drawing, if drawing is fun for you, if it’s an exciting thing that you look forward to, in your day, just block off a little time. Over time, you maybe start getting bigger projects. You maybe start developing. Maybe you take a class related to it to help you meet other people who share the passion. You can expand them.

I think one of the most intimidating things often is just that first diving in. You probably totally noticed with the whole connection to the comedy, but I noticed from a writing perspective, writing can just be so intimidating. You’re like, I don’t know the perfect idea. It’s just getting in there and starting by just writing. Just write something. It’s okay if it’s imperfect. You’re going to refine it, but the process of getting accountable to yourself to do it is really meaningful.

John: Yeah. When I was writing What’s Your “And”?, writing the book, I wanted the first draft to be the final draft. I’m very efficient, let’s get this done. It’s good. No. The first draft is maybe the first of 30, maybe, on a good project. If I were to compare that first draft to the book, now, there are certainly similarities, but it is so much better. Creating is messy. Everything that we do, we’re not doing it because we’re going to sell it, or it’s this masterpiece, or it’s something amazing. We’re doing it because we enjoy it. As long as you’re enjoying it, then it’s 100% successful.

Casey: Exactly.

John: It’s that easy. It’s just hard for us to put aside our type A type of mentality or whatever, to want to have everything be amazing because in school and at work, there’s no room for error, unfortunately. Maybe there is, a little bit.

Casey: Yeah, absolutely. I think that because we have, especially in our kind of culture, just so obsessed with the goalpost, so obsessed with the salary and the ladder and the titles, that it’s ingrained in us that we want to be this super high performer and want to be this. That is your priority over doing the things that give you purpose and make you feel fulfilled, and that’s a mistake. I think that as people get a little older, they sometimes get a little more insight and say, why am I doing this if it doesn’t make me happy? Why am I doing this if I don’t have fulfillment in my life? I get one shot. I’m going through life, one time. That’s that shift that happens. I think the encouragement for this kind of conversation is to say, don’t wait. You don’t have to wait until you’re 40 or 50 or 60 to go focus on your passion. It doesn’t have to be, I’m going to retire and then do what I’m passionate about. Now, start now.

John: Totally, it’s an “and”. You can do both. You have a career and something else. It’s not an or. It’s an “and”. It’s that easy. You can have these other things. That’s awesome, man. This has been so cool. I feel like, before I wrap it up though, I rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning, so it’s only fair that I turn the tables and make this the first episode of The Casey Hill Podcast. Thanks for having me on. I guess I booked myself. Anyway, I’m all yours. What have you got?

Casey: I love it. One thing I’m curious about is when you started with some of your segues into these other areas, at what point did you make the leap from on the side to full time with your different commitments? Because I think a big question that a lot of people have is, how long do I maintain something as a passion project, or how long do I maintain something I’m interested in before putting two feet in? I’m curious, what’s your overall opinion on that?

John: I very bluntly, when I speak at conferences and corporate events and to people even, keep it as a side thing, it’s a hobby, for almost everyone. You’re not that good at it to make a living. Also our society doesn’t reward people that are creative. It’s hard to make a living at these things. It’s very, very hard. I don’t want to be the person that tells you, “Well, I climbed the mountain, so can you,” because when you try and then you fail, I’m the first person you find to punch in the face. I want to be the person that tells you, don’t do it. Keep it as a hobby. Because if I’m able to tell you that and then you are like, yeah, maybe I shouldn’t, then you would never make it. Never. Because every single day, I get punched in the face at least twice. So if a stranger can tell you, “Hey, just keep it as a hobby, don’t make a career out of it,” and you’re like, yeah, maybe not; then I just saved you a lot of heartache. Just, you’re welcome.

For my story, it was very much, I equate it to the Road Runner and the Wile E. Coyote cartoons, when the coyote gets the roller skates, the earth is splitting, so one roller skate’s on each side of the canyon or whatever. Keep both roller skates going as long as you possibly can. At some point, your legs are going to break off, so you’ve got to pick one. I would say keep both as long as possible because one is a steady paycheck and benefits and sanity and all of that. The other one is you’re in outer space. There’s no up or down. There’s no career path. There’s no something to model. It’s literally like you’re out in outer space, and you’re all by yourself. It’s weird.

My suggestion is just keep both as long as you can. At some point, like for me, it was kind of a perfect storm that happened. I was like, well, I’ll give it a go. I gave myself six months. I’m just going to run as fast as I can. If I can achieve, another space reference, escape velocity, then awesome, but it’s very hard for anything to get from Earth to outer space. It is not easy. A lot of things don’t. Just statistically speaking, you’re probably going to be one of the things that don’t. It’s just hard. That doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. It just means that it’s an awesome hobby. It’s an “and”. It makes you better. It brings you joy. It doesn’t have to be your source of income and all of that. It’s just a side thing. I was also an accountant. The risk-averseness of everything is very strong in me, so there’s that.

Casey: Yeah, that totally makes sense. One of the things I want to understand too, is I’m really into writing. I have huge respect for not only did you write something, but you got it out in the world, and you’ve had awesome feedback on it. Obviously, you had an idea. Obviously, you had this concept. Walk me through that starting point of how you materialized this, and you got it over the line. How did you officially get it to that point where it’s like, man, this is stamped and done, and I’m selling copies?

John: Thank you, man. That just means a lot, as someone that reads a lot of books, for you to say kind words like that. It was literally like I never thought I’d be a guy that writes a book. People that write books are super smart, not me, somebody that has a story, or they won a Super Bowl or landed on the moon or got an arm bitten off by a shark, I don’t know, something that’s profound. From speaking at so many events and people coming up after, “Hey, do you have a book? Because I’d love to share this with my boss so they can quit being jerks,” I was like, I don’t. I was like, well, I guess I need to. That’s really what pushed me to write it was people asking for it. All right, I’m not an idiot. I’ll give you what you’re asking for, but it is so hard to do, and really to get out of your own way.

The first step was getting a content editor who got the vision. I was like, okay, here’s the book that I want to write. It’s this kind of a book, but for this kind of people. He flew to Denver. We sat for four and a half, eight-hour days, solid, in a conference room with white paper everywhere, those giant Post-it note type things, flip chart types, that and a laptop up on a screen, and just the whole ideation of the book and everything about it, and then had the structure. Then it was just on me to just literally write without filter, almost like just vomit onto the computer, everything. Even if I’m like, I think I already talked about this, write it again in this new section, and then he would be able to take these bricks and move them around. Okay, so you said it better here, but it belongs over here. Let’s move it over, and let’s replace it with that. Just these two chapters almost go together, so let’s just merge them into one.

