The state of the American household economy...

My fellow Americans, I bring to you the state of the American household economy, brought to you by household managers, which are mostly women. Now, I could say it's mostly women because I've done the research. I know that it is mostly women. And as the 31st largest female-owned business in Cincinnati, I could tell you the majority of businesses in Cincinnati are male-owned. There are some things that women have done for a long time, and there are some things that men have done for a long time, but female household managers do not have a voice in the media. And so I'm holding my own press conference. I'm going to tell you the state of the American family economy, that we are the American economy, and that what we are experiencing needs to become visible so that we all do not feel so isolated, So that ultimately we can solve it. So I started to realize that this was something that needed to be addressed, that needed to have a voice, probably last October. But like other household managers and women at the holiday time, I kept shoving it down thinking, there's really nothing going on, Lisa. You've been through this before. Okay, money's a little tight, time is a little tight, you've got a lot of things going on, but it's the holidays, it's the fall. It's the fact that the hustle is back after these years of not having it because of the pandemic. But yet this feeling didn't go away, like, why is money so tight? I mean, I'm in my 50s, my husband and I are both employed, our home is almost paid off, like, we don't move, we don't travel a lot, we don't do a lot of these things. Why is our economy so tight? Surely this will lighten up when we get to January. I get to January and the media starts saying, good news, no signs of a recession on the horizon. I was like, ah, great. As soon as the media agrees there's not going to be one, there's going to be one. I'm like, well, that, that's not comforting to me at all. And I'm like, and my personal family economy is not doing as well as it usually does. Yeah, it gets tight in November, December, and then January you cut back a little bit and The, the boat rises back up again. Wasn't rising back up again. And I was like, hmm, I wonder if it's just me. And this is why I'm making this public address, because this is what happens inside of every single household. We think to ourselves, must just be me. I'm the only one that can't get it together. Everyone— I'm looking around, everybody else seems fine. It's, it's just a me problem. No, it's not just a A me problem. So I asked a close friend, I said, hey, uh, I know we're not supposed to talk money because you're not supposed to talk money. Have you noticed that like maybe it's getting a little bit tighter around here? Oh my gosh! She's like, electricity and property taxes and insurance payments. I was like, I hadn't even noticed any of those. I had only noticed the grocery budget, and I thought she would say the grocery budget. So I thought, hmm, I need to do a little bit more research. So I went over into the Organized 365 private app. We created a private app 2 years ago at great expense, and I am so glad we did because you can ask questions like this in there and they're not out on the World Wide Web. Like, no one knows I'm even asking this question, and everyone who gives me their feedback, no one can read their feedback. So it's not like I'm saying, hey, how's it going? And you're putting on like Facebook or TikTok like we're drowning, and then your mother-in-law calls you because you're drowning. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of a little private. And here are the things that they said that they were struggling with, and I was like whoa! Groceries, of course. Electricity, which I hadn't really noticed was such a big increase until they told me, and then I started looking at my electric bill. I was like wow, that really has gone up a lot. Property taxes have gone up in the last couple of years. Homeowners insurance, especially if you live in a southern or a coastal state. Here in Ohio, we haven't really seen our property or homeowners insurance go up, but if you live in any of these areas where you get floods and hurricanes and all of those, you have seen your insurance go up or you're uninsurable, which is a whole other issue. Rent. Rent is going up insanely high, and if you decide to get out of renting or leasing to type arrangement in order to buy something, you have to pay high taxes on, or a high percentage on whatever you end up buying, which we did that with our son's condo. Service providers are going up. One that I forgot about but definitely has been hitting my pocketbook is this insanity of tipping that is going on in the United States. First of all, you should know in other countries they don't even do tipping at all. Like, they don't even do it at all. And now we're supposed to tip in the United States for everything and anything. And when you don't, don't you just feel like a big old heel? Like, really? You're gonna buy your latte but not give another dollar tip? And I'm like, oh my gosh, the latte costs a fortune. Why do I have to give the dollar tip? Like, and it's not just there, it's everywhere. This, this constant pervasiveness of give more, do more. And it's so visible. Like, if you don't do it, like, oh, you think you can't, you can't tip. Like, so you, you kind of have to do it. You want to do it, but you kind of have to do it. The cost of healthcare always going up, a unique to America experience because we are a capitalist society, which I'll get back to in a minute. Entertainment— we subscribe to every streaming service there is, and also we still have cable, full cable. Like, our entertainment budget is crazy. But of course, all we do— Greg and I, we have lived in the same house Since the year after we got married. We've lived in this house for 28 years. We don't travel very much, although we're going to start. We don't go out and do a lot of entertaining things. We don't go on dates. Like, we go to work, we come home. Our discretionary money goes on my Amazon purchases, Greg's food purchases, and our ridiculous entertainment budget as far as streaming services. Household products of all kinds have gone up, and I don't know where— I am not an economist. I often will say I have Lisa math. I don't have like real math, and I play this shell game with our money. And Craig's like, how's the shell game going? I'm like, not good right now. It's really not good. I'm having to move the shells a lot around here. But you know, as a household manager, that's what I've always done. I've always played the shell game with our money. So you hear these economists and you hear this talk of inflation going up 10%, 25%. Okay, now it's down. 18%. I don't know how this works in like banks and like apparently real world, but I could tell you how it works in a household. I for sure know. I know for a fact. I mean, I could sit there and do the math, but I don't have time for this. The amount that I spend on groceries is 100% more than it was