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Welcome to Episode 555 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. And 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 at work. And in other words, who else are you beyond the job title?

And if you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the award-winning book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & 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. And 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.

And 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 audiobooks. And 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 weekend. And this week is no different with my guest, Karl Hebenstreit. He’s a principal with Perform & Function in the Bay Area, California. And he’s the author of Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision and also The How and Why Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram. And now, he’s with me here today. Karl, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on what’s Your “And”?

John: Thank you so much, John. This is really a pleasure.

Karl: Yeah, this is gonna be a blast. Super fun starting out the new year and this is gonna be great. So we have 17 rapid-fire questions though. Get to know Karl out of the gate here. So let’s see how this goes here. I’ll start you with I think an easy one. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Karl: Definitely Star Trek. I love the inclusivity. I love the message. I love the diversity that’s celebrated and the way that all the different “races” are being brought together and explained.

John: Yeah, the world.

Karl: Yes.

John: Yeah.

Karl: Yeah, definitely Star Trek. And it really goes along with one of my favorite actors and Patrick Stewart is just amazing.

John: Okay, there we go. I was gonna ask you do you have a favorite actor or actress. So there we go. Two for one right there on one.

Karl: Yeah. It’s like a Groupon.

John: Yeah. It’s like a Groupon right out of the gate. That’s hilarious. All right. How about your computer, PC or Mac?

Karl: PC.

John: PC. Me too. I’m the same.

Karl: I learned on a Mac in school. I learned on a Mac, but every job that I’ve worked at has been PC since then. You know, the other thing is I’m also an android rather than an iOS, so yeah.

John: No, I’m Android as well. I’m all in on whatever’s not Apple just ’cause I’m not cool enough I think is probably why.

Karl: I’ll join you in that club. Don’t worry.

John: Right, right, right. Would you say you’re more early bird or night owl?

Karl: Early bird.

John: Early bird. Okay.

Karl: I’m disgustingly an early bird. Everyone will tell you that I just jump up and I’m like “Good morning, everyone.”

John: Right. Like go back to sleep and wake us up at a normal time.

Karl: Exactly.

John: I’m a huge ice cream junkie. So ice cream in a cup or in a cone?

Karl: Cone. I wanna be able to eat the packaging. And especially if it’s differently flavored. There’s an amazing gelato place in Palm Springs and they have all these different flavored cones that are just— Like they have chocolate and they have creamsicle-flavored cones. Amazing.

John: Wow!

Karl: Yes.

John: Okay. Totally going to Palm Springs now just for that and then like fly in, fly out. How about do you prefer more hot or cold?

Karl: I run warm, so I prefer cold. Although vacation wise, I prefer hot.

John: Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. How about favorite band or musician?

Karl: Wow. Okay. The first thing that popped into my mind was probably my formative year. So let’s go with Abba.

John: Oh, okay. Yes! There you go. All right. I love it, man.

Karl: Although more recently, I would say more along the— Well, George Michael favorite musician overall, but band— You said band, so I’d have to go with a band.

John: No, that’s fine. That works. No, I’ll take either one. I actually do a music video parody of You Are My Adding Machine from Abba. So it’s a little play on words of see that girl watching me digging my adding machine.

Karl: Dancing Queen. Yes.

John: Yeah. Exactly. So a little bit of nerdiness.

Karl: Yes. The accounting, bringing that in.

John: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Do you have a favorite number?

Karl: 5. My favorite number is 5. My lucky number.

John: Oh, in Episode 555. Look at you, man. This is the universe good coinciding. Yeah. Exactly. Making it happen. How about books, audio version, e-Book, or real book?

Karl: I want the real thing. I want the actual real book. Yeah. So I can write in it. I can make notes in it. I can fold the pages over like yeah.

John: Okay. I get all up in there.

Karl: Stick it in the bookshelf. Yeah.

John: There you go. How about a favorite Disney character? There’s a million of them, so I’ll take anything animated.

Karl: Wow. Disney character. So Huey, Louie, and Dewey are the nephews of—

John: Oh, yeah!

Karl: Yeah. I love Huey, Louie, and Dewey. Yes. I don’t know why.

John: There you go.

Karl: They have Ducktails and no one probably even knows what that is, but they were so creative and would resolve and solve all the different problems that Scrooge McDuck was getting himself into. Yes.

John: Right. There you go.

Karl: I don’t know if you’ve ever gotten that answer before, but yes.

John: No. No. I forgot all about them. That’s so great. Thank you for the reminder. That’s hilarious. How about puzzles, Sudoku, crossword, or a jigsaw puzzle?

Karl: Out of the three, I’d probably go with crossword just because it’s closest to Wordle, which you know obviously I’ve fallen into that trap.

John: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Karl: But ultimately, Lego, if Lego is considered a puzzle. I love Legos.

John: Oh, yeah. Okay.

Karl: Yes.

John: Okay.

Karl: I love Legos growing up and I still love the adult Legos now too. Yes.

John: Oh, really? Okay. All right. Yeah, I was definitely a huge— I mean, we had two giant tubs of Legos as kids and you just get all the leftovers of whoever and wherever and, yeah, all that. So yeah, Lego is awesome. How about a favorite color?

Karl: Red. I’d go with a red and probably more of like a darker red. When I was younger, it was probably brighter red. And now, it’s probably more like the burgundies or the Malbecs.

John: The red you can drink.

Karl: The red you can drink. Also the red you can drive. How about like a soul red or a candy apple red? I’d go with that one too.

John: Okay. Okay. All right. How about a least favorite color?

Karl: Oh, wow. Puce. How about Puce?

John: Oh, wow.

Karl: I mean, you could ever do anything with that.

John: Oh, it even sounds terrible.

Karl: Yeah. I don’t know if you could do much with that one. That’s in no one’s color wheel. Yeah.

John: Right. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Would you say you’re more talk or text?

Karl: Talk.

John: Talk. Yeah, I’m same. It just gets to the point faster. We got three more. Toilet paper roll over or under?

Karl: The right way. Over.

John: There we go.

Karl: I actually saw there was like the original when they went to patents.

John: The patents?

Karl: Yes, it is over. So, yeah.

John: Yeah. No, no, it definitely is. It definitely is. Two more. Do you have a favorite animal? Any animal at all.

Karl: Oh, okay. So if it’s just any animal in the world, I’d have to go with monkeys because monkeys are awesome. But if it’s something that I can have, it’s obviously dogs because of our little pack.

John: A monkey riding a dog. No, no, I’m just kidding.

Karl: And I have a lovely little Chihuahua mix who’s a rescue from Mexico. His name is Turbo.

John: Oh!

Karl: Yeah. So he’s a lovely little monkey dog. Absolutely.

John: That’s awesome. Yeah, exactly. That’s perfect. I love it. I love it. And the last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Karl: Wow. I’m gonna go with freedom on that. My freedom is my favorite thing I have or own ’cause that allows me everything else.

John: Yeah. definitely. I love it. That’s awesome. So let’s talk writing Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision children’s books are just writing in general, like how did you get started with that? Is it something you did a lot as a kid and then just kept going or—

Karl: I think writing came easily for me just in school, reading and writing papers. And I never sought to write a book. The business book came first and the children’s book came second because, again, I like to talk. I’d rather talk than text, so I’d rather talk than write.

John: Yeah. Right. Right.

Karl: I kept giving presentations at different conferences about this wonderful thing called the Enneagram and how to use it in business. And people kept asking me “When is the book coming out?” And I looked at them like “What are you talking about? What book?” So they were hoping that I was gonna integrate all these things into a book, which actually came really, really easily because I had done all these presentations and all these PowerPoint slides. I was using all the content in business.

So it was just very simple to just create a different chapter for each different concept or intervention. And then a friend of mine co-wrote a children’s book with his mother. And I thought, you know, when I work in organizations, it’s so difficult because we really address challenges at the executive or at the higher levels, and we really don’t pay as much attention to the lower levels or the more entry-level employees.

And if we got people acclimated, and trained, and understanding of diversity of perspective early on not just their career, but in their life, it would make their lives overall much easier. So I decided, let me do a children’s book introducing the concept of the Enneagram. And by default, the people, the parents, the teachers, whoever’s reading the books to the children, would also learn about the concept as well. And that will help be a growth opportunity for them.

John: That’s incredible. And for those listening that aren’t aware, like super quick and dirty CliffNotes version of what an Enneagram.

Karl: For anyone that’s never heard of the Enneagram before, think of it as Myers-Briggs on steroids. So Myers-Briggs is a personality typing instrument, but the Enneagram actually helps you understand what the motivation is behind the behaviors, so all the other instruments out there that measure personality behaviors, but they don’t really tell you or give you insight into what’s the motivation behind that behavior. So if you know that and there are nine, there are nine primary motivators that each human will basically affiliate with one of those more than the others, and if we understand where they’re coming from, we don’t think they’re crazy and we don’t think they’re out to get us because we know exactly what their ultimate reason and purpose.

John: There you go. And if one of ’em is ice cream, that’s definitely mine.

Karl: I think that would apply to all the types.

John: Right? There we go.

Karl: Especially chocolate ice cream.

John: Right? There we go.

Yeah. But that’s so great. And to learn it as a kid, that’s so awesome to think of that ’cause when you sit down to write a children’s book, I mean, do you have to get into the child mind? Did you have to like how to get it to their level? Because you haven’t been presenting it preschools like you did for the business book. So how did you go about that?

Karl: You are absolutely right and I don’t have children of my own other than Turbo, and Chase, and Emmett – the dogs. And you know, they were no help, whatsoever. They gave no feedback. So I don’t know what went over their head or what they integrated or whatever. But you know, we were all children once and we all know people who have children. So I tested it out on friends who are parents and have children, and I tried to make it a very complicated topic as simple as possible. So I really adjusted to the standpoint of how do you make a tough decision, right? Everyone has to make a tough decision and understanding that each of the nine different types will look at decision making differently. And if we can incorporate all of those nine perspectives or views, we’re gonna make the right decision all the time and also honor the diversity that each of our friends has in being able to see something from a different point of view.

John: No, love it, man. That’s awesome. That’s really cool. And the writing, is that something that you’ve shared with coworkers in the past? Like I’m sure ’cause you don’t just write a book overnight, you know. And so, is it something that you’ve shared in the past or is it something that you keep on the down low?

Karl: Funny you should say. I did write the book overnight. The children’s book, I did write overnight.

John: Oh, that’s incredible. Holy cow. Okay, good for you, man.

Karl: Because it was an outgrowth really of the business book which had been written 5 years earlier.

John: Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

Karl: So I took one in one part of it, and I said I can really take this concept and bring it to a level that would be a lot simpler and more easily understood by a wider audience. So yeah, the children’s book was literally written overnight. It took 9 weeks from idea to publication. 9 weeks.

John: That’s incredible. Holy cow. That’s unbelievable, man. There might be a children’s What’s Your “And”? book coming out soon. Maybe tomorrow if I can do it overnight.

Karl: Absolutely. No, I think you totally can. You totally can.

John: That’s awesome, man. I love that. I love that. Well, you also just get out of your own way and just write it.

Karl: Exactly.

John: You know? And then just let it rip. And so, is this something that you’ve shared with coworkers in the past or they know that that side of you?

Karl: They totally know it and they knew it from the business side first because the business book when I wrote that, because that I was using those concepts at work. So my coworkers were really thrilled to support me and be able to look at the concepts. And I have colleagues right now that still tell me that they use the book when they do consulting with other clients as well. So it’s great. It’s great to know that. In fact, the business book is gonna end up with an outgrowth into a training certification on how to use the Enneagram system in organizations for all sorts of different organization development interventions.

John: Congrats, man. That’s awesome.

Karl: Be on the lookout for that. Yeah. That’s coming up next year. Yes.

John: That’s very cool. Very cool. And did you ever come across other people that enjoyed writing or I guess you had plenty of people that enjoyed reading ’cause they wanted to cheer you on along the way, but, you know, those people you just have a different relationship with work-wise than you do everyone else that you work with as well or did it matter much?

Karl: So since I wrote the business book and the children’s book, another one of my colleagues wrote a book on innovation as well, Stephen Kowalski. I don’t think I was his inspiration for doing it. I think he had his own inspiration for that, but yeah. So I see people doing that. I see people who have work that they’re doing and then maybe aren’t able to— if they find something, like some sort of light, or interest, or passion in their work that they can’t do 100% of the time, that they’re able to have that outgrowth into a book that is allowing them to get more to that 100% that they can’t get at work. And I really totally recommend that to anyone that if you’re not getting 100% of your fulfillment at work, but maybe there’s something that you can grow from, to do that. Just go into that.

John: No, I love that. That’s such a great concept. Yeah. I mean, if you’re not getting it at work, you can get it outside of work through your “and.” And if it’s writing something and whether it becomes a New York Times bestseller or wins it an award or anything, doesn’t matter. Like you’re doing it ’cause you enjoy it and you’re making a difference in somebody’s life, and especially yours most importantly.

Karl: Absolutely.

John: So, you know, that’s really why you’re doing it. That’s awesome, man. And so, do you feel like the writing side of you plays into work at all? I mean, I’m sure there’s gotta be some sort of writing or communication that happens in your job. So does that impact that?

