Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?
In this episode Michelle and Kathy talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up, what media said 2023 might look like (so disappointed there aren’t flying cars in everyone’s driveways), and when you “should” play Christmas music. Come along for a fun listen.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Happy Black Friday. Kathy.
Speaker 1 00:00:05 It is Black Friday and I’m wearing all black for it.
Speaker 0 00:00:09 , I should’ve, I should’ve thought about that. It’s almost like if you’re in marketing, so they call it Black Friday because it takes all those companies that might be in the red and puts them into the black. Right? That’s originally why it was called Black Friday. If you’re in marketing though, you wear Black Friday cuz like you’re in morning because you have no sleep for weeks and weeks and weeks. Like I’m in mourning for the eyes that didn’t have bags under them and the nights I actually got to sleep all the way through and all of that. But it’s a lot of work, doesn’t it?
Speaker 1 00:00:39 It is a lot of work. And you’ve had quite a bit because you’ve been handling social for almost all of the stellar brands and making sure that everybody’s, everybody who’s got a Black Friday list you, you know, made sure Stellar was on it. And so your amount of work I do not envy at all. And then there was like some confusion. Is it Black Friday, cyber Monday, like B F C M 2022 or just 22 and it’s just like,
Speaker 0 00:01:04 Yeah, where,
Speaker 1 00:01:05 Where, how, where did this get changed? So, I dunno, it’s been some confusion.
Speaker 0 00:01:12 I have ideas of, of how to make it better next year. And this starts with, it starts with Michelle is gonna run it so that she has all the inputs from people in the right place as opposed to several different people having inputs and then people saying, oh that was the wrong code. I’m like, well that was on the spreadsheet and that was also on the site that you gave me and everybody approved. Well we have to change it. I’m like, Nope. You can add another discount code to your website. Exactly. I am not telling 20 different sites I submitted it to that they have to change it. Cause what if they don’t? You know? So Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:01:42 And like for our brands, we just put it on in the query string so that it just auto applies. So I’m like, who cares? What does it matter? Just that everybody, free software for everyone ? Well, not exactly free, but definitely there’s some good deals. Percent
Speaker 0 00:01:57 Off. Yeah, there really are. There really are. And uh, it’s been a day of e of deleting a million emails too. Like every company I’ve ever touched, I’m not just talking about software, right. Every company I’ve ever ordered from, whether it was clothing or a dishwasher or earrings or like Shean, I’ve got like six already just today from Shean and from some different clothing companies. It’s like, yes, email marketing works, but I’m deleting every single one of your Black Friday ones because you’re annoying the heck out of me with one every hour. It’s a little, a little over the top. A
Speaker 1 00:02:30 Little over the top. It was overwhelming. Yeah. And I made a joke yesterday, uh, at Thanksgiving dinner that I was going to delete. I’m just going to delete things like auto delete, you know, the filters in Gmail. Anything with a black heart emoji is gonna go for no reason other than I just was like overwhelmed. I’m like, but still I wanna see if there’s some good deals. But at the same time it’s like overwhelming. I’m like, okay, black heart. So you’re all out just back Random. Random. I
Speaker 0 00:02:57 Will, I will Google for the things I want. I do not want to do any um, spontaneous like, oh I, I think I need that because I got an email about it kind of thing. So yeah. Uh, what do they call that? Uh, impulse buying. I don’t wanna do any impulse buying, although I will admit that, um, I did an impulse buy today.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 Did you, would you get,
Speaker 0 00:03:20 Okay, so maybe not technically an impulse buy? It was on my wishlist, my Amazon wishlist. Okay. You all, you know, I’m a photographer and I have two DSLR cameras and DSLR cameras are heavy, especially when you put bigger lenses on them and everything. And to travel with them is, I’m, you know, it’s thousands of dollars of equipment cuz I have two cameras and my laptop in a bag and that’s like $4,000 of equipment I’m carrying on and off planes hoping it doesn’t drop, doesn’t get broken. All of that. I purchased a, an Olympus mirrorless camera today and a a attach a new lens attachment to a, um, a zoom attachment and less than a hun less than a thousand dollars. And normally I wouldn’t spend that kind of money on myself, but damn it, I deserve it. And I work hard for what I make. So I’m so excited. It’s supposed to arrive next week and I’ll be able to take Christmas pictures and you know, go around my neighborhood and whatever and, and when I travel it will be very lightweight and can go in my backpack. I don’t have to carry a camera bag for it. So Nice. So I slud a little
Speaker 1 00:04:26 Nice. That’s great. That’s awesome. Cool. I bought myself new shoes.