before the pandemic. So I don't know how you're doing math and how you're doing how things are going up and what percentage is going up and going down and quarter over quarter and week over week or where you're getting your statistics from, economists. But if you look, if you economists think about your own household purchasing power at the grocery store, it's 50% of what it was 4 years ago. And also we've got shrinkflation, which means the packages are smaller and/or the number of units inside the package is smaller. So it's even more than that. The math is terrible. So all of that to say, we got this paradox going on right now in that our personal 401 is doing great and our personal household property value is also amazing. Like, if we sold our house, we'd have so much money. Of course, then we'd have to have a place to live, so it does us no good right now. Like, having your 401 go up, having your house go up— yes, we definitely— like, we're investors, we want to have that kind of stuff go up, but it does nothing in our day-to-day finances. And here's what I want you to know. I want you as a human in the United States to feel seen. We, you and me, are 78% of the American GDP. Do you know what that means? It means that for the American economy to do well, we have to be doing well. The American economy is dependent on our Spending. I've known this for a long time. Greg gets all over me about my Amazon purchases, and I'm like, look, if I don't spend money, the economy doesn't do well. I am doing my part to grow the American economy. And it's the truth. It is the truth. All of the money you're going to spend on this President's Day weekend will flow through businesses, but it is the American economy. This is the American economy. Do you know what the other part of the American economy is? Government spending. Where do you think the government gets their money from? Us. They get it from us. It is all from us. It is our going to work every day and putting in a good day's work for our employer that creates something that they put into the marketplace that we buy. And when we buy it, we pay taxes that go to the government, and they use that money, and they use the money from our paycheck to fund other things. that they give back to us. It is all us, you guys. It is all us. And we use all these— and the only people that are not being heard in this whole conversation are the household managers. And the household managers hold the purse strings of the entire American economy. We do. So I want to take you back through— this is the 5th time in my adult I'm about to turn 52. This is the 5th time in my adult life where I've had this reckoning with my own personal finances where I'm like, okay, so if I keep doing what I'm gonna— what I'm doing here, our personal family isn't going to make it. Or in our case now, I mean, we almost own our home, so we're gonna be fine, but we won't be able to do the things we want to do like traveling and taking care of our grandchild and, you know, doing some fun things with our family and generally enjoying Our life, like we we're in our 50s. We want to enjoy our life, and when we enjoy our life, the American economy does better. So I'm thinking back to previous times, and hopefully in one of these times you'll hear your story and understand where the actual problem comes from. And don't worry, I'm not a politician. So at the end, I actually have something that is going to help all of us. So the first one was 2004 to 2005. We had been married ten years. We had two children at that time. They were four and five years old, and they had a whole bunch of medical. Uh, diagnoses. And when you have a 4 and a 5-year-old that are getting a whole bunch of medical diagnoses, nobody knows what it is. Just FYI, if you're like in that, what is the actual name of what is going on with my child? All you know is here's the plumb line of normal, which doesn't exist by the way. Here's how my child is behaving, acting, whatever's happening at school or medically. How are we going to figure out what this is? You don't actually know what it is until the child gets older, like to get an actual— diagnosis unless it's something like Down syndrome. You know it's Down syndrome because you can find the chromosome that is responsible for that. But if it's learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, mood disorders, like any of those things, those are all neurological. It takes much longer to actually get the name of what it is. So in 2004 to 2005, we just had a bunch of non-typical behaviors trying to figure out what are we going to do with these non-typical behaviors. So I went to 110 doctor's appointments in 12 months. And this is the beginning of experiencing invisible work that took me out of the game and lowered my ability to do a lot because I was spending so much time chasing my tail. And at home, we have a lot of invisible work that has not been made visible. Doctor's appointments for a parent who is taking a child take 3 to 4 hours each. Doctor's appointments for you as an adult take, I don't know, an hour. You drive there, you have the doctor's appointment, you go back to work, you go back home. If you have a child, you have to go to school, get the child, take them to the doctor's appointment, have the doctor's appointment, take them back to school, and then do it. So 110 doctor's appointments means there were 110 half days that I needed in order to facilitate this, which is great because I was a stay-at-home mom. Not a problem. I did that. And we were getting all these random diagnoses like Neurological, whatever, like, no, with no answers, no, like, treatment plans, no nothing. So I heard about this little thing called a gluten-free casein-free diet. It's a big thing now, wasn't a big thing in 2004, 2005. Remember, we didn't have Facebook, we didn't have, uh, iPhones at that point. I'm in message boards trying to talk to other women in message boards trying to figure out what to do. So gluten-free casein-free diet, the only place you could buy food that didn't have gluten And casein in it was at Whole Foods, which my husband and I called Whole Paycheck. And we spent $1,000 per month on food that I then created science experiments in our house for 18 months from scratch and spent 20 hours a week making all the food that our kids would eat. Because not only did they not eat gluten and casein, they didn't do eggs and all this other stuff. Now, we had a modicum of success from that, and I don't know, I entertained myself. But that was the first time I really realized that I couldn't just spend willy-nilly. And, and also there were things that were out of my control. There were diagnoses that were out of my control, behaviors that were out of my control, just generally things that were out of my control. The second time that I experienced this out-of-control feeling was 2008. You remember, you remember that little blip in the economy in 2008? Well, my 2004 to 2005 kind of slid into my 2008 And in 2004, 2005, I don't even remember when it was, my parents decided to get divorced. And by the