You’ve really got to find somebody that shares your vision and gets it, and it made it a lot easier. Even in the back of the book, I say he became a friend and almost a therapist, at times, because there are so many times where you’re like, this is crazy. This is so hard. I’m sure when you’re creating a board game, you’re like, I don’t even know why we’re doing this. This is insane. This is so much work.

Casey: I think that what a lot of people face, which is really common, is people start, but they can’t end. That’s a huge challenge that I’ve had. I remember I was listening to, there’s a company called Masterclass that does these little lessons, and I was listening to Neil Gaiman who has one on storytelling. It was this amazing connection moment because he said, “If you go up in my attic right now, you’ll find hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts where I wrote the first three pages and nothing more.” I felt so, like understood in that moment because I always was like, I have this trauma. I have all these stories I’ve started, but I can’t finish. I just felt like I had this unique problem. Hearing someone like him who’s accomplished, hearing him say that’s part of writing, writers start things. That’s where I think it’s really interesting to hear that outlining and getting it to completion because I think it’s the same with board games. How many board games did I start, but I just didn’t get that second, that second part is hard. It takes a lot of determination.

John: The big part was getting that publisher. Once you pay money, there’s money involved, and there’s publisher. There are other people that are relying on you. There’s going to be a copy editor that’s going to make sure that verb tenses and semicolons and all that stuff are there, and there are three rounds of that. Then there’s going to be a proofreader that makes sure that there’s not any misspelling or something that slipped through these three rounds of that. It’s just iron sharpens iron. You get that team of people around you that know what you’re doing, and it’s literally like I couldn’t screw it up. I just had to get out all the content from my head and layer and then you pull that back, and it’s like, oh, yeah, totally, I forgot about this. It’s just getting all of what I want, out, and then it’s letting people that know what they’re doing, take it and start to shape it, and then you providing feedback and guidance along the way of what works, what doesn’t work. It’s fighting for your vision, but also being open to, you know what, I didn’t think about that, that’s probably going to be better. It’s that plus. It’s a cool process. Until you really go through a creative process like that, you really don’t know how to describe it to somebody. It’s a roller coaster. Within a day, within an hour, you’re literally like, screw it, I’m not doing the book. This is just crazy. Then 20 minutes later, they’re like, hey, we’ve got cover ideas, what do you think? This is going to be the best book ever. It’s just like this bipolar roller coaster of whatever.

Casey: That’s awesome. I think there’s a interesting nugget of wisdom, not that we should tell everyone listening here that they should go out and spend tons of money right away, but it’s very interesting what you said about having skin in the game because I felt the exact same with my board game. I designed three pieces of art, three to $400 a piece. It wasn’t like some crazy investment. It wasn’t like my life would be ruined if I walked away, but that was the skin in the game where I was like, okay, I’m doing this thing. I put money down. I’m paying people. That’s an interesting inflection point, I think, in the journey, is once you have that skin in the game, you’re like, okay. Then you’ve got to go through those tough moments.

John: That’s part of deciding that this is going to happen. I’m doing it. Whether it’s, you make that decision and then you pay the money, or you pay the money and then you make the decision; either way, it’s within milliseconds, I think, of this is a real thing. This is happening. You just buckle up for the journey. That’s really it. For other people where, I’m creating something that was going to be out in the world to sell, that’s maybe a different process, but if you just enjoy writing, well, then it doesn’t even matter. You have an income. You’re not going to be homeless and out of food because your book didn’t land right. It’s fine. It’s just you enjoy writing. The process is what’s the beauty of it? The creative, the writing, the doing it is what you enjoy. If you phrase it as, I enjoy, blank, then no one’s going to judge it. Casey says, “I enjoy creating board games.” Nobody says, “Man, that board game is terrible.” No one would say that because you’re not even asking for approval. I don’t care if you like it or not. I enjoy it. It’s that easy, and it takes the weight off of all of our shoulders.

Casey: I love that man. A quick, maybe cap this with a hypothetical question. If money was no object, money’s no object, you basically have all the money you could ever want, what are you doing every day? What are you waking up and doing every day if money is no object?

John: That’s a great question, man. I think re-watching all of Notre Dame football games, every day, and then eating ice cream while I do it because I can just buy new whatever body parts fall apart when you eat too much ice cream, which I’ll probably find out soon enough, to be honest. Yeah, and then probably just helping others, helping others do the thing that they love to do. What I think would be just an awesome show is like Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe, but it’d be John Garrett, and I come and help you play board games and design a board game or whatever, and then we talk and do that. Then it’s somebody else ballroom dancing. It’s somebody else painting, whatever. It’s just helping other people light up. That’s always a cool thing. That, in between watching football games.

Casey: I love that. Yeah, I was thinking about that question. I was like putting myself in that headspace, and I’m kind of the same way. I feel like when you first are in that headspace, you’re like, I’m going to travel. For me, I’m like, I’m going to play basketball and board games and just all that kind of stuff. You’re like, okay, that would be good for probably about three months. Then I’m going to really be like, I need to do something purposeful. What’s the next chapter?

John It’s a combination, for sure. Well, this has been so much fun, Casey. Thank you so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”? This is awesome.

Casey: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was great.

John: Totally, and everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Casey’s work or connect with him on social media or a link to his board game, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Don’t forget to check out the book.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 407 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read the book to you with this voice, look for What’s Your “”And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes in more in-depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon and, more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Mark Menezes. He does strategies and transactions for EY in New York City and is also a career coach. Now he’s with me here today. Mark, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Mark: Good to be with you, John.

John: Yeah, this is going to be awesome. I’m so excited. Finally, another funny person, probably funnier than me, so this is going to be good.

Mark: I’m up to the challenge.

John: Right? 17 rapid-fire questions, get to know Mark right out of the gate here. I’ll start you out with Star Wars or Star Trek.

Mark: Never seen Star Trek, so, Star Wars.

John: Okay, by default, there it is. Okay. All right. How about your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Mark: PC guy.

John: Yeah, me too. There you go. How about your mouse, right click or left click.

Mark: Oh, huge right click guy.

John: Huge right click guy. That’s what opens up all the cool stuff, right?

Mark: Yeah, that’s right.

John: It’s like, what? How about a favorite movie of all time?

Mark: I love Gladiator. It’s something that I will re-watch at least once a year.

John: Okay. Yeah. No, that’s a good pick. Definitely. How about, ooh, this is a good one, rain or snow?

Mark: I was born in Canada, so we’ll go with snow. I do love the snow.

John: Right? Rain is the worst. I hate rain so much. It just ruins everything, except for flowers, I guess.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I’m with you there.

John: Rain at night when I’m not outside. How about, accounting background, balance sheet or income statement?