Speaker 0 00:04:31 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:04:32 Because, uh, the dog dragged me through the mud and ruined my backup shoe. Yesterday my shoes got wet in the rain cuz I had to walk the dog and then all of a sudden down and I usually check, but it, I didn’t check cause it was Thanksgiving and it’s like, oh, it’ll rain later. Oh gosh. I just got like completely drenched. So today was backup shoe day and the dog dragged me through the mud and they were just like, literally, I’m like, okay,
Speaker 1 00:04:56 Who’s got the deal? Who’s got the deal? So I bought myself shoes. Yeah, that was it was it. And then my other like little splurge, which of course my head is in the way, but I, oh no it’s not. I bought myself an orchid cause I’ve never had an orchid. I always look at them in the stores and like, Ooh, how pretty. And I’m like, it’s too expensive. I’m not gonna do this. But after this week it was, it’s been a very busy, busy week and I was like, you know what? I don’t know how Thanksgiving’s gonna go. And I’m standing in line here at the Kroger and not wanting to be here. It’s a cause And I bought it for myself for the first time. It’s my first or ever. This is, oh, you’ve got one too.
Speaker 0 00:05:33 It’s, it’s um, I guess they call it dormant. Like the leaves are still green. It just is all dried out and I don’t know what to do with it to bring it back. So, um, if anybody wants an orchid, I’ll be happy to ship it to you because I have a decidedly brown thumb . I can send you this one. You can revive it. You can have to.
Speaker 1 00:05:54 Okay, I’ll try. I don’t know. I’ll try to keep, I don’t know. She doesn’t have a name yet. I only name them when they start dying and then I name them like, I named them something of like someone who’s annoying me. . So, um, I had, I had a plant that was like really, really throwing a fit and I named her Ashley. And so then I was yelling at her like, what’s your problem Ashley, are you gonna live or dog? So Ashley died. Ashley did not like, maybe Ashley didn’t like being named Ashley, I don’t know, but Ashley died and so now I have one that’s kind of a zebra plant that’s kind of like, ugh, I don’t know, let’s just song a fit. So we’ll see. Might get a name. Well I guess
Speaker 0 00:06:36 Ll on, I’ll think this one. . I could’ve named this one Ophelia because she died like a woman in a Shakespeare tragedy. . Although not by drowning .
Speaker 1 00:06:49 Not by drowning. Not by withering away.
Speaker 0 00:06:52 Yes. Deciding that she doesn’t want to bloom for Michelle anymore. . Oh my goodness. Well you posted something today which prompted me to, to send you something. You posted a picture on Facebook today of a younger you. And so I not wanting to detract from anything that you posted sent you a picture of a younger me my high school portrait from 1987. Well actually the picture was taken at 86 at graduated 87. Um, which got me thinking about some fun things we could talk about. Um, I honestly, I don’t remember what we talked about last week or the week before cuz we just kind of chatted. We’re not going off a script or, you know, talking points or we’re
Speaker 1 00:07:32 In the moment.
Speaker 0 00:07:33 So like, if, if this is something I’ve mentioned before, that’s okay. I, I don’t remember. Did we talk about Richie Rich and the, and the um, the TV phones? Did that come up? Does that sound familiar? Yes. Yeah, we did. Right. So , so I was thinking about technology a lot today and thinking about like what our younger selves expected and where, where we are now. Not just technology but like, I don’t know what you wanted it to be when you were a kid. Um, but there was no internet when we were kids. So could never say I wanna be a digital marketer. And somebody would’ve said, what’s digital? Right? Like what does that mean? Yeah, exactly. Um, I wanted to be, well, okay, so first I wanted to be a ballerina. Turns out not taking dance lessons your entire life will mean that doesn’t happen. And then I thought I’d be a teacher or a nurse because when I was a kid, like that’s what I was told. Like women could either be stay at home moms, teachers or nurses or if you have dance classes, maybe a ballerina
Speaker 1 00:08:31 . Mm.
Speaker 0 00:08:33 So I wanted to be a teacher cuz like the thought of like vomit and compost the blood was a, I mean I was an EMT for a while so I did deal with that, but as a kid I was like, mm, maybe not. What did you wanna be when you grew up?
Speaker 1 00:08:48 Well I think it definitely, music was a part of it. I used to do have like, you know, back in the day we, when I remember when FM radio was a big deal, like when I was listening to like AM radio stations and I’d have my radio and I’d wait for a song to come on that I liked and I would have like Lego guys that I would make because they didn’t even have really Lego guys back then. So I’d make guys out of, and I had a band and I had like the little house part of the Legos and I would like put make like a, like it was a van and then I would put like a stage on top of the van. And so like I had my rock band and I’d wait for a song and then I’d act out. These guys sounds so lame as I’m describing it.