time we got to 2008, my dad was very sick and I became power of healthcare along with my sister. We were co-powers of attorney. And then once we realized you don't want to be co-executors, I became the executor and my sister handled much more of the home things. My sister and I had to plan our father's funeral. And we had to sell our family home. Mind you, you will all probably settle an estate if you have not already. My husband and I are both the oldest in our family, and in my estimation, we will settle a minimum of six estates. My husband and I will be responsible for and settle a minimum of six estates. Those are the ones we know that we are going to be settling. Sometimes you don't know that you're listed as the executor of an estate. Just, you know, little surprise out of nowhere. And it is so rude because your entire life that you're already doing does not stop spinning while you have to also do this other completely full-time job. So 2008, 2009, my father is sick, he passes away, we end up doing the estate in addition to trying to survive that downturn and recession, in addition to the direct sales Company I was a big part of went bankrupt, in addition to the kids' medical needs, in addition to just being a human, right? So we've got all of that going on. And again, this invisible work of settling estate, caring for someone who has a medical condition, selling your family home— most of that was invisible to everyone around me because it was all mental work I was doing, and I was doing it remotely from 4 hours away. The next time I experienced this was 2011 into 2012 when I started this company, Organized 365. I continued down my downward trajectory from 2004 to 2008 to 2011. I just kept sliding down into the bottom of this pit of despair. In December of 2011 was when I finally said, that is enough. I will be sliding no more. If it's going to be, it's up to me. I am changing the future of my personal history. Women in my family live into their 90s, 100s. I was about to turn 40, and I was like, there is no way I am going to continue to live in this reactive, negative, overweight, depressed, debt-ridden life. I just cannot do it anymore. And so I decided to do what Americans do. Americans, we are such a unique breed, and we are a breed. Like, we are, we are just so crazy optimistic, probably have a couple screws loose. And of the books that I've read, when you really think about the founding of America and the fabric of America and how America continues to grow and evolve, we are 99.9% immigrants. I mean, there are very few people who are in the United States who are Native American. I'm just gonna say that we all came here from somewhere else. We were not born here. Someone, someone in your lineage had the risk-taking gene to the extent that they decided to go across an ocean to come and live in this country of a bunch of immigrants. We have always been risk-takers. We're a capitalist society because we don't want anybody telling us what to do. Like, fine, we have to pay for it all, but we also don't want anybody telling us what to do. Like, we like to do what we like to do because we like to do it. So in 2011, when I was out of time, out of money, out of everything, I decided, well, fine, then I'm going to be out of this job. And I quit the job that I had and I came home and I was like, you know what? I am a 4th generation female college graduate. Who can even say that? But more important than that, every single one of those women owned their own businesses, mostly from home. But my great-grandmother, she had a restaurant, she had a floral shop, like she was a business owner. In the Depression. I still like, I wish she was alive so I could talk to her about it. My mother, when I was in 2nd grade, started a business in our basement, and when I was in 8th grade, that business was in 26 states. I traveled with her to Indiana or to Pennsylvania, went to the Hershey factory, thought it was a field trip we were going on. No, she was— we were staying with the woman who was buying her company. She sold her company. Like, this is what I grew up around. Americans are weird. We are just weird. We have unusual histories, we have unusual parents because we're all part of an immigrant, uh, fabric. So I knew in 2012 I wanted to start Organized 365. And I say this often, at the time I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do, what it was going to become, how I was going to make an income at all. I just wanted to make $500 a week in order to replace my teaching salary at the time. But I knew— I knew in my bones that I was meant to do this for the rest of my life. I knew I could talk about organizing for the rest of my life. I had no idea what that would turn into, and I also knew that eventually it would not just be me. And so I speak for American household managers everywhere today as one of you, and that you are part of this Organized 365 story because you are part of The economy that America is built on. And the thing that I have noticed— I'm getting my PhD now because I'm a crazy American and nobody told me I can't, so I'm getting my PhD right now. And I am getting my PhD because there are systems and KPIs and processes inside of government, inside of corporations, inside of schools, but not inside of households. And yet the household is the American economy. But we don't have anything that is shoring us up, that is giving us what we need in order to be great managers and CEOs and COOs of our house. And so I thought, okay, great. Then when was it that we had these systems and structures put in place? It's only been, you guys, like 120 years. And you know where it came from? Manufacturing. Manufacturing. Supply chains and, you know, productivity, being productive, being able to do more with less, being more profitable came from the Industrial Revolution, and that's when we started putting systems and processes in place. Okay, so the 4th time that I ended up in this same situation was 2020. We're not even going to talk about 2020 right now, we don't have that kind of time, but what I will say, and I recognized it as it was happening, That, that experience, as painful as it was, was a game changer because we all around the world collectively experienced one thing at the same time. And that unifying experience, I believe we are going to take with us for the rest of our lives. The fact that we all experienced that immense amount of uncertainty and fear. at one time, and then also like within instance, think about the companies you were following, the state you were part of, the government that you were part of at that time, the action that was immediately taken. I will say the best thing that came out of that experience was the recognition of the American federal government that if they did not support small businesses it would all be over, that small businesses rose to their proper place inside of the American society, and that it was, you know, more than 50% of businesses in the United States are small businesses. And the fact that that was recognized almost instantaneously was a huge win. And I