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Celebrating Podcast Wins: Creative Ideas, Habit Building, and Guest Takeaways · Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy

• 0:00
  Welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy. I am here today with Erika
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  Christie, better known as the smarter half of this
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  duo. That's what I say about her every time that
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  I do one. But we're celebrating. We have hit a
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  milestone with a podcast, which is that we hit 10 episodes.
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  Woot. In 10 weeks. So that has been our goal
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  to do one a week. And that means after this one today, we
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  have another 20 to do this year. So
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  we're. But we also have had
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  about 30,000 views so far on
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  socials and YouTube, which is. I just have Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
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  And we've hit 40 countries. 4.
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  1. 1/10 of that, four countries. So
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  that's. It's not bad. It's not bad for not having all
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  of my ducks in a row, for sure. And the fact that we're both
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  working full time. So I definitely think it's good.
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  Yeah. So I want to. We want to talk a little
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  bit today about, you know, there's so many people out there that have a creative
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  idea that want to do something, and. And, you know, we're both
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  creatives and we have a million ideas. Erika has a million ideas. I do, too.
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  We kind of can drive ourselves crazy with the amount of ideas we have
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  and maybe not as much time to make them work. So we want to talk
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  a little bit today about why we chose what we did with this.
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  And so for me, I
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  know with Erika, she had the idea, I think.
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  Did you have the idea to do the podcast and then to do a podcast?
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  And then you're like, what would we do it about? Is that how we started
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  this? Yeah. I mean, I've done podcasts on and off for,
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  I would say, probably close to 10 years at this point. So it's something that
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  I do all the time, a little bit hosting myself, but
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  predominantly helping other people run their shows. So, yeah,
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  I'm sure at some point in time, I've said to you, hey, Mary, do you
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  want to do a podcast? Sure. Those words came out of my mouth at some
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  point in time, but yeah. And then it probably quickly followed
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  up by, you know, Mary, with your background, everything you've done, what
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  would you want your show to be? I think is probably the second thing that
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  I said once I saw a little glimmer in your eye that maybe you would
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  want to do. Yeah, it is good. It was good timing
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  for me. It's hard. It was hard for me to just decide what to do
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  next. And sometimes, you know, I just did a talk about the painful
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  pivot about pivoting so much in life. And so moving to Reno
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  from Atlanta, and before Atlanta, in Nashville, and then, you know,
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  I was in Nashville for 20 years, but, you know, I moved. I lived in
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  the Midwest before that. So there's. I feel like there's been a lot of different
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  identities that I've moved my way through, and all of those are
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  painful. And moving to a new state by yourself is painful. I know you've done
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  that. So then you. You put together everything, because we,
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  you know, we met each other doing comedy. You know, we're doing a comedy
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  show, and I love comedy, so we could have chosen that.
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  And, you know, in Nashville, I did a show interviewing
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  musicians mostly, and some actors and creatives, so we could have done something
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  like that. But I wanted to do something
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  along the lines of what I feel like is help is
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  something that's always been a passion. Right. To help people
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  realize the best version of themselves. And that seems like a good match for
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  you. Thanks. I feel
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  like it's a good way forward, right? Absolutely.
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  Helping yourself and helping other people at the same time. Yeah. So what have you
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  thought? What have you thought of our guests so far? I
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  thought everybody's been wonderful so far. So I think you once
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  described kind of the general idea of the guests that come on the show as
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  people who could give keynote speeches, and I think every
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  single person that's been on absolutely could do that, because
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  they're able to take their experiences, their backgrounds, everything they've been
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  through, figure out what worked, what didn't work, and then, you know,
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  what they learned from that and then how they can take that and help other
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  people. So, I mean, I. I think every person you brought on, and as far
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  as I know, you know all of these people personally. So I thought you've done
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  a great job so far, picking the right people, the right topics, making sure
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  they were ready to go, and getting a good show out of everybody.
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  Yeah. Thank you. And thanks to them. They. They really are.
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  And, you know, when I. When I brought
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  Peter on last week, of course I know him personally, but he's
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  one of the reasons I feel like I wanted to do this as an example,
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  because he doesn't have a platform where he share. Where he's sharing his wisdom to
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  the world outside of the industry that he worked in. So something like that, where
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  I'm like, that is so much wisdom in there that I authentically
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  hope goes into some kind of book on leadership that people
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  listen to. No matter where you're leading. Right. If you're Leading in
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  a small restaurant, if you're leading a big corporation, if you're
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  leading with a creative project, no matter how you're just in like a group, like
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  you're, you're leading a study group. I don't know, whatever you're
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  leading, the, the lessons in that I thought were so
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  valuable. And then all so many other people have, they
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  have a platform that they've created through social media or whatever
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  it is, but to just amplify that and, and
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  a lot of them doing their own podcasts, and it's like there's so much. They
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  have so much wisdom, so much wisdom without
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  the, the big national or international platform. So I definitely
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  would love to keep digging deeper into finding
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  people that have that kind of wisdom to share for sure, which
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  I think we do. So, in fact, for you,
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  you have a lot of wisdom because one of the things you do is help
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  people figure out what their creative project is going to be.
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  You know, if they come to you and say, hey, what
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  should we do? The podcast about.
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  You walked me through that.
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  Yeah, we did lots and lots of brainstorming to kind of figure out
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  what's the best format. Should it be
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  you talking yourself? Should it be you with guests? Should it be
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  more of a panel type thing? And then scheduling,
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  how often should the episodes come out?
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  Do you want to have different seasons? How long should the episodes be?
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  Like, there's just, there's literally just millions and millions of things that
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  you kind of have to sit down, figure out, you know, what direction you want
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  to go. A big one. What's what.
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  What means success for you with the podcast?
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  Like, like what, what metrics do you have to do? Like, what do you have
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  to hit to be like, that was successful or we didn't quite get it,
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  what adjustment should we make and move forward? So, yeah, it's, it's. As
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  far as figuring out what you want. The, like, it's. I think
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  that's probably the funnest part of the whole experience, at least for me, is talking
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  to the person, figuring out what they're most passionate about, what they want to talk
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  about, and then how do we kind of shape that in a way that's going
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  to make the best, most, you know, consistent show that's really going
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  to work for whoever the person is. So. And that was obviously very, very
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  fun to do with you. So. Yeah, it was so fun. This is the
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  second time this week the word metrics has come up and figuring out what
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  the metrics are we're going to look at because I was, you know, I do
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  media sales, helping figure out what they. How they're going to grow their business, how
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  they're. Or their nonprofit or whatever it is. And if they spend money on
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  that, what is the metric they're going for? Is it more sales? Is it more
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  website clicks? Is it more. Everyone in the community
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  knows who they are? Is it getting more people to a fundraiser? There's a lot
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  of different metrics, so. And as a creative,
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  you know, like. Or someone like me who's more like a. Let's.
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  I don't love the detailed details. I will do. I am really good at doing
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  the details for someone who hates the details, you know, But
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  I would much rather go create the
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  big plan and, like, have someone put all the details in place, which is.
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  You don't really get that luxury. Right. Like, if you have a big idea,
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  you actually have to sometimes work in that area that
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  isn't the most fun for you.
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  Yeah, there's always. And I'm. I'm a big fan of making sure that people
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  do what is best inside their skillset. However,
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  often that's not the case. And no matter what the project
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  is, sometimes you have to do aspects that you're not always the most excited about.
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  And so for this show in particular, there's some things that
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  I like to do. There's something that you like to do. And I feel like
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  we've made a pretty good balance of both of us being able to get through
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  and getting the show out every single week, which is amazing.