Speaker 1 00:09:34 I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody this story. It’s kind of embarrassing now that I think about it. But I, I was like really into music. I wanted to like do something with music and then when I got older I wanted to go into radio and then I did go into radio. I, I was uh, working at the local radio station for a little while and everybody that I worked with there is like, you’re too smart for this. We don’t make any money. And then one guy’s like, I’m making $18,000 a year. You don’t wanna go into radio, don’t go into radio, don’t do it. And I was like, well I don’t know what to do. So then I went in like got involved in the speech team at in college and I was on the debate team when I was in high school too. I have like an old picture of myself on my website where I’m like, it’s from the college or from the high school yearbook where I’m like, I look like a blonde Joan Jet
Speaker 0 00:10:23
Speaker 1 00:10:25 Who are my fashion choices in high school.
Speaker 0 00:10:27 I’m gonna be looking at your website very shortly. .
Speaker 1 00:10:30 It was just, yeah, I’m finding all these like old, somebody actually posted that picture on Facebook and like one of the high school groups and everybody tags me and I’m just like, oh my . But like speech and communication and now that podcasting is a thing, it’s kind of like, well, you know, that’s why I kind of, yeah, I, previous job I was doing podcasting and get this, so just this week we had this radio station in San Jose contacted us saying, can we put the cadence, be syndicated on our radio station. We have like a million listeners in Silicon Valley. I’m just like, I guess I’m in Radio . It’s just like, that’s awesome. Spec comes like around, everything comes, goes around, comes around I guess. And here it is again. So I guess Love it. Yeah. And we’re doing this. I love it. So yeah, so I don’t know, I’m, I’m kind of living out. I think my, we just need to like start playing instruments and then I’ll be
Speaker 0 00:11:27
Speaker 1 00:11:28 Then I’ll be there
Speaker 0 00:11:30 When I’m at home. I have all those guitars and trumpets on the wall behind me that people get to see. Yeah. Um, and I have, I used to play the trumpet and I’ve played the guitar, so, um, don’t ask me to now cuz it’s been over 30 years since I touched either one of those, except to hang them on the wall. But um, but yeah, I, I’m, I’ve got some music in my family too.
Speaker 1 00:11:50 That’s awesome. I played the piano and I think I can play a few songs like I memorized when I was a kid. But now I just appreciate music. That music is my, my daughter yesterday for yesterday was Thanksgiving and my, I was like, I’m not sure last year’s Thanksgiving was kind of depressing cuz we were in the hospital when my husband was in the hospital. So I’m like sitting there with him until it wasn’t like a very good, so I was coming into Thanksgiving with just like, oh, I don’t want to bad PTSD about the whole thing. And my daughter put on music first. It was Christmas season in the morning and I’m like, it’s a little early for like Js , I dunno if I can handle this. But by the end of the day she had played some really great music and dj it was all her choices, all her music. And she just, by the end of the day, I was in such a good mood. She symbol handedly Claire saves, saves Thanksgiving. Cause she
Speaker 0 00:12:43 Was just love it.
Speaker 1 00:12:45 It was pretty cool.
Speaker 0 00:12:46 She’s a girl after my own heart. I start playing Christmas music in July. So just That’s great. When I’m alone, mostly because other people look at me like I’m a little crazy. So it’s like when I’m alone in the car sometimes I’m like, it’s Christmas in July today . And I’ll just be like, yeah, you know, I have um, echo Auto so I can just tell my Amazon account to play things in my car and it comes right out through the speakers and super awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1 00:13:15 That’s amazing. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m, I’m like a Christmas day Christmas music kind of person. Like when we’re coming into it Christmas Eve definitely on making cookies. Everything’s festive and wonder, you know, I, I really like doing that. That’s really fun. But I’ve always kind of been like, yeah, not yet, not yet .