Mark: We’ll go with cash flow here, Statement of Cash Flow.

John: Oh, cash flow, the one that I don’t know how to do.

Mark: Just show me where the money. More challenging one, yeah, that’s right.

John: Every time in Accounting class, I was like, I don’t even know. Let’s just forget about it. You just go in the program. You go to reports, cash flow, and then print. That’s how you do a cash flow statement, I think.

Mark: Sounds right to me.

John: Right, right. Exactly. How about, prefer more hot or cold?

Mark: We’re talking weather?

John: Yeah. Or food or whatever you want.

Mark: I’ll say hot. Yeah, hot. I’ve also live in the South. For most of my life, I lived in the South, so, hot.

John: Yeah, yeah, because you’ve got a little mix of everything.

Mark: Yeah, I got a mix of everything.

John: How about a favorite number?

Mark: Favorite number, 66.

John: Oh, is there a reason?

Mark: I don’t think so, but it just sounds good.

John: I like six. Why not two of them? Because three sixes would be weird.

Mark: Yeah. If one person hears this and says they like 66, that’s a win then.

John: Right. Exactly. There’s another one. Yeah. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Mark: I like audio. I like audios. I like podcasts, so audio books are great.

John: Yeah, yeah. I never realized that until my paperback came out, and then people are like, “Hey, where’s the audio?” I’m like, it’s coming. Now it’s out, so everybody go grab it. How about a favorite Disney character?

Mark: Favorite Disney character. I’ll go with Aladdin perhaps.

John: Oh, yeah.

Mark: I don’t feel too strong about that one. I think we’ll just go, yeah, go Aladdin.

John: Well, that’s a great answer, man. Aladdin’s awesome. Sudoku or crossword.

Mark: I’m horrible at crossword. I’m so bad at that. I don’t understand how people are good at crossword. I don’t get it how people just are, literally, just two letters out of this eight-letter word and just, I know what that is. So, sudoku, for sure.

John: And why that’s fun.

Mark: Yeah, and why it’s fun. I think you have to be over 60 to start doing crossword. I don’t get when people under 60 do crosswords.

John: They also watch Wheel of Fortune. Same people. Same people.

Mark: That’s true.

John: How about a favorite color?

Mark: I don’t know if I have color here, maybe my college football colors, garnet and black. I went to University of South Carolina, so, garnet and black, yeah.

John: Yeah, the good USC.

Mark: That’s right, the real USC, first founded.

John: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. How about a least favorite color?

Mark: I guess, if that’s the case, I’ve got to go with my rival then, purple and orange, Clemson Tigers, would be my least favorite then.

John: There you go. That’s a slam dunk.

Mark: Yeah. Sorry if there are any Clemson fans out there.

John: No, no, they know. How about, ooh, this is a tricky one, pizza or hamburger?

Mark: Oh, pizza, for sure.

John: Yeah. Well, especially in New York.

Mark: That’s right, some great slices around here.

John: For sure. Definitely. How about, ooh, this is a good one, favorite comedian?

Mark: Favorite comedian.

John: Or more than one.

Mark: Yeah, more than one, but I like Louie CK. I think the era we’re living in, to caveat that.

John: Right, his comedy.

Mark: Yes, purely his comedy and how he redefined a lot of it. The self-deprecation and the observational humor, I think, is pretty unmatched in comedy. I think he’s pretty legendary.

John: And so prolific writer. He just churned out specials every year for a while there. It was unbelievable how much material he was churning out. Two more. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

Mark: I’m more of a night owl. Yeah.

John: Okay.

Mark: Sometimes it changes, weirdly. Different times of year, I suddenly like the mornings. I don’t know. I don’t have a reason for that. Yeah, generally speaking, night owl.

John: The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Mark: Favorite thing I own. I’m not very much a things person, but I have a keyboard. I like playing my keyboard. I’ve had a few different ones over the years. I’d say that’s what I’ve always liked the most is just having a keyboard wherever I live.

John: That’s awesome. That leads right into one of your passions of piano. Obviously, when you’re in New York, you can’t really have a piano in your place, unless you want to sleep on it.

Mark: Yeah.

John: This is my baby grand slash bed slash Murphy bed. You just pull down a piano bed.

Mark: I’m sure somebody has done it.

John: Yeah, totally. Actually, that would probably cost a lot more and only happen in New York. Yeah, so did you grow up playing piano? How’d you get started with that?

Mark: Yeah, I grew up taking lessons like a lot of people, taking classical music from a young age. I think I was around five or six. It was your typical parent saying, “Hey, you’re going to play piano whether you like it or not.” That era. I wasn’t a huge fan. I never really loved it until into my teenage years, I started to really like it. I play by ear. Something that I actually have is perfect pitch, which I didn’t really know that until also later on.

John: Wow.

Mark: I’m not good at reading sheet music. I’m bad at that. I love playing by ear. If someone’s like, hey, can you just play this song? This is just the beat to a rap song or some or just pop song or a song from movie theme. Generally speaking, if I hear it and listen to it several times, I can play it, so it’s something that I’ve grown to love as I’ve progressed through life, and continue to love playing.

John: Yeah. I grew up taking piano lessons as well. It was like, I don’t like this. Then around junior high, my music teacher’s like, here’s the theme song to Cheers, and here’s Billy Joel’s song. I’m like, all right, now we’re talking. But to play by ear, that’s incredible, man. I can always hear when it’s off, but to just listen and then go play, that’s cool noodle around on. That’s awesome, man. Do you have a favorite kind of music to play? I mean, you would throw out a couple of different things.

Mark: Yeah. No, gosh, there’s no genre that I could even say. It’s anything from Coldplay to a Taylor Swift song to Hans Zimmer music. There can be country music. I don’t know. Any song that has a good melody to it, I can get behind it.

John: Yeah. What a great piano song. Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo, doo-doo. People are like, what? I know that one. That’s awesome, man. That’s really, really cool. Is this something that people at work know about? Because you can’t really bring the keyboard to work, I guess, but it comes up.

Mark: Yeah, it is. It’s something that I definitely share at work. There’s a lot of other people that play instruments when you have these conversations. When I do talk about playing piano at work, everyone seems to have either played an instrument at one point in their life, so they love talking about it. Then you hear so often, oh, I wish I kept it up. It’s like, hey, not too late to keep going at it. A lot of people love to talk about playing music, and a lot of people do. A lot of people actually are professionals, they’re still playing an instrument. They just don’t really play often. It’s more that they’ll spend a time doing it. They may really like it, but they just may not play that often.

John: Yeah. It’s one of those things where it takes practice to be good. I’m sure there’s a part of it too where, I don’t practice as much as I used to, so I’m not as good as I used to be. Therefore, I don’t want to tell you about it, sort of thing.