think that the perspective of, you know, the big, huge corporations equated to small businesses was great. Now I want to take that a step further, and we need to think about households, because every single person is part of a household. You are part of a business, or someone in your family is employed, and when you are at work, you're thinking about the benefit of that business because that's where you get your livelihood, that's where you get your paycheck from. And yet you are who is being marketed to. Whatever product or service that you are creating or delivering, you as the American consumer are funding that through your tax dollars or through your consumer purchases. So once you start thinking of it through the consumer— as I was thinking about this this morning, I was like, you know, this is either going to go really well or this is going to go really bad because I may be making visible too many things right now. I'm a thinker. I think about things a lot. But I think that once you make things visible, then you can eliminate them if they're unnecessary, and you could deal with them if they need to be dealt with. So if I recap now, 2004 to 2005, the cost of food was putting my husband and I under, and it was all related to a medical need. Side note, the number one reason that American families declare bankruptcy is because of a medical condition or a medical need. Medical is what people put people in bankruptcy— families. Second, 2008 to 2009, it was my family roles, responsibilities, and the invisible work related to what you want to be doing in a family— caring for family members who are sick and ultimately celebrating their lives when they have passed. Like, that is essential. That is what I want to do as a human, as part of my family. But also, the work is Very much visible for the person doing it, but invisible for everyone else around them. 2011 to 2012 was when I realized that I needed to be part of the solution as a business owner and not part of the problem as just being reactive and waiting for someone to come and rescue me, because newsflash, no one was coming. And in 2020, we all realized how little control we all have. And yet in 2020, what did we all do? Some of us cleaned out our houses, and some of us put up big signs hanging them up in New York City saying, "I don't care how long you make me stay here. I'm not cleaning my bedroom." And a lot of us found our kitchens again. Not me, but some of you. Banana bread and finding yeast and and baking again and going back to roots. So today, I'm going to take us back to that kitchen because the kitchen is where you can immediately. Change the productivity and profitability of your business, but business being your household business. But the only way you can do that is through planning. Here's what happens: we get so overwhelmed as household managers because there are 800,000 million trillion—that's the exact number I counted them—things that we need to do every day, every week, every month, every year. Like we are where the holidays come from. We just had Valentine's Day. A fake made-up holiday, and we went all out on this thing. Like, we just put more and more and more and more on ourselves to do, right? But if you want to change your family economy, you have to stop and you have to plan, and then you have to enact that plan, because otherwise you're just going to keep running on this hamster wheel or running on this treadmill to nowhere. Like, There are enough things on your to-do list that you can keep yourself busy and never stop and never wrestle with this for the rest of your life. You just can if you want to. But the key is to start thinking about your household as the business that it is. It is a business. It is the business of America. So I want you to think that way. Now, I love to— if you're watching on Instagram, you can see the trains above me. If you're watching somewhere else, you can't. I love to take new analogies And make our households not feel like the house we've lived in for 30 years. Like, you know, oh yeah, that's the kitchen, that's the bedroom, that's the whatever. So I want you to think about your kitchen, and we've been talking about food, and I'm sure I'm not the— you're not like, oh my gosh, the food bill is so much higher, I'm so glad Lisa told me. No, you already knew that. Like, you knew that. You've known that at least for a couple months, maybe for a couple of years. I don't know how long you've been wrestling with your food budget, but I guarantee Every single person has. And here's how I typically solve problems. Here's how we all solve problems. When was the last time I had this problem? How did I solve it? Let's go do that. So last time I had this problem was 2020, time before that was 2011, and I tried both times to solve this problem this way and the problem did not get solved. And that's because this solution no longer works for my family. And the solution is, well, you got a meal plan. Got a meal plan. I've done all the meal plans. I've done the Crock-Pot plan, I've done the, the frozen, uh, freezer meal plan, I've done the $5 dinner plan, I've done the gluten-free casein-free plan, I've done the one-pot dinner plan, I've done the making the— we eat these different things on different days. But I've done all the plans and they're all good. And if you are still sitting down to dinner as a family and passing the mashed potatoes, you should do a meal plan and that will definitely help you. That is not helping me. I sat down in October, in November, in December, and January with my household family, and I was like, we are gonna have a meal plan. And I made one. And you know what happened? We bought more groceries and we ate less that week. You know why? We don't eat family dinner anymore. I said it, I said it. We don't sit at a table and pass the mashed potatoes anymore. We don't, and a lot of you don't either. And so we're trying to solve what worked for me as a stay-at-home mom with little kids, today's, today's problem. That's not how my kitchen functions. Now, side note, on Sunday it's like an episode of Blue Bloods. I mean, we've got alcohol and we have, you know, desserts and we have appetizers and prime rib or filets. I mean, it's like you've walked into a 5 star restaurant, and my husband never makes the same thing twice. It's always a brand new recipe, and it costs a lot of money. So every time I've sat down to meal plan with my family— we have one meal per week where we sit down at the table, and sometimes it's every other week— and I have harped on him, and I've been like, you've got to get the cost of this Sunday dinner down. Do you see how much this is costing us? It's so much money. You need to bring it down. Wrong answer. Sunday dinner is when our son might come over, when our mother-in-law always comes over, when leftovers for Monday for Greg's lunch are created, when he gets to do what he's uniquely created to do, which is find some fun new recipe he wants to make for his mom. You know, it's where we have a fire in the fireplace. Like, Sunday dinner is the highlight of our week, and