Speaker 0 00:13:33 But
Speaker 1 00:13:34 This year, you know, it really did change, it changed my mood. So I’m, I don’t know, I might be a new woman with the whole Christmas moves thing. I might be joining you in July,
Speaker 0 00:13:43 . I’ll be like, Hey, it’s July 17th, it’s c crank, crank, the, oh my gosh. I love it. Um, the other thing I was thinking of is like, so when I was in, in high school in 1984, we read the book 1984
Speaker 1 00:14:02 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:14:03 , like that was like the big thing. If you were in school in 1984, you read George Orwell’s 1984 Yeah. That year. Cuz it was like, oh, right. And I heard also that this year, um, 2022 is the year that George Jetson was born like in the comic the Jetsons. And so it’s just like number one, yes, there are some dystopian elements in our world today, don’t get me wrong, but it is not a complete dystopia. So 1984, not quite so bleak is all that, but also no flying cars yet like I can’t just, I can push buttons on a microwave to make food hot, but I can’t just push a button and say I’d like a Turkey dinner and it materializes out of nowhere. So somewhere between, yeah, I know between dystopia and like Rosie the robot making my dinner. I mean I, I mean I wanna, I wanna lean more towards the rosie part of things, but um, but yeah, there are so many things in our world today. Like the fact that my very first computer in college did less than my cell phone does now is crazy. Yeah. Like there are, we have come so far and the fact that like Black Friday growing up, you got in a car, you, you waited in a line at Walmart or Kmart or Target or whatever store it was. Um, and that was just like, oh, I’m still in bed and I’m going to do my Christmas shopping.
Speaker 1 00:15:30 . Yeah, yeah. Totally.
Speaker 0 00:15:31 So easy. So it
Speaker 1 00:15:33 A difference. It’s so great. I, I love it. But at the same time I think it’s, I try to every day just kind of go outside and just like try to connect with nature as much as I can because I know that so much of my mental energy is, is here and the computer and on the phone and everything that I have to like, make a conscious decision of like, okay, remember what’s real because like it’s so seductive to like pull you in. Like I could spend all day online. I totally could. My my daughter actually told me a phrase that she, like, she disagreed with someone and she says, oh, that person’s just chronically online. I’m like, what? What’s this? Chronically, chronically online. So it’s like somebody, it’s a teenager thing, but it’s somebody who like is on social media all day and can’t think for themselves and just kind of goes with what everybody else is saying. The teenagers call someone like that chronically online. And it’s an insult. . I better not be chronically.
Speaker 0 00:16:33 No, I don’t ever wanna be known as that. Then
Speaker 1 00:16:37 , it sounds terrible. Oh my God. So it’s like that’s, it’s, I think it’s kind of like, um, iPad kids when they like Yeah. You know, make fun of the iPad kid thing. Mm-hmm. , it’s maybe a TikTok thing. I don’t know, maybe.
Speaker 0 00:16:50 I don’t know. I mean I’m on TikTok but I don’t think I’m on the same, I love how they call it side of TikTok. Like there are 50 million facets and sides to TikTok. Yeah. But I am definitely not on the 16 year old consumption side of TikTok.
Speaker 1 00:17:03 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:04 And I’m okay with that , I see very few dances on TikTok. I’ll just say that. And I’m okay with that too. Um,
Speaker 1 00:17:14 I’m on top kitten TikTok .
Speaker 0 00:17:16 Yeah. That that works though, right? I’m actually a farm TikTok, like I see a lot of farm animals. I Yeah. The other day I saw a guy who like was driving down the road and he stopped cuz there was a horse just walking itself down the road. So he figured out where the horse went to. But he is like, is this like a, like a dog? Like I found a dog, I get to keep it right. Like if it follows me home, I get a new horse. He didn’t do that though. He brought it back to the others . But I was like, oh that’s really cute. And, and I’ve seen all kinds of farm animals. I saw, um, the buffalo got slammed with snow last week. I saw their TikTok, Buffalo Zoo has a TikTok and their polar bear was in heaven out in the snow. So there’s some good stuff on there. It can be motivating and it can be, you know, a good way to pass time sometimes cuz it makes you happy and smile and all that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:18:06 Somebody was slamming it and I’m like, you know what, every Sunday night growing up you sat and you watched America’s Funniest Home Videos. And that’s what this is. Except it’s, there’s no Bob Saggot, , whoever, you know, there’s no like host. You just like scroll through docs and funny things. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:18:23 and the algorithm works. Oh my gosh. That algorithm is so good. Like, if you scroll by things quickly that you don’t like or you say you’re not interested Yeah. You’ll stop seeing that stuff right away. And the stuff you spend time looking at, you’ll see more and more of. Which is pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:18:37 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:18:39 So we have about a month before the end of the year takes over and we’re headed into 2023. What are a few things you’re looking forward to? I know, I know it’s gone by so quick. What are a few things you’re looking forward to in this as we head into December?