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  Both of us are learning things along the way. Both of us are figuring out
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  a little bit more every single episode. A little bit more
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  faster way of doing things, more efficient way of doing things. I thought
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  I would like this thing. I don't quite like it so much. Mary, do you
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  want to do it? Yeah, I'll do it. Like that sort of thing. And just
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  getting everything moving forward. Yeah. Because the. The amount of. If you're doing
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  a project, if you're doing any kind of creative project that you're giving to the
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  world, there is so much time and energy involved in that.
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  And I. I do think there's also a disconnect between business people and
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  creative people, where business people or the public in general have no idea the amount
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  of work that it takes to put out a creative project. And the amount of
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  lists and the fact that we use asana to go,
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  which I'm so bad at using still to go through the. The.
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  I don't know how many. Like, is there 75 tasks per show or something
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  like that. Yeah, yeah. And I think we're getting them out and, and
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  making some progress with me doing half of those,
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  not doing the best job with follow up emails and stuff like that
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  to guests. God bless our guests. Right. You know,
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  so they're putting up with me too with that. But, but you know,
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  it's the power of starting in a way, you know. Yeah. And you
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  just mentioned kind of the difference between like business people and creative people. And I
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  would say one other, like one of the biggest differences I seen between the two
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  is that is we've been, you mentioned metrics a few moments ago
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  is, is what are your metrics for success? And oftentimes
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  business people need to hit certain numbers. We need a certain amount of
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  followers, we need a certain, you know, level of roi, we need
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  a certain amount of viewers, we need a certain amount of videos that go out
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  every month or sometimes with creatives, if they're not quite as, you
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  know, adamant about what the numbers are. Their metric for success could
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  be, did we get one good episode out every week?
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  And that. And if you succeed in doing that every single week and
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  they're getting at least a little bit better every time, to me, that's success.
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  So, you know, what you're looking for and what you're trying to get out of
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  it is greatly dictated by what you're trying to get
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  out of it. And I feel like if you're just like, you know, I want
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  to get one out every single week and you've, you know, you've hit that, that
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  you're doing a great job. Now for the next three months, let's, let's put our
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  goal just a little bit higher and figure out whatever's the next level of something
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  that we can accomplish. So yeah, that's true. And I think
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  with creatives, when we're doing a project where we don't get paid on
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  it so much of the time is the metric is are we having fun?
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  Are we having fun and creating something we want to create and
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  that's great too. That could be like, maybe you're doing a fun project
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  with people that you really enjoy being with. It doesn't have to be
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  as, you know, like for listeners, it doesn't have to be as big of a
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  thing that we do. Maybe you like to sew and you don't want to be
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  alone. So I don't, I don't know what it is. Yeah. Or there's a lot
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  of shows out there, podcasts and like video shows where people are just
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  Reviewing their favorite TV show. They're not getting anything out of
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  that except that they get to sit down and talk to one or two of
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  their best friends and talk about their favorite television show. I think there's
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  a lot to that. They're getting better at being a host. They're getting better
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  at, you know, watching things and replying things or talking to other people. I
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  mean, you're. You're definitely sharpening your skills when you're doing that, but you're not
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  necessarily, you know, making money or, you know, trying to get a
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  TV deal or like, some of these other bigger things. You could just do it
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  because your mental health. And you want to do it because it's fun.
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  Yeah. And it's hard to put a price tag on just joy. If you enjoy
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  the joy, if you feel joy in doing a project, whatever that project ends,
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  you know, gardening. I keep thinking I would
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  enjoy gardening so much, and I watched so many videos on it. And I want
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  to bring on people who know how to garden, because I think it's really critical
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  for us to. To know how to grow our own food. And we've completely lost
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  that skill set, which is scary to me. But then I'm like. I just. You
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  know, it's. Then it's implementing. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
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  I don't. I don't have land. Well, I do have land. I just live across
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  the country from it, so that's also helpful. So it's like, if you're
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  gonna. Oh, I'm on a tangent. You should get
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  into vertical gardening, Mary. Vertical gardening. No, maybe I'll. Maybe
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  I need. Sometimes taking these interests and. And
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  making it a. How do I just do. The thing that I can get done
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  today to make that more of a reality is
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  real life. You're gonna bring real life
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  into it. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right.
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  Everything. Right. It's like. There's, like, you know, all these good
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  ideas. I think there's a lot of. So much content out there with. There is
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  a lot of good ideas out there, and there's really bad ideas,
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  too. But, like, how do you take something that's the thing you need
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  for today and use it this week? You know, how do you and I. I
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  have that idea. We'll see. If I implement it, I might try for the rest
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  of the year. You can. You can hold me accountable. We'll do another review
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  in December at Christmas time, and we'll
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  do. No, I don't know. And we'll. We'll. We'll do one. Did
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  Mary make things that are actionable for her audience
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  for this week? I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try to go.
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  Okay, here's one thing I think we can do this week, so
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  maybe I. Will hold you to it.
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  Yeah. You're not going to appreciate what happens to you if you fail, so
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  I'm just warning you now. Thank you. Thank you for that. I love
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  threats. I work the best when I'm being threatened.
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  As do we all. We all work the best. Gentle cajoling is all that
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  was gentle. And controlling than
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  schedule and controlling. I've never heard that term before, so I don't know that we
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  want to. Gentle cajoling is what I said.
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  Yes. That's so much sweet. But I kind of
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  like gentle controlling. I might start using that as well. I kind of like that.
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  Gentle trolling is a whole different thing. It's like maybe that. I don't know,
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  maybe it's good. Maybe it's. Maybe it's parenting. Or maybe I'll do
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  a B testing on you, Mary, and I'll do one one week and one the
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  other week and just kind of see what happens. Joeling one week
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  and gentle controlling the next week. Yep. Yep. I'm down for
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  that. I think you should do that. A B test. A B test that for
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  me. Let's see which one I respond better to.
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  It's a toss up. I actually don't even know at this point which one I
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  would respond better to. Wow. Mary is so efficient this week. I wonder
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  what happened. Oh, that was me. Thank you. That was mental controlling.
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  Yep, that's where that was.
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  Oh. So I have noticed in the episodes we've done so far, and
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  this is where I was thinking that we should do some kind of like a.
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  Hey, this. This week. Think about. This person mentioned a lot
• 15:30
  about listening because I feel like that's been a re. Two reoccurring
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  themes that I've heard. You tell me if you've heard more. One is listening.
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  Both from people who are just in the business side of it and people who
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  are on the health side and people who are on the mental wellness side.
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  And then also the power of your breath, everyone.
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  I mean, breathwork came up so much. We had a breathwork person.
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  Were you surprised by that? A little bit. Because. And I
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  don't know if I actually would have noticed it if you hadn't have done Igor
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  as an early episode. If. Because you did him with a full
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  breath episode. I was then noticing it afterwards. So I'm really curious
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  If I would have noticed it if Igor's hadn't been, I want to say the
• 16:12
  second or third episode. But yeah, it's very interesting that
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  numerous people all brought that up. And I don't know if that's, if
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  that is like a response to like the pandemic that people are trying to like
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  focus more on like what their body is doing to just, you know,
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  everyone's stress levels are elevated. That, that's just one thing people are,
• 16:31
  or if there's something else. But yeah, I found that very interesting. That is
• 16:35
  very interesting because listening is not what I mean,
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  listening is. That is, it's not, that's. I mean, it's, you know,
• 16:42
  it's not as surprising. And you should be a comedian, Mary. He should be a
• 16:45
  comedian. Your timing is just, I mean, what. I
• 16:49
  heard you said I would
• 16:53
  love to do stand up comedy. See, I just have too many things that I
• 16:56
  would like to do. I think in life sometimes that's my issue. Oh, well.