Karl: You know, currently in my work and my role through my independent consultancy, I do a lot of executive coaching, which doesn’t really require me to do much work if you wanna look at it that way because if you’re doing all the work as an executive coach, you’re doing it wrong. The coaching should be doing all the work, right? So they should be doing all the writing. They should be doing all the accountability stuff and I just hold them accountable.

And then I do presentations and workshops. So there’s a little bit of writing that goes along in that. But again, it goes back to the I’d rather talk than text. So I would rather talk than write. So it really comes down to that. So yes, the writing can synthesize things and I really do like to have things to be short and sweet, and to the point, and not drawn out. And you’ll actually see that in the books that it’s not repeating the same concept over and over and over again. It’s one and done, and maybe bringing it back if it comes up in an overlap with something else.

John: That’s the thing I found when I was writing my book, was how I presented it had to be different than how you write the book ’cause when you’re on stage in front of an audience, you can adjust accordingly if they like it or don’t. You know, you unlock a secret level that now you know, whatever. But in the book, like if you didn’t like that chapter, I’m not sitting there telling you “Hey, you might wanna skip the next two if you didn’t like that one”, you know, type of thing. You know, the approach and the tone of the book, I guess, had to be a little bit different than when it’s coming from me in person.

And that’s something that until you have a team of people that know what they’re doing from the publisher side, then that’s what really helps on that side of things. Yeah, it’s cool to just flush out new ideas and just be like “Oh, wow. Yeah, okay.” They do sort of go hand in hand with each other like that, which is fantastic. That’s really cool. And then before you got into the writing, were there other hobbies that you had that maybe you shared with at work or was writing kind of the thing that cracked it open?

Karl: So one of the things that’s been throughout my entire life— and I think you touched on it at the beginning when we were talking about favorite musician, or band, or artist— singing has been a huge part of my life from my childhood. And Abba was really big. I grew up in Greece. My mom worked with a Swedish embassy, so that’s where Abba was like really infiltrated my life. And I would always be singing Abba stuff. We had songs and albums from, you know, first song, the last song. I was an only child, so I was the entertainment for the adults on many different things. And that’s when it would happen. And then I ended up joining choirs in middle school and Glee clubs in college, Rutgers Glee Club. And then I joined the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and I sang with them for over 25 years.

John: Nice.

Karl: Yes. And hoping to go back when my schedule allows. So singing and music are a huge part of my life. And I actually do integrate them in my work because (A) I usually have some sort of song at the beginning of a workshop that aligns with the theme or the topic that we’re gonna be discussing to really generate a different way of creatively thinking about the topic because you’re engaging a different part of your mind. And the other thing was really funny. When I joined Genentech, one of the things that we had to do was we had to introduce ourselves. I think we had like 30 seconds to introduce ourselves.

And I introduced myself. Adele was big back then, so I introduced myself. I sang my introduction, which no one had ever done before. So I did the Hello introduction from Adele, and I explained a little bit about I’m an organization development consultant here to help and work with you. Yeah. So it was really, really well received and never done before or after.

John: Yeah, that’s incredible though ’cause why not? You know, like why not? And everyone remembers you. Oh, was that the singing guy? It’s less and less of the organizational development side of you. It’s more of the “and” side of you.

Karl: It’s the “and.”

John: And also too, how much singing, just those stories of it played out from when you were a kid all the way through to today and all the different jobs you had, and school, and all these different things that you did? Music and singing was there all along. That’s really important to remember that your skillsets change, your job changes, your title changes, the logo of the company you’re with changes, but the “and” is always, always, always there.

Karl: Exactly.

John: And that’s so cool to hear, man. That’s great. How much do you feel like it’s on an organization to encourage people to share that side of them or how much is it on the individual to just “Hey, I’m gonna sing my intro, I didn’t even ask for permission, I’m doing it”, you know, type of thing?

Karl: So I think the way that I’m always gonna be correct, just like any consultant will always be correct by saying the answer is it depends. It depends. It really depends on the culture of the organization. Like I probably couldn’t get away with doing it at a very, very buttoned-up, conservative organization. And I cleared it with my boss. I said, “You know, I’m new to this organization. What do you think?” She said, “Go for it.” And she had my back. And I think the other thing is really having a great relationship with your boss who has your back and will be looking out for you to make sure that doors are being open for you, that you’re not doing any missteps. Rachel was awesome with that.

John: And that knows that side of you.

Karl: Exactly.

John: You know, that knows your “and.” Like a boss that knows your “and” really matters.

Karl: And supports it and encourages it. Comes to your concerts. You know, bringing a whole group of people together to your concerts. That’s been amazing seeing colleagues come and support me by coming to the different concerts that we gave with the chorus. So to answer your question, it depends, and it’s really up to the person to initiate it. Don’t expect other people to draw that out of you. Go for it and then ask for forgiveness later or, you know, check for it and make sure that it’s gonna work because people don’t know. I mean, how would people know unless you put it out there first?

John: Amen, man. I agree totally. I mean, because we’re so permission-based for some reason, like we whisper in our ear this evil whatever, like you’re gonna get fired if you sing your intro at the—

No, you’re not.

Karl: Then maybe you’re not at the right place. Go somewhere where they want you to sing your intro or they’re encouraging it, and supporting it, and will give you a standing ovation for it. Yes.

John: Right? Yeah. Well, you know, they didn’t say that we could do that. Yeah. But they also didn’t say we couldn’t.

Karl: Exactly.

John: So you know, like maybe no one’s ever thought of it. No one’s ever done it. Like just do it, you know. And as long as you’re not inhibiting your ability or someone else’s ability to get their work done, then it’s fine, you know. Is it illegal or super taboo? Then maybe not. Don’t do that. But otherwise, let it rip. It’s awesome.

Karl: Yeah. Get that creativity out there. Use the outlet.

John: And it brings some emotion and some color.

Karl: And humanity. You’re made human. You’re not just another cog.

John: Exactly. No, no, I love that so much, man. That’s so good. So good. So do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that maybe they have “and” that they are like “Ah, it has nothing to do with my job, so no one’s gonna care”?

Karl: My words of encouragement are if there’s some passion, if there’s some fire inside of you that’s not finding an outlet, give it the outlet, whether it’s gonna be at work or whether it’s gonna be outside of work. Give it that outlet because that’s what’s gonna inspire you, and drive you, and motivate you, and engage you, and allow you to do some of the stuff that may not be as exciting or stuff that you’re that passionate about. And you can get your passion through your “and” and then hopefully be able to integrate it into the less passionate stuff that you do to make that even more passionate too.

John: That’s exactly it right there, man. That’s exactly it. Because when you talk about singing, it’s always, always awesome. When you talk about work, sometimes it’s awesome, but sometimes it’s not.

Karl: Well, there’s some singing that’s pretty bad too, you gotta admit.

John: Well, I mean, but when you talk about singing, it’s great. I mean, I’m not a good singer for some reason. I can play an instrument. I can hear a pitch. I can hear out of tune. And when it comes out of my mouth, it is not good. So I don’t know why that is, but I can play instruments, I can do all that, I love music, but the singing is just not my thing. So there’s definitely bad singing, and I’m right there at the top of the list of that.

Karl: So this is another thing I say. People take personality inventories and say “Oh, you should be a librarian” or “Oh, you should be a salesperson.” Right? And the answer is “Yeah, right. Are you passionate about that? Do you aspire to that or are you gonna put the work in for it?” So someone who may have the “DNA” or personality to be the ideal whatever may not be passionate about it and somebody else that’s really passionate about it will do a far better job at it because they’re in it than the other person that’s naturally inclined to do it. So, go for it. Sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing karaoke.

John: Right? There you go. Yeah. And that’s what I tell people too. What I found from doing so many of these interviews is people wanna give themselves a label or they’re hesitant to rather because they’re like “Well, I don’t get paid to sing or I’m not a whatever.” And it’s like “Yeah, but I enjoy singing.” Well, that takes all the pressure off of being good ’cause it doesn’t even matter if you’re good. You’re doing it for yourself. So that’s awesome, man. Well, this has been so fun, Karl, but I feel like since I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning of the show that we can turn the tables here, make this The Karl Hebenstreit Podcast. Thanks for having me on as a guest. I guess I booked myself, so never mind.

Karl: That’s awesome.

John: So what have you got for me?

Karl: All right, John. I know that you have a very strong affinity for dogs. I know you love dogs. They’re a passion of yours. I wanna find out what your favorite dog breed is and why.

John: Oh, wow. Okay. So my current dog is like a terrier mix. I did the DNA test and it came back as Chihuahua, Rottweiler, and then like 80% we have no clue. And I was like I want my money back ’cause this is clearly a terrier mix, but that’s always fun. You know, he’s like 32 pounds, 35 pounds. So he’s a dog, but he’s not like you’re gonna get your shoulder ripped out if he goes running, you know, type of thing. A Springer Spaniel, we had one as a kid as well, and he was super awesome. So I guess if I had to pick a specific breed, probably that, but the terrier mix has grown on me. They’re super fun dogs. They’re quick. They’re smart. They’re fun dogs.

Karl: All dogs are amazing. Absolutely.

John: No, for sure. Unconditional love all the time from dogs. If humans could have 1% of that, it would be an amazing place to be.

Karl: That would be a huge difference from what we have. Absolutely.

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Karl: All right. I’m also interested to find out, you’ve been doing 555 podcast episodes, what “and” have you been inspired to add to your repertoire based on a podcast that you did?

John: Oh, based on a podcast. Okay. Well, my ultimate dream is to have a show kind of like Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs where he goes around and does it. So I would fly to the Bay Area, and we would sing and do a children’s book and then do this interview. But also, I would do your “and” with you. And I think that would be a super cool show, just figuring out how to get that out there.

Karl: And paid for.

John: Yeah. And paid for. That would be the biggest part of it.

But you know, just to show the human side to all of us. But you know, I guess yoga might be one that I’ve gotten more into or mindfulness in general from speaking to a couple of people that have been on the podcast. So that might be an example. You know, I’ve picked up a couple of other “ands” just periodically, but not specifically from the podcast. But yeah, probably yoga, or mindfulness, or things along those lines that I wasn’t as open to before or hadn’t really learned much about before. So just being like “Oh, wow, okay, that seems interesting. Let’s learn more about this.” So I would say those.

John: I have one last question if you’re up to it.

Karl: Last one. It’s your show, man. I’m at your mercy.

John: All right, here it goes. What comedian inspired you growing up?

Karl: Ah, wow. So, I mean, as a kid, I grew up in the heyday of Saturday Night Live, so it was Dana Carvey, and Mike Myers, and all those. And then it transitioned into the David Spade, and Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler group. And then Jim Carrey came out within Living Color and all those, and the weigh-ins, and all that. And so, I grew up with watching that and reading Mad Magazine, and Cracked Magazine, and all that. But that’s improv or sketch. That’s different than standup. My first standup that I ever saw, it was a sixth grade slumber party and my older brother had Eddie Murphy Raw, the VHS cassette of Eddie Murphy Raw, which no kid should ever see.

And so, that was the first standup I ever saw, was us sneaking like a group of us at a slumber party watching Eddie Murphy Raw. But then, you know, as I got older, I mean, I’m sure like Seinfeld or Ray Romano and a lot of that was because they had the sitcom, so then you learn about them, and then you find out that they did standup, and then you learn about their standup as well. So, you know, probably early on, it was kind of that clean observational kind of humor and then got into Bob Newhart Hilarious, like some of the older genre, you know, super funny.

Karl: So really all across, all the different genres.

John: Yeah. I mean, you know, like Steve Martin, amazing. No one specific person. I guess just kind of like observational humor, I guess. Like nothing with an agenda. Like it was never anyone that has an agenda of I’m trying to get you to believe what I run. No, no. It’s more of like isn’t life funny and look at that or look at this and be like “Ah, I never thought about it that way” or whatever, you know, type of thing. So, those sort of things.

Karl: And we definitely need more of that. We need tons more of that to help us really understand, and appreciate life, and just get all the differences that are out there.

John: It’s a philosophy I feel like. They’re philosophers. As a comedian, you look at the world through a different lens, and you bring other people into your picture, and then you start to now see the picture that’s in my mind.

Karl: So you just described the Enneagram by the way. So you look at the world through a different lens, and you’re trying to bring them into yours as well as you understanding what their lenses are too.

John: Yeah, because I have to also meet you where you’re at.

Karl: Exactly.

John: Wow. Awesome. Okay, very cool. I’ll still start with the children’s book because that’s probably best for me.

Karl: I totally agree with that. And I think the other key thing that I would impart on people is the Platinum Rule versus the Golden Rule. So treat others the way that they want to be treated. So I think that’s one of the biggest learnings that people need to really tap into because there’s been so much emphasis on the Golden Rule, which is very me focused as opposed to other focused. And everyone doesn’t see the world the way that you do. And everyone doesn’t like ice cream or the same flavor of ice cream.

John: And those people are terrorists. Those are terrorists. No. No. I’m kidding.

Karl: On the no-fly list. Yes.

