Episode 498: A Tale of Two Triumphs

Somebody else start.

Hello everyone, welcome to Winey Palooza Wednesday.

We have Ella here for a few minutes because Ella has a column, blog, whatever you want to call it, every Tuesday. What do we call it, Ella?

Teenage Tuesday.

What do we— is it a column or a blog?

It's a blog.

Okay, Ella has—

although I guess it's not separate, so you could call it a column.

Okay, Ella has a column every Tuesday called Teenage Tuesday, and tell them what you talked about this week.

This week I talked about my lessons from the play, and I talked about how I really learned how important group work is by doing the play, and how much more gratifying group work is than working by yourself, and I— what else did I talk about?

Why, why is it more gratifying to work as a team?

Because it's not just you who's benefiting from something. You get to see how your work benefits other people in real time.

And, um, I would say your father and I couldn't be more proud of you.

You did an awesome job.

Uh, Ella performed in not only 3 plays, but how many play rehearsals did you do during the week for like the younger kids. You did shows during school.

Oh, we did 2.

So 5 shows.

And there was a dress rehearsal, and there were rehearsals till 7 every night, and there were 2 parties. Uh, you were pretty busy.

Just a little bit.

So we are so proud of you. Are you proud of yourself?

Yes.

And Ella got to be the student director. Not only was she in the play with multiple parts, but she was also the student director. And it was just an amazing experience to watch you do all of that.

Thank you.

What did you think about being the director?

I actually really liked it. I liked keeping track of everything. I liked learning how direction works. I liked getting to see how everything came together.

Your director said that you could have run the show by yourself.

I think she's giving me a little too much credit. But maybe like 60% of it.

Did you know everyone's lying?

Most of them.

Most of them. Well, you did an amazing job and we're super proud and we're going to talk about you and Lily. So you are dismissed.

Bye.

And we will keep going.

Thank you for joining us on Wine Down Wednesday.

Thank you for your Teenage Tuesday contribution every week. We appreciate you. We're putting you to work and we're using your writing skills.

Yes.

So, um, my— I'm in my pajamas. I decided to put my pajamas on. I went upstairs to change into a nice top. I was wearing a sweatshirt and I'm like, I'm gonna put on a nice top. And honey, you see what I ended up doing?

I came home to pajamas.

He's like, why do you—

It's cognitive dissonance. I can't process it because she did her makeup. But she's wearing pajamas.

I was wearing—

which normally never happens. I was normally— we normally don't get makeup and pajamas together.

I was wearing makeup.

Yes.

I just added more.

You added more makeup and pajamas.

I was— so by 9 o'clock on Wednesday nights, you see that I'm yawning every week.

Yes.

Um, in my defense, my dog has not been letting me sleep. Yeah. And, um, it gets dark at like 5 o'clock now.

Yes.

So it is pajama time.

Okay.

And bedtime.

All right.

I'm ready to get in my bed.

Okay.

But first we have to talk.

Yes, we have to talk.

First we get to talk.

There you go.

So I went to write my topic of the week and I said, how can you write about this when you had an amazing weekend? You have to talk about your amazing weekend. You have to talk about your amazing daughters and you have to talk about stuff that you and your daughters learned along the way.

Yes.

So came out of it. So sometimes I have to pause what I was about to write about. I started to write and I said, no, what are you doing? Like, stay in the moment and write about what's going on in your life, which is how this all started. So what a weekend. What a weekend. How do you feel about the weekend?

It was amazing.

I'm still thinking about it.

Yes.

Um, Lily is very sad because so football cheer ended. I'm trying so— I'm trying so hard not to yawn.

Okay, working.

Football cheer season ended. She had her banquet yesterday, and her other cheer team has their last competition this weekend. So she was very sad on the way to her last practice. And, um, it has been quite the fall with two cheer teams.

Yes. And last weekend she had a cheer competition while Ella had a play.

I was doing that next. Okay, sorry, you're rushing me along.

I'm not rushing you, take as long as you want.

So, um, Ella had two cheer teams, all— Lily had two cheer teams all fall, and Ella had the play all fall. So it was a really busy fall. And my friend wrote on my post, because I obviously posted about all the stuff that happened this weekend, and she was like, the girls are keeping you busy and distracted.

Yes.