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  But listening, I mean, even though people are really bad at it,
• 17:04
  you know, it's such a basic, basic principle that like, it's going to make your
• 17:08
  health better, apparently, your mental health, your physical health, your
• 17:11
  relationships better, your career better. But
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  we are just so much more interested in what we're about to say
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  than what we can hear. Yeah, I think, I think
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  the, the phrase is that most people listen only to
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  respond, not to actually listen to what the other people are saying.
• 17:32
  So I think, I think that's, that tends to be how that's phrased. Yeah.
• 17:36
  So you're in both the business world and the creative world. You do span that,
• 17:39
  that bridge. I kind of, I span that bridge a little bit too.
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  I mean, how do you think it helps business people
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  to be better listeners? And then we're gonna go to creatives.
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  I think overall business people
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  most of the time are just not listening at all. So
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  it would help them greatly to listen to what other
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  people are saying to, you know, look at different opinions, that sort of
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  thing. But I mean, especially if we're talking about the corporate world, a lot of
• 18:13
  times they're being told what to do. So it's, it's. There's not
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  necessarily the same kind of openness that you can listen to other
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  ideas and try something else. So, yeah, I think, I think it tends to be
• 18:24
  a little bit more structured and you can't always be flexible, some of that stuff.
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  So, yeah, I would say generally there's a lot less listening going on, but
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  some of that is just sort of by design. Well, and the
• 18:35
  design maybe needs to change because it really is top down. Like, you know, the
• 18:39
  people at the top are like, we, we make the decisions you
• 18:43
  obey. But there's not that 360 review
• 18:46
  process where the people on the bottom could go, here's why this isn't working.
• 18:51
  Like, we hear what you're saying. We would also like to be
• 18:54
  successful, but it's not working because of A, B and C
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  and maybe even naming some names as to why it's not working in
• 19:02
  process. But like, there's. Most businesses don't do that.
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  They don't. Yep. They all need to listen to some
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  of our episodes. They absolutely should. I
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  think they would learn a lot about themselves and the people they
• 19:18
  work with. Yes, about both. So we're, we're big believers
• 19:22
  in that. That's why I listen to Erika and she
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  listens to me. Oh my gosh, that was so corny.
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  That's so corny. That is exactly what I expect from you, Mary. So thank you.
• 19:34
  So may have been corny, but it was 100% on point.
• 22:09
  Oh, my gosh. Oh, so what about. So that's
• 22:12
  listening? Well, that. And it applies more to just. I know we talk about business
• 22:15
  and health and all that stuff, but it applies to everything. Of course. Yeah.
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  I mean, you might even go into the mental health space and find. Find. Find
• 22:23
  someone who's a mental health professional who doesn't listen. So,
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  you know, listening applies to everything.
• 22:31
  Gotta do it. Breathing is weirder though,
• 22:35
  right? Because we all breathe. But, you know, breathing for
• 22:39
  breathing for health, that's a weird
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  concept, isn't it, as a normal.
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  Because you just think of breathing as being an autonomic thing
• 22:50
  that just sort of happens. So like, like consciously thinking of your
• 22:54
  breathing seems like a weird thing to do unless you
• 22:57
  actually do it and start to understand, like, how it feels in your
• 23:01
  body and what kind of changes you can make by focusing on your breathing.
• 23:05
  Yeah, I. I have to say, I think that's been one of my worst
• 23:09
  traits is breathing. I mean, everything else is pretty on
• 23:12
  point, but then breathing once in a while. No, no, I.
• 23:16
  I've been obviously making jokes again, but I. I hold my breath.
• 23:20
  I've done that. That for like. And that's like a.
• 23:24
  Something's bad is about to happen. So, like, I have found myself
• 23:27
  regularly holding my breath. So when I think of, like, I've just did 10
• 23:31
  episodes where focusing on breathing or, you know, breathing
• 23:35
  like a yoga type movement with breathing kind of. Kind of thing
• 23:38
  has come up. That's one of those things where I'm like, oh, okay,
• 23:42
  Mary, how have you been breathing this week? And I'm like, you
• 23:46
  know, pretty good. Because I'm still alive, but I'm not.
• 23:51
  But am I applying as well as I could?
• 23:56
  Yeah. And is the answer usually yes to that? No. The answer is always
• 24:00
  usually no to that. But
• 24:03
  I have to say, I feel like I am doing a lot better today than
• 24:07
  I was at the start of episode one. Because episode one
• 24:10
  was really like, personally, I was not in a. I was
• 24:14
  in a pretty stressed out place. Maybe one of the most stressed out
• 24:18
  places I've ever been in. In life. So thinking about that,
• 24:22
  I'm like, well, I'm doing a lot better. Ten weeks in, doing something
• 24:25
  that's. That feels like me. That's a creative project,
• 24:29
  working with you, talking with good people, having a focus on the
• 24:33
  positive, you know, and if. You'Re thinking about
• 24:37
  listening and breathing a lot more, even if you feel like you're
• 24:40
  failing at them, the fact that you're thinking about them, to me is a switch
• 24:44
  in itself because eventually it's going to start becoming more and more of
• 24:48
  a habit. Not that I think you need to focus a lot on listening, because
• 24:51
  I think that's something that you do very well. But we all could get better
• 24:55
  at things. So getting better at that and then to your breathing
• 24:58
  thing, as long as you're constantly thinking about it, that is something that you can
• 25:02
  slowly, like, make a habit for yourself, get better at it, be a
• 25:06
  little more centered in your body and, you know, slowly,
• 25:10
  slowly move forward in a positive way. Yeah. Which is, I think
• 25:14
  in our culture especially, we're not very attuned to our body,
• 25:18
  to listening to our body, just hearing what our body or what. You know,
• 25:22
  maybe we listen when we're tired, but we don't listen to our gut. Like, our
• 25:25
  gut's very intelligent. We need to have some more people on talking about
• 25:29
  that besides me, because that's, that's the end of my wisdom on that.
• 25:34
  Listening to your gut. Yeah, we should listen to our gut not just when we're
• 25:37
  hungry, but also when we're. No, I don't know. But,
• 25:41
  you know, it's very intuitive of, you know, it's a very. Like, if we, if
• 25:45
  we kind of like our body picks up on stuff before our brain does. I
• 25:48
  am, I am a believer in that. But that kind of ties into
• 25:52
  breath, don't you think? Because this breath work stuff,
• 25:56
  you can breathe all the way down into your belly and then out again. And
• 26:00
  it's amazing how you can restore your sanity by
• 26:04
  focusing on these kind of things. Yeah. I mean, I very much feel like
• 26:08
  all of that stuff is Connected. So, yeah, I see the. I know. Don't. I
• 26:11
  don't know if breathing is necessarily the center of all of that, but I would
• 26:14
  say it's a really, really important thing to think about, because as you're
• 26:18
  breathing and thinking about all the parts of your body, that's. That's. For
• 26:22
  some people, it's the only time they really think about things. You know, how do
• 26:25
  my shoulder blades feel? How do my elbows feel? How are my knees doing? Like,
• 26:29
  you don't necessarily think of them individually, but if you're doing
• 26:32
  breathing and really feeling the breath going in and out of your body,
• 26:37
  you could, you know, concentrate a little bit more on what's happening. So, yeah, I
• 26:40
  think. I think all that stuff is a little bit. But intertwined.
• 26:44
  Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, we're gonna do more episodes on that.
• 26:48
  I'm gonna eventually have to just dive into the realm of people that I don't
• 26:51
  know personally. Isn't that going to be an interesting thing? I think I'm gonna
• 26:55
  have to get a lot more organized.
• 26:59
  No, I think you'll do a good. Job with those things.