Speaker 1 00:18:54 I’m gonna relax in December. Hopefully that’s my goal. Good. That December is gonna be sort of relax and kind of, I don’t know, do some postmortems on things that went really well and things that didn’t. But I have some big goals for next year. Um, kind of going back to the whole podcasting thing. I wanna do more, do more podcasting. I’ve got some things in the works. Nice. And, uh, yeah, we did this one pod, the last podcast we did for Cadence was a video one. And we did it with um, somebody in the community, in the cadence community who really blessed me with a recognition of something I said in one of the previous podcasts about how when I homeschooled my kids, one of the things I would do is like, okay, well show me what to learn, teach it to me now. And how if they couldn’t teach it to me, I knew they didn’t get it. So I, but when they get it and they could teach it to me, it kind of solidified the knowledge and made them understand a concept better. And so I mentioned that on a previous and he, he’s like, I I heard you say that. And I actually teach kids, uh, underprivileged kids in my community. I teach them. And that idea just works. I did that with my kids and I like, I start like tearing up cause
Speaker 0 00:20:07 I’m like, I would
Speaker 1 00:20:09 Something I said he took an, he actually did something like major with it and it just, so I don’t know that kinda stuff. That’s what I wanna do more of is just like empower people to do more, not just with WordPress, but more with their lives and have more confidence in the things that they’re doing. And that’s kind of what we’re doing here too. Absolutely. So there have been just so many things that have dropped into my life where it’s just like, yeah, let’s, let’s give people tools to empower themselves. Let pe lift up more people, people who maybe don’t think they can. Um, people who are in underprivileged types of situations and lift them up and help people find more meaning and more confidence and just, I want that ripple effect. I want, I’m not throwing a pu in the pond, I’m throwing some giant brick or a rock or a stone. Boom. Let’s make some big, big waves. Major 2023. Yeah. I love that. How about you? What are you doing for 2023? What are you thinking about?
Speaker 0 00:21:03 Gosh, it’s a good question. Um, I am actually also have another podcast that’s in the works, um, about marketing. And I’m excited about that and working with, um, somebody, I won’t announce it quite yet because I’m, I wanna make sure all the pieces fall into, into place, uh, but working with somebody I enjoy working with and it’ll be about marketing and making big strides and making big decisions in marketing and how to move things forward. So I’m excited about that. Um, we’re gonna kick that off hopefully in December, but probably more like January if I’m being honest with myself. Um, and then other than that I just, I really wanna do more with family. You know, having lost my dad this year and everything, it kind of really cements to me. Um, we all know that like, life is temporal and there’s an, there’s a, there’s an end date even if we don’t know what it is.
Speaker 0 00:21:54 Right. So, um, I don’t want to lose time with family and friends that I’ve kind of just taken for granted that, that kind of thing. And, um, if you don’t know, I don’t know. I think, you know, but if you’re listening, you don’t know. I actually have very young brothers, so I’m, I’m 54 and my youngest brother is 14. Um, so 14 and 17 are the two youngest. And, uh, they now live with my brother in Oklahoma. And so, uh, Joshua is graduating from high school this year. So next year I’m gonna go down to Oklahoma and watch him graduate and be part of their lives and stay more closely connected to family. Um, I love it. It’s just a good, it’s a good thing. It’s a, you know, we, we need to remember the people and not take for granted the people that we are close to because you never know what’s gonna happen and you never know, um, when the next exciting thing or tragedy might affect your family. And I mean, you know that you’ve had some major changes in this last year too, of course. And so just really kind of digging in and being present with people is, is my real goal for next year.
Speaker 1 00:22:54 I love it. That’s so beautiful. Oh, thank you. Yeah. You inspire me all the time and I am so grateful to do this with you. Likewise. It makes every week, you know, I already look forward to Fridays because it’s like I can take a nap, , but ’cause it’s
Speaker 0 00:23:09 Friday. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:23:10 . But this makes me look forward to Fridays even more because I get to get to spend some time with you. Me too. Very special to
Speaker 0 00:23:19 Me. I hope, I hope other people enjoy it as much as we do. Um, and if you are listening, we say this always, but we’d love to hear from you. Um, you can tag us individually, you can tag us on our podcast. Um, tell, give, give us some ideas if there’s things you’d like us to talk about too. Uh, because I’m all about it. Cathy’s all about it. We wanna make sure that, um, that we have fun with it. But that, that everybody who’s listening is enjoying it too. We don’t just make content to make content. We make content because we want to help other people feel inspired in spite of, um, life and the things that happen in life. So if we can make it through every day, you can too. . Amen of that. All right. Amen of that. So on that note, we will wrap things up for this week, but um, we look forward very much to seeing you next week. Stay inspired. Thanks. Bye.