And you can't miss Max. And I'm like, well, it, it's interesting that it doesn't matter how busy I am that I still think about Max and I still miss Max, but the girls are doing an excellent job distracting me.

Yeah.

So let's talk about my fabulous girls and what Seth and I learned.

Yes. So I got my notes ready.

Oh, I forgot to read yours. Were we gonna post yours too?

I don't know, you told me to be prepared. I am prepared, honey.

I'm so sorry I forgot to read it. Anyways, Seth wrote something too that we may or may not be posting. I totally forgot. But, um, okay, so we know that Ella had the play. We know that Ella did an awesome job. And Lily had a competition. Her team had a competition. And not only did they win their division, not only did they win grand champs, they went— won Grand Champs of the entire day. So that was pretty amazing. Yes, I thought they did better than they've ever done.

They're doing awesome.

And their coach keeps making the routine harder. So every time I show up, there's more stuff added to the routine, and I'm like, these girls just keep up with all of these changes and amaze me.

Yes.

So they are showing me— my daughters are showing me that their hard work every single day pays off. They're showing me that if we put in the work, we get the results. Because Ella got the results of an amazing play. Lily got the results of grand champions. Hard work pays off.

Yes.

And this one behind me over here, this amazing man behind me, uh, has been putting in like 12-hour days is working so hard, and his hard work is paying off.

Yes, it is.

There's nothing like— I'm not saying I'm not contributing, so I know you're all gonna write and say you do it too. Uh, he is, is the— how do I explain? Mary Breadwinner, thank you for 5 people college, multiple employees. Yes, you're crushing it. Thank you. You are, you are having a great week. Yes, you're crushing it. Yes, and I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Okay, as Ella wrote about, you can go read Teenage Tuesday at whinyplousa.com. You can go read my blog from today at whinyplousa.com. They're all there, what Ella wrote about and what I wrote about. Is teamwork is the dream work, is what I said. And when you put, okay, so the thing with cheerleading, the thing that I had to explain to multiple moms and girls is that when somebody is missing from cheer practice, it is very different than when somebody's missing from a different practice. Because there's all these formations and there's all these lifts in these groups, so they're called stunt groups, and there's all these moving parts, and if you're missing a girl, it messes up the whole thing.

Right, like sometimes, depending on the girl, if that girl's missing, they can't practice at all. They can't do the routine at all. And there are some girls they can practice without, but most of them they can't.

Well, and not only that, but even if you're not a flyer, even if you're not a base, the base lifts the girl, the flyer goes in the air, The back is, is— you've got the two sides in the back. So even if you're not someone in the stunt group, even if you're somebody spotting, you're still in formation, right? So you're still practicing where does everybody go in every time you move.

Yes.

So it's really hard for them when girls are missing, and they've been very frustrated along the way because I mean, we were a prime issue. I mean, Lily had another cheer team, so Lily would— it was stressful for me. It was more stressful for me than Lily. Lily is like, it is what it is. I felt bad. I felt bad having her leave one team early. I felt bad that she was late to the other team. Lily dealt with it better than I did. Yes, it is what it is. So thank you to her coaches for working with her so that she could be on both teams. That is some amazing understanding coaches letting her do that.

Yes.

So the teamwork in cheerleading is unbelievable. It's like, it's like no other. And then the play, my dad was like, how many moving parts were there in that? So we got the cheer teams moving, we got the play constantly, people are in and out. I just couldn't believe that they all knew exactly when to come on stage. They all knew exactly when to leave. Like, the flawless fluidity of their teamwork was like unbelievable.

Yes, that's called practice.

And you just have to realize when you're on and when you're not on.

Yeah, and a lot of them were on a lot because they played multiple parts. So yeah, dressing room, change, run back, get in the next scene, go back, change, get in the next scene.

Lots of changing.

Yep.

Lots of coming on and off the stage. I thought it was unbelievable.

They did a great job.

So for those of you who don't know, Seth went to Syracuse and majored in drama, right?

Yep.

Was that the degree?

Yep, theater.

What was the degree called?

Bachelor of Science in acting.

Okay, Mr. Acting Degree. What is your critique of the play?

I thought they did a really good job.

Other than your daughter, who was your favorite part?

Aw, that's not fair.

I mean, I loved them all.

I thought the King of Dictionopolis played by Matthew Harrington was my favorite other part.