• 27:03
  So, you know, and Erika and I, of course, are both working full times, and
• 27:06
  it's been. It has been a very, very, very busy 10 weeks, so. So.
• 27:10
  But yeah, I'm excited to. To bring more. More of
• 27:14
  just good old wisdom to the world, however
• 27:17
  that. However that pans out. So. Yeah.
• 27:22
  And then maybe eventually helping other people bring their creative ideas to life.
• 27:26
  So you're good at that. You're good at talking to people
• 27:30
  and them saying, this is the creative idea I have, and then
• 27:34
  walking them through what it might look like.
• 27:38
  Yeah, I mean it. And some of that comes just because I've dabbled in so
• 27:41
  many different things. You know, I play music, I've written comic
• 27:45
  books. I do a lot of writing. I do a lot of voiceover. I have
• 27:49
  degrees in theater. I have degrees in film. I do stuff. I don't
• 27:52
  do much stuff in front of a camera, but I do a lot of stuff
• 27:55
  on stage, backstage. Film, television,
• 27:59
  comedy. I mean, I'm kind of all over the place, so
• 28:03
  it's so. And one, I do enjoy talking to people who
• 28:06
  are excited about something that they want to do and then, you know, kind of
• 28:10
  figuring out, you know, sometimes it's, you know, figure out which medium works best for
• 28:14
  them. You know, they want to do something like a podcast or some kind of
• 28:17
  an audio drama. Do they want to do a comic book? Do they want to,
• 28:21
  you know, show up at a parade and do Some kind of performance
• 28:24
  throughout the length of a parade. Do they want to do something on stage? I
• 28:28
  mean, there's so many different ways of getting your creative ideas out.
• 28:32
  And for me, it's just really exciting figuring out what that is. Like,
• 28:36
  what is it that they're most excited about, what do they. To get out of
• 28:39
  it, what kind of resources do they have, what kind of other people we can
• 28:43
  bring into it, and what's going to be like, the most exciting
• 28:47
  version of whatever it is that they want to do. Yeah, I love that.
• 28:51
  So let's go through the types of people that might be listening. So for a
• 28:54
  business owner,
• 28:55
  they're just very
• 28:59
  busy doing in their business to keep their business running.
• 29:03
  Why would it be valuable for them to have
• 29:07
  a creative
• 29:08
  idea?
• 29:12
  Yeah, I mean, I would say generally speaking, some of the
• 29:16
  more obvious things would be probably a podcast, maybe a video
• 29:19
  series, possibly a newsletter, kind of depending on, like, what their business
• 29:23
  is and what they want to get out of it. But
• 29:26
  creatively getting your business idea out is
• 29:30
  how you're going to attract people to whatever your business is.
• 29:34
  So in. In, you know, some business people, and occasionally I fall
• 29:38
  into this as well, get a little bit lost in the numbers, not
• 29:41
  really thinking that people frequently buy things, purchase things,
• 29:45
  join things from emotion. And I know that's sometimes
• 29:49
  hard to kind of get your brain into, especially if you're thinking of, you know,
• 29:52
  accounting. You could make the coolest, most
• 29:56
  funny comedy accounting
• 29:59
  podcast ever. And everybody is going to come to you
• 30:04
  as an accountant because of how fun your podcast is. So
• 30:08
  I would say don't get caught up on how boring or fun your
• 30:11
  business is. Like having the creative
• 30:15
  avenue again. Could be a podcast, could be whatever. Getting
• 30:18
  your ideas out in a fun, creative way helps to
• 30:22
  promote you, helps to promote your business, helps promote what you're
• 30:26
  doing. And it doesn't take a lot of shaping
• 30:30
  on the creative end to figure out how to get
• 30:33
  your idea out. I would think
• 30:37
  that would be the hard part is getting that. I think that's usually the part
• 30:40
  that I've seen business owners stumble over is how to. How to create that.
• 30:43
  Like, what do I do? And can I make it. If I make it
• 30:47
  funny or fun, is that not professional?
• 30:52
  Yeah, that. That's. Well, well, I should say I think
• 30:56
  it's easy to do because I think it's really fun. But to me,
• 30:59
  it's always distill it down to something very simple.
• 31:03
  If you're trying to do eight ideas at once, my guess is
• 31:07
  all eight of those ideas, you're not going to do very well. And it's not
• 31:10
  quite going to come across. But if you can really focus on
• 31:14
  one or two things that you really want to. If you're an
• 31:17
  accountant, what is it that you want? Do you want people to come
• 31:21
  to your YouTube channel? Do you want people to come to your website? Do you
• 31:25
  want people to call you up and say, I listen to your podcast. I really
• 31:28
  need help. Can you help me? Like, what is it that you want to get
• 31:31
  out of it? And then you just figure out with your business, with
• 31:35
  your time frame, with the people you have, what's the best way of getting
• 31:38
  out, whatever it is that you want to get back because of the show.
• 31:43
  Yeah. And I feel like that's one of the things you're very, very good at,
• 31:47
  besides everything else, is speaking that language of what we're going back to a
• 31:51
  metric, right? How do we use something fun and creative and only
• 31:55
  just pick certain things and then make those be
• 31:59
  what we want to have happen with the result we're looking
• 32:02
  for. It's more people walking in the door of our business
• 32:06
  or whatever it might be, right? So
• 32:11
  what about the creatives? Like, how can a creative
• 32:14
  use that kind of like fun mindset they
• 32:18
  have?
• 33:45
  So, you know, so if you're. If you're a creative who's just not
• 33:49
  feel. You don't feel very comfortable being in front of the business owner or a
• 33:52
  professional. Like, you know, business owners are also, you know, doctors and
• 33:55
  lawyers and whatever who probably could
• 33:59
  really benefit from you coming up with a creative idea for them and helping
• 34:03
  them implement it. What are some
• 34:07
  skill sets creatives should learn? Learn. Do you think so that they can
• 34:10
  kind of speak both languages and then do the thing where they can
• 34:14
  make money at their creative business?
• 34:18
  Yeah, I mean, a couple things I would. I would say is, you
• 34:22
  know, especially if you're talking to the business person and you're going to help them
• 34:25
  again, doesn't really matter. What could be a podcast, could be, like, you
• 34:29
  know, some kind of, like, video promotional advertisement thing for them,
• 34:33
  could be helping them with a newsletter. Like, it doesn't necessarily matter what it is,
• 34:37
  but. But really, really getting as quickly
• 34:40
  to the point of whatever it is, what. Figuring out what it
• 34:44
  is that they want out of it. And that could. And you could start
• 34:48
  that off by, like, asking, do they have any, like, you know, you
• 34:52
  know, company objectives or, like, any kind of, you know,
• 34:55
  mantras or anything that everybody in the company follows?
• 34:59
  Like, I would start there, like, what is their company
• 35:02
  ethos? What is their tagline? Like, what it. What is it
• 35:06
  that they are, like, trying to show themselves as a company
• 35:10
  is. I would probably start there and then try to figure
• 35:13
  out different ways of getting them to keep talking
• 35:17
  about what they want to do. So if you're in a creative meeting with a
• 35:21
  business person and you're doing all the talking, you're not getting any information from
• 35:24
  them. So they need to be talking as much as possible.
• 35:28
  So, yeah, so figure out something about their business, you know, do your research, and
• 35:32
  then come in with different kinds of ideas. Like, one thing
• 35:36
  I'd like to tell people, especially when you start talking about, like,
• 35:39
  logos and colors and, like, artistic, you know, things that
• 35:43
  represent the company, is don't give a business person,
• 35:46
  like, eight different options because you're just gonna shut them down.