Mark: Yeah, exactly.

John: Everybody likes music, I would imagine. That’s a pretty easy statement to say.

Mark: One guy in my life that said, “I don’t like music,” and I’m just like, what, no genre? He’s like, yeah, I don’t listen to music. I don’t play at all. I’m like, come on. You can’t say that to people, man.

John: Right? Come on, dad. I’m right here. Yeah, I would not trust that person.

Mark: Yeah.

John: Not at all. Do you feel like music at all translates to the office? Is there a skill? There’s definitely that relatability, for sure. I would imagine the numbers and the way that music’s broken down, do you feel like that translates over?

Mark: Yeah, I think definitely just the creative expression of it just, there’s certainly the arithmetic function of playing piano or music. I think that actually does, and I don’t know, I may be not correct on this part, but I believe that just playing an instrument can actually help you in quantitative fields and help you in certain thought processes at work. That’s something that I’ve heard before, and that there are people that tend to play instruments tend to be higher performers in the workplace. I don’t know where I read that or saw that, but I’ve definitely heard that at various points. I don’t know the scientific reasons of why that might be the case, but it does, for sure, translate and can make —

John: Yeah, your brain is different, for sure.

Mark: Yeah.

John: Even listening to music, but playing music, for sure, there are studies for that. I would imagine just the practice, sitting down and practicing and making time for that is got to be neat. Because I would imagine if I told you you can’t play keyboard anymore, that you would be like, wait, no, I’m not going to be a very good person at work. I’m going to be pretty angry.

Mark: If it was taken away from me, I wouldn’t know. It’s just been part of my life for so long that it just affects my mood. It can make me in a better mood, if I’m having a bad day. It actually can change my mindset. It’s a really powerful thing for me.

John: Yeah.

Mark: You’re right, I wouldn’t know what to do. If I had to give that up, I would just say, no, that’s not happening.

John: Yeah, and the piano, the cool thing is, is that “and” has been with you. When you take a different job or you get promoted within the firm or whatever, it’s always there. It’s the other side of you. The work side changes, you have a different logo on the computer bag or whatever, but I’m still playing the piano. That’s always there.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Let’s cross over to open mics, doing some comedy. How did that get started? Because everybody wants to know that story. I get it all the time.

Mark: From a pretty young age, I was always just someone that liked to just give a speech or just get in front of an audience or make a joke. It was just always an innate thing for me. Early in my career, I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time. I just saw this opportunity to take comedy classes and then to get to perform at the top comedy club in Charlottesville. I was like, this seems really.

John: The Comedy Zone?

Mark: The Comedy Zone. Yeah, you’re familiar.

John: Yeah, been there.

Mark: I was like, this seems really cool. I like comedy, and I do it informally, but I said, I’ve never really actually performed. So, did a bunch of classes and learned how to write and learned how to perform and then performed. I invited some coworkers and friends to that performance, got really good feedback, so I was like, yeah, this is really fun. That’s how I initially got into it. I never thought, okay, is this going to be a hobby, long term? A couple of years later, I moved to New York City, all work-related, but there was just such a huge comedy scene here that was just a big byproduct of living here. I was like, wait a minute. There are open mics, opportunities everywhere here, so I was like, I’m going to absolutely continue to do this. That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s like a great bonus for me, living in a city like New York, to have a lot of opportunities to do open mics. Not talking about in the last year of the pandemic but.

John: Sure. Obviously.

Mark: In general, it’s a great city for that, and it’s given me the ability to do these.

John: It’s easily the capital of stand-up comedy, for sure. LA is more acting. Chicago is more the improv. New York is stand-up. That’s where the best are. That’s super cool. Also that you invited coworkers to that first show, which might be the best show of your life.

Mark: I was a little hesitant about it. It was like, in the thought process, should I really do this? I was pretty self-deprecating during that time, but it worked out well. Because it’s one of those things when you talk about doing comedy in the professional side, you get certain people that will raise their eyebrows. Most people think it’s really cool. At the same time, it’s like, oh, what, you’re doing this as a hobby? You’re doing this regularly? Some people can be a little judgmental of that at times.

John: Totally. Or they hear stand-up comedy, and they think it’s really foul or vulgar or whatever. It’s like, no, it doesn’t have to be.

Mark: It doesn’t have to be at all.

John: It just has to be funny. That’s all it has to be, and there are so many of us that aren’t that. That’s cool, man. That’s cool that you invited, I mean, I remember doing that. When you’re new in comedy, it’s just like when you’re new playing the piano, except for your kids, people are like, well, it’s a kid, whatever. When you’re doing stand-up, you’re new, you’re not good. No one is. Even Louie CK and Chris Rock and Ellen and all those people, they were terrible at first, but you don’t see those tapes.

Mark: Oh, sure. I’ve had my share of open mics that have just been crickets. I was like, this joke will kill, for sure, and just absolutely no reaction. I was like, well, maybe not, maybe not. It’s funny. You have this expectation sometimes, and your jokes can go completely just lopsided.

John: Well, soon enough, you’ll reach the point where that actually becomes funnier than when a joke lands properly. When you completely miss, you’re like, actually, that’s hilarious. That’s so funny.

Mark: That’s right.

John: You’re like, whatever. There’s got to be skills that translate over from that to work, in some way.

Mark: Oh, for sure. I didn’t really think about it actually until I started listening to your podcast and thinking about it a little more, how some of your hobbies can translate in the workplace. For comedy, for one, I think there are two aspects to it. There’s a performing aspect of just public speaking performing part, which that certainly translated into whether you’re running a meeting, facilitating a meeting, or being a spokesperson. Any kind of speaking capacity, function you might have at work, I think it has a direct translation to being a stronger employee.

Then I think there’s the more connecting with your audience aspect to it, of constantly, in comedy you think about what works and how will this be perceived. You have to think about that at work, too. It’s like saying things a certain way with certain types of employees, with certain types of bosses or clients. That certainly helps. You’re a little bit more thoughtful about your messaging or how you might communicate with people. I never really thought about that. I just took it for granted. It probably has helped in a lot of different work settings over my career, but I just probably haven’t even really fully reflected on that. I’m sure there have been times when it certainly has.

John: Yeah. It’s a cool, accidental byproduct. I remember my first time, first open mic went well. The second open mic the next week, I thought, well, I can go off on tangents like you do with your friends. The thing is, strangers don’t do that. They’re like, get to the joke, get to the thing. Your communication is so much leaner, after doing comedy, and I just get so frustrated with people that just ask a lot of questions. Because especially in comedy, when a comedian’s like, has anybody else had their car stolen? I want, one time, for the whole audience to just yell, no. Because you’re going to do the joke anyway, why do you ask that stupid, just do the joke.