John: Exactly. That’s awesome. Well, no. Well, thank you so much, Karl, for being a part of What’s Your “And”? This was really, really fun.

Karl: Oh, I had a blast. Thank you so much for having me, John.

John: Absolutely. And everyone listening, if you wanna see some pictures of Karl in action or maybe be sure to check out his books or connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. And while you’re on the page, please click the big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. Thanks again for subscribing on Apple Podcasts 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 553 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. And 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 at work. It’s the answer to the question of who else are you besides the job.

And if you like what the show’s about, be sure to check out the award-winning book on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & 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. And 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.

And 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. And 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, Melissa Romo. She’s the VP of Global Marketing at Sage and the author of the upcoming book, Your Resource is Human: How Empathetic Leadership Can Help Remote Teams Rise Above. It’s available for pre-order right now on Amazon. And now, she’s with me here today. Melissa, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Melissa: I’m so glad to be here, John. Thanks for inviting me.

John: Oh, this is gonna be a blast. I’m so excited. We met several years ago when I was keynoting a lot of the Sage user conferences. I knew you were writing the fiction books, but now to have the business leadership book as well is pretty awesome. So I’m excited.

Melissa: Yeah, I’m excited. It’s a completely different animal, a business book versus a novel. One thing I learned is business books require citations. And I have a 10-paged bibliography with 150 citations because you can’t make stuff up when you write a nonfiction book.

John: That’s true.

Melissa: You have to actually be factually correct. It really made me miss novel writing because, novel writing, you can just make it up.

John: You just make it up. Just make it up. And speaking of making it up, I got 17 rapid-fire questions for you, so you could just make ’em up. I’m ready. Here we go. Just make up the answers. All right. First one, favorite color?

Melissa: Blue.

John: Blue. Solid. Mine too. All right, we can keep going. No, I’m just kidding. Least favorite color.

Melissa: Least favorite color? Yellow.

John: Yellow. Okay. Yeah. Fair. And ooh, this a trick one. As a remote working advocate, talk or text?

Melissa: Oh, text.

John: Okay. All right.

Melissa: You know why? Because emojis are an amazing tool to build connection with people and to express yourself. There’s actually science behind emojis, and I’m a big emoji user. And my team, we’re really addicted to gifts in my team. So we’re on Microsoft Teams. You know, if someone new starts in the team, we say, “Welcome, Bob.” And then like there will be this outpouring of gifts.

John: Everybody waving and all that. Yeah.

Melissa: Everyone’s waving. There’s this like hugs coming, and hearts, flying and all this stuff. And you have to do stuff like that when you’re remote. Well, I know we’ll talk more about that later. But yes, so text, absolutely, because you can express yourself in kind of new and exciting ways.

John: All right. No, I love it. That’s awesome. How about a favorite Disney character?

Melissa: I like the little lobster, Sebastian, in little Mermaid. Is that what he’s in?

John: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah. His musical number is one of my favorite musical numbers.

John: Excellent choice. I love it. That’s awesome. How about when it comes to puzzles, Sudoku, crossword, or a jigsaw puzzle?

Melissa: Well, so I’m pretty addicted to Wordle. And if I’ve already done the Wordle, I will shift to Sudoku, but I do it on my phone. And you know, it kind of auto fills it in for you. So I try to do the Wordle. I will brag. If I get Wordle in the second guess. It goes on Facebook.

John: There you go. All right. Well, yeah, that seems like a bragging moment. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Melissa: Ryan Reynolds. Ryan, if you’re listening to this, I want you to endorse my book. A video is on the way to your marketing company and to your partners at Deloitte because I think you need me to make The Creative Ladder a success. More to come, everybody.

John: That’s amazing. You never know. You never know.

Melissa: You just never know. You have to put it out there.

John: Yeah, no, you really do. Toilet paper roll over or under?

Melissa: Oh, definitely over. I don’t understand anybody who puts it under. It’s so confusing to me.

John: Right? I think Ryan Reynolds puts it under. Just saying.

Melissa: I would let him do that.

John: All right, fair enough. Fair enough. All right. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Melissa: Oh, Star Wars definitely. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one minute of Star Trek. I don’t even know who the characters are.

John: Wow. Yeah, right. Okay. That works. That works. Your computer, more PC or Mac?

Melissa: Well, Mac. But whenever I know anybody who starts in a corporate job and they throw a temper tantrum because they need a MacBook from the company, the first thing I tell them is that all the corporate software really doesn’t play nice with Mac, and it’s just not worth a headache. So in my job, I love my PC, which is a Dell. And at home, I have a MacBook.

John: All right. How about ice cream, in a cup or in a cone?

Melissa: Cup definitely. Cones are really messy.

John: Yeah, yeah. No, totally. Do you prefer more hot or cold?

Melissa: I’m a sun seeker and I love the heat, so it’s definitely hot.

John: There you go. How about a favorite band or musician?

Melissa: I’ve been listening to a lot of Lauren Hill lately. Just getting back into the R&B, like the sort of 1990s R&B. I’m kind of into that. So Lauren Hill lately is favorite. And I love Ed Sheeran. Anything by Ed Sheeran, I’ll just listen to over and over again.

John: Yeah, he’s good too. And Ed, if you’re listening, collaborate with Lauren Hill and then Melissa will buy all of the albums.

Melissa: Boy, that’d be a bomb. Yeah.

John: That would be pretty bomb actually. How about a favorite number?

Melissa: Oh, well, I’ll say 11 because that’s the day I was born. I mean, can’t not like the day you were born, right?

John: Yeah. And it’s better than one. It’s two 1s.

Melissa: It’s two 1s. Right. Yeah.

John: That’s a great number. All right. How about when it comes to books for reading or listening, audio version, e-Book, or real book?

Melissa: So I really prefer a real book. We even defected angrily from Audible, and I feel like I’m like the only person in the universe who is doing that because I just read an article last week that audiobooks are about to become a bigger revenue generator than all of Hollywood put together. So people are really listening to lots of audiobooks. For me, reading is a very visual activity. I like to look at how the words look on the page. I like to look at how the page look. I like the way books smell.

John: Yeah. The way it’s laid out. Absolutely. It’s an art.

Melissa: Exactly. It’s a very tactile design-centered experience for me. So audio books just don’t tick the box. And when I’m traveling, I will put things on my Kindle. And I have been known to buy a Kindle book that I already own in paper, which drives my husband up a wall, but I just can’t carry around books when I’m traveling. I’m stuck with my Kindle.

John: Gary Goldman has a great joke about how he bought Shawshank Redemption on streaming even though he owned the DVD because he didn’t want to get out bed to put the DVD in the thing. And his brother’s like “Yeah, but it adds up. Like you’re gonna lose all your—” And he goes “It only adds up if you add it up. Like if you don’t add it up, it’s not wasted money. Like just it’s another book.” Like whatever.

Melissa: Yup. I can relate to that. I was laying by the pool in a beautiful poolside Mallorca compound laying by the pool. And I had a book back in my room, which was like maybe like a 5-minute walk. And I just could not leave the poolside because it was an absolute exquisite afternoon. And so, I picked up my phone and I bought the book that was in my hotel room.

John: Love it. Love it. That’s so good.

Melissa: If my husband’s listening, I’m really sorry. I’ll do the dishes.

John: He didn’t know. He didn’t even know. That’s hilarious. Ryan Reynolds said it’s okay, so it’s all good. All right. We got two more. Two more. Favorite toppings on a pizza.

Melissa: So I love pineapple and ham. I love Hawaiian pizza.

John: Oh, okay. Yeah, I do too.

Melissa: I know it’s almost like Marmite. Either love it or hate it, but I think it’s amazing.

John: Yeah, no, I think it’s great. It’s not my go-to, but I’ll take it. Yeah, absolutely. And the last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Melissa: I had an illness a couple years ago, which fortunately I’m past it. I’m healthy and everything’s fine, but I had a little bit of a serious illness going on. And a friend knitted me a scarf out of this fabric that looks like kind of a Tiffany lamp, like all these multicolors and it’s super soft. And I had that on night and day for the entire winter that I was being treated. And it’s still like the thing I pick up. As soon as the weather turns, I pick it up. I have it around my neck all the time. It’s beautiful.

And the most important thing about it is that my friend made it for me at a moment when I really needed her hug. Right? And that was kind of a great hug without being able to be with her. I love it. I love it. And then I would say a close second is this vase that I purchased in Lisbon while I was on a layover on the way to Paris.

John: Oh, okay.

Melissa: So it wasn’t even in the airport shop. I went into town into Lisbon to like a junk shop. And I just thought it was so beautiful with the rooster and these— it has these blue— it’s like hand painted porcelain little things. And so, I just was at a junk shop like waiting for my next flight and I thought “You know what? I’m putting that in my backpack.”

John: And I was gonna say to fly with that is even more impressive. And it wasn’t like you were on the way home. You were still going to somewhere else.

Melissa: No. No. I was in Paris, and we were in an Airbnb for 10 days. And the first thing I did when we unpacked is I went downstairs to the street in Paris and I bought myself a bouquet of ranunculus, which is my favorite flower. And I came back upstairs to the Airbnb, and I popped it into my vase. And my husband’s like “Well, you’re just moving it, aren’t you?” “Like you know I am.” So I’m all about quality of life.

John: That’s true.

Melissa: I need my vase, I need my flowers, I need my book.

John: Yeah. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, both of those are cool items that come with really powerful memories, so that’s awesome. So good. So good. So let’s talk writing and all of that. And I’m gonna probably have some PTSD from this, but it’s all good from my experience. But no, I’m kidding. It’s a journey. That’s for sure. And I guess you’ve written both fiction and non-fiction now. So I guess what’s the biggest difference there, I guess, besides the citations?

Melissa: The biggest difference is the novel, the story has to be completely invented. And so, what’s hard about a novel is you have to give yourself permission to lie, right? Because you’re making it up, right? Like none of these things actually happen. You are completely inventing the world. You’re making up their characters. You’re making up their dialog. And when you first start writing a novel, you really feel like you have to stick to like truth and facts. And I was writing a novel, a historical novel based on real history. And so, at the start of the process, I found myself trying to like write characters that I was finding in the history books.

And you know, I would find a character, like a person who was in some of the documentation about the subject I was writing about. And I was like “Oh, I’m gonna use this person and this is gonna be my character. And I’m gonna write exactly what this person said and what I’ve found in the history books.” And so, the release comes when you realize you don’t have to do that, right? And in fact, it’s better if you make it up. And so, what I think is really amazing about novel writing is I personally feel that novels are the most sophisticated, exciting art form that exists because you take just paper and words. So it’s very low tech, right?

You take paper and words. And if you are good enough as a writer, you can really transport your reader to another place, to another time. You can make them feel things. I mean, they do these brain studies when people are reading. And if somebody reads a very sad passage in a book, you can see the brain activity, right, reacting to that. So you are really making people feel things and experiencing things that it’s like virtual reality. It really is. I love orchestras, I love music. But you know, that’s oral. It’s something that comes into our ears and obviously makes us feel things, but it isn’t an out. It doesn’t quite bring us to this point of storytelling, right?

John: Yeah. I mean, they’re so simple, like you said. I mean, it’s paper and ink, and someone’s creativity, and then it moves you. And you know, a symphony is music on that way. But then you need 40 people playing the music and expensive instruments and all of this. You know, the book, it’s you reading it. And each person has their own experience. That was hard for me even with a business book, is I’m not sitting next to you. So it’s like “Hey, if you didn’t like that chapter, you might wanna skip the next one.” You know? I’m not there with you to—

Melissa: Well, you’re not there with them. This is the other thing that I find so exciting about books, is if I had one wish, you know, you always get this question in a trivia game or whatever— If you had one wish, what would it be? My wish would be time travel. Like I want to go back in time. I wanna know what it was like in the 1800s or whatever. On my shelf back here, I have Bram Stoker’s Dracula, right? Now, he wrote Dracula in— I think it was the 1870s. He wrote Dracula.

So you can read Dracula. And you know, he’s in the room with you, right? You’re reading his words. You’re reading his story. And you know, you’re back in the 1870s where he’s telling you the story about this vampire bat in Transylvania. And he’s an Irish writer, so he was writing it in Ireland, right? Telling you a story about Transylvania. And so, you know, for me, historical books are the nearest that I’m ever going to get to time travel. And that’s what’s so exciting for me about writing them and reading them.

John: That’s awesome. And so, have you always been a writer like when you were young and carried it forward or did it come back?

Melissa: No. I always, always, always. I mean, since I was 9 years old, I kept diaries. I wrote really insipid poetry when I was a student.

You know, I have all these like love poems and things like that hopefully no one ever finds them.

John: Ryan Reynolds, if you’re listening, they’re on their way.

Melissa: I love great poetry. I’ve just kept journals forever. And you know, the What’s Your “And”? question I think is really a powerful one for me because when I was 30, I think I was 36 and I was a new mom, I had two little babies— And I’ve been keeping journals now since I was 9 years old, so quarter century of keeping journals. And I had even been drafting a novel for 10 years that I knew I wanted to write. It was about Poland, about the time I lived in Warsaw, Poland when I was working over there. And I’ve been working on it.