• 35:50
  Give Them two or three options and then say which of
• 35:54
  these, you know, resonates the most with you and then choose, you know, the one
• 35:58
  that they choose and then give them a couple more options based on the one
• 36:01
  that they choose. But if you give them too many options, they just,
• 36:04
  oh, oh, I should take this to the committee and I'll let you know
• 36:08
  in three weeks. Whereas if you give them three options to go, oh,
• 36:12
  that's the one that I like the. So yeah, I would be much
• 36:15
  narrower with this sort of options that you give them to try to
• 36:19
  keep them, you know, more concise, more, you know, on the
• 36:23
  path that you're trying to get them onto, just so that you can get
• 36:27
  answers, so that you can start, you know, making creative things from
• 36:30
  whatever it is that you're chatting with them. And some,
• 36:34
  and I would say the last thing is I would really just pay attention to
• 36:37
  the people you're talking to. So going back to the conversation of listening,
• 36:41
  there's been times where I've been in corporate situations where I've cracked a couple of
• 36:45
  little jokes and everybody laughs and I was like, oh, I actually didn't quite
• 36:48
  think that the jokes were going to land, but they're actually a little more
• 36:52
  cheerful and friendly than I was sort of expecting to. Or you can make
• 36:56
  some, you know, silly little joke and if everybody looks at you stone
• 36:59
  faced, stop.
• 37:04
  Which is fine, go ahead and be smiling, be goofy and be
• 37:07
  yourself. But, but you need to like, speak
• 37:11
  enough of their language that they will keep talking to you. So I would
• 37:15
  try to read the room a little bit still. Again,
• 37:18
  don't not be yourself. So be fun and be goofy and you know,
• 37:22
  whatever you're doing, but kind of try to read the room a little bit so
• 37:25
  that, and then figure out if one person in that room is really like, you
• 37:29
  know, registering everything that you're saying, really try to focus
• 37:32
  on them. And if there's any way to say, hey, this person
• 37:36
  could be an intern or it could be the vice president of the company, it
• 37:39
  doesn't matter who it is. Like, I think this is a good person to kind
• 37:42
  of of, you know, help answer our questions or give us reviews on things
• 37:46
  like figure, figure out who your champion is on that team
• 37:50
  and really try to, you know, get the focus on them if they
• 37:53
  seem to be a good, you know, go between for what you're trying to do.
• 37:57
  Yeah, that's such wisdom, you
• 38:01
  know, and I, I really do think there's so much collaborative
• 38:05
  space that could happen there. And I like creatives. A lot of
• 38:08
  time are like, hey, I have a movie script I want you to fund. I
• 38:12
  have a show I'm trying to get enough money to do.
• 38:16
  And they don't really have that in mind at all
• 38:19
  to go. Who might see themselves
• 38:23
  being a sponsor of this and it being good for their business model.
• 38:27
  You know, like an example, I mean, that comes to mind is if you're doing
• 38:30
  a comedy show in an area, you know, who
• 38:34
  can. Can you. Can you make promotional things for
• 38:38
  the restaurants along there or the hotels or something and have them
• 38:42
  pay you for that and have it be a part of the show and then
• 38:45
  promote your show and, and you're promoting. I don't know. Like, it just feels like
• 38:48
  there's a lot of creative space that we're not. We're not even trying to do
• 38:52
  that collaborative thing in between the two.
• 38:57
  The two worlds. And it's not. And it isn't just business
• 39:00
  and, and creative. Like there's also as you know, like I'm
• 39:04
  working with people right now who are researchers and psychologists,
• 39:09
  so. And they need to have that creative aspect more so that they
• 39:12
  can grow their, their, you know, non profit.
• 39:16
  So it is more like there's. There's the medical aspect, there's the
• 39:20
  lawyer aspect, there's organizations that,
• 39:24
  you know, an organization of teachers, organization of police. Like, it
• 39:27
  doesn't have to be the, the business model. Right. It can that Every,
• 39:31
  every. If you're organized and you're doing your job, there's always
• 39:35
  going to be a creative aspect that you can do that's
• 39:39
  going to engage the public better and, and move
• 39:42
  forward with whatever your metrics are, right. For
• 39:46
  wanting to raise money or have better
• 39:50
  public perception or more public involvement or more, bottom
• 39:53
  line, you know, money coming in. So. Yeah,
• 39:57
  absolutely.
• 43:44
  Yeah. And I'm frequently in situations where I'm the technical person, which
• 43:48
  is weird to me because I'm much, much happier on the creative
• 43:52
  side. But I' been essentially forced to learn all
• 43:56
  of the technical stuff in order to get things done that I've wanted to
• 43:59
  get done. So I'm. Frequently people go, oh, you're the technical
• 44:03
  one. You're the one who can set up the cameras. You're the one who can
• 44:06
  do the live streaming. You're the one who can do all the background stuff. And
• 44:09
  it's like, yeah, I can do all of that. I wouldn't say I love doing
• 44:12
  any of that stuff, but I know how to do it. But I'm much,
• 44:16
  much, much happier being on the development and the front end of side,
• 44:19
  figuring stuff out, chatting with people, people putting plans together,
• 44:23
  putting outlines together, getting the team together, getting everyone
• 44:27
  excited, and like, let's jump into whatever this that we're starting. Let's
• 44:30
  jump into it, you know, all on the same foot, everybody on the same team.
• 44:34
  So that's what I like the most. But, yeah, knowing the technical
• 44:37
  stuff makes my creative stuff go a little bit easier
• 44:41
  because I already know kind of which directions we can go in
• 44:45
  easily and which directions are going to take a lot more work. So I would
• 44:48
  say that's probably the biggest benefit for me, at least, knowing both sides. Sides
• 44:52
  of that. Yeah, I love that answer. I do think
• 44:56
  we can limit ourselves by not being as.
• 45:00
  As willing to just learn an uncomfortable skill set.
• 45:04
  You know, that just doesn't feel as fun to learn. And
• 45:08
  that is. That is a limited. That's a limiting belief. That's a
• 45:12
  limiting belief. People. We should have someone on talking
• 45:15
  about limiting beliefs because that's also. Also the totality of what I know
• 45:19
  about limiting beliefs. I was waiting for a
• 45:23
  dissertation on it. You're saying you're not going to give one of those right now?
• 45:26
  I. I know a little bit about too much stuff. So that's why the perfect
• 45:30
  thing for me is to interview someone who knows more on
• 45:33
  different topics. Oh, golly. We
• 45:37
  all have to have our Limits, Erika. Okay. So mine is knowing
• 45:41
  that I know a lot, but not a lot. So. So
• 45:45
  that's where I live. I know a lot, and I don't know anything,
• 45:50
  you know. You know, you know a little bit about a lot.
• 45:54
  Is that what you're doing with that? I know a little bit about a lot.
• 45:56
  Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah. To just
• 46:00
  dive in and ask people for their wisdom on all the stuff. That's what we
• 46:04
  keep doing. Yeah. And so I think with
• 46:07
  businesses, when they're going into this space, too, of. I love. I want to
• 46:11
  hold again, on that one note, I. That. That you brought up about
• 46:15
  making sure if you're on the creative side, to limit options.
• 46:19
  Because you know what? When you were doing this with me, you're like, mary's a
• 46:22
  creative. Let her understand that there actually are 3600
• 46:26
  different color palette choices. Which
• 46:30
  color palette would you like for your logo? Right.