Mark: Yeah, that was what I was taught when I took these classes. It was, you’ve got to get to the funny. People don’t want the whole story. They’re there to laugh. They don’t want the whole backstory or these unnecessary setups. It’s just like, hey, make us laugh.

John: Yeah, pretty much. It’s the same at work. It’s like, look, I don’t have time for this. Get to it. What are we doing? What’s up? Sometimes you make it stretch just a little bit to make that punch hit, but you know when and why. That’s cool, man. It’s definitely a skill that, and plus that you get a thick skin when you’re up there onstage, throwing jokes, and nobody laughs.

Mark: Oh, yeah, you’re in a really vulnerable spot. When you’re trying to do comedy, you’re being judged for everything.

John: Literally every, before you even say a word.

Mark: Yeah.

John: This guy? Really? You haven’t even heard me talk. Come on, man. It definitely makes you a lot better. Before you got into comedy, talking about piano was definitely something that you would share. Was there ever a part of you that was like, maybe I shouldn’t tell them that I play the piano or tell them that I do comedy because they’re going to, who knows what?

Mark: Yeah. Piano was never a concern because it didn’t give this perception that I’m taking time away from my work hours to do this thing. It’s, let’s just presume, let’s just presume that, hey, you can play piano pretty easily. I think comedy, when you say you do that, it’s like, wait, so that means this is a fixed time that you do these things where you attend these shows or do these open mic, that means that, you can’t just do that for 20 minutes like you can with piano. If you went to a venue, you did this, and you were there for a predetermined time. I think that’s a little bit becoming like, oh, how serious of a professional are you if this is important to you or if you really like this is? What do you care about more, is a perception that you might get from certain people, and certainly not everyone. That is something that can happen in certain conversations.

John: Do you feel like that’s been the case? Or is it mostly in your head?

Mark: I would say mostly in my head. I think most people, if you tell them you do comedy, actually that’s one of those hobbies that people think is really, really fascinating and cool. They just immediately say, I want to hear you.

John: Right. You’re like, ah.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. Then I immediately start almost pushing back. Yeah, in a few years more.

John: Yeah. Right. Wait till I’m at Gotham, and then I’ll invite you.

Mark: Yeah. There are these certain types of employees that are the judgmental type that really just don’t, I don’t think that’s cool that you’re doing something outside of work. That’s taking time away from work you could be doing. I would not call that the majority, but there certainly are in any organization.

John: Yeah, and they’re going to judge you, no matter what it is that you do. They probably judge that you, what, you play the piano? Why aren’t you reading more FASBs? What? It’s crazy sometimes, but it is so much in our own head because you’re worried that everyone’s going to be like that. Actually, 99% of people are like, what? That’s awesome. I want to come. When’s your next show? All that. Yeah. You’re like, I got laryngitis. I can’t do it now. That’s funny. How important is it that an organization creates that space for people to be able to share intentionally, this is the thing we do? Or how much is it on the individual just to start that conversation of, hey, I play the piano, what instruments do you play, or things like that?

Mark: Yeah. I certainly think it’s a two-way street there. Organizations, for sure, could do a better job of encouraging people to have something that’s not everything they do has to be work-related. That would be great to have that encouragement from people’s bosses, from teams, setting that expectation that, hey, this is okay. I think people will start feeling more comfortable that it’s okay to have this hobby or passion. I do think you’re right, that it’s also incumbent on the employee to try their best to go ahead and do this thing. If something is really important and gives you more satisfaction and makes you in a better mood every day, then try to do those things.

I was having a conversation with a former coworker, a couple days ago. She’s just like, you know that sounds great, but I have three kids, and my job is so demanding. I don’t know where to start. I don’t even spend time watching TV or doing anything. I don’t know. To me, I don’t necessarily have an answer for everyone. In a broad spectrum, I absolutely think everyone should strive. Then I get conversations like that. I’m like, let me get back to you. Let me think about what you can do when you have that just completely packed up schedule.

John: Yeah. Because it’s not something that you have to do every day or even every week or even every month. It’s just like, once a quarter, I block out time to do something that lights me up.

Mark: Sure.

John: It’s going to make you better, like you said earlier. It just makes you happier, and that’s going to make you better at work. In all the research I’ve done, if your outside-of-work is chaos, then your inside-of-work is never going to be good. The more that leaders in organizations can nurture the outside-of-work, then inside-of-work will happen. You don’t have to force them to do this side. They know why they’re getting a paycheck.

Mark: Sure.

John: That’ll happen. It’s just they don’t necessarily take care of that, which is a shame. What’s really scary is people just forget. For that lady, I would just ask, well, what did you use to like to do before you had three kids and before work was demanding? Well, it’s probably still there. That little fire is still there. Let’s just fan it a little bit and build it up. Do you have any words of encouragement to anybody listening that maybe thinks, I have this hobby, but no one’s going to care because it has nothing to do with my work?

Mark: Yeah, I would say that, absolutely, pursue a hobby even if it’s in small doses because sometimes people have this idea that’s floating around, I want to try this or do this. Maybe it’s that they need to try a few different things. Maybe if they try something, they try a hobby or a passion, and that’s not maybe the perfect answer, so they try something else. I would say, in general, to explore different options. Don’t be necessarily hung up on just one thing that you think is going to be the answer for you, outside-of-work, but I would say to be open-minded about what a hobby or passion could look like for you, things that you’ve never tried before.

If there is something that it is, for sure, the thing you want to do, I think the idea of being 5, 10 years down the road and not having done it, can lead to a lot of regret. That’s something that I would not want to have, to watch years go by. I’ve definitely talked with employees that are in their 40s or 50s. They say they wish they’d focused more with, whether it’s trying to create better balance for themselves or ability to be able to pursue something that is not professional-related. I’ve definitely seen it, seen the regret happen. I’d say that that should drive someone to pursue that, to avoid having that regret down the road.

John: Yeah. What’s super scary is, I had a client, this was several years ago, when they had mandatory retirement at the leadership role. The guy’s like, I have to retire in three years, and I don’t know what I’m going to go do. It’s like, what? That’s crazy. You’re not even really that old. You have a ton of money. You don’t know why you’re going to get out of bed every day? That’s wild. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I think that it is as bad as people feeling guilty about having a hobby. It’s almost that bad with some people that they feel like it’s a crime to have this thing. No, no, I just already ruled that out. That’s just not going to be in my life. Maybe someone else’s life, but not mine.

John: Right? My research has shown, studies at Duke, studies at Northwestern and other places, that it just makes you a better professional, hands down. I will fight anybody on that, for sure.

