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