• 46:34
  Which is. You just throw a dart at the wall at
• 46:37
  some point. It's like, it matters a little bit, but. But, like, just
• 46:41
  pick something. You know, I think one of my favorite phrases during the
• 46:45
  whole, like, development aspect was for. For, you
• 46:48
  know, clients or other people that we work with, I would never show them this,
• 46:52
  Mary, but I'm going to show it to you because I need you to know
• 46:54
  the whole process. Like, I don't know how many times I said that, like,
• 46:58
  over and over again. And it would be, you know, for art
• 47:01
  designs, or it'd be for color palettes, or if we look at website design,
• 47:05
  we'd look at 25 websites. Or if we're, you know, looking
• 47:09
  at, you know, how we want to set up the show, we list, you know,
• 47:12
  35 different ways of how to set up the show. Because. But again,
• 47:16
  if we were doing that with a client, keep that list really, really small because
• 47:20
  you don't want to confuse them. But where us. Because we're working with
• 47:24
  other people, we both kind of need to know all of the different
• 47:28
  variations, all the different permutations, all the different ways that you can
• 47:31
  go so that when a client who does research
• 47:35
  goes, oh, well, we're taking a
• 47:38
  submarine into the Arctic, what are we going to do with that? We both need
• 47:42
  to be able to come up with different ideas, different suggestions, different
• 47:45
  directions they should go. Like, we can't limit our own thinking.
• 47:49
  We just want to limit the amount of stuff that we're dumping on them and
• 47:53
  asking them for their response in. Yeah,
• 47:56
  yeah, that's very, very smart. Okay, Erika,
• 48:00
  I want to hear from you now, so I'M going to interview you specifically and
• 48:03
  ask you what are some of the funnest things that you've done for creative
• 48:07
  projects. I
• 48:11
  would say two that come to mind quickly. One would
• 48:15
  be first time that I started writing
• 48:18
  for like a sci fi comedy
• 48:22
  type of thing and it was solely in the audio platform
• 48:26
  and it was one of the first times that I had written solely for audio.
• 48:30
  I had done predominantly theater and film and a little bit of
• 48:33
  like, you know, writing prior to that. But it was the first time that I
• 48:37
  had done something for audio and I thought, oh yeah, this is going to be
• 48:40
  so easy. And I, I joined a team of writers
• 48:44
  and their. They had done an entire first season, was going
• 48:48
  very, very well, but most of their characters were women and all of them
• 48:52
  were men on the team. So they wanted to bring on some non males to
• 48:55
  join the team. And I was one of the people that had the most
• 48:59
  extensive science fiction writing background. So I ended up joining
• 49:02
  the team and I was like, oh yeah, this is going to be so easy.
• 49:05
  And it was so difficult to write
• 49:09
  solely in the audience audio space when, especially
• 49:13
  since I'm such a visual person, like, you know, it's, you know,
• 49:17
  especially with characters being on, you know, different planets, like you have
• 49:20
  to put everything into the dialogue, you know, Mary,
• 49:24
  keep walking forward. Mary, don't trip on that branch.
• 49:27
  Mary, what's that weird light over there? Like, it's really hard to
• 49:31
  write dialogue for like what's happening in the
• 49:35
  scene when everything is weird science fiction. And like
• 49:38
  it, it was, it was a, it was an it interesting turn that I
• 49:42
  had to make inside my own writing to understand like how to
• 49:46
  write solely for audio. So it started out being really intense
• 49:50
  but eventually it became like a really, really fun project for me.
• 49:54
  So I'd say that was one and I would say the other one probably would
• 49:57
  be same thing with the first time I started doing a kind of
• 50:01
  project was the first time I started working on a comic book. And
• 50:05
  it was a big, huge, you know, four or five
• 50:08
  episode series. We were kind of doing a lot of world building and it was
• 50:12
  just so much fun to get to understand like what's the difference between
• 50:15
  writing for a screenplay or writing for, you know,
• 50:19
  something on stage or, you know, writing for something in audio and then writing
• 50:23
  for something that's just a comic book. So I guess both of them were probably
• 50:26
  me learning like a really big skill and kind of getting over
• 50:30
  that initial hump and going, oh, now
• 50:34
  I understand what's going on on. And like really being Able to run once
• 50:37
  you've kind of figured out whatever that new language was. Yeah,
• 50:41
  yeah, I love that. You know, the, the whole thing with
• 50:45
  being a creative really is I. We have projects we want to do and
• 50:48
  like, because we, we, we have these worlds we create in our brain to create
• 50:52
  the story and, and spending all that time by yourself making
• 50:56
  it, you know, writing it is a, is, is an internal, by
• 50:59
  yourself kind of thing. And, and then, you know, if you're doing film
• 51:03
  and you get this fun experience where you're with everybody else to make it happen
• 51:07
  and you film it and then if you're the editor, then you go right back
• 51:10
  by yourself. And so there's. It is a tough
• 51:14
  world in a lot of ways because you can tend to be more of
• 51:17
  a social person, but you also have to spend a whole lot of time by
• 51:20
  yourself. And then there's. There's a lack of
• 51:24
  understanding, I think from everyone in all these other types of
• 51:28
  industries or professions to understand, understand why
• 51:31
  you do it. And there's a lack of understanding as creative
• 51:35
  as how do we finance this, you know, because
• 51:39
  it's a massive skill set to have and it's
• 51:43
  a huge, huge undertaking to make something happen.
• 51:48
  Yeah, I wrote a lot of really, really, really bad dialogue in
• 51:52
  that first audio drama when I first started writing it. And it was really me
• 51:56
  leaning on my team members and the other people that had been there longer than
• 51:59
  myself. It was leaning, learning from them to
• 52:03
  really understand what was going on before I could kind of start succeeding
• 52:07
  myself. So it was kind of me bringing the whole team with me so that
• 52:10
  all of us could, you know, get to the finish line together. Yeah,
• 52:14
  I love that. Well, and I'm. I would say I. There's
• 52:18
  got to be something. I'm going to keep saying it because maybe if I keep
• 52:21
  asking the question that the answer is going to come to people about how
• 52:24
  do we take this? All these fabulous skill sets. You learn as a creator
• 52:28
  creative and then implement it in a way that you make money
• 52:33
  without killing that internal joy of
• 52:37
  creating. And I think people in the music
• 52:41
  world feel that too. Musicians the same way. It's like whenever you're in
• 52:44
  something for a passion, trying to take that incredible passion
• 52:48
  you have as a human to make money at it is always going to be
• 52:52
  that jump into wow. Now
• 52:55
  let's bridge that gap. So, yeah, music is
• 52:59
  especially harsh right now because, you know, the loss
• 53:02
  of, you know, cassettes and then CD sales has really
• 53:06
  plummeted a lot of musicians. And then in response, they kind
• 53:10
  of have to hike up, you know, concert tickets, which means a lot of people
• 53:13
  can't go to them. And then, you know, places like not gonna, I'm not gonna
• 53:17
  name drop any music streaming services, but we all know who we're talking about.
• 53:21
  They keep lowering the amount of, you know, money they get for plays.
• 53:25
  So it's Y music particularly is in a really bad spot
• 53:29
  as far as trying to make money from it. And it really is a shame
• 53:32
  that that's sort of happening. But yeah, as creatives, I think we all
• 53:36
  kind of face that same situation in different ways and all kind of have to
• 53:39
  figure out what can I do to make money from this. Which
• 53:43
  again, is just unfortunate that so many of us are stuck in that position.
• 53:47
  Right. Yeah, well, and there's, I just always go,
• 53:51
  there's a way. And I think the way, say, is that business owners are
• 53:55
  looking to spend money to promote their business. And I, I
• 53:59
  really feel like that's overlooked. And so much of the money they've spent
• 54:03
  in recent years in the last, I don't know, let's say 10 years has gone
• 54:06
  to Google or has gone to Facebook and Instagram because
• 54:10
  Facebook and Instagram is going to tell you to, to make an ad. You're failing
• 54:13
  because you haven't made an ad. You know, and so they push that.