I mean, Matthew is unbelievable. He's unbelievable. Who's Matthew gonna be in the musical, El?

William Shakespeare.

Okay, that's Ella's prediction.

William Shakespeare, you've heard it here. Let's see if she's right.

But I don't precast the show if anyone from South is watching this.

Ella Rae, am I gonna get you to try out for the musical?

No.

That's a whole nother topic. Okay. There are gonna be some bumps along the way. Okay. So here is what I want to tell every single mother and father out there. Okay? We have crazy days. We have busy weekends. We have busy weekdays. Everything is not going to be flawless during your day. So if we just know that and expect that and know that there's gonna be hiccups and bumps, then we can be prepared to ride those bumps better. I think that I would say that I did not do a good job riding the bumps. I think there are plenty of days where I feel flexible, I feel adaptable, I feel easygoing, I feel like I'm doing a good job. I don't feel like— I did not feel that way enough on Saturday.

I think we're too time pressured too much of the time. I think that we're rushing too much.

I think that, um, I think I was too hard on myself, number one. I think that I was trying to beat the clock all day. I felt like I was racing. I don't like the feeling of racing against the clock. I think there's got to be better I need to focus on that for a topic to help myself deal with time pressure better.

Yes.

Um, and getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning doesn't help either. The constant getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning, I feel like I need more sleep. Um, I guess the answer to that is to go to bed earlier. But, um, yeah, we were up at 6 and Lily needed to be there at 7:45 and You know, the first hiccup started at 7 in the morning when I needed to go drop her off and she can't find her cheer sneakers. And I'm like, "For the love of God, how many times have I told you to put your cheer sneakers in your bag?" Every single parent watching this has told their kid where to put something and it doesn't mean your kids listen. I'm like, "You take your cheer sneakers off, you put them in your cheer bag. You have 2 separate cheer bags." Cheer sneaker 1, cheer sneaker 2, pom-poms, hair bows— put them in your darn bag. Why are we ever looking for anything? So I'm panicking because we have to go and we can't find her cheer sneakers, and I'm pissed. So I did not handle that calmly. I did get angry. I didn't give Lily Grace, and I was rushing. You know, from cheer seekers to the competition going way longer than you and I anticipated. They were way behind.

Yeah, they were an hour behind.

They were an hour behind. We got home—

well, we got home way after I planned, which caused you to rush all over again.

Yes. And you know, I don't recommend stopping at Wingstop for food. Um, Wingstop Nothing against you, but like, go through— like, why wouldn't I go through a drive-through? You're rushing, you want to get home, you have more stuff to do. Why are you stopping at Wingstop to wait for an order? Like, that wasn't good planning. So there were bumps. I don't think I did the best, but we got through the day together. Um, we got everywhere we needed to go, everything got done that needed to get done. And I'm going to make another recommendation to all of us because we all do too much. Don't sign up to make food for the cast when you know when you're not going to be home. So that's when you sign up for something that you can pick up.

Yeah.

So you pick up a fruit tray, you pick up a cookie tray, you make stuff the day before. I think the day before I was busy, so I couldn't have. But, um, don't sign up to make meat for tacos. Like, that wasn't thought— like, think things through.

Yes.

And be organized and know that if you're not going to be home, you're not going to have time to make something, right? And then you're not— and then you're going to make yourself stressed because you signed up to make something.

Yes.

Silly, silly mama. Silly mama. So I definitely could have I could have avoided bumps by staying calmer from the sneakers. So what I thought—

together stuff the night before, get her stuff ready the night before.

Yeah, get her stuff ready the night before. And like, when you can't find something, a perfect example of how I could have found that, how I could have handled that, was drop Lily off, come home, and then look for the sneakers.

And we did end up finding the sneakers.

Well, I found the sneakers.

Yeah, you found—

I came home and found the sneakers, and, um, I knew that was going to happen. So if I know— if I know that I have time to look for the sneakers, then don't be upset and just know that you will come home and look for them. Yes, right. So there's a lot of things that I could have done differently, I'm just saying. And I think that when I talk things through like this and I reflect and I have self-awareness then I do better the next time. Yes, I think that's how I tend to do it.

You debrief.