Mark: Yeah, and I think it goes to just being a more interesting person, in general, can help you be a better professional and connect with people better too. Whether you’re in the business of trying to find new clients or whatever it is you do, just developing relationships with people, if you have these things that you can talk about, I think you’re just naturally a more interesting person and more interesting conversationalist. That’s going to end up probably driving business, if that’s the pillar, and whether it’s your business development, whether it’s your relationship with your coworkers or counterparts.

John: Yeah, you’re exactly right. Because clients and customers also have outside-of-work interests and other dimensions to who they are, so it definitely can be a good thing. Mark, this has been super awesome, but I feel like it’s only fair, before we bring this in for a landing, that I turn the tables because I very rudely peppered you with questions in the beginning. We’ll make it the first episode of The Mark Menezes Podcast. Thanks for having me on. Here we go. I’m your guest. I’m all yours.

Mark: All right. Well, I believe that you are a Notre Dame guy, so my rapid-fire question is either who is your favorite Notre Dame player, coach or your favorite Notre Dame football moment, anything Notre Dame-related?

John: Easily, my favorite Notre Dame football moment was nine years ago, the 2012 undefeated season. We were playing Stanford at home, and it started to rain in the second half, fourth quarter especially, raining, as much as I hate rain that I established earlier. It’s pouring rain, and you’re to the bone drenched. It was a goal line, fourth and goal in overtime. Manti Teo stops the linebacker at the one-inch line. We win on fourth down, place goes nuts. Everyone’s pouring onto the field. Because in college football, you don’t know when, it’s going to happen or not, and, boom, here it is, fourth and goal. That was awesome. That was a really cool game.

Mark: Really cool moment, yeah.

John: Favorite player probably, all time, I don’t know, the Rocket was pretty awesome. Rocket Ismail. He was before my time, but he was pretty awesome to watch. Definitely, yeah, college football in general, but Notre Dame especially.

Mark: Yeah, cool. Now I understand that you know Lou Holtz or had a history with him, which is awesome. We got him at South Carolina, and then he started not being a good coach once he came over there. Or we’re just not, we just can’t, I mean.

John: It happens, man. It happens. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Lou Holtz is easily my favorite coach, though.

Mark: They all have their moments when they they’re going to slip, eventually.

John: Exactly.

Mark: The only other question I can think of is, what year will the first human be on Mars?

John: Oh, wow. That’s a good question. That’s a good question.

Mark: Given a ten-year window to be, if you want to just —

John: I think it’ll be in ten years. I think it’ll be in ten years. Elon Musk is all over it.

Mark: Well, he wants to potentially die on Mars.

John: Yeah. I think I’ve read something where it was like, hey, look, we need people to go, and you might not come back. People are signing up because I think after 2020, they’re like, you know what, whatever gets us off of this one, I’m all for it because they don’t have COVID on Mars. Or maybe they do. I don’t know. Maybe that’s where it came from. Yeah, I bet in 10 years. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that happens.

Mark: That’s aggressive. That’s much more aggressive than what I thought, but, hey, only time will tell.

John: Exactly. We’ll have to revisit this. Yeah, we’ll have you back for the follow-up. You’ll be like, John, I’m on Mars. I’ll be like, what?

Mark: I’ll give up piano, give up comedy. I’ll just take trips to Mars back and forth.

John: Right. That’s my “and”. I go to Mars on weekends. All right. That’s cool.

Mark: Bars are great there.

John: Right. That’s awesome. Well, this has been so much fun, Mark. It’s really cool to have you be a part of What’s Your “And”? Thanks so much.

Mark: Thanks, John. It was great to be with you.

John: Awesome, and everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Mark in action or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.

Welcome to Episode 406 of What’s Your “And”? Follow-Up Friday edition. This is John Garrett, and each Friday, I follow up with a guest who had been on the show a few years ago to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also hear how this message might have impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited, my book is out. You can order it on Amazon, Indigo, barnesandnoble.com, a few other websites. Go to whatsyourand.com for more. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. Thank you so much to everyone who’s read it so far or listened and then been so kind enough to leave those Amazon reviews and for, more importantly, changing the culture where you work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this Follow-Up Friday is no different with my guest, Amanda Wilkie. She’s a consultant with Boomer Consulting, living in the Washington DC area. Now she’s with me here today. Amanda, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Amanda: Oh, happy to be here, John, always great to catch up with you.

John: Likewise. This is going to be a blast. I have seven rapid-fire questions, things I didn’t ask you the first time, and now that I think about it, probably should have. Here we go.

Amanda: Now’s your chance. Let’s do it.

John: Now’s your chance. Right, right. Here you go, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones.

Amanda: Ooh, Harry Potter.

John: Harry Potter. Yeah. How about a favorite TV show of all time?

Amanda: Schitt’s Creek.

John: Oh, nice. Yeah, very funny.

Amanda: Probably watched it, all the way through, five times now. Thank you, COVID.

John: Right. There you go. I know you’ve traveled quite a bit. You’re from the South. Tea or sweet tea.

Amanda: Oh, sweet tea.

John: Right? There you go, and you’ve got to boil it with the sugar. It’s not like add sugar later.

Amanda: Oh, no, that’s not sweet tea. That’s disgusting is what that is.

John: Right. That’s criminal.

Amanda: Mm-hmm.

John: How about a favorite day of the week?

Amanda: Oh, that’s a tough one. We’ll go with Saturday. That’s my long run day.

John: Yeah? Oh, okay. Okay. There you go. When it comes to books, audio, Kindle or real book.

Amanda: Audio. I like to multitask. Now that I know that you’re reading your book, I will actually have an opportunity to listen to you read it. I’m looking forward to that. Thanks, John.

John: Okay. Yeah, that was hard. It was eight hours to record that in a studio. They had a voice coach piped in. Yeah, it was work.

Amanda: You got it, first take, though, right?

John: Actually, there was only one line that I had to redo, which was pretty amazing. Normally, it’s a total redo or not total, but a lot. Yeah, they were actually like, oh, wow, there’s only one line. I was like, well, I wrote it. What do you want? That line probably shouldn’t have been in there anyway. Never mind. Two more. How about your first concert?

Amanda: New Kids on the Block.

John: Okay. There we go.

Amanda: I’m not even ashamed to say it. I saw them when I was 12, and I saw them again in my 30s. Totally different experience, we’ll just say that, totally different experience, from 12 to 30-something.

John: It’s weird that you remember all the words, right?

Amanda: Yeah. Now I’m in my 30s, I understood all the feelings that New Kids on the Block was giving me. I didn’t quite understand when I was 12.

John: Fair enough. That’s awesome. That’s very different than my first concert which was Metallica. That is different feelings.

Amanda: Yeah.