I'm trying to fix my everyday food budget By taking away the highlight of our week, because that's the only meal we actually plan. I need a different plan. I need a different solution. So in order to have a different plan, I think kitchen, I think grocery store, I think meal planning. I need a different paradigm. So here's my paradigm. Your kitchen is a restaurant. Now, there are lots of restaurants. I made a whole list. There's my list of restaurants we could have. Doesn't matter. A whole list of restaurants that you can have— Chinese and Mexican and Italian and all these different kinds of restaurants. But unless you're at the Cheesecake Factory, the menu is limited. And even at the Cheesecake Factory, you can't get everything that you want. And yet when we go to the grocery store, we're like, oh, I had Korean one day 10 years ago, so maybe I'll add that to my cart now and bring it home. Oh, I didn't eat it and I threw it away. Shocker. Because I don't eat that way. Like, that's not the way we eat. So what kind of a restaurant are you running? Obviously on Sunday we're running a very high-end restaurant, and truth be told, very little food goes to waste on Sunday. It may be an expensive meal, but it is an eaten meal, whereas there's a whole lot of other stuff that we buy that we don't eat. So I thought about it. I thought, well, first of all, I feel guilty that we're not sitting down, passing the mashed potatoes, having a sit-down dinner, because, you know, all the research behind that, blah blah blah. But we're just not. So what are we doing? What kind of a restaurant do we have? And I thought, you know what we have? We have a diner. We have a made-to-order, short-order chef diner. And also, like, Abby, my daughter, cooks. My husband cooks. I cook. We've got the grandson who's 2 and a half. He bellies up to the counter and he, you know, we're feeding him all night long. From 4:30 to 6 o'clock, the kitchen is open and we're making anything and everything. And we're all eating differently because we all have different wellness goals, different food preferences, different food allergies. And so we stock the refrigerator with all of those things. The second way in which our personal kitchen functions is we are a convenience store. I'm grabbing things in the morning, we're all grabbing things in the morning on our way to work. We have different lunches, no one eats the same lunch, and we all have different preference for snacks. So we have all these different ways that our kitchen functions. So when I go and I look at my food budget, I need to be stocking my kitchen, the supply chain for our restaurants, for convenience stores, diners, and a high-end meal one per week. That is what I need to be doing. So I created a new kitchen productivity and profitability blitz We'll be doing this March 4th through the 8th. You can go to Organize 365 right now, sign up, you'll get the printables right away. And I'm going to walk you through the process in 5 days of changing your mindset from how do we do meal planning and grocery shopping to how do we actually use this kitchen, what restaurants do we have, and then what does each person need. So once you figure out what people like and don't like— This is an all-skate, you guys. I'm old. So when I was in the '80s, we used to go roller skating for fun and we would have an all-skate. That meant everybody came on the floor and roller skated at the same time. Everyone in your household is going to have homework. Everyone's getting their own sheet and you're going to have to do— you as the household manager will facilitate, but everyone needs to give their opinion and everyone needs to create their own restaurant. So they're going to fill out what they like and what they don't like. And then throughout this blitz, everyone is going to make some decisions. What is your breakfast go-to and what is your alternative? Nobody needs more than 2 breakfast options. I mean, unless you're homeschooling and working from home all the time and you are a passionate chef, nobody needs more than 2 breakfast options. I've had the same exact breakfast for 12 years. I'm not saying it's great, but we got to simplify somewhere. So breakfast. What is your lunch option? 3 to 5, that's all you need. And you don't need all 5 every single week. You know, we can have some rotation in here. Dinners, we're going to do all together in a different one, but then snacks is individual. So everyone in your family should know what is their breakfast, what is their lunch, what are their snacks, and then how often do we need to buy those? We are going to the grocery store too often. Some things you need to buy weekly. Produce, meat. A lot of things you could buy twice a month, once a month, every 6 weeks. The longer you go in between purchasing, the less impulse purchasing you do, and the more you actually use what you have and get down to the things that aren't necessarily your favorites. So the kitchen productivity and profitability blitz is going to help you change how you view how you stock your kitchen. It's not about grocery shopping, it's not about meal planning. You own a business, the business that powers all of America, and this business has a supply chain, and that supply chain has a clothing supply chain, a food supply chain. All of these things come into your household and then go out for your customers, which are your family members. And the more you could start thinking about your household as a business The more— the better you'll be with your money, the farther it will go, and the more that you can put into place. So I am, as I told you, I'm pursuing my PhD, and my goal with this PhD is to really figure out how these simple processes and procedures inside of Organized 365 have helped people become more profitable and productive in their homes, and how we can generalize that to the general population and put some of these structures In homes like we have in government, in factories, in corporations, and in schools. You would not imagine sending your child to school if there was no plan or no structure, right? But 150 years ago, there wasn't. Kids went to one-room schoolhouses, and there was one teacher that took care of all of those children, and there was no administration, there was no HR department. Like, all of these things have been created in the last 100 years. But they have not been created at home. And we don't need a lot of management because remember, we're Americans and we like to do things our own way. But also, why is it as soon as you leave your household of origin and you start your own household, like, you're like making fire with sticks? Like, you don't have any school supplies, you don't have any KPIs, you don't have any processes and procedures. There's no rails for your train to run on. Like, there's nothing. You have to create it all from scratch. And, when you create it all from scratch, your only example of what you should be doing is what you see in the media, on TV, in social media, and in magazines, which is perfection. And then, you, no training whatsoever, are