I'm debriefing. Yes, I'm debriefing. I went to a training today and the woman said that we have to spend time reflecting to have the self-awareness piece, and we can be a better therapist to our clients, to people, when we understand our own stuff. So she definitely got me thinking that reflecting like this is super helpful. So not only did we learn about overcoming challenges in a day, in a busy, crazy day, and you all understand this, um, we also saw our kids gain some amazing leadership skills.

Yes.

So Ella gained leadership skills through being a director, and Lily did it through being captain of 2 cheer teams.

Yes.

I mean, Lily loves to be helpful. Ella is like the most organized person. Ella, you probably had everybody organized. I can only imagine how great of a job Ella did directing that play. I wish I could have seen it. And last but not least, so that I can let my husband talk, is you got to practice. You gotta practice whatever it is you want to master. It takes a ton of practice. So they showed me that, they continue to show me that, and I'll shut up so that you can talk.

Okay, so I put together some— as I was watching the play for the second time, I had— I'm like, there's some really good life and business lessons in this play, The Phantom Tollbooth. Um, so I prepared a couple of them. How long do you want me to talk for?

I don't know.

You want 2 minutes? You want 20 minutes?

Um, 8 minutes? 8 minutes? 5 minutes? 8 minutes?

Somewhere in between. Okay, so lesson number 1 is if you stop thinking or stop paying attention, you end up in the Doldrums. So the Doldrums are a place in The Phantom Tollbooth where they— Milo finds out he ends up because because he's not thinking and he's not paying attention. And then he ends up in the doldrums where they do nothing and where life is not very good. So you have to— and any issues I've ever had in my business have been because I wasn't thinking or I wasn't paying close enough attention. I wasn't paying attention enough to the details. So pay attention so that you do not end up in the doldrums.

I like that.

Thank you. All right, I don't know if I'm gonna do 8 minutes.

I'll do 3. I'll do 3.

Honey, how many lessons I didn't look at the total thing. There is a character in The Phantom Tollbooth called the Humbug, and the Humbug is exactly what you would think someone who would go around saying like, "Ah, humbug!" is. Life and leadership lesson from the Humbug: ego is expensive. So the Humbug is confident and wrong a lot of the time, and he's very confidently wrong. So The humbug shows up in businesses like, "We've always done things that way. That's just the way it's done. This is just what we do." And someone guessing but not having all the facts— the humbug often didn't have all the information but would confidently, loudly tell everybody he knew what was going on and he knew what was going to happen and be wrong about it. So gather all of the facts, or as much as you need, before you make a decision and be optimistic as opposed to pessimistic because As you have said on the show multiple times, optimism is healthy for you. People live longer, you live happier lives than if you're pessimistic.

So wait, Lauren has a comment for you.

I like this talk and I like your husband's tie, it's cool.

Thank you, Lauren.

All right, so humbug, ego is expensive. And then I'll give you one more. Um, so one of the things that I was The second— I'm watching the show and I'm seeing the end and I'm watching the whole thing. And at the second time, you were asking me questions about which character, which part would I like the best, who would I want to play. And I realized that a lot of the characters in theatricals have no arc. They don't change at all. Like, they're the same at the beginning and they're the same at the end, which isn't as much fun to play as an actor. There's no emotional journey for some of them. So, the lesson is in Milo's return home, he gets better by having the adventure. He comes home a different person than when he left because he changed through the journey. So, you can only— Steve Jobs used to say, you can only connect the dots in reverse. So, you have to look at, reflect, like you were talking about, back on your day, your month, your year, your life, and go, how are all these things helping me to become a better person, a better leader, So Milo changes by overcoming the adversities he goes through, through the journey, and then is able to tackle the next thing better. So how can you use what's happened in your life or your day to make you stronger and better for next time?

I love that. Give us more. Well, uh, what else do you got?

Well, some of it was from— is, um, okay, so there is a character played by one of Ella's dear, dear, dear friends in the show called Toc the Watchdog. And I love Toc because Toc— and this is a business lesson— Toc guards time, and she is very, very mad at Milo for wasting time and literally killing time. So the business lesson is to treat your time like it's an inventory. Oh yeah, like it's your product.

Yeah, right.

We're having this discussion with a client right now going, oh well, I didn't do my podcast this week or next, and I'm not doing it next week, so I shouldn't have to pay for it. And they're like, no, our product is a service. It's our time. We block off time for you every week. If you don't do a show, we can't resell, get the time back. We can't put it back on the shelf. So treat your time like it's your inventory, whether you're running a business, working at a job, or being a parent with your kids. Rushing isn't good use of your time. Treating it like it's product.