John: Last one. Toilet paper roll, over or under.

Amanda: John, look at the patent. It’s always over.

John: Right?

Amanda: Over.

John: Amen.

Amanda: If I come to your house and it’s under, I will fix it for you because you are wrong.

John: That’s awesome. I love it. I love it. Fix it. That’s awesome. Yeah, Episode 193, when you were on, we talked hobby collecting. I remember rollerblading being one of them, for sure, which is pretty unique. Is that still a thing for you, or did COVID change things?

Amanda: Well, COVID changed a lot of things, of course. Last time we talked, we talked about that evolution of all those different hobbies and me going through that journey of realizing that it wasn’t because I lacked focus or because things just wouldn’t stick. It was that I just really had that passion for learning things, whether I applied it or not.

A lot of things changed in 2020. We had to completely redesign how we worked, just like everyone else. We had to completely redesign how we do consulting engagements, how we meet the objectives of the engagement, and being able to learn quickly and learn new hobbies and learn new approaches, I think, really helped us and helped me adapt pretty quickly. That was great, but that also meant that I wasn’t traveling anymore. I went from traveling 75, 80% of the time to, I spent 14 months at home.

John: Right.

Amanda: John, my partner and I, we’ve never spent 365 days together straight. I’m happy to report we made it, but it was one of those things. Wow, this is completely different. He was also very surprised to learn that I can actually cook.

John: Nice.

Amanda: Not just cook. Like you said earlier, John, I am from the South. I grew up in North Georgia, very close to Chattanooga, Tennessee, so, yes, sweet tea is a thing, but also cast iron cooking. One of the things that I did in 2020 was I perfected cast iron chicken, cast iron pork, cast iron steak. Basically, all my meat is now cooked in a cast iron skillet. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, will be so proud of me. I do know how to properly care for cast iron. I do not wash it with soap and water. That was something that took some trial and error. There were a couple of meals that probably weren’t that delectable.

John: Smoke alarm going off, all that stuff.

Amanda: Once or twice, yeah. Luckily, the Fire Department never actually showed up, though.

John: Right. Well, you’ve got to make sure it works. It’s like, all right, just in case we need it. What is the cast iron care? What is that? What is the secret on that?

Amanda: Oh. Well, you don’t actually wash it, John. You don’t wash it.

John: You just like let it ride?

Amanda: Well, you do scrape it and remove anything that’s stuck on it. You clean it with salt. You basically scrub it with salt. You don’t want it to rust, so you do put a little oil or something in it to keep it nice and moist.

John: Okay.

Amanda: If you see someone actually washing cast iron with soap and water, that’s not right.

John: They probably put the toilet paper under.

Amanda: Right, they just do it wrong. Then they’re just wrong. Yeah.

John: They’re just wrong. No, good to know. Good to know. That sounds awesome. Were there other hobbies that you picked up as well? Or did you just ride that one more focus?

Amanda: Well, there was a lot of cooking that happened. One that I realized I’m not so good at, John, is gardening.

John: Okay.

Amanda: I killed many a plant. I completely destroyed two herb gardens, one indoor and one outdoor.

John: Okay. All right.

Amanda: I’ve decided that.

John: Literally.

Amanda: Yes, way too much water. Yeah, my herb garden is completely — they were never fruitful. They just went straight from seeds to they died quickly. I killed a tree.

John: Okay.

Amanda: Yeah.

John: Wow, this is next level. I feel like you should just flip it around. No, no, I successfully.

Amanda: Yeah, I was successful at killing a tree.

John: The Jack Kevorkian of gardening and trees.

Amanda: You know I think that’s something that’s important. You’re not going to be good at everything.

John: That’s true.

Amanda: You know?

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda: There are a lot of things that I’ve learned that I am good at, but I think just importantly are the things that I’m not good at. Perhaps one day, maybe we’ll call it retirement, I may try gardening again.

John: Right. It’s good to know. That’s a good point. It’s not necessarily a failure. You try. It’s fun. You gave it a swing. It’s not for you right now, but it might be later. That’s great. It’s fun to, you can laugh about it. You can tell some stories about it. So what? You live to tell about it and move on.

Amanda: I can admire other people’s plants. I buy my flowers now. I don’t grow them. All is right with the world.

John: Right. Just don’t come over and touch my plants.

Amanda: Yeah.

John: You can just look at them. Just look at them. That’s it. That’s really cool.

Amanda: Yeah. I know you were busy writing a book. I actually contributed to a book on blockchain. That was something that we talked about last time as well is my passion for emerging technologies. I contributed to the Emerald Handbook of Blockchain for Business. I had the honor of co-authoring a chapter with Dr. Sean Stein Smith.

John: Yeah, who’s also been on the show as a drummer.

Amanda: He’s awesome. He’s a man of many talents and a great, great resource. He works a lot with the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance. I’ve had the honor of being on their podcast. Being able to collaborate with him on this chapter was awesome. He’s a brilliant mind. You know him, but your listeners, I think they should definitely follow him as well. He and I teamed up on a chapter about speed efficiency, decreased costs and technical challenges of blockchain in business.

John: Nice.

Amanda: I wrote one chapter. I can’t imagine everything you had to do to write an entire book.

John: Then it’s the layout and the cover and all that, but good for you. That’s awesome. That’s a power duo right there. If you’re going to read any of the chapters, it’s that one, and then read the rest of the book later.

Amanda: Exactly. I started with that chapter.

John: Right. Good for you. Congratulations. That’s awesome.

Amanda: Thank you.

John: Yeah, because that is not easy. That is not easy, for sure.

Amanda: Yeah. One of my hobbies, it’s been a hobby for a while, but it’s definitely a holdover into 2021, is running. Again, traveling less in 2020, was really able to focus on running more regularly, and I am signed up for my first full marathon.

John: Wow.

Amanda: Yes, John, 26.2 miles. I’m running the Marine Corps Marathon which is here in Washington DC at the end of October.

John: Yeah, it’s the 0.2 that gets you at the end.

Amanda: Yes.

John: I did a half and then stopped. I mean, it was the finish line. It’s not like I ran half of it and then stopped.

Amanda: I’m done. I’m done right here.

John: Well, it shouldn’t be called a half. It’s far. That should be called, a marathon should be a double marathon. There’s no half. Like, what?

Amanda: Well, yeah, 13.1 is no small feat either.

John: Yeah, that’s far. Yeah. I used to do a joke about how I found out I’m not a very good runner because by the time I finished, the winner was already back in Kenya.

Amanda: One of my favorite running shirts says, “13.1, only half crazy.”

John: Oh, yes. There you go.

Amanda: We’re going full on crazy.

