Latest / Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane / The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 3 - Episode 52, Leslie Kane, Reflections on 3 Years of the Why Not Today Podcast & What’s Next

Transcript

The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 3 - Episode 52, Leslie Kane, Reflections on 3 Years of the Why Not Today Podcast & What’s Next · Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Why Not Today podcast where we celebrate courage, determination, and the
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  power of saying, Why Not Today.
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  I'm your host, Leslie Cain.
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  In each episode, we dive into inspiring stories of individuals who have taken bold steps,
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  faced their fears, and embraced the possibility of today.
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  From entrepreneurs, artists, to artists, dreamers, to doers, we explore the moments when they
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  said enough waiting, Why Not Today.
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  Show me as we uncover the heartwarming, the audacious, and the transformative, whether
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  it's pursuing a lifelong passion, overcoming obstacles, or simply choosing joy.
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  Our guests share their journeys and inspire us all.
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  I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often said, Why Not Today.
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  And remember, you're just one decision away from changing your life.
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  And today's episode is just me.
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  And we are celebrating three years of a podcast in about two weeks.
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  And so this is the last episode of season three, and we will start season four next
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  week.
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  And I thought, you know what, it's a good time to kind of get to know me, the podcast's
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  story, and what's next.
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  And so I'm super excited just to welcome all of you.
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  And thank you to everybody that's listened to follow my guests, my repeat guests for
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  all the great support over these last three years.
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  And I'm just going to share a little bit about my journey, the growth of the podcast, the
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  Why Not Today movement, new initiatives, and exciting new things coming up.
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  So the birth of the Why Not Today podcast, it's a movement, not just a podcast.
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  The inspiration was from my father, and my dad passed away March 5, 2019, March 5, 2013.
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  And ironically, that was the day he was born.
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  So that was when the podcast was birthed, and we started on March 5, 2022.
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  And it started by a social media post somebody shared about my dad and things he had done.
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  And my dad always had, my whole life, he had lost sight of an eye, one of his eyes.
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  So we always had an eye passed on Hannah Brown in a stash.
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  So he signed everything with that.
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  And that is where the Why Not Today logo came from.
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  So when my dad passed away, I'm like, I want to do something to honor him, his legacy,
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  thought of a nonprofit, and doing a pickleball tournament.
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  But then that was a lot of work.
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  And then I just kind of had the idea in 2020, maybe I want to do a podcast.
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  And so came up with the idea of Why Not Today after somebody shared on social media something
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  about my dad, and they said, we both always said Why Not Today.
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  So that started it.
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  And it has grown into what I'm calling my Why Not Today movement.
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  And it goes beyond the podcast episodes.
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  It's a mission to inspire courage, build community, and power people to take bold actions.
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  The Why Not Today movement is to inspire us all to live our dreams, to live our life,
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  and do it bravely.
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  And so it is my passion to help people to work smarter, not harder, provide focus by
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  providing focus and systems and strategies to make a real impact.
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  So how am I doing that?
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  So just a little background on who Leslie Cain is, is I am local to rest in Virginia.
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  Those of you in Northern Virginia or know the area.
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  My parents moved here when I was two, and so I am definitely a part of the community.
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  My dad was a big part of this community being one of six kids.
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  He wanted to have a community to support all of us.
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  And so other than college and just traveling, I haven't lived anywhere else in my life.
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  And so I started my entrepreneurial journey 30 years ago in 1994 when I finished my MBA
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  and decided to start a Mary Kay cosmetics career.
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  I had no idea where it would take me.
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  I really just thought it'd be fun and get my products to discount.
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  I would say I put my toe in the water, fell in love.
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  Five years later, I followed my entrepreneurial dream and quit my full-time job and never
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  look back.
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  And you know, it was perfect timing, not really, I mean, nothing perfect about it.
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  But six months after I quit my job, my dad had his first stroke and I was able to be
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  there and be able to support my family.
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  So in my 30 year Mary Kay career, 25 years full-time supporting myself, I have earned
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  the privilege of driving.
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  I can't remember 16 or 17 cars.
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  I've had a team of probably thousands of women at this point.
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  And so what I've learned is one, how to grow a business, how to run a business and help
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  other people create their own businesses and then able to help.
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  I had a single mom one time on my team that was able to help her grow her business and
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  team to be able to stay home with her son and not have to go to that J-O-B.
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  I've had people starting a Mary Kay business and wasn't going to be able to pay rent with
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  what they were doing and this helped pay the rent.
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  So my 30 year career with Mary Kay has taught me so much and that's given me the inspiration
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  and a lot of my skills and strengths that I bring to the table with Why Not Today is
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  from what I learned with Mary Kay.
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  One thing I have learned in starting the Why Not Today business, which I started in 2024,
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  is Mary Kay as a direct selling company did a lot for us.