But you know, I was in a big job. I was in American Express. I was a marketing director. I had two little babies at home. And there was no light at the end of the tunnel I had too many things— amazing, wonderful things in my life. I had a wonderful husband, wonderful children, wonderful job, no time to write. And I got in a taxi on July 14th, 2009. I will never forget. It was Bastille Day. And I had a beautiful breakfast with my friend who made me the scarf. And we talked about our dreams in life. And I said, “You know, one day, I wanna write a novel.” And then, you know, she’s like “That’s great. I hope you do.”

And then I got in a taxi. And on the way down to American Express’s headquarters in lower Manhattan, the taxi driver wanted to read my palm. And I’m not into all the Voodoo and everything. Like I don’t believe all that stuff. And I was like “All right, whatever.” You know, it’s a nice morning, I’ll go with it. Right? So I stuck my hand through the plexiglass. And then at every stoplight, you know, we stopped at Halston. We stopped at Canal Street. You know, down in Tribeca. Every stoplight, he was reading my palm. He was saying something else about me.

And he said a couple things that, you know, were kind of generic and he could have come up with them not knowing me. And then when we got close to the office, he said, “Oh, this line down at the bottom of your hand leading to your wrist, that says you’re a writer.” And when he said this to me, I thought he’s not saying I’m an artist, he’s not saying I’m creative, he’s saying I am a writer. And it was like this hand of God reached down into that taxi and hit me on the head and said, “What are you doing? Like you need to be writing. Like, you know, it’s all great your PowerPoints and you’re marketing everything, but you need to be writing.” Right?

And I got out of the taxi just stunned that he said that to me, right? And my heart was racing. You feel this moment when everything collides and you feel like you have to make a really important decision. And I ran up to a conference room and I called my husband. And it was, you know, 8:30 in the morning. And I called him at his office. And I was already very emotional. And I said, “I was in this taxi. And he read my palm. And he said I’m a writer. And I have to quit my job.” Right? It all just came flying out of me.

And I knew I would not write if I didn’t step back from my job. I needed something to go away. And it was 2009. So you know, Lehman Brothers had gone out of business. Everyone in the financial markets were being laid off. And it was really risky for both of us. Both of our jobs could have been on the line. And here I am calling him hysterical and saying I need to quit my job to write a novel. And you know, he would’ve been completely within his rights to say “Look, like pull yourself together. Go have a coffee. We’ll find a way for you to write novel.” But he said all— All he said— 3 words— “Go for it.”

John: Nice. Yes.

Melissa: I couldn’t believe I was hearing him. And I was like “Are you sure? Like you really are okay with that? Like this is a big risk for us.” He’s like “Just go do it. It’s clearly really important to you.” So I did. I quit. And this is the thing I want people to know who are listening and thinking about their “and.” When I resigned and I told people I was resigning to write a novel, nobody believed me. Right? Nobody believed me. And the email that said Melissa’s leaving the company to blah, blah blah said she’s gonna spend more time with her family, which is also true, right?

Like of course, I was gonna see a little bit more of my kids and everything, but that was not why I was leaving a very good job at a blue chip company, right? That was not why. But nobody really took me seriously. And that definitely hurt. I was a nobody. But for the most part, I wasn’t taken seriously. And then a weird thing started to happen the last couple of days I was at work before I finally left. People would pull me into their offices and say “You know, I love to dance. I’ve always wanted to dance on stage.”

And then someone else would say “You know, in my spare time, I paint. And I really wish one day I would have a gallery show.” And John, I think probably 10, 12, 15 people told me these stories secretly in hushed tones in their offices behind closed doors. So what that told me was, wow, we are all sitting on something really important to us that we are having a hard time finding ways to devote time to.

And the thing I would tell everyone listening is don’t leave it. Right? That’s why you’re alive. That’s what makes you feel alive. And cut any corners you have to in your life to give a little bit of time to that thing that makes you feel alive. Don’t put it off. I was very lucky that I was able to take a couple of years. And I did write the novel. And the novel did get published. And it is out there. So I kind of proved to everybody that I was gonna do it. The funny thing was I thought once I wrote it, it would be out of my system and I’d sort of go back to a job and be done. Then I drafted four more novels.

John: That’s incredible.

Melissa: I drafted four more novels and now the business book. Yeah. So I’m clearly a writer.

John: Yeah. ‘Cause right now people are like “When’s the next book?” And I’m like “Umm, it’s really hard. It’s really hard.” So, kudos to you. But I love that story so much for so many reasons. One is just the universe telling you— God telling you whatever you wanna say is—And he called you. I am a writer. You’re like I am a writer. Like I’m not a marketer. I’m not, you know, all these other things. I’m a writer. So maybe marketing’s your “and.”

Melissa: Yeah. Exactly.

John: That’s how I look at everyone that I have on the show. Who you really are is the hobby because that’s the thing that’s always with you. When you get promoted at your job, when you go to a different job, you’re still that thing. But then, you know, in the job title changes, the technical skills that you’re using changes, the technology that you use at your job changes. Like all that stuff is always changing, but your “and” or the container of “and”, if you will, is always there. And that’s the eye of the hurricane. That’s your source of identity and confidence and who you are.

So I am a writer and like I love that so much, and then the fact that like people were pulling you aside just quietly and closing the door to their office to tell you what really lights them up. That’s why I created this show because I’m like you shouldn’t have to close the door and say I like to dance. You should tell it. Like everyone should know I love dancing. Like I don’t have to be good at it. I don’t have to make money at it. I don’t have to like be on a show. Like I just like to dance. Like what’s up? And that’s so important to just feeling alive.

Melissa: It is. It is completely important. Yeah. And I hope everyone listening to this takes that to heart and don’t leave it. It is the eye of your hurricane. It is where your soul is. So spend time there. That’s where the richest life is gonna be.

John: It’s so important. And you know, not everyone can obviously quit their job and make it a revenue producing thing, but you can do it on the side. And it doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be amazing. It’s just I enjoy writing. I don’t need your permission or your judgment. I don’t even care actually because I’m doing it for me, you know.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And you know, the postscript to that decision was ’cause I was very lucky that we could do without my salary for the short term, but I did find out that I can’t only write because I’m somebody who’s very extroverted and I like to be with people, and writing is a very solitary activity, and it just wasn’t enough for me. So a beautiful thing happened in marketing, however, when I was out writing my novel. Content became very important, right?

Like the internet really matured, broadband matured, social media became a big thing. And suddenly, you had companies deciding that they need content operations and they need, guess what? Writers. And so, I went back into marketing as a content strategist for SAP Concur in the UK when I was living there. And it was kind of like, you know, close a door, open a window kind of thing. It’s like here I was back in marketing, but actually writing and doing the thing I loved to do.

And then I got an amazing opportunity at Sage because they called me and said, “Look, we wanna hire somebody to start a global content team. We don’t have a global content team, and we know we need one. You know, we’re a huge Footsie 100 software company, and we need someone to come and coordinate all this content.” And I was really nervous about taking the job ’cause I’d never done a job that big, but it was writing and creating content. And I thought “Wow, this is the jackpot. This is what I love to do. This is my “and” and it’s my job.”

John: Yeah. You’ve been exercising this muscle since you were 9. It’s like I was born for this. Like I’m ready for this.

Melissa: Yeah. So it was a great turn of event. So sometimes your “and” can become part of your daytime career. I mean not always, but sometimes it can. And I was looking for it. I was always looking for a way that writing could be a way I could make a living. I was always looking for it. And my hat is off to anyone who’s a freelance writer who manages to make a living with it because I did try that while I was writing my novel. I mean, I sold maybe two or three stories. I was being paid $40 a story. I mean, nothing, right? And I thought how do people live as writers, you know?

So when content was becoming more important for corporations, I thought “Oh, okay. Well, at least there’s gonna be a paycheck here.” And the first thing I did, John, when I came in and I started a team is I hired three ex-journalists who had lost their jobs because their media companies were going out of business. And I hired them into Sage to write for Sage, and a couple of them are still there.

John: That’s so great. It’s true though. I mean, these outside of work hobbies that you have give us a skillset whether it’s direct like in your case or maybe it’s indirect. The way you think, the way you see things, the way you look at the world, or at the very minimum it humanizes you. You know, I guarantee that people at Amex—Remember the lady that left to write a book? There’s so many other people that have left that company that they do not remember, but you are the lady that left to write a book.

I had a guy remember me 12 years after I left PWC as that’s the guy who did standup at night. And it was like he didn’t remember me for anything else, and my resume was pretty solid. All the hard work I was doing, he didn’t remember ’cause I never actually met him. He was in a different department, on a different floor. Yeah. Just that human side of all of us is so crucial. It’s so crucial in which leads into your book, you know, Your Resource is Human. And I guess how do you bring the human to the remote world?

Melissa: Emojis.

John: Emojis. That’s it. Emojis and gifts. I don’t even know how to say it right.

Melissa: I’m not kidding. I mean, it sounds sort of funny. But you know, it’s what they call the liminal moments in the workday is when you really build relationships. And those can be either in an office when you’re passing each other to water cooler or they can be on Microsoft Teams when you’re chatting back and forth. So, you know, the liminal moments can exist in either place. So you don’t have to be in an office to have them. The only thing you have to have in your mind when you’re working remotely is you have to just be a little bit more intentional, right?

Because in an office, you can sort of accidentally cross paths with someone and just chitchat and whatever. But when you’re at home, you have to sort of get up in the morning and say “You know, I haven’t been in touch with this person in a long time. I haven’t been in touch with that person, or I really wanna have more of a relationship with Jim, or I’m really wondering how Susie’s doing because I know last week was really hard for her.” Right?

So you need to just spend a minute or two in your morning thinking about the people around you in sort of the ecosystem you work in in your company and kind of make yourself a list on a little Post-it note. Like I’m just gonna reach out. I’m just gonna ping this person and just kind of see what’s going on. And you create your liminal moments right there, you know. You create your liminal moments.

John: I love that. Yeah. And it’s not necessarily talking about work. It’s just talking about them and pulling down the veil of who you really are. Yeah, I love that with the gifts and the emojis. It shows your personality. And it shows who you are and that’s awesome. You know, I love that. You know, that’s the human side of all of us, which is great.

Melissa: Most of the time, I’m remote. I mean, it’s been remote for 6 years. Before that, I was running freelance teams who were helping me with my novel and the design of my novel. So for better part of a decade, I’ve been running remote activity and working remotely with people. And so, the book came about because I had tea in Dublin with my good friend Frederique Murphy who’s an incredible author. She’s got a TED Talk. You know, she’s got a podcast. She’s got all these things. Frederique Murphy. Look her up.

She said to me at tea— She said, “Melissa, you have an important voice about leadership and people need to hear it. People need to know how you lead because the way you lead is different. Especially with remote work, there are things you do that support your team that are unusual and are actually making your team a really strong team.” So she kind of nudged me to write this book. And I wrote a book proposal for the idea of the book. And I thought to myself. There was a publisher I was pitching it to.

I’m like there’s no way this publisher is gonna buy this book because there were a bajillion books about remote work coming out. Like every 5 minutes, there was a new book about remote work. And I thought the last thing the world needs is another book about remote work. But to my surprise, the publisher did buy it. And it was the first time I was actually working with a publisher because the novel was self-published.

After blood, sweat, and tears of trying to sell it to a publisher, I published it myself. And the business book is being published by Practical Inspiration Publishing in the UK. And I was completely shocked that they bought it, but they did buy it. And the novel took me 15 years to write beginning to end, and the business book took me 5 months.

John: Wow. Yeah.

Melissa: That’s what happens. And there were 35 interviews, 25 endorsements, 150 citations, 60,000 words to get done in 5 months. And someone at work asked me how did you pull this off while you were still holding down a job, and I sort of joked and I said, “Well, my kids are totally unsupervised to start with. I haven’t seen my husband in like weeks.”

John: One of them has a tattoo on their face now.

The other one is like has a mohawk. It’s like whatever. Like it’s fine. But kudos to you. Like that’s awesome. And everybody listening, you could pre-order the book. Your Resource is Human by Melissa Romo. You could check it out on Amazon right now. And if you’re listening after April, then you can just straight up get it, and you don’t even have to wait.

Melissa: Yeah. April 3rd. It will be out in Kindle and paperback. And I will be recording an audio version. So sometime in December, there will be an audio version out as well because audiobooks we know are about to overtake Hollywood.

John: Right. Exactly. Exactly. No. Well, this has been so much fun, Melissa. I’m so excited to have you be a part of this and kudos to you on all your success, but I feel like I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning of this show. So it’s only fair that I turn the tables and make this The Melissa Romo, Your Resources Human Podcast. And thanks for having me on your first episode. I appreciate it.

Melissa: Of course, John. We really wanna get to know the human side of John Garrett.

John: Oh, boy. Oh, no.

Melissa: Given that we’re recording this 5 days before Christmas, I’m going to ask you a couple of holiday-related questions. So, real tree or fake tree?

John: Yeah, real tree all day. It’s the smell and the quirkiness of it. Like fake trees are too perfect. And I know there’s the nature side of it and you’re not supposed to cut down. I don’t know. If all things equal, a real tree I guess.