like, okay, that's the goal. Perfection. A done to-do list and labeled containers. It's BS. Nobody has this. Nobody can. It's impossible. It's an unattainable expectation. And yet, we have no other example. And so that's what we keep trying to do. So that's what I'm trying to do in my PhD is to, you know, make visible what's actually happening inside of these households. We are drowning over here. Hello? And you are just throwing more water into our boat and going, ah, they'll figure it out. The household will figure it out. They're not allowed to go bankrupt. Like, what are you gonna do? Fire your staff? They're your family. And also, if you do, like a divorce, you just have more complexity, more money, more problems. Like, there's no getting out of it. This is your life. You're not allowed to quit this job and start another job. No, like this is the one you're in, and Organize 365 is here. Organize 365 is here to help you with this. Now I'm done with my monologue, TED Talk, press conference, whatever we're going to end up calling this. The Organize 365 team is small and yet mighty, and they have been following me on all of these different channels because I can't like be scrolling while I'm talking. And they have pulled everything over here into a document that I'm now going to look at and address so I can call it out for those of you. So if you're on Instagram, you'll know what they're saying on Facebook or inside of the app, etc. So some of the things that people have been saying as I've been on my little monologue, uh, yes, we are not home at the same time. I wish we could have a meal plan and eat the same too. Waiting for that solution. I'm all over this blitz. Great idea. I'm sure that we can all use this. Wow, please. Meal planning is my nemesis. You guys, if you want to meal plan and you do meal plan, there are like a bazillion trillion opportunities for you out there. So go Google them, find the person that resonates with you, and do it. What I find is when the programs out there don't work— like for example, Organize 365 used to make a planner. We don't anymore because there are thousands of planner companies. You can find the exact planner that you want. However, very few people actually teach you how to plan. So Organize 365 is a school, like we teach you how to plan, but you can use any planner. I'm going to teach you how to think about your kitchen as a restaurant, but you can use any meal planning service, whether it's a paid prepared one or an online blogger or podcaster that you want to follow. Like, you can find the person that will help you, but you first need to reorient your brain around the fact that It's not just about meal planning. It's not just about having a planner. It's about being able to plan and being able to see your kitchen as it is functioning now, not how it used to function or how you wish it would function. Uh, thank goodness. How do you do this, Lisa? I've been struggling with this for the past few weeks. I will tell you my weird party trick is that I am able to feel or know what is happening in the American family. Like, I just know I've started recently. We've just done our third one. You can find them anywhere you're watching this video. We're doing these weekly forecasts where I'm looking at the seven days ahead and saying, "Hey, by the way, Valentine's Day and the Super Bowl is coming." As soon as I did a forecast and I said that, people are like, "I totally forgot there was a Super Bowl." It's just there's so much going on. It's hard for us all to stay on top of it. I need some quick easy breakfast ideas. Now here's the thing, I'm not giving you all the ideas in this blitz. I'm asking you the questions so you can figure out what you want to do, but then inside of the community where we're going to do the blitz, you guys will share your own recipes and ideas back and forth and we will crowdsource. I'm not your guru, I'm your facilitator, I'm your teacher, I'm motivational, I I'm organizational, I will help you be productive, I will coordinate things, but the actual how-to, that's where you get to shine. That's what's unique about you and your family and how you're going to do this. Great blitz, I'm looking forward to this. The trick in my house is who's in charge of the getting the weekly meat and fresh produce. Until now, it's been a fun family activity. Yeah, I will say that our grocery budget got out of control because during the pandemic Grocery stores were still open, and that became Greg's social of choice. And he started shopping at, um, 4 different stores, which he is still doing. Now it's really hard to— now he's like, okay, well, I don't want to shop at 4 stores anymore. But now he has this 4-year-old habit of shopping at 4 different stores, and he knows each store, what they're good at. And the man will not use a ClickList. He won't use a ClickList. He won't have anything delivered. He doesn't have social media accounts. Uh, which is fine. I mean, it is what it is. I know you don't look at the comments, but hi Lisa, Happy New Year! Hi, Happy New Year! Yes, this is the invisible work. More comments. This is so good. Yes, thank you. Um, and no, you don't have to tip. I know you don't have to tip, but I mean, every time I don't, I feel— I will tell you, this over-tipping culture, what it has done for me Is I just go less places. I'm just saying, if you added on a tipping option and now I have to either tip or not, I definitely will tip and then I won't come back. So if you've added that, I'll just— and I spend a lot of money, so you should know that. If you've added tipping and you didn't have it, you're like, oh great, this is how we are compensating for our employees. Um, because I know that's what you're doing. That's how you're getting your employees paid through my extra tip instead of paying them from your revenue. Figure out how to be more profitable without needing my tip because I'm not coming anymore. So you're getting the tip that day, but you've lost a customer. And now that I've said that, go back and look and see if that's what's happening in your business. And that's what I mean. I am such a jigsaw puzzle of a person. I have a teaching degree. I'm getting a PhD. I've written my own law case, so I've studied law, but I have zero law degree. I own a profitable business inside of Cincinnati. I've been part of 20 different direct sales companies. I've started many companies. I've adopted my children. I've been through the infertility journey. I've helped people get kids on IEPs. Like, I have a vast array of the amount of information I know. I've been in political campaigns before, although Organized 365 is apolitical, areligious. And I say that because I have a religion, I have a political party, but I don't use my company for those because I want everyone to be part of Organized 365. I see the benefits of all political parties. I could see a lot of different religions and, and how they're doing what they're doing. I don't believe you have to do what I am doing in order for us to be in relationship and to benefit from community together. So I