I'm trying to think what that would look like, like to give them something concrete.

So you mentioned it. Had you thought it through, if you looked at your day in terms of how much time you had, you would have said, knowing most cheer competitions we've ever been to have all run late, nobody's ever been perfectly on time. Something always happens.

I should know.

Somebody pees on the mat, somebody gets hurt, they gotta clean up the blood.

Such a smart husband.

Always something. So if you looked at your time block and go, wow, I only have X number of hours in between the show and this thing they want me to do, cook and bring food, I don't have enough inventory of time to pull that off, you would have either not signed up at all or you would have bought some— ran into Wegmans for 5 minutes and bought something.

So I think that what I'm realizing, and I think time is an excellent topic for us to focus on another time, but I think that what I'm realizing about time is that I think that I can do a lot more than I can do in a day.

You overestimate what you can pull off.

So sometimes I get 10 things done and I'm like, holy crap, I did everything I wanted to do today. And sometimes I do 3 things and I'm like, oh wow, I didn't get everything done today. So I think that I tend to overshoot and overestimate what I can do, and I think that if I lowered my time expectations, that I would stop setting myself up for disappointment.

Yes, and you have told me this many times, and I still have not learned the lesson that I tend to overbook myself.

Oh my God, what blows my mind is that he will book himself back to back to back to back to back. Okay, so what that means is— okay, I want, I want to just tell you this so that you hear this, and I know you know this— that means, and he's excellent at this, you have to cut people off.

Yeah.

And be like, okay, gotta go to my next meeting. He's good at that. I'm not so worried about that. I'll tell you what I'm more worried about. I'm worried about the fact that he's not giving himself time to breathe. He's not giving himself time to decompress. He's not giving himself time to catch his breath. He's not giving himself time to eat. He's not a machine, okay? So hear me. I appreciate you, and I appreciate what you do in a day. It's unbelievable what you do in a day. But like, as I learn to take timeouts in my day, I would love for you to learn the lesson with me, because like, nobody should go non-stop for 12 hours. Like, you have to build in breaks. And like, my question as somebody who was in an office all day is, what happens when things come up?

If there's no room in the schedule, nothing can come up.

Okay, so what if something pressing comes up that's more important than what's on the schedule?

If I'm in a meeting, it's just gonna have to wait.

And what, what about eating?

Um, if I have blocked time in between to eat, then I will eat. If I am non-stop, literally, then perhaps I don't eat.

And what about like, okay, like your day starts at 7-something in the morning and you got home at 6-something. And you were busy the whole time. How did you function with thing after thing after thing?

Fine. There were, I, there were a couple times that I had 15 or 20 minute blocks in between of time to get, get work done other than meet with people.

So what else do you got?

I, I think that's good. We'll discuss whether or not I'm handing over the content for you to post.

Is there anything else in your lessons that are important to share with us?

I shared the most important 4.

Okay, how many were there total?

Uh, he doesn't know. 11.

Oh, you only shared 4 with us out of 11?

Yeah, well, we're supposed to be half an hour. I didn't want to do half an hour on the Phantom Tollbooth, and some of these are lessons from the book. They weren't actually— you wouldn't know, you didn't see them because they not the— the entire book is not in the play. So I also read the book once with Max and once with Ella in school, and then when Ella did the play, I read it again. So some of these are things that happen in the book that you didn't see in the play.

So do we want— I will read it. Do we want to possibly do this for next week and go over all of them?

Um, it's your show, I leave that up to you.

Okay, I will read what he wrote and get back to you on this because I'm sorry that I forgot to read it. There's a lot. There's a lot.

It's been a crazy week.

I can't believe how crazy this week is, and I'm tired of filling up my gas tank, and it's going to be cold, and I'm going to have to fill up my gas tank.

I hope you're okay.

I don't like the winter.

I know.

Don't like this weather.

Did you have a podcast coming up? A contest?

I know he's moving me along. He's like, okay honey, it's been 30 minutes. Heather Colley is my wonderful guest on the podcast this Friday, and the title of the podcast is The Gilded Butterfly Effect. And I had a wonderful conversation with Heather. You