Melissa: I’m with you. I’m with you. Sweet potatoes or Brussels sprouts?

John: Oh, sweet potatoes. Anything but Brussels sprouts like pretty much. So like if you would have said Brussel sprouts or, I would have said whatever’s next. Punched in the face, yes, that. And sweet potatoes are also great, so yes that.

Melissa: Yes. Yes. They are great. So, skiing or snowboarding?

John: Snowboarding. There’s too many X, Y, Z axes going on in skiing like your ankles, your knees, your everything. Like in snowboarding, it’s pretty much just make a fist so you don’t break your wrists. And then if things are going weird, just sit down and you’re fine.

Melissa: Okay. You sound experienced at this, John.

John: Well, living in Colorado, I mean, you have to go a handful of times or else you can’t live in Colorado anymore. They actually ask you to move out. I know people that go like 200 times in the winter. Yeah, it’s crazy. But yeah, I’m like, you know what, I feel like four or five times in a year is good.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. Well, we love mountains. My kid is actually applying to UC Boulder.

John: Oh, okay.

Melissa: He loves the school, loves the school. But also, he’s a huge skier. So yeah, we’re waiting to hear back.

John: Wants to hang out with Deion Sanders. Is that what’s going on now? Yeah, I’m a huge college football fan.

Melissa: Oh, is Deion an alumni there?

John: Well, no, he’s the new college football coach there, so everybody is like excited—

Melissa: Oh, he is. Oh, my gosh.

John: …about wanting to go play football there now.

Melissa: I didn’t know. Wow.

John: So, yeah.

Melissa: That’s huge.

John: So maybe they’ll be good again.

Melissa: That’s huge.

John: Yeah, we’ll see.

Melissa: Yeah. Maybe they’ll be good again. Last one. And in my book, the most important, white chocolate or dark?

John: Oh, boy, this is a tricky one. This is a tricky one. I think I’ll go dark chocolate. I don’t know if I answered properly. But yeah, I think I’m gonna go dark chocolate only ’cause you can also drink it, so it’s more versatile—

Melissa: That’s true.

John: …I feel like.

Melissa: I always lean back on the tannins. I always say “Well, it’s heart healthy. So I can have as much as I want.”

John: Right?

Melissa: Yeah.

John: I’m doing this for myself. This is for health. My doctor said.

Melissa: Right. I need it. So that’s all I got for you, John. So we got to know you.

John: No, no, I appreciate it, Melissa. Thank you so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”? This was so great.

Melissa: I had a great time. Thank you, John.

John: Everybody listening, if you wanna see some pictures of Melissa outside of work or her books or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. And don’t forget to pre-order the book, Your Resource is Human, on Amazon right now. And 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 What’s Your “And”? as well. Maybe it’s a buy one get one type of thing. But thanks again for subscribing on Apple Podcast or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread.

Welcome to Episode 341 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.

I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book is published. You could check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. It’ll make a really awesome Christmas gift. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Book Depository, barnesandnoble.com, a few other websites. All the links are on that page. I can’t say how much it means that everyone is getting the book and leaving such nice reviews on all the sites and sharing how their cultures are changing 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.

This week is no different with my guest, Rubik Yeriazarian. He’s a Forensic Accounting and Litigation Support Principal at Briggs & Veselka in Houston, Texas. Now, he’s with me here today. Rubik, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Rubik: Thanks for having me, John. I can think of no better way to spend my PTO than talking to you about accounting and hobbies.

John: There you go. I don’t even know what charge code — yes, you have to PTO this. Oh, man! You know what? I might just talk to Briggs & Veselka. We’ll see what we can do. We can get you these 30 minutes back. There you go. Yeah, but I start out with my rapid fire questions.

Rubik: Okay.

John: Yeah, so here we go. Do you prefer more hot or cold?

Rubik: Hot.

John: Hot. Okay. Well, Houston, that makes sense. How about a favorite color?

Rubik: Green.

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

Rubik: Oh man. Yellow.

John: Yellow. Okay.

Rubik: Yeah, yellow. It’s like waffling in between red or green. What’s up with yellow? Make a decision.

John: Right. Okay. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Rubik: I really like Adam Sandler mainly because of the “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” movie, just a personal favorite of mine just from all the gratuitous use of hummus throughout it.

John: Nice. Okay. Oh, that’s so fantastic. He’s also a really nice guy, which makes it cool. Would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Rubik: I used to be night owl, but I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old, so more of an early bird now. If I’m awake, it’s going to be more in the morning. I tend to pass out on the couch by ten o’clock if it’s getting late.

John: Yeah, I hear you, man. Yeah, that would be tough. How about puzzles? Sudoku or crossword?

Rubik: Crossword.

John: Crossword. Okay. How about chocolate or vanilla?

Rubik: Chocolate.

John: Chocolate. Okay. All right. If you had to choose, Star Wars or Star Trek?

Rubik: Star Wars. I never got into Star Trek. I’ve seen Star Wars, but I’m not a huge fan of both of them. I can identify characters, but — yeah.

John: I can identify more of the Star Wars characters for sure because I’ve seen maybe, I don’t know, two Star Trek. Maybe one movie, one episode of the show, so yeah, I’m similar. How about your computer, PC or Mac?

Rubik: I use a PC for all work-related stuff, but then I have a Mac for my hobby stuff, so a little bit of both.

John: Wow! Ambidextrous, I like that, man. That’s impressive.

Rubik: Macs suck for Excel though, so I don’t advise anyone to use Microsoft Excel on a Mac. I still can’t figure some stuff out on why it’s different.

John: It is weird. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Rubik: Oh, man. I can’t go wrong with just vanilla and putting some toppings on it.

John: Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, toppings though, that’s where it’s at. That’s for sure. All right. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Rubik: I like making an old fashioned, so some whiskey or rye, mix it up. That’s my one cocktail that I’m more than decent at making, so that’s my go to.

John: There you go. I like that. How about suit and tie or jeans and a T-shirt?

Rubik: Pre-pandemic? Now, shoot, I haven’t put my suit on in six to seven months, so I hope it fits next month when I have to go to a trial.

John: That’s so funny. Yeah, I actually had to put my suit on a little bit ago and it didn’t have elastic. It was kind of like, these aren’t gym shorts, so I’m not sure. We’ll see. Yeah, that’s so funny. How about balance sheet or income statement?

Rubik: Let’s go income statement. Yeah.

John: All right. There it is. That’s the money. How about what’s a typical breakfast?

Rubik: Typical breakfast for me, I’ll usually do some kind of — not cereal, but now, I’ve been doing it with yogurt or peanut butter. When I’m at home, I get some kind of grain and some fruit in it. Once I start going back in the office though, it’ll probably be something a lot worse for my body. For now, it’s something that feels pretty healthy. It’ll be $12 to have a nice brunch every time probably.

John: Right. Exactly. Yeah, but you eat at home, so that’s even better. Three more. Do you have a favorite number?

Rubik: No.

John: No? Oh, just positive ones or negative ones?

Rubik: As an accountant, you’ve got to like everything, right? You can’t be biased towards numbers, so you’ve got to treat them all equally.

John: Okay. All right. Just in case they’re listening, we like all of you, so we’re good. How about with my book being out, Kindle or real books?

Rubik: Oh, man, I like Audible. I haven’t done Kindle yet, but I like Audible because if I read too much, I fall asleep. That’s why I like children’s books because they’re 12 pages, but Audible is great. So if you want to record a copy where you can read it to me, it’ll be easier for me to really listen to and focus on.

John: Okay. Yeah. My book will be coming out with the Audible in early part of next year, so there we go. The last one, favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Rubik: I just recently got a real awesome printer. It’s an Epson EcoTank ET-15000. To you, it means nothing, but to me, it’s really awesome. I can’t even explain all the awesomeness of it. Maybe it’s because my past printer was kind of crappy, but it really goes well with printing out cards and stuff.

John: That’s great. Yeah, it’s like the Lamborghini of printers. Yeah, whatever it is, that’s awesome, man. Very cool.

Rubik: When the kids get close to it, I just tense up. I’m like, “Don’t even think about it.”

John: Right. Very cool, man. Well, that dovetails perfectly into your “and” with the greeting cards and then the book as well. How did that get started?

Rubik: I have a three-year-old and a one-year-old, so I’ve read a ton of children’s books over the past three years. Some of them I read and I’m just like, “This is dumb. I can do better than this.” I was thinking about it would be great if there was a book I could read my kids that has to do with accounting or financial literacy somehow, but not too deep into it so they’re not like, “Well, I don’t know, Dad. This doesn’t make sense to me” to where it’s kind of a children’s book, but it has some jokes in there, but also for the parent to enjoy. I thought, you know what, one day, I sat down and said, “Let me just start writing down accounting jokes. What are some accounting puns I can think of?” It took me a while to think of a main character, and one day, I said, “What if there was a general whose name was General Ledger and he was the hero?”

John: Yes!

Rubik: From that point, it started building out and I was like, I’m doing it. All right. Cool. It was over a year that I had been working on it and just had a little notebook. I was jotting down ideas in. That was my main motivation at first. The greeting cards complement it, but I’ve always liked greeting cards. I’m the guy who will spend 30 minutes in the aisle at Target looking at all the cards, trying to find the perfect one, put one back, put another, get another one. You just want that moment where you hand the card to someone and you’re looking at them like, “Did you read it? Isn’t that perfect?” They look at you like, “Oh my gosh, how did you find it? This card is perfect.”

John: Right, and you’re like, “I made it.”

Rubik: Yeah. Now, I can say, “Hey, let me create those perfect card moments.” So when accountants are giving cards to accountants or if an accountant is getting a card from a non-accountant, they can fully appreciate the accounting humor in the card.

John: That’s awesome, man. I love that. That’s so great because you’re like — I don’t even think that existed or does exist, or if it’s an accounting joke, it’s going to be — I don’t know. It’s just lame. This isn’t even a good one. This is written by a non-accountant.

Rubik: Right. The ones that you would have at some kind of card store is probably going to do some riff on the IRS and that’s pretty much it because they assume every accountant does taxes and there’s no other — I mean, we do other things clearly based on all the other people you’ve spoken to on your podcast.

John: Like embezzle. That’s definitely more lucrative. No, I’m kidding.

Rubik: Some do.

John: It’s a joke that I had on stage. We don’t all do taxes. Some of us prefer to embezzle. That’s just a joke that I had. That’s just super cool, man, but it started with a book. That was pretty much what — the General Ledger is what started it?

Rubik: Yeah. It started just with my desire to do a book. I actually several years ago had an interest in doing a side business in greeting cards, but I never really found a way to make it work. I was trying to come up with ideas, but nothing really, and my mind was like, “Yeah, this isn’t going to work out. This isn’t feasible.” Then as I was developing the book, I was like, “You know what? A lot of these jokes, I can parlay into cards as well.” Then I said, “You know what? Let it just all be accounting-related. Let me fully embrace the accounting nerd inside of me.” I’d have a captive audience, so that would make it easier to market it to a group of people.

An accountant will see something like this and I get a lot of laughs from accountants when they see the book or some of the cards, which if I just do a generic card, no one’s going to say, “Oh, that’s a great card” that says “Have a great day” or something, but if it has an accounting joke built in then you’re automatically going to get a better reaction from it from an accountant, at least.

John: Totally. That’s so great, man. That’s so great. Brian Regan had a bit — a really great comedian — of when he first had a kid. He opens the children’s book and it’s, “The clock. The clock. The clock goes tick. The clock goes tock. The end, 1995.” He’s like, “Who’s writing this? What the hell.” You’re like, “I can write this” and you did. I think that’s really cool. Have you heard from people that have gotten the cards or gotten the book? That’s got to feel really rewarding to hear their reaction to what you’ve created.

Rubik: Yeah. Well, when I see a sale come in, I’m like, oh my gosh. They’re not just looking at a picture of it in a social media post. They’re actually saying, “Take my money. I don’t want to just look at this virtually on my screen. I want to hold it and I might want to read it to my children” or have someone else read it to their children. I remember the first sale that came through. I was like, oh my gosh, what do I do? Okay. I’m going to package it here. My wife was looking at me like, “I think you should put some more tape on that postage label on the envelope just to make sure it gets there.”

Now, that’s a lot easier of a process, but it was certainly exciting to see just the reaction that I get from people not only when they want to buy it, but then I’ll see people send me messages or share some of my posts and say, “Oh, it’s so great that someone’s doing something like this” or “These are really great.” It’s just a good feeling knowing that yeah, there are people that appreciate this. It’s not just me.

John: Yeah, that’s really fantastic. Would you say that any of this gives you a skill that you bring to work at all?

Rubik: Really it made me look at marketing a lot more and just understanding too the digital marketing. I know that’s something that we look at work-wise before I got into all this stuff, but now when I post something and I’m looking at it and saying, “Okay, let me look on LinkedIn. I got this many views and this many likes and shares” or whatever, okay. What was up with this one that this one did better than that post? So as we do things work-wise when we’re putting out some of our own work-related marketing content, I’m a little more aware of that stuff now to say okay, let’s be able to look at that to see what works, what doesn’t work when we’re trying to sell forensic accounting.