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  So it takes a lot to start a business.
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  I've learned lots of things that I want to pass on to other people and help them have
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  courage to start their businesses.
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  So the podcast, as I said, started three years ago and we've had over 6,000 downloads and
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  that doesn't even include YouTube because we're on YouTube, we're on all the channels.
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  A growing community of listeners, I think I counted where in 26 states at one point.
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  We have over 100 episodes and it's just been so much fun for me to get to know people and
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  to interview different people.
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  I've had a couple people that have been on more than once.
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  I don't think anybody's three times, but I did talk to one of my guests.
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  I'm going to have her, I think, on a third time.
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  So what I found in all my episodes and talking to people and literally it started in the
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  beginning with anybody that had any bit of courage and really if they walked past me
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  and said they didn't sound courageous, I put them on the podcast.
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  It was every other week for almost the first two years and then December of 2023, we moved
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  to every week because I just had such a need or such an outpouring of guests and people
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  were referring, which has been really fun.
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  I've learned so much and have access to so many things, I said it's a masterclass for
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  me personally, all the things I've learned about running a business, about having courage
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  and everybody has a story.
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  It's often the story behind the story.
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  And so with the podcast episodes, I really hope that when people listen, that it gives
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  them hope and permission and be able to say me too or give them some tools and some skills
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  to help them navigate their business, their life.
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  Sometimes the Why Not Today message is really just getting out of bed.
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  I did have one guest, my friend Julia, and she talked about a Why Not Today decision
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  not to do something.
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  She was going to write a book and decided, you know what, it wasn't for her.
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  So sometimes Why Not Today decisions are just not doing something.
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  So it started with my first episode with my friend Meg Donnelly, who has been instrumental
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  in helping support this podcast journey.
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  Some of the memorable episodes is a friend of mine, Teresa, who lives in New York.
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  I had a guest that canceled last minute and I was with her and she's like, put me on.
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  I'm like, what have you done courageous?
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  She's like, well, I became, got off addiction of drugs.
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  So she was addicted to opioids based on surgery she had.
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  And it was a major detox that she had to do, which I had no idea.
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  I interviewed somebody, Emma G, which I'm going to get her back on here now.
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  Emma Stevens, a musician that played on the streets of New York City and is now coaching
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  kids and helping people through music to make a difference.
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  My friend Sarah White, I've had her on a couple of times and the last episode we did
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  a couple of years ago that she talked about the community that she built and people are
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  able to support her.
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  And that's one of my value strengths is building community and making that connection.
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  My second year anniversary, the episode for that, I interviewed my brother and we talked
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  about growing up together.
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  Our father, we talked about he'd accomplished, I think three iron.
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  And that's pretty amazing.
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  Because my youngest sister has DownCenter, I've connected people with the special needs
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  world.
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  I interviewed Elizabeth, who has a really cool blog and then Instagram account.
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  It's called Confessions of the Chromosomal Enhanced.
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  Probably misunderstood or didn't do that.
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  And she calls it catfish and cat chip.
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  And she has a younger or older sister as DownCenter and her husband adopted some of
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  them.
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  And unfortunately her mom passed away so she's raising both of them together.
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  And just some of the stories made me laugh out loud of things that I can relate with
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  my life with Amanda.
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  I interviewed somebody that started a local newspaper in the rest area.
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  Somebody referred me to a woman, her name is Chris Howard, that hiked the Appalachian
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  trail.
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  She left her corporate job, had never hiked, camped into her life until the first night
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  on the trail.
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  And somebody referred her to me, she heard her on the news and she lives a mile from
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  my house.
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  Laura Carney is another guest I've had twice.
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  And her dad, and so many similarities between my dad and we're talking and just kind of
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  those Godwinks.
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  But her dad was killed by a distracted driver.
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  And when he was 54 and Laura and her brother found his bucket list.
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  And Laura did the whole bucket list and wrote a book called My Father's List.
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  Laura referred me to her friend Melanie and Melanie wrote a book called The Heart Science,
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  Silence, I can talk.
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  First she wrote a book, How to Write Heart Stories.
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  She's got an amazing story, I'd check that out.
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  Season three, the kickoff episode was with my mom, although she said she had nothing
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  courageous to share.
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  She had so much, you know, being a mother of six children and the youngest with Downsend
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  her and just all the stories and navigation with that.
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  One of my passions is helping people find their joy and find their passion.
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  You know, if you have that thing that people say, oh my goodness, like you should do that
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  as a business because it's so easy or when somebody, you do something, somebody's like,
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  how did you do that?
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  You're like, that was so easy.
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  And that was an episode we talked to with my friend Amber.
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  And Amber and I literally went to get ice cream on Saturday.