• 54:16
  And that money doesn't go to anyone like, local, you know,
• 54:20
  it goes to the, the big giant, you
• 54:24
  know, whatever they are the big giants in the
• 54:27
  sky. But. And there's, you know,
• 54:31
  you know, and so especially I, I really feel like that's frustrating with Google and
• 54:35
  so Google might not promote the podcast now that I say that, it's hard
• 54:39
  to say. I can hear them listening right now. Google,
• 54:43
  yeah, but, you know, they. First, it feels like first there was, you know,
• 54:46
  I would say over the last 20, 25 years. First there was what I.
• 54:50
  Loss of newspaper as far as advertising
• 54:54
  wind. And then I feel like TV started to go down. Radio kind
• 54:58
  of started to go down around the same time. And on television,
• 55:01
  almost none of it is terrestrial anymore. So it's just step by step
• 55:05
  by step. All of the normal traditional advertising space
• 55:09
  has been slowly going away. And I don't think businesses have
• 55:13
  come up with a lot of good ways of overcoming that. And I feel
• 55:17
  like creatives could. It's just none of us speak as, as
• 55:20
  we've been talking about now. None of us speak business quite well enough
• 55:24
  to really convince some of the, you know, different companies and
• 55:28
  such how it is that we can be helpful in
• 55:32
  getting information out getting promotions out creative
• 55:35
  ways of, you know, showing off how cool their company is.
• 55:39
  Right. And I do, I really feel very strongly as
• 55:43
  the world has gotten like, more bigger where the money is going to big
• 55:46
  corporations and more global decisions being made.
• 55:50
  And, and then with AI coming in, that in order to
• 55:54
  really thrive as humans, we will get smaller and
• 55:58
  like, but some in terms of like, smaller community. So like,
• 56:01
  for example, and more in person stuff. So like with musicians, how are they making
• 56:05
  money? They're. They're touring again and doing concerts in person.
• 56:09
  And you know, we go to a play, we're giving the money to
• 56:12
  the people. Right. If you're watching a TV show, a
• 56:16
  lot of it is giving money to people too, because those are actors making the
• 56:19
  different things. But I really honestly think, think that local
• 56:23
  tv, because from working there, I'm like, I think it's being
• 56:26
  overlooked as an avenue both to
• 56:30
  watch it and to use it to
• 56:34
  get your. Get a local message across. So like, from both ends,
• 56:37
  like there, that's. That's a platform that's already established where
• 56:41
  I. They could take in more. They could take in more local creatives and
• 56:45
  podcasts and whatnot. And also there's a way to watch it
• 56:49
  streaming without for free. Like, we're used to watching things for free now.
• 56:53
  And then we can just learn more local
• 56:56
  what's going on, like what events are going on down the street
• 57:00
  and what nonprofit needs money that we could go
• 57:04
  donate our time to and just kind of more interesting
• 57:07
  community things that are interesting on a local level.
• 57:11
  So I actually hope that gets. Keeps getting reimagined
• 57:15
  in some way because I think there's potential there there.
• 57:54
  Okay. So, Erika, question. What do you think of AI
• 57:58
  in terms of helpfulness
• 58:02
  to a creative?
• 58:06
  How many soapboxes do you want me to stand on?
• 58:10
  You need to. All right, well, first of all, there's no such thing is AI
• 58:14
  it's generative software. It's not AI. Okay, what's the
• 58:17
  difference? I'm going to get off this. AI means artificial
• 58:20
  intelligence. There is no intelligence. Generative software is
• 58:24
  what we have now. And it's the amount of people that are
• 58:28
  suing the AI companies right now for using their work
• 58:32
  to train their software to do certain things, right? You.
• 58:36
  You put in a. You put in, you know, an author's entire body
• 58:39
  of work, and then you go to, you know, one of the AI
• 58:43
  programs and say, hey, write me a book just like that author. And if that
• 58:47
  AI has illegally scanned all of the author's work, it's now going to
• 58:51
  spit out a book, a new book that's just like that author. So
• 58:54
  that's all of the AI programs we have right now are all generative software.
• 58:58
  So they're all just stealing other works and then using that to
• 59:02
  spit out information. All right, I'm off. That's. I'm off. That
• 59:05
  soapbox. That's a very interesting soapbox, though.
• 59:09
  I don't know, we could maybe talk about that more. Heard that.
• 59:13
  But, yeah, it's. Yeah, no, there's no such thing as AI. I think even in,
• 59:16
  like, hidden black sites across, you know, different countries of the
• 59:20
  world, I still don't think it's there. I think it's. I think eventually we're going
• 59:24
  to get there, but we're not there yet. Like an actual artificial intelligence
• 59:27
  that can think for itself. But again, I'm a sci fi nerd, so
• 59:31
  we don't need to go there in this particular show.
• 59:35
  But what I would say, what I do like about it, like, I use it
• 59:38
  all a lot for, like, outlining. Like, I'll, I'll give it a
• 59:42
  bunch of information, or I'll say, you know, I want to do a
• 59:46
  podcast episode or I want to do a video, or I put together a
• 59:49
  newsletter. What are, like, you know, 10 topics on
• 59:53
  such and such that a lot of people are searching for in Google right now?
• 59:57
  And it'll give me the top 10 headlines that people are searching for in
• 1:00:01
  Google. So if I'm going to make a video, if I'm going to make a
• 1:00:04
  podcast, if I'm going to write an article, I'm going to try to figure out
• 1:00:07
  what people are searching for. And when I say searching for, I
• 1:00:10
  physically mean searching for. You go to Google in the little bar across
• 1:00:14
  the top. You know, why is Mary Meyer so cool?
• 1:00:18
  If that is what people are looking for, right. Make a video,
• 1:00:21
  and I'm going to call it why is Mary Meyer so Cool? Like, I'm going
• 1:00:25
  to name it exactly what people are searching in Google. So I'd
• 1:00:28
  say that's the sort of thing that I think it does the best right now
• 1:00:32
  is summarizing and outlining and, you know, just kind of.
• 1:00:35
  For me, I use it sometimes just to kind of give me ideas about some
• 1:00:38
  things that I, you know, haven't worked on before or,
• 1:00:42
  you know, you know, dumping some text into it and say, hey,
• 1:00:46
  rewrite this into three paragraphs and then give me a
• 1:00:50
  couple ideas of photographs that I should look for it. So I like it
• 1:00:53
  for that. I'm almost more like admin type stuff. You can
• 1:00:57
  also use it to like, you know, scan through your emails and say, hey,
• 1:01:01
  I was talking to Mary about this really cool thing like three months ago, and
• 1:01:05
  we were talking about fraud. Frogs go through my emails and, you
• 1:01:08
  know, tell me what the conversation was like. You can search the word
• 1:01:12
  frog in your email and you'll find the email, but if you ask
• 1:01:15
  AI, find the email and then summarize what it was
• 1:01:19
  for me, then you can find it quickly and you don't have to go searching
• 1:01:22
  for stuff that way. So how do you, how do you do that? Where do
• 1:01:24
  you search for that at? Is that in your search bar? Well, yeah, I mean,
• 1:01:28
  that just depends on how you have your AI set up. Like, there's.
• 1:01:31
  There's a lot of companies that use like code Copilot and that's like,
• 1:01:35
  that's like attached inside of their Microsoft account. So if you're using
• 1:01:39
  that, it's. It's already connected to your email and all that other stuff.