John: Full crazy. Full crazy. Well, good for you. That’ll be awesome to watch. That’s another thing. You’re competing against yourself really. Because I feel like so many times, people are, well, someone’s going to ask about my time. Forget them. It doesn’t matter. Did you run it? No. Who cares?

Amanda: My goal is to make it to the finish line.

John: Yeah.

Amanda: That’s all I want to do is finish and get the medal and wear the medal around and then of course, eat and drink all the things, all of them.

John: Because after, yeah, the gloves are off. You can do whatever you want. That’s awesome. That’s super cool. That’s super cool. Do you feel like others are sharing their hobbies and passions more? Do you feel like with the Zoom calls and the things like that as well, that that whole world is starting to open up?

Amanda: Yeah, I definitely think they are. I think, prior to March of 2020, if you were on a video call, and you saw a pet or a child come into the camera frame, that was taboo. It just seemed very unprofessional. Now, it is so comfortable. It’s just so part of the business culture that if I see an animal, I need to know the animal’s name. How old is the animal? Where did you get this animal?

John: Right.

Amanda: Same with kids. How old is this kid? Where did you get it? Is it yours?

John: Just put them on the mic. Just hand over the headset. Right.

Amanda: I think so many firms are struggling with how do we maintain our culture? How do we build a culture for not coming back into the office? I know it’s going to be a struggle. I don’t think anyone has it quite figured out yet, but I do think that having that comfort level and being able to say, bring your kid in, bring your pet in, show us around your house, which I’ve done with some of my colleagues, that is a way that we are starting to build that culture. I hope that we maintain that. We’re going to have to maintain that.

Something I’ve really been thinking about and a lot of us have been talking about lately is, John, the kids who graduated from high school in 2020 and 2021, or started college in those years, they are used to the distance learning. These are your interns in four, five years. This is what they’re going to be comfortable with, so you’re going to have to learn to build a culture. You’re going to have to find ways to bring them together.

I do think 2020, it gave us some opportunities to build new hobbies, find new ways to connect. I did not start baking bread. I know a lot of people did that. Did you get into the whole sourdough starter craze thing?

John: No. We didn’t collect toilet paper either. There was that whole craze. I’m not sure if collecting is the right word, hoarding probably. Yeah, there was some gardening. My wife did try kombucha, to make kombucha. That went about a couple of months. It’s now painting, I guess, or something. Yeah. I picked up rowing, which I never thought I’d row anything. I hate running. Every time I run, my brain is like, you should be doing these other 100 things instead. Rowing is very efficient. It’s a full body in 20 minutes, and then I’m out. I got 20 minutes.

Amanda: Yeah, 20 minutes of rowing, yeah, give me two hours to run. I’ll take two hours of running over 20 minutes of rowing any day.

John: See, it’s just you find the thing that you like and go with it. Before that, it was zero exercising, so at least there’s something. It’s been a weird year. You’re right. Those companies and organizations that had their culture based off of passing each other in the hallway and complaining about the coffee in the break room, suddenly, you had no culture. If your culture is built from the outside, in, then your culture is fine because you’re bringing those outside-of-work, your “and” to the office and making those human connections, that it doesn’t matter if it’s remote or in the office or hybrid or whatever.

Amanda: Without all of that unintentional one-on-one time, like you said, passing each other in hall or in the break room, we’ve had to become much more intentional. You have to reach out and ask, “How are you doing? How are you spending your time? Where are you focusing?” I think that the intentionality of it is something that is very important, and we need to stick with. The intentionality of it is also one of the things that’s making it easier for people to start to share and open up.

John: Exactly, and normalizing it. It’s like, well, this is what everybody does. If you’re not doing it, then that’s weird. Where, 2, 5, 10 years ago, it was the opposite. Whoa, whoa, what’s with the oversharing? Well, it’s just my pet.

Amanda: Yeah. I don’t care what you’ve been doing outside of the office. That doesn’t impact us.

John: Right, exactly. No, that’s such a great takeaway for everybody listening. It’s a simple thing. Just be intentional with that and care. That works. I feel like it’s only fair, before I wrap this up, that I turn the tables since I rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning. We’ll make this the first episode of The Amanda Wilkie Podcast. Thanks for having me on. Whatever you’ve got, I’m all yours.

Amanda: Oh, I’ve got a whole list. Let’s see. Let’s start with, we’ve been talking about hobbies, what’s your favorite hobby, John?

John: Oh, wow. If I could eat ice cream while watching college football, live, that would be pretty awesome. Then there was a concert at halftime. Well, I was in the marching band, so I love that too, but after the game, then there’s a concert. That would be heaven. Yeah, eating ice cream at a college football game would be probably my favorite.

Amanda: Gotcha. That’s your one favorite is ice cream at a college football game?

John: Well, I’m trying to combine two.

Amanda: That’s okay. It’s a compound hobby. I like it.

John: Yes, yes.

Amanda: Morning person or night owl.

John: I guess I’m more effective in the morning. I’ll say morning, but I don’t do the 5am or whatever, like stupid o’clock people. Sun’s way up by the time I, yeah.

Amanda: Well, before noon is technically still morning.

John: Yeah, so let’s go with morning. Yeah.

Amanda: Alright, favorite movie quote.

John: Oh, wow. That’s a good one. I guess one that comes to mind is from Good Will Hunting, the, “How do you like them apples?” That whole scene is just great. I don’t know. There are so many Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley movie quotes that come to mind as well. Yeah, man, that’s a good one. It’s hard to pick just one. Or Dumb and Dumber, “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”

Amanda: Classic. Classic.

John: That’s a great line. I’ll go with that one.

Amanda: I do like that one. That’s solid. Stick with that one. Alright, so I mentioned perfecting my cast iron cooking. How do you like your steak cooked?

John: Yeah, I am a medium, medium or medium rare, a little bit of pink but not so much red. Yeah, a little bit of pink in the middle there.

Amanda: You’re a solid medium.

John: Solid medium, yeah.

Amanda: Alright, tacos, soft or hard.

John: Oh, that’s tough. That’s tough. I think I’m going to go crunchy on that one. I like the crunchy. It just makes it, I don’t know. There are more senses involved, I guess.

Amanda: There you go. I would say that’s the right answer, John.

John: Okay. Whew! I almost got kicked off The Amanda Wilkie Podcast before it started.

Amanda: Nope. That’s the right answer. Crunchy is good.

John: Awesome. Awesome. Well, it’s been so much fun catching up with you. Thank you. Thank you so much for just being a part of What’s Your “And”? and just living this message for everybody to see. Thanks, Amanda.

Amanda: My pleasure, John. Thanks so much for having me.

John: Awesome. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Amanda in action or maybe connect with her on social media and check out the book, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.