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  It was, I know it was a Saturday before Easter, went with my sister to get ice cream and she
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  is so creative and decorating and literally we had a meeting at my house one time and
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  she's sitting at my dining room table.
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  She's like, can I redecorate?
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  I'm like, sure.
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  So we had this discussion.
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  I'm like, you really should start a business.
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  I don't think she heard the business part, but she started thinking she should do something
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  with this.
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  She called me on Monday after Easter, couldn't sleep and had put the business plan together
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  for her decorating business.
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  Madeline McMahon.
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  Oh my goodness.
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  We had so much fun on this episode, she's a fractional marketing specialist and we thought,
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  you know what, what is more courageous than to crisscross both my worlds with Mary Kay
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  and why not today.
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  And we literally did a spa session with charcoal mask and all the things on zoom and it's on
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  YouTube.
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  So you can watch us doing a pampering session and how vulnerable that is and courageous to
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  get on screen with masks on our face.
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  And then I was watching the news again.
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  Laura Carney I found from watching CBS.
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  Brady Murray I found he was on NBC news and he has a nonprofit Rod's Heroes where he helps
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  people adopt children with Down syndrome from other countries and his son Cooper that they
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  adopted from China.
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  His goal is to throw the pitch out of every major league baseball game.
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  And so they live in Utah and they were here in DC right after we did the interview and
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  we got to meet him and go to a nationals game and watch Cooper throw the ball out.
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  So what a great experience that was.
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  Sam Horn was another amazing guest.
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  She spoke at an event.
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  I didn't really know who she was.
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  Ironically though she lived right where I live and walk her in the lake with where I
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  walk and had a dog that looks like my dog and so many similarities and what an amazing
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  guest she was and she's written so many just unbelievable books.
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  So that's just some of the hundred episodes.
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  So lots of cool people.
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  Lots of great stories.
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  I'm excited about the future and the future episodes and who we're going to share.
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  So the launch of the why not say movement website just launched last month.
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  Thanks to my friend Meg Donnelly who was my first guest.
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  She referred me to Fairfax County and I got a grant and they were able to revamp my website.
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  It just launched in beginning of February of 2024.
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  And why is this a big deal?
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  The web it is a big deal because the website is a hub for everything.
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  Why not today?
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  You can find your podcast episodes events, sports, coaching, merchandise and ways to
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  get involved.
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  So as I said, it has our podcast episodes events and I'm going to talk about all the
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  different things in a second.
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  Also we have a Facebook community group called why not today community and that's a place
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  for us to build connection community.
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  So as I said, I am passionate about helping and teaching people and so I got some courses
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  on my website.
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  I will do one on one coaching mastermind.
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  I'm looking at some other courses and things because with my 30 year career in Mary Kay,
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  I learned how to run a business.
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  I know all the little things that somebody said one time and our friend of mine and I
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  always just say if you do something twice, it should be a system.
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  And somebody referred to me that I'm a natural systematizer.
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  I'm not quite sure what that means, but I can put systems together and I am good at
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  helping people with figuring out the details of the business, keeping the one thing, the
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  one thing and focusing.
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  So with that, I am doing leadership coaching to help people either if you have a business
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  and you're starting or you need kind of stuck in your business or you have an idea and you
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  need some help getting the courage to start the idea.
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  We have started a course last fall that is still available, how to navigate the overwhelm
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  and chaos in your life and we all have it, whether you own a business or not.
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  I have a course on how to do a podcast because everybody wants to know how to do a podcast.
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  And then I'm looking at a course called where are your people and networking and getting
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  to know your people and having your tribe.
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  So there's so many things I've learned because of this podcast and this journey that I want
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  to be able to pass on.
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  And then when I do the podcast, I talk to people about their why not today moments.
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  And those are moments in time where you remember exactly where you were, what you were doing
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  and you did something pivotal change in your life.
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  January of 2024, woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't sleep, got pen and paper
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  and I came up with the why not today connects events.
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  And I found we're missing community and connection.
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  We want to be with people.
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  We don't need another networking event where everybody just spits out their elevator speech.
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  So we created the why not today connects luncheon and we have had a year's worth of luncheon.
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  We started January of 2024 and we will have, we didn't do December, but we did other events.
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  And so each month I have a speaker and we have sponsors and people introduce themselves
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  with a question we ask.
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  It's not your elevator speech, but really getting to know people and building those connections,
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  the communities is fun to watch, not only the business being conducted with the connections,
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  but also just new friends.
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  I remember one luncheon, everybody left and went and got chocolate together and went,
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  saw an art exhibit with one of the guests.
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  So that has been powerful.
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  I also started, I love collaborating with other people.
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  You haven't figured that out yet, started a connect and sip with my friend Rachel as
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  a tea shop.
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  And that's really just come together with other mostly business owners or people looking
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  to business or people just need a little support.