• 1:01:43
  You can also do, you know, chat, GPT and some of the other ones that
• 1:01:46
  are out there, you just have to kind of connect them to all of your
• 1:01:48
  different systems. Yeah. And I think that conversation on frogs, you're trying to
• 1:01:52
  figure out which frog produces the very best prints. I
• 1:01:56
  mean, you just keep bringing up frogs. Mary. I don't know why I keep
• 1:01:59
  asking. I'm tired of hearing about frogs. But there you go.
• 1:02:05
  That's. That. That's the kind of weird examples I come up with when I'm talking
• 1:02:08
  about stuff. So we have never talked about frogs, but
• 1:02:12
  maybe we will now. Until now. Yeah.
• 1:02:17
  Well, you're the one who has that, you know, aquarium thing back
• 1:02:20
  there. Is it an aquarium? I do see fishes
• 1:02:24
  and some shrimps in there. So there you go. Maybe a frog. It's some
• 1:02:28
  point. Have to have a lily pad.
• 1:02:32
  So. And we use some. So what did you,
• 1:02:36
  what did you call it? Not a. Okay.
• 1:02:39
  You said it's not AI it's what generative
• 1:02:43
  software generates. Generative as in generates.
• 1:02:47
  It can generate content. Generative software. Generative software.
• 1:02:51
  Why are people saying generative software?
• 1:02:55
  Because AI sounds cooler and more scary
• 1:03:00
  in a way. Yeah, because it really is that. It's
• 1:03:04
  just taking what you give it and pulling out the information very, very quickly,
• 1:03:09
  which is helpful. Like, we, we use that for the podcast. We use, you know,
• 1:03:12
  different things so that we can come up with, you
• 1:03:16
  know, things to put for. For written words in
• 1:03:20
  YouTube and. Yeah, like show notes
• 1:03:23
  and, you know, video desc. And that sort of stuff. Yeah, I mean, it can
• 1:03:27
  be helpful, you know, scan the transcript of this episode,
• 1:03:31
  tell me what some of the best quotes are, tell me what the topics are,
• 1:03:34
  give me a brief little summary. Like. Yeah, we. We use that for a couple
• 1:03:38
  different things as far as, like, you know, outlining and writing up show notes and
• 1:03:41
  that sort of thing. Yeah. And then I read it and judge it and rewrite
• 1:03:45
  it a little bit and then put it in there. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  As well as we should. We should always be. Be judgmental.
• 1:03:52
  Yep, I've said that many times.
• 1:03:56
  No, but I think your point is always check it, because if frequently it's wrong.
• 1:04:00
  So. Yes, absolutely. Always check it. And often I, like,
• 1:04:04
  I'll write it. I'll say, rewrite this, you know, to be a little more,
• 1:04:07
  you know, easy to read, rewrite it to be more professional, rewrite it to be
• 1:04:11
  more funny, and then I'll still go through and kind of change some of the
• 1:04:14
  words back to my own words because sometimes you can't. Can tell when
• 1:04:18
  it's something that's been written by a program. So I still like to go through
• 1:04:21
  and kind of humanize it a little bit, if you will.
• 1:04:25
  Yeah. So do you think that has helped us to be more productive, or do
• 1:04:29
  you think that's just given us more work to do? I think
• 1:04:33
  once you figure out how to use it, it'll help you be a thousand times
• 1:04:36
  more productive because you have it. Do all the boring things
• 1:04:40
  while you're doing other stuff. Yeah, that's the best, best use
• 1:04:43
  of it. Yeah. Which I, I think that's been very helpful too.
• 1:04:47
  Especially, like, because otherwise it'd be so hard to produce this podcast. Right.
• 1:04:51
  Without all the technology that's available. Yeah. I think one of my favorite
• 1:04:55
  memes out there, I can't quite remember what the wording of it, but every
• 1:04:59
  time I see it, I laugh. And it's something like, I don't want AI
• 1:05:03
  to write music and do videos and that sort of Thing.
• 1:05:06
  While I'm doing chores, I want AI to do
• 1:05:10
  laundry, and I get to spend time. I'm, you know, making
• 1:05:13
  music and videos and doing fun things. Like, I can't quite remember what the meme
• 1:05:17
  is, but that's right. Is, why is AI being used to
• 1:05:20
  make videos? Why is AI being used to, you know,
• 1:05:24
  write music? Why is AI doing all these creative things?
• 1:05:28
  When AI is a computer software program,
• 1:05:32
  let it do the thing. Like use AI to help
• 1:05:35
  cities figure out their traffic
• 1:05:39
  patterns so that the lights can work in a way to make traffic not
• 1:05:42
  as bad. That is what AI should be doing. That is what it should
• 1:05:46
  be doing. It should not be making music. Oh, here's my.
• 1:05:50
  Here's. I just made 750ai music tracks. Who
• 1:05:53
  wants to buy them? I don't want to buy them. I want the human being
• 1:05:57
  to make the music. I want the AI to make traffic better.
• 1:06:00
  Yeah, yeah. Better meaning not as bad.
• 1:06:04
  Yeah. And sometimes it just, you know, like, if you have something to write, like
• 1:06:07
  the show notes, can you, you know, if we had to write the show notes
• 1:06:10
  by hand, I mean, that would, you know, like, that's just back in the day
• 1:06:13
  with a typewriter. Can you imagine back in the day? I mean, I was doing
• 1:06:17
  that like 12 months ago, so that's not even back in the day. Like, I
• 1:06:19
  was doing that very, very recently, going, oh, yeah, going
• 1:06:23
  through the transcript, pulling out the quotes, pulling out the topics. Oh, yeah,
• 1:06:27
  just 12. Just a year ago. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely
• 1:06:31
  everything by hand. Well, like I said, back in the day,
• 1:06:37
  these are the good old days, is what you're saying. Like, you. You waited to
• 1:06:41
  bring me into this until. Wouldn't want to murder someone while I did
• 1:06:45
  it. Which is really thoughtful for the whole world that you have. You're
• 1:06:48
  welcome. I had no idea it was that recent.
• 1:06:54
  Life just got so much better now. The amount of people that
• 1:06:58
  are going to get their coffee and go, I have so much energy. I should
• 1:07:01
  start a podcast. Oh, that's
• 1:07:04
  awesome. Well, Erika, thank you for being brilliant
• 1:07:08
  and for doing fun, creative things with me like this
• 1:07:12
  so that I can talk about the things that I like to nerd out onto,
• 1:07:15
  which is, you know, be nice to each other.
• 1:07:19
  No, I'm just kidding. All the. All the cool
• 1:07:23
  stuff. Let me say that again.
• 1:07:27
  Sure.
• 1:07:31
  Well, Erika, thank you for sharing your wisdom, and I'm
• 1:07:35
  so thankful that I get to do this creative work of this
• 1:07:38
  podcast with. With you, because you, you, you always. Whenever I have
• 1:07:42
  a question, you have an answer for me. Almost always. And
• 1:07:46
  much, much, much appreciate that and your wisdom and
• 1:07:51
  your hard, hard work that you do. So thank you so much.
• 1:07:55
  It is always fun. Even when it's a little bit stressful, it's
• 1:07:58
  always fun getting stuff done, getting stuff out, putting the projects
• 1:08:02
  together, working on new and exciting things. I mean,
• 1:08:06
  no big spoilers here, but we've talked about doing, you know, live
• 1:08:10
  events, doing, you know, more shows, bringing stuff kind of into our
• 1:08:14
  podcast network. So we've got lots of exciting things that we're looking
• 1:08:17
  forward to doing. And I am super excited about getting to do
• 1:08:21
  all of the things. Yeah, me, too. We have no end of ideas,
• 1:08:25
  that's for sure. All right, well, we'll see
• 1:08:29
  you on the next show.