John: Wow. Yeah, I didn’t even think of that. Plus, I guess just that creative side, you’re able to make that ad just not so stale. It’s still forensic accounting. It’s what you’re selling, so you can’t have this Apple ad or something like that, but you can also just a little bit outside the box to make it not look like everyone else’s ad type of thing because you have a different lens that you’re looking through.

Rubik: Yeah. We just have to know who the user is. I have a much more defined user on my greeting card and children’s book business, but then with forensic accounting, we have to think about okay, if an attorney is going to see this advertisement, are they going to say, “I completely understand. I need to pay these people money” or if an attorney’s client sees it, we have to think about it a different way. But I’m a big data guy, too, so I just know now that okay, here’s all the data that’s available through those social media metrics and analytics that we can look at and evaluate on what’s working and what’s not working.

John: Yeah. That’s cool, man. That’s great because it’s a muscle that you’re exercising outside of work. I’m sure at no point — I’m going to bet a ton of all my money actually that at no point in your business education did anyone say write a children’s book or make greeting cards because it’ll make you better at forensics accounting.

Rubik: No, I don’t think so. Maybe someone said, “Hey, if you need to consider quitting your day job, maybe go write a book or something” but they didn’t get into the specifics.

John: No, that’s cool. I would imagine your appreciation for printers has also gotten way up.

Rubik: Oh, yeah. You have no idea. I had a printer just at home that my mother-in-law had gotten us five years ago, and we never print anything at home. It’s this printer with full ink and everything. A year ago actually, we had an event at the office. It was Market Day and people could come in and bring in some crafts or whatever.

John: Oh, that’s cool.

Rubik: If they have a side hobby, bring it in and sell it in the firm. That was the first time I printed these greeting cards and I just busted out that old printer. I said, “Well, okay, this is what I have. It might not be that good,” but it actually was decent. It was really good. It’s nowhere near my new fancy toy now.

John: The 15,000.

Rubik: That’s right. Yeah, the other one wasn’t even like 2000.

John: That’s hilarious. That’s such a cool thing that the firm did. It sounds like Briggs & Veselka where if you make something then bring it in and share it. It’s almost like show-and-tell, flea market style. Sell it. That’s cool. I would imagine that that had to open up some eyes for some people, and even people that you didn’t even know did other things as well.

Rubik: Oh, for sure, yeah. I looked around the room and at first, I went in and I decided — when they sent out the email about it, I said, “Oh, you know what? I’m either going to do it or I’m never going to do this thing, so let me design one.” I designed one. It was right around Christmas. It was beginning of December, so I made one Christmas greeting card with an accounting joke on it. I said I’m just going to print out 20 of these. I’m going to try to sell these. If no one buys them, if everyone says these are dumb then forget about it. If they sell then okay, I’m onto something.

John: That’s a lot of pressure on your co-workers.

Rubik: Yeah. I was selling it up. I was targeting all the tax folks because it was a tax joke on my card and I sold out. Now, it was intimidating because I look around the room and people have this whole setup they’re bringing in. They’re like, “I have a tablecloth. I have a banner” and this and that. I’ve got like a shoebox with 20 greeting cards in it and a few dollars of change in case someone pays with a five. What am I doing here? But it worked out because I just sat next to the person selling kolaches. It wasn’t good for my profits because every dollar I made, I just bought a kolache.

John: Right.

Rubik: I’m a little more responsible now with my business, so good lesson learned.

John: Right. Oh my goodness, that’s so good. I could just imagine your set up and you’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” Everyone’s got a full pop-up store and you’re almost the homeless man that’s just selling whatever’s in your shopping cart. What the hell, man? No, but that’s great though because it’s more genuine and authentic. That’s great because it’s that target niche and then you go in and you hit it. Then you’re like, okay, this can be a thing. They didn’t even know that they were guinea pigs in a big experiment.

Rubik: Oh, yeah, and they had no idea the book stuff was going on in the background, so that was kind of further validation for me. If I can get people to buy these cards, let’s do this book. I just got to finish it and figure out how to get it into a printed book format, which was another process. But it was definitely a good, motivational stepping stone for me to get over that first hump and then get that proof of concept, and then motivate me to keep going with it.

John: Yeah. Was there a part of you that ever thought — because I would imagine that not a lot of people knew that you had this going or that this was an idea of yours or whatever, maybe a couple of coworkers or maybe no one. But was there a part of you that was like, “They’re going to judge me” or “This isn’t what a principal does in accounting firms” or something like that?

Rubik: For sure, yeah. There was definitely a part of it. Everyone can always say, “Oh, I’m busy. I’m busy. I don’t have time to do this stuff,” which if you really are passionate about it — a lot of this stuff I would do 11 o’clock at night. It’s late at night on the weekends or whatever, so it’s not like it’s a day-to-day thing. But there was always that concern of, well, okay, if I’m doing this, should I be spending more time on these other things related to my job? Is someone going to judge me for that? That was always something that I was initially worried about. But then we get that email that says, “Hey, everyone, let’s have a Market Day. Bring in all your stuff.” It was a really easy way for me to be like, well, they want me to do this. Let me see who else is out there coming out with this stuff, so it was a good event, I thought, to help people come out there.

John: And kudos on the firm because we’re so permission-based. That basically gave you the permission to be like, hey, this is what I’m doing. How important do you think it is to have something outside of work as opposed to just spend more time doing work?

Rubik: Very. I’ve worked for people who I feel like didn’t have that thing outside of work to get them out of the office. I feel like for me initially, a lot of the stuff I do outside of work, it’s through professional organizations and volunteer efforts I can do through there. But then just having those things outside of work to pull me away from the PC and pull me onto the Mac to be able to work on other things, it’s really important. I feel like it just helps you grow, helps keep you happy, helps keep you grow in other areas that you might not get through your normal day-to-day.

John: Yeah, it’s just that unplug. For you, like you said, away from the computer, the work computer, and onto the creative computer, if you will, the non-Excel one. So even if you wanted to do Excel, you couldn’t, but that’s so great, just to unplug a little bit. There are plenty of studies done on more work doesn’t equal better output.

Rubik: Right.

John: Especially something that’s so different and it’s more that creative because with me doing internal audit and merger acquisition work and then doing standup comedy, I enjoy the creative because you can’t really get creative a lot in the accounting side or you’re not supposed to.

Rubik: You’re not supposed to. You can. There are penalties and repercussions you may face if caught.

John: Then on the other side, if you’re not creative then that’s when the penalties happen, or figuratively. So it was just nice for both sides of my brain to be able to just exercise that, but it’s cool to hear, like you said earlier, of those examples of where it does apply to work.

It’s not just nothing at all type of a thing. I love that example from Briggs & Veselka. How much do you think it is on an organization to lead that charge and encourage people to share those outside-of-work interests versus how much is it on the individual to be willing to bring in their crafts and things to share or even just talk about it?

Rubik: Right. I think it goes to the organization’s culture. If they have an openness to it, it really goes down to making sure people can have a life outside of work. If the organization is just stressing billable hours and wanting everyone to be present and be in the office all the time, that puts a damper on anything you can do outside of work. So I think that’s one big picture element of it. But then also just having people, mentors and managers within your team that encourage it as well, I feel like that plays a big role as well.

John: Yeah, because it actually just speaks to the framework or the organization as a whole. Also, people can’t have anything to share if you don’t give them time to go do the thing to talk about. There’s actually another step before that that they need to be doing as well, which is a really great point. No wonder you’re a principal. Let’s do it, man. I like that. You’re right. “Hey, everybody, share what you’re talking about.” Well, we don’t have time to do anything to share, so that would defeat the purpose.

Rubik: Well, work more efficiently then you’ll have time to do it.

John: Right. Okay. Yeah. Exactly, or you work more efficiently and then we just give you more work to do.

Rubik: There you go.

John: Because you’re so good at it, and it’s like, “No, no.” That’s such a great example. Is there anything else that you’ve seen in your working world to encourage people to share those outside-of-work interests?

Rubik: It’s funny. When I was in the office, you walk around and you see different people’s offices. You see something in their office that you can automatically connect with and you’re like, “Oh, hey, you went to…” I went to the University of Houston, so if I see someone with the U of H anything, I’m like, “Oh, hey! Going to the game?” or “Yeah, what’s up with the basketball team?” I feel like that always helps with being able to see people just express themselves a little bit. A lot of people have the standard college stuff, but then I’ve seen some people have different things, little gadgets, little trinkets, Legos, all kinds of things that you look at it and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, this person wants me to talk to them and ask them about this thing that they’re bringing in to express themselves. I think this is okay. I think I’m allowed to do this.”

John: Right. That’s such a great thing of just having something in your office. It’s not shouting from the rooftops. It’s not bragging. It’s not looking for attention. It’s something that brings you joy looking at it, number one, but number two, it’s an invitation to people to ask me about this, if you would like. Then that just creates a real conversation as opposed to just work-related talk and then I’m leaving. It opens that door. I imagine it has to grease the wheels a little bit for camaraderie and teamwork.

Rubik: Well, and a little more interesting conversation aside from the normal, “So how is the weekend?” “I’m going to block out the next 20 seconds.” “Oh, cool. So here’s what we’ve got going on this week.”

John: Right. “Well, my cat got run over by a truck.” “Okay. Anyway, we got work to do.” It’s like, what? No, I just said the worst possible thing ever. “Anyway, we got work.”

Rubik: “If you want to buy a new cat, we’ve got to bill some hours, so let’s get on this so the client pays us.”

John: Right. That’s for sure happened. We’re laughing about it, but it’s for sure happened. It might be your next book, I don’t know.

Rubik: It’s a little morbid for children. I’ll have to see. Greeting cards are better, greeting cards for adults. I can be a little more naughty in some of the jokes on there versus the children’s book.

John: It’s almost like — I just imagined almost like a Far Side like when I was younger. That was my go to, Far Side and Mad Magazine and stuff like that. That explains why I’m here where I am today. This has been awesome, Rubik. Do you have any words of encouragement for people listening that think that their hobby or passion has nothing to do with their job or no one’s going to care?

Rubik: You never know. You automatically think no one’s going to care, but you’d be surprised. Everyone has some kind of interest outside of work and it can be very different from totally non-accounting-related. You just never know until you ask them. I’m really hoping that people get more open about sharing their outside-of-work hobbies and don’t have that fear because like you said, it really leads to more interesting conversation. You can have a lot more fun if I’m checking in with a co-worker, saying, “Hey, how’s that hobby going? Where are you at on it?” You really have a much stronger connection with them as a result of that, so it’s really mutually beneficial for being able to see — for me, I’m able to see okay, these people care about me, but then it also gives me an opportunity to express an interest and it just makes you feel good.

John: That’s so perfect. As a leader, a leadership role, it just shows some genuine interest in the people around you. It’s huge because we forget what it’s like to be 22 to 23 coming out of school and then a principal. What are you, invincible? Do you know everything? So when you’re like, “I like to do greeting cards and make a children’s book,” it’s like, oh, he’s a real person. That’s neat. That’s really cool.

Rubik: I don’t know what 22-year-old me would have thought of 35-year-old me if I would have said that. It’s like, oh, yeah, 35-year-old me, I do greeting cards. 22-year-old me would have probably judged, but I don’t know. I probably would have gotten over it.

John: But it’s a good example to show you can have other things and still be successful.

Rubik: Yeah. Maybe 22-year-old me would have been more cool with it if someone would share those experiences rather than just worrying about, “Hey, so where’s happy hour this Friday?”

John: Yeah, exactly, or golf or more work. There are other sides to that and that’s really neat. Before I wrap this up though, it’s only fair that I turn the tables and allow you to question me, so we’ll make this The Rubik Podcast. Welcome to the first episode. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. So whatever questions you’ve got, let them rip.

Rubik: Okay. John, are you ready?

John: Yeah.

Rubik: Favorite holiday of the year?

John: Oh, favorite holiday. I’m going to go Tax Day because it’s also my birthday, April 15th.

Rubik: Oh my gosh, you are an accountant. Oh, man. I could make a special accounting tax day/busy season/birthday card for you.

John: Exactly. It would have all of the things. It would be a trifold. It would have to have —

Rubik: Oh yeah. I’d charge double for it, for sure. Funny card or sappy cards?

John: Oh, funny card.

Rubik: Oh, thank goodness.

John: Yeah. If you’re going to send a card — I don’t know. I used to actually — I’m not huge on the cards because I didn’t write it, so I don’t really mean it because somebody else wrote these words. My mom especially, very big into cards, and my grandmother as well. So for holidays, I would give them the blank inside cards. So it’s got, for Christmas, a picture of a volcano and then it’s blank on the inside. Then on the back, I would just write, “Love, John.” My kids, if you wanted a card, you got a card. The message is not from me, so blank inside. There you go. But funny cards for sure.

Rubik: Perfect. I’m going to take a guess that you’re a fan, but favorite Weird Al song.