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  We had somebody come who's retired and thinking about starting a business.
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  And we just, it's an intimate conversation, helping each other support each other.
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  And so those are once a month as well.
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  I have done some fun of other events.
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  We did a why not today summer camp.
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  We did a one word painting event, a holiday connect and sip, and I've got a couple fun
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  events coming up because I found we want to have fun.
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  We want to build community.
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  You can't work all the time.
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  So that's coming up as well.
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  And then why not today merchandise?
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  We have why not today cups and shirts and mugs and sweatshirts and I can create anything
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  why not today.
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  Cause, and I even have behind me, if you're watching a why not today sign that my friend
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  made, cause I really want to encourage people to say why not today.
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  I feel like why not today is so much more than a podcast.
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  It's a movement as I said, my biggest, big vision for why not today is it is a brand
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  somewhat like life is good that people are saying it.
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  I mean, people are constantly quoting it back to me.
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  I had one friend of mine whose daughter's in college and having some emotional anxiety,
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  issues, depression.
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  And so she got her daughter a why not today cup and a t-shirt to remind her every day,
• 17:37
  say why not today.
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  Another one of my dad's best friends from high school, his son and I connected on social
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  media and he got a why not today t-shirt and he's always sending me pictures of places
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  with this why not today shirt on.
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  And so it's all this is available on the website.
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  You know, if there's something you want to say why not today, you know, we don't have
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  it.
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  Let me know.
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  I can create it.
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  We can get it done.
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  So we want to spread the word of why not today and get the message to more people.
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  And so what's next with the future?
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  Well, we have an exciting season.
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  I already have, I think five or six people lined up.
• 18:13
  The next episode kicking off season four is going to be somebody interviewing me about
• 18:18
  she does a podcast, Belinda, and she's going to interview me about this podcast.
• 18:23
  You get a little bit more about me.
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  I have other guests that are working in nonprofits that I have a guest that got in a severe car
• 18:30
  accident and should not have walked away and she did.
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  And so I'm excited just the future guests.
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  So if you know you're listening to this and think I would be a great guest or you know
• 18:39
  somebody, there's a form on my website, be a guest, fill it out.
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  I'd love to talk to you about being on the podcast.
• 18:46
  So the future is more courses, more support, the why not today community Facebook group,
• 18:54
  which is a private group, but anybody can join it.
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  I'm looking to add some more value there and have some why not.
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  I'm going to call them why not today weekly wisdom and just some training, some extra
• 19:07
  support for you.
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  I think the first one we're going to kick off on March 5th, which is going to be a Wednesday,
• 19:14
  and it's the anniversary of the podcast.
• 19:16
  I thought what a more perfect time and it's going to be me sharing about where are your
• 19:20
  people and kind of give you a little teaser on what we can do with the course.
• 19:25
  I have another friend of mine that's an expert in LinkedIn.
• 19:27
  I'm going to have her pop in somebody else about a CRM.
• 19:30
  So again, if you have an expertise and you want to share on my weekly wisdom, they're
• 19:34
  going to be a zoom call that people can come on with questions and answers and then they'll
• 19:38
  be live streamed just to the Facebook community.
• 19:42
  So nobody else will have access to those.
• 19:46
  So lots going on, as you can tell, my head bounces all over the place.
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  So who knows what's next?
• 19:51
  I thought about retreats.
• 19:52
  I thought about a book.
• 19:54
  You never know.
• 19:55
  So again, I want to just thank you, everybody that's listened to any episode.
• 19:59
  If this is your first, go back and listen to some previous ones.
• 20:03
  If somebody shared this with you, thank them.
• 20:05
  Please share it with your friends.
• 20:08
  Review it, review it and like it and share it with other people.
• 20:15
  And that's the only way this is going to grow.
• 20:18
  It is growing steadily and I'm excited about where the future is going to go.
• 20:23
  My mission statement, as I said, why not today is about helping people to be courageous,
• 20:27
  great systems at work and take action without complicating their success.
• 20:32
  And so you don't have to have it all figured out.
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  You just need to start.
• 20:37
  This is about courage, focus and simple, repeatable systems and why not today take the next step.
• 20:42
  So thank you for everybody that's been a part of this journey.
• 20:46
  Remember visit the Why Not Today movement website, join the Why Not Today community Facebook
• 20:51
  group, tune into the weekly trainings we're going to have in the group, follow, subscribe
• 20:56
  to the podcast and check out the coaching, the courses and the merchandise.
• 21:00
  I'll start a movement.
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  So why not today and thank you again.
• 21:04
  I am so grateful for this journey being on it with you guys.
• 21:08
  Bye.
• 21:09
  Oh, I have to stop the recording.
• 21:14
  All right.
• 21:15
  I'll see you guys next time.