say that because I understand what it takes to have a profitable business. I understand the weight and responsibility of payroll. I understand taking out a loan to pay your team. I understand giving out bonuses when you don't have The profitability to keep up morale. Like, I understand business, trust me. I know how to be a profitable business owner. I understand education, and by education I mean I understand teaching children until they actually understand and internalize the concept that you're teaching, not check the box, move them on to the next grade. That's a whole— I have a podcast, by the way, if you didn't know. I've talked about all of these things. So I understand education at a teaching level. I understand business at a profitability level, and I pull those— that knowledge and that understanding into our household economy. And that's why I say what you think is working in business, this tipping thing, I'm telling you how the homeowner is viewing it. We're gonna do it and then we're not coming back. So if you can start thinking about how you are spending money How you— I will often say to the team, I'm like, you know what, and we just stopped sending emails cold turkey about a month ago. Now we just send one a week, and we used to send, I don't know, 15 a week. It was ridiculous, so many emails. I said, nobody's reading emails anymore. I'm not. Are you reading? I asked the team, you reading? Nobody. Nobody's reading emails. Not reading emails? Great, we're going to stop sending them. Nobody's reading emails anymore, and yet emails are what brought us through the pandemic. They're what grew our company was because we were so good at email marketing. If you're still doing email marketing, it's not working anymore. Check it. It's not because I know what we're doing. You know what I'm doing? Buying off of Instagram stuff I don't even need. By the time it gets here, I'm like, I bought this. I don't even remember buying it. It's terrible, but it is working. I'm not selling that way yet, but I am noticing my own behavior. Notice your own behavior and then apply that into business. Um, Okay, as a small business owner of an ice cream store, my staff appreciates the tips because they make minimum wage. Sad face. I would venture to guess if you raised the price of your ice cream to match the tips that you bring in, and then you do a campaign to say our employees are worth It is, as a business, it is important to us that our employees know how much they're going to be making each week and that their families are taken care of. And so we have raised our prices, but we have eliminated tipping. You know what'll end up happening? They're still going to get the tips, and your customers are going to be happier because they know that you're taking care of your employees, and they really now like patroning your company. and they are going to pass tips across the counter because there's no tip jar because they've always tipped and they know their ice cream is going to cost whatever and they can afford it and I as a business owner and a human would then only buy my ice cream there. I'm just telling you what— think about not— stop looking at the bottom line and start thinking about how you want to interact with businesses and how you want to feel when you're giving that money over. We know that our employees are going to be taken care of because of this dollar amount. The other thing about raising prices— and Organized 365 raised their prices. I mean, somebody were like, hey, uh, you, you raised your prices in the last 4 years. You're right, I did. Because our physical products were made 6 years ago, we had never raised our product prices. When I started selling those products, we were selling them from my home. I now have a warehouse. I have an HR manager. We have a team, we have inventory, like we didn't have any of those things 6 years ago, it was time to raise our prices and also there's a lot more you get in Organized 365 than just the actual physical product but getting the physical product was harder. It was time to raise our prices so we did. I'm not saying not to raise prices if you are a business owner but there needs to be a reason behind it, it can't just be because everybody is doing it and if your ice cream is priced below what it needs to be priced at in order for your employees to make what they need to make, then your ice cream needs to go up. In price. And when you raise prices, and this did happen here, you will lose customers. You won't get the same number of customers. That's absolutely true. But when you do the math, there is a tipping point where it makes sense. And then you also, as the business owner, will know, I don't have to worry about if people tip or don't tip. Because if they don't tip, and then your customers or your employees don't have enough money because it was a low tip day or a low volume day, I mean, how do you feel inside? You feel like crap. Because business owners are about profitability, but they're also humans. Like, they're not robots. Like, they care about their employees, and they want people to do business with them because we're all just playing business because we really like it. Like, it's really fun. And when business isn't fun and it becomes a job, then you probably shouldn't be the business owner anymore. So I think, I think that we are— I don't think there's— I could do a whole nother, uh, State of the Union on this. I don't think there is enough good information out there for actual small business owners who are growing businesses profitably. Plenty of information about how to start and grow a corporation, a bazillion trillion million resources for the unicorn thing where you're going to start something and sell it for a trillion dollars and become Elon Musk. First of all, it's not going to happen to like almost anybody, and secondly, all the resources are focused on that and venture-backed and all that. Most, most companies in the United States, and I'm listening to the history of Macy's, the history of Hershey's chocolate in Business Wars, it's a wondery podcast, it's so great. These businesses, all these business owners, starter of Macy's, 4 failed attempts before he started Macy's. Like, the business owners fail and fail and fail, and then they get product-market fit, and then they start to grow. And you know what we don't have? Any resources whatsoever. There are some resources to get you started in business, to hire your first person, amount of resources to get you to $1 million. Once you're a $1 million business owner, nothing. You got nothing. Nobody to talk to, no resources, no courses. You're on your own. Like, you want to talk about being isolated? You're on your own. And you know what I finally decided? I don't care because I'm not going to do business the way it was done anyway. I'm going to do it how a female would do it. I'm gonna do it how a schoolteacher would do it, I'm gonna do it how a homeowner would do it, which is definitely different than everybody else is doing it. But it is hard, it is hard being a business owner because there