John: Oh, wow, so many, but I’m going to have to go — oh, man, he is a genius. I’m going to have to go — I believe it was 3rd Grade talent show elementary school. It might have been 4th Grade. It was 4th Grade, 4th Grade talent show. We did, “Like a Surgeon”. One of my buddies, there were three of us — or four because one of them was the person getting operated on. At the very end, one of my friends — his mom was a nurse, so we got these giant syringes, almost like turkey baster syringes without the needle, of course. At the very end, we squirted the whole audience with water. It was great, but yeah, “Like a Surgeon,” that one’s hilarious to me. There are the newer ones, too, but that’s the one that just came to mind right away just because of that talent show, which we won.

Rubik: Well, I would imagine. Everyone’s terrified enough. They’re like, well, this is the most memorable one where I’m going home with a souvenir. I got —

John: There was no talent at all on that stage. When we were doing our piece, it was just pure funny and just silly. When you’ve got a bunch of elementary school kids voting, that’s what you go with.

Rubik: I’m impressed that as a ten-year-old or so that you guys were able to nail that. I’m sure you got all the lyrics and everything.

John: Oh, I’m sure not, but it was close.

Rubik: I’m sure there were some teachers that were mortified a little bit like, “Are they singing the parody or the real song?”

John: Right. This isn’t Madonna. I had the record — I mean, the albums, Weird Al albums. I was a huge fan of Weird Al still to this day. He’s great. That’s where my music parodies are inspired by, for sure. You know Weird Al. He’s the OG on that.

Rubik: He is, yeah. I used to want to be Weird Al, but then I could never sing.

John: It’s the accordion that gets me, too. He’s just so good at it. It’s like, man. Yeah, singing as well. I’m a lip syncer, that’s for sure. That’s cool, man. Well, thank you so much for being a part of What’s Your “And”? Rubik, this has been really, really fun.

Rubik: Yeah. Thanks for having me, John. I really enjoyed it.

John: Cool! Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Rubik’s cards or book or see him in action, connect with him on social media, go to whatsyourand.com and everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button to do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to get the book. It’s great for the holidays.

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 301 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”, the things above and beyond their technical skills, the things that actually differentiate them when they’re in the office.

I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book’s being published in September. It’ll be available on Amazon, Indigo, Bookshop and a few other websites, so check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s listening to the show and changing the cultures where they work because of it, and the book will really help to spread this message.

Please don’t forget to 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, Jeannie Ruesch. She’s a marketing director for Bill.com, and now she’s with me here today. Jeannie, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Jeannie: Thanks for having me, John. I’m excited to be here.

John: Oh, no, this is going to be so much fun, so much fun. I have my 17 rapid-fire questions, get to know Jeannie, right out of the box. Here we go. Start you with a simple one here, favorite color.

Jeannie: Blue.

John: Blue, all right, mine too. How about a least favorite color?

Jeannie: Orange, which I probably shouldn’t say.

John: That’s nothing to do with anything. How about pens or pencils?

Jeannie: Pens, lots of them.

John: Oh, there you go. Okay, all right. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Jeannie: Neither. I like the regular piece-them-together puzzles on the desk.

John: Jigsaw, okay, okay.

Jeannie: Oh, yeah, that’s the word.

John: That works. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Jeannie: Tom Selleck.

John: Wow, blast from the past.

Jeannie: Yep, he’s my favorite.

John: That’s a great answer. There you go. How about a TV show that you’ve binge watched?

Jeannie: Most recently, Sweet Magnolia is on Netflix. It’s fantastic.

John: Oh, yeah, that’s a new one.

Jeannie: Really good, yeah, highly recommend it.

John: All right, would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Jeannie: Oh, I’m definitely a night owl. Mornings are not my strength at all.

John: Right, perfect. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Jeannie: I am a Star Trek person. Not that I don’t like Star Wars, just so nobody can get offended, but I’m much more of a Star Trek fan.

John: Okay, all right. Fair enough, fair enough. For your computers, more of a PC or a Mac?

Jeannie: PC, 100%.

John: Yeah, me too. I don’t even know how to —

Jeannie: My husband and I have multiple arguments about this because he’s a Mac guy.

John: Oh, wow. That’s, yeah.

Jeannie: And we’re still married, yeah.

John: What’s your secret?

Jeannie: That’s because he likes Star Trek too.

John: Oh, there you go. There you go. That’s the real denominator right there. All right, how about on your mouse, right click or left click?

Jeannie: It’s probably backwards because I’m left-handed so my mouse is flipped.

John: Oh, wow, fancy.

Jeannie: I’m fancy, yes.

John: So both of them.

Jeannie: Pretty much, yeah, whichever one works, yeah.

John: That’s impressive. Okay, how about, do you have a favorite band or musician?

Jeannie: I’d say probably Garth Brooks has always been one of my favorites, love his voice. Along the same lines, also a big Frank Sinatra fan.

John: Okay, there you go. Also great performers.

Jeannie: Mm-hmm, incredible.

John: Very cool. Now, since you’re in marketing, I have to ask, digital or print.

Jeannie: Digital but I still think there’s a place for both.

John: Yeah, well, especially print, if done right, the texture, it can come alive there; but, yeah, digital definitely can get a lot more people.

Jeannie: Given the reason I’m on here, it would be a little odd to say no to print.

John: Exactly. How about cats or dogs?

Jeannie: Dogs, like the ones sleeping and snoring behind me while we talk.

John: There you go. There you go. I’ve got four more. Would you say, do you have a favorite number?

Jeannie: Five. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. It’s just always been my favorite number since I was a little kid.

John: That’s a great answer. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Jeannie: I’m pretty much a red wine person, pretty simple.

John: Don’t ask you why, ever since you were a kid. No, I’m just kidding.

Jeannie: Yeah, ever since I was a kid, yeah, one of my favorites.

John: I’m teasing. All right, more oceans or mountains.

Jeannie: Ocean, by far.

John: Yeah. Okay, and the last one now, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Jeannie: Probably my laptop because I can do pretty much anything that I want to do, work or hobby-wise, on it.

John: Yeah, exactly, which leads right into the writing. Is writing something that you actually, since you were a kid, something that you did, or was it something that you got more into as you became an adult?

Jeannie: Nope, I actually started writing when I was about six years old, and I remember the day really clearly. I was working on a story for Sunday school, I think, or school or something along those lines, and I remember when I finished the end. I actually put The End, in sixth grade, squirrelly letters at the very end of the paper, big huge letters. I remember finishing that and being really, really excited, running down the hallway to show my parents what I’d done. Ever since then, it just kind of created a bug.

So, writing, I think when I was eight, I wanted to be the greatest novelist ever which, at my age at that time, pretty much meant Dr. Seuss, but I moved above that a little bit, even though he probably is still the greatest novelist ever. So, it’s been something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a little kid, and it stuck.

John: That’s super cool because that’s something that — I mean, I guess I was creative like that, but at some point, I don’t know. I guess you just lose it or whatever, so, good for you. I think that’s fantastic that it stayed with you. Clearly the bug was bigger and badder than mine was.

Jeannie: Yeah, it definitely stuck. I think in seventh grade is when I wrote my first book.

John: Okay.

Jeannie: It was handwritten on legal size pages, about 150, front and back. I spent a lot of time in my English class writing that book. My English teacher, I remember this, came up to me at one point, realizing I was paying no attention to what she was talking about in class at all. She came up and finally asked what I was doing. I showed her what I was doing. She just stared at me for a few minutes, and she goes, “I’m not even sure how I can tell you to stop doing that right now, so just do what you’re going to do.”

John: Right.

Jeannie: Her reaction was hilarious. So, I spent a good portion of seventh grade English class, writing that book and finishing that book.

John: That’s incredible. I’m getting ready to be the greatest author of all time. Can you stop interrupting?

Jeannie: Exactly. I don’t need English to learn how to write a book. Come on, people.

John: Right. Exactly, exactly. I did this in sixth grade. That was last year. That’s super cool though. That’s really awesome, and then how you just kept doing it. I would imagine that it’s one of those where — I mean, me, writing this book has been the most daunting thing I’ve ever done, by far. I’ve heard that just more iterations that you do, the better you get at it. So, you were just getting those 1,000 hours in, in elementary school, which is fantastic.

Jeannie: I definitely started early. The very first book that I published, it took me, from the time I started writing it to the time I finished, was probably six to seven years. A big part of that was because I was doing exactly what you said. I was writing and then I was researching and finding more information and joining groups and joining critique groups and going to conferences and taking workshops and reading articles and learning as much as I could about the craft of writing. Which was amazing to learn there is an actual craft which means you can be taught and you can get better, which is phenomenal.

So, I spent a lot of time really focusing in on how to improve that book. For whatever reason, most people will tell you, they finished the first book. It’s usually terrible, and they’ll just keep moving on. I was determined to get that book published. So, I kept rewriting it and rewriting it. I think at one point, I probably trashed about 250 pages and went back and rewrote 250 pages and then kept going. So, technically, it’s probably not the original version of the book. It’s a different version of the book. Eventually, that book did get published by a small press.

John: Which is huge, congratulations, I mean, just to finish that, six to seven-year project to stay committed to. Part of it is that inner critic and then letting other people criticize it or whatever and then eventually — I have a friend that — there was an author maybe 100 years ago or so that had a quote that was like, books are never finished, they’re just abandoned. I was like, mine is definitely abandoned because it’s just like, you know what? It is done.

Jeannie: You have to let it go at some point. You have to put the pen down and all of the pens down, and you have to just stop, and you have to stop rereading it too. That’s the other thing that I’ve learned. Once you’ve decided it’s done, you’ve sent it out to the world, to your editor, they’ve agreed to publish it, it’s gone. You just have to leave it be. I remember — I don’t remember where I heard this quote, but it always stuck with me, is that once a book has been published, it’s no longer yours. It belongs to the readers.

John: There you go.

Jeannie: To me, that means a lot because it’s basically saying, I’ve put out the best book I can, and I put out a book I believed in and I wrote from my heart. Once it’s ready, and it’s done, and the publisher agrees to it; or if I’m the publisher, if I’m doing self-publishing, my editor has agreed to it; then I put it out in the world. It’s for the readers to decide how it fits into their lives. That helps me a lot, just separate from that and try really, really hard to stay away from review pages.

John: Yeah. Right. Exactly, exactly. That’s so powerful right there because I wrote the book kind of for me but for the readers. After that, then it’s like, I kind of care what you think, but I kind of don’t because I did what I thought was the best. This is what I wanted to create. If you like it, awesome. If you don’t like it, equally awesome. That’s the hard part, I think, for a lot of us with these hobbies and passions is that we’ve got to remind ourselves that we’re doing it for us. That’s why you’re doing it. You’re not competing against other people. You’re competing against yourself, I guess, which is hard to remember.

Jeannie: I’m a believer that we have a voice, and we have a unique story to tell, in a specific way that we want to tell it, and there is an audience for that. I’m also a believer that not everybody is your audience, as evidenced by some of my previous reviews. I did find people who were not my audience too, but that’s a part of the game. That’s a part of putting out your work. That’s a part of putting out a piece of your heart.

I think Ernest Hemingway is the one that says, “Writing a book is easy. You just open your pain and write.” That’s horrible imagery, for sure, but it is very true. You’re giving a very vulnerable piece of yourself in everything that you write. That’s the only way you can do it. I think that’s the only way that we can write something that’s authentic and real.

John: Yeah, that’s really deep actually. It also kind of dovetails with this podcast where it is, the more vulnerable you are then the stronger your connections are. Is that a fair way to say it?

Jeannie: I think so. I think we hear about the word authenticity a lot, especially in marketing. I think it’s a huge buzzword that everyone kind of rolls their eyes around, but I think that vulnerability is a big piece of being authentic. It’s a big part of being who you are and letting that out into the world.

It’s funny because I’ve been working in the Accounting industry for about seven years, I think. I previously started at the Sleeter Group then I moved over to Xero, and now I’m at Bill.com, so I’ve been around these amazing people for quite some time. But when I first joined and I first started digging into and becoming a part of this community, I felt like I had to keep that side of my business or that side of my personality separate.

I remember because I had a Twitter handle and Facebook handle and whatever things were available at that time, might have been Myspace. I don’t remember. It might have been Myspace. I felt like I had to create separate identities, one for the author and me, specifically because I would write romantic fiction which is not necessarily something that you would think would connect very well on the accounting side. I felt I had to keep these identities separate.

I remember at one point I had a separate Twitter handle, a separate Facebook page, a separate this, a separate that, for all of these things. It was so exhausting trying to remember. Can I post this here? Do I post that there? What will they think of this? What will they think of that? Eventually, I just started realizing that, for me, what it meant to be authentic and being vulnerable was finding a way to bridge all of that together. You can do that while still putting out the brand of who you want your personal brand to feel and be like, but it doesn’t have to just be a compartmentalized brand. It should be all of you, and it can be all of you.

I remember the very first time I posted, because I also watch silly shows like soap operas, General Hospital and things like that. They’re just really good with this television. I remember the first time that I decided to combine everything, one of the things that I posted on my now newly combined Twitter handle with my accountant audience, with the book audience, with everyone, was about General Hospital. I remember hitting the button going, oh, my god, I can’t believe I just did that. Then immediately, someone in my account audience was like, oh, wow, I used to watch that show. What’s going on? So, it was just that really quick reminder that, yeah, you can be who you are. You can bridge all of these pieces of yourself to be just you, in one place.

John: No, I love that, and I love that affirmation where you throw it out there. You hit post and then swallow your heart and then think everyone’s going to unfriend me. I’m going to get fired. It’s the opposite, immediate, people are like, wow, that’s awesome. What’s going on, type of thing, which is really cool.

Jeannie: It was a nice way to complement, for lack of a better term, just making that decision to bridge everything together. I’m still careful with what I post. I still believe that I want my brand out there to be a positive one. So, in whatever it is that I’m talking about, I’m trying to maintain that positivity, but I will talk about just about anything. Number one, it’s a lot easier. I don’t have to have separate Twitter handles and Facebook pages. One is plenty to keep up with, much less, three.

John: Exactly, and passwords to remember and all that other nonsense.

Jeannie: Yeah, it was exhausting.

John: I agree. Yeah, and the research that I’ve done and actually part of the book is just talking, when I speak even at conferences, is just explaining to people, defining professional is really hard, but defining unprofessional is a lot easier. If you’re interrupting other people’s ability to do their job, then that’s unprofessional, up to that point. You don’t share everything, everything, but for the most part, most of it applies, so why not? You love watching soap operas. You write these amazing books. It’s like, these are parts of who I am as a person, and there’s no reason for people not to think that’s cool, which is, I think, is great.

Jeannie: I think that we also find ourselves, and I know I have been too, surprised when the different perspectives come together in some way. Even with the soap operas, as silly as that is, I wrote an article because I remember about marketing and brand marketing lessons that you could learn from a soap opera fan base because of some of the activity that I was seeing around this specific actress on one of the soaps and the way that the fans were responding to her and what they were doing to promote her and to promote the causes that she worked for. It was just such a really good example of how you build a community. So, I realized, well, there are connections here, between this, between marketing and all sorts of different things.

Even in my books, as much as I am not an accountant, I market to accountants very differently. The last book I published, the third book, the character in the third book, the hero character, the man was an art forger who forged banknotes, so, a little bit of that. This is obviously historically set novel. The fourth book that I’m working on now, in the same series, the character actually would have been — she’s female in the Regency era which is about 1820, in London, England. They didn’t really have professions at that time. Women didn’t have professions, mostly. She would have been an accountant and a small business owner.

When I started writing that story, and realizing what was bubbling up as her character, it just made me laugh because it was such a cross connection with all of the people that I have met as accountants and what I’ve seen from them and their entrepreneurship and everything, and it just built itself naturally into my fiction, even when I wasn’t planning it.

John: That’s fantastic, yeah, because I was going to say, does some of the writing translate over into the job? I mean, it sounds like the job definitely, subconsciously, is translating over into the writing. How about the other way around?

Jeannie: Yeah, it’s definitely, subconsciously, transferring itself into my fiction. That’s for sure. I think the fiction side has made me a better storyteller. If you’re in marketing or you’re seeing the buzzwords in marketing, how important storytelling is in marketing, but I think that what it’s taught me is a lot of things of how to tell a better story. What are the pieces that are required, how you set up a story, how you show that journey, how you show conflict and turmoil and resolve that in some way, and being able to take that and translate to a customer experience or to translate to a story that a brand is telling. I will say, when I started on both of these careers, younger, I had no idea how much they would come to inform each other and how much they would come to share pieces that helps me understand on both sides.

John: I love that. That’s so awesome. Yeah, and it’s something that, until I asked that question, maybe it never dawned on you; or after we started talking, of course, did; but it’s one of those things where you’re just doing them independent and then you don’t realize that it’s impossible to keep them separate. It really is.

Jeannie: And they complement each other really well. I think most authors that I’ve talked to, or writers, hate marketing, so I have a leg up in that aspect. Even though I’m still not the greatest at marketing myself as an author, the irony is hilarious, but I know how to do it. I just don’t always take the time to do it. So, the two pieces, they really do, they inform a lot on each other, and they have a lot to do with finding success on either side.

Even one of the nonfiction books that I’m working on right now is about the writer’s voice, and in that book, I’m using marketing exercises to help a writer uncover the reasons why they write, what they want to be, what their voice is, what their message is out to the world, what matters to them. So, even in that flip side, taking pieces of marketing and the way that we use marketing work to discover a brand, to discover a brand’s why, all of those things that you hear there, you can take those same exercises and flip them back the other way. It’s very symbiotic.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Because it’s just like the writer wanting to write something, it’s the company wanting to tell that story. It’s the parallel there, which is really awesome. Is the fiction writing something that you share with coworkers, on occasion?

Jeannie: I do when asked.

John: Okay, okay.

Jeannie: It’s not something that I generally talk about. I’ve actually had a few coworkers recently send me a text or a slack and say, “Hey, I happened to Google you for some reason, and I didn’t realize you wrote books. How did I not know that?” I remember when I started at Bill a couple of years ago, one of my coworkers there, she had Googled me, just getting to know me as I was fairly new, and found the books. She told me after she had already bought the books and read them.

John: Okay, that’s great.

Jeannie: Fortunately, she likes them, or she at least told me that she likes them because she keeps asking me for the next one. Generally, yeah, most of the time, I’ll talk about it if someone asks, but I generally, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t really share all that much on that side.

John: Right. Well, it’s also obnoxious if it’s just from a bullhorn, where, hey, you want to buy the book? Hey, buy the book. Hey, I wrote a book. Hey, hey, I wrote a book.

Jeannie: Yeah. By the way, I wrote a book. No, I wrote three books. You want to go buy them?

John: So, when I was writing my third book —

Jeannie: Yeah, exactly.

John: What are you talking about? We’re talking about coffee.

Jeannie: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s like, how do you just slip that into conversation? So, I wrote a book. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.

John: Right, but I do love that you do share and that people found it, and they were even like, well, how did I not know? It’s like, well, because I hadn’t been on John’s podcast yet.

Jeannie: Yeah, exactly. Now everybody’s going to know, yeah. See, it’s going to be all your fault.

John: Right, and then Amazon, through the roof. You get ready.

Jeannie: Exactly.

John: It’s a cool thing, and it’s an interesting thing that I think people lean into just to be like, oh, wow, tell me more. Or, I’m curious. What’s that about? I’m sure that you get some questions along those lines that are, just tell me more of that side of you, sort of a thing.

Jeannie: I do. A lot of times they’ll ask what prompted it, some of the same questions you’re asking today. When did you start writing? How do you write a book? How do you finish a book? Yeah.

John: Well, I’m saving you all this time.

Jeannie: You’re saving me all this time. Now I can just redirect everyone to John’s podcast and —

John: Right, exactly.

Jeannie: Yeah, I think that a lot of people think that writing a book is and, yes, it is very hard work, and it’s very consistent and committed work. I will definitely say that. But it is no more committed or consistent than any other established practice hobby that anyone else on your podcast has probably shared. One of my coworkers is a professional musician outside of what she does. It’s an amazing thing for me, and I respect that tremendously. So, I think that writing a book, yes, it is a lot of committed work, and it can take a long time, but I think it’s, as you said earlier, it’s just that practice and that constant learning and that commitment to keep moving forward, like any other hobby in that way.

John: That’s fantastic. It’s also cool that you work somewhere that you’re able to share those hobbies and passions because that’s not necessarily always the case. In the place that you’ve worked in the past, in general, how much do you feel like it’s on the organization to create that culture where, hey, we care about your outside-of-work interests and what are they and let’s share them; versus, how much is it on an individual to maybe just create that small circle amongst themselves and get the ball rolling that way?

Jeannie: I think it’s going to be a combination. Every person is going to decide for themselves how much of that they want to share. I can tend to be a fairly private person, which I know is very funny, given that I write fiction books and you can find my name on Amazon. I think it really depends on the individual person to figure out how much they’re comfortable sharing, how much they want to put out there.

I knew, when I used my own name for my books, which was really important to me because it was something I’d wanted since I was so young, I needed to see my name on those books’ covers, those book covers, that I knew that if someone Googled me for work purposes, interviews, coworkers, whatever it might be, that’s what would pop up. That was something that I expected.

I think that organizations can, any place that you work, if you’re able to create a community or a way where people feel like they can be themselves, they can share these other parts of themselves, that it just makes a better culture. I think any company that has the ability to do that, that has the ability to celebrate what makes us unique and different, and celebrate the things that we are, outside of what we do, eight to five, that it just makes us more connected to each other. It builds a stronger community within the culture, and I think it just creates a better relationship with the company, overall.

John: That’s awesome. That’s so cool to hear in your words because I agree wholeheartedly, and it’s cool to hear that that’s been your experience as well. If only you had been able to be Jeannie Seuss on your book covers then.

Jeannie: Exactly. It would have been so much better but then everyone would have expected all my books to rhyme, so that could have been bad.

John: Right, so we got to go back to the drawing board.

Jeannie: I would not be very authentic.

John: Jeannie Ruesch works just as well. That’s super cool, and just see your name on a book, that is pretty exciting.

Jeannie: It’s pretty awesome. I will say that it’s a good feeling to see it published, to know that I’ve done both the publishing with a publisher and also self-publishing. The third book that I had out, I self-published myself. The first one, I published with a small press. The second one, I published with a digital press named Carina Press. It’s part of Harlequin. So, I’ve done the small, the larger and the self-publishing. I’ve done all three, but they all have that feeling. Once the book is done, and it’s ready, and it’s out, and you get the — go back to your digital versus print — the print copy that I get in my hands is a pretty amazing feeling.

John: That’s so awesome, so awesome. Do you have any words of encouragement to others that are listening that have a hobby or a passion that they feel like has nothing to do with their job or no one’s going to care?

Jeannie: I think people are going to care about you. If they look at their hobby, or they say, oh, it doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t have anything to do with my job; but it does build who you are. With most people that I’ve seen that have hobbies, whether short-term or long-term, it helps to create the person that you are. I’m also a believer that we have to have something more than just work because that’s what builds a life rather than just work.

I find that having that hobby, having that passion and that enjoyment for something else helps me break away and gives me a chance to think of something different, put a different perspective on things and then come back to work refreshed as well. So, I think that’s really important. I would encourage anybody, if they’re comfortable with it, again, it has to be their choice, but don’t shy away from sharing who you are, even if it just means sharing a silly tweet on Twitter about a TV show that you like.

John: Right, there you go.

Jeannie: You’d be surprised at the ways that we build communities because even if it’s a coworker to coworker, we’re still human beings. We all like different things, and a lot of those things will be the same too.

John: I love it. That’s so fantastic. Before we wrap this all up, it’s only fair that I let you now be the host of the show. You can now rapid-fire question me. Now it’s the Jeannie Ruesch Show, everybody.

Jeannie: All right.

John: Here we go, all right.

Jeannie: You’re in trouble now, John.

John: I know. I really am. I should sit down.

Jeannie: Yeah. Well, you stole some of my questions, so I might ask you some of the same ones back. The first one, what’s your favorite snack?

John: Ooh, favorite snack, oh, wow. Chocolate chip cookies, homemade chocolate chip cookies, really good homemade chocolate — they’re soft but not like gross soft. Yeah, that’s probably going to be my favorite. Yeah, it’s nothing healthy. It’s going to be chocolate cake or donuts or, I don’t know, M&M, Peanut M&M’s. I don’t know. I can keep going.

Jeannie: I’m sensing a chocolate theme here. Chocolate everything, I get it. Yeah, got it.

John: Exactly.

Jeannie: Are you a morning or a night person?

John: You know, I guess, between the two, I would probably say a night owl. Although I’m probably more focused in the 8 to 12 range, I’m probably more focused, but definitely staying up later. I guess maybe it’s from my comedy days. I don’t know. Plus, I don’t have kids that wake me up at the crack of dawn either, so, probably night owl.

Jeannie: How about best invention ever?

John: Oh, wow.

Jeannie: I don’t ask rapid-fire questions, do I? Maybe I didn’t get the point of this.

John: This is deep. How about an oven to make chocolate chip cookies, does that count?

Jeannie: That counts, yeah.

John: Or an ice cream maker that you can do at home because that’s also high on my list. I don’t know if it’s the best invention ever, but it sounds pretty appropriate right now.

Jeannie: What’s the last TV show you watched?

John: Last TV show was… Yeah, what was it? I guess, Billions, I’m trying to catch up on Billions. It’s on HBO, I think, or Showtime rather, sorry, Showtime.

Jeannie: One of the many channels out there.

John: Right, yeah. Just trying to catch up on that because I heard people talking about that, so, yeah, it’s the last show I watched.

Jeannie: Your last question, what is your favorite cartoon character?

John: Favorite cartoon character, probably, it’s going to be a close one, is probably Woody Woodpecker. I don’t know why. He’s just ridiculous.

Jeannie: He is ridiculous.

John: ″Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh!″ He’s just going around making mischief everywhere. Yeah, probably Woody Woodpecker. Tom and Jerry is a close second. I don’t know why.

So, there you go. Well, Jeannie, this has been so much fun having you be a part of What’s Your “And”? Thank you so much for taking time to be here.

Jeannie: Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

John: Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Jeannie’s books or maybe connect with her on social media so you can hear about soap operas or also get links to her books on Amazon, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All of the links will be there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

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.