aren't enough outlets for it. I was thinking about the other day, I was like, I should start that. Not yet, I'm not starting that yet, but you know, I'm gonna work till I'm 80 because Martha Stewart's 80 and Dan Sullivan's 78, I think, and they're still going strong. So, you know. I've got 28 more years in me so maybe I'll do that but when you are that small business owner and you don't have anybody to ask, ask yourself, there is a way, there is always, always, always a way as a business owner to have a win-win-win-win. It should be a win for you as the owner of the business, it should be a win for you as an employee of the business, it should be a win for your employees of the business, it should be a win for your customer, And it should be a win for your mission, vision, and values. And if you don't get 5 wins across the board, keep thinking because you will come up with the right answer. If you have win-win, loss-win-win, don't do it. Just wait until you have 5 wins. You'll do less things, but the things you do will resonate so deeply with your customers and with your audience that you'll have more opportunities to do more. So you can do it. Everybody can do it. I love, if it's going to be, it's up to me. And that is not originally mine. When I was in 8th grade, my mom bought me a DVD set. I come from a long line of nerds. And it was, if there's— where there's a will, there's an A. I had to watch this video over and over and over again. I was diagnosed with dyslexia later, recently diagnosed with ADHD, both of which would be why I did not get straight A's as a student. But my mother was a straight A student. And so she was like, you're going to be straight A. So I had to watch this, you know, if, if it's going to be, it's up to me. Where there's a will, there's an A. Like, it was all in that tape, but I don't know who that person was, but that's where I got that saying. That's where that comes from. Ever since you reviewed the book The Secret History of Home Economics, I've been trying to think about my home as a business. Your insights are brilliant, and I could see how this mindset shift will save will change how I live. Thank you, that is such a great book, The Secret History of Home Economics. I just referred it to someone else the other day. I do have a podcast reviewing that as well, but it's, it's a great listen, um, eye-opening of how home economics was the science field. It was the way women actually got a college degree. Truth be told, my grandmother— my great-grandmother had a teaching degree because you could only get a teaching degree when she graduated. She never did teach. She's the one that owned the floral store and the restaurant and all that. My grandmother got a home economics degree. My mother got a degree, um, in art, and I actually got a family and consumer sciences degree from Miami University, but it translated to an early childhood and elementary education degree. Uh, great to see you, Lisa. Interesting takes on the issues of the times. Well, if you're new, I have a podcast. And I've been podcasting for 9 and a half years, at least one, usually 2 episodes a week, so obviously not lacking for words. I just thought I would try this as like a State of the Union address just to see. I don't know, just throwing it out there. Good morning. We're also feeling the pinch. It's coming from every angle for sure. So true. Once the media tells us we're okay, we should do a good look around. Amen. I mean, I don't know. I'm probably gonna get in trouble for everything that I'm sharing out there. And that's the other thing, you know, I do share probably too much. I'm probably too vulnerable, but I do it anyway because I just can't not. I just can't not. I know, I know that I'm taking a risk. I know that I put myself out there, but I also know that some people are going to hear this message and no one's ever said this to them before. No one ever told them that they are where the American economy came from. No one ever says it's okay not to sit down and have a family meal. No one ever says you can like both political parties. No one— like, there are a lot of things that I say that you maybe have never heard before because People don't usually say these things, and when you say it, there's so much pushback that you're like, okay, fine, I'll just stop talking. And I'm not going to stop talking because I believe that together we are so much better. And I believe that I've never had a bad conversation with another human. I, I just haven't. I'll talk to you until it's a good conversation, until it's win-win, because I feel like humans are awesome. But we're so busy scrolling and so busy in isolation feeling like we're communicating, but we're not actually communicating. And it's the communicating together that really helps us all feel better and also helps us think about new ways to solve problems. It's really, really hard to solve problems by yourself. It's really, really easy to solve problems when you have people who are open-minded and collaborative together. You could solve a lot of problems very quickly. Uh, the other day I stopped for coffee and a cookie for the first time in over a year, and it cost $11 before tip. Forget that, it's so much cheaper to buy the nice coffee and make it at home. Yeah, we have, we have changed our— the way that we do things because we had to, and then when we go back to the old way of doing things, it's so cost prohibitive now we don't want to do it anymore. So, um, just all things to be mindful of. Thank you so much, Lisa, for your heartfelt expressions. Just love you and your team and all you do. Thanks for inviting us to all be together with no judgment, feeling the love. Good, I'm so glad you're feeling it. I love how you think. You helped me sit in a room with brilliant minds. Oh, that's so cool. I appreciate your perspective. Thank you for interacting with us in this way. I love the win-win answer. And I love your insights. Really enjoyed the forecast too. Thank you. All right, I could stay on here all day because I just like talking and I like talking to you. So if you'd like to continue the conversation, whatever platform you're on— actually, we're streaming this on Facebook and I am never on Facebook, so I will check under the streaming of this, but I'm over on Instagram. It's just happier on Instagram for me. I just like Instagram. I respond to all my own Instagram DMs. If you're inside of the app, you know that whenever I post inside of the app, it is me. No one ever posts as me. Uh, if the company is posting, they always post as Organized 365. So if you see Lisa Woodruff posting anywhere, it is me, and I respond to all those comments personally. I'd love to hear what you have to say with this. I don't know where this is going to go, this little State of the Union that I made, but I do know that we are going to be starting this new blitz. It's going to be March 4th through the 8th, and then it will be available on demand. So if you See this later, don't worry. Go to Organize 365 and you can find all the details. Thank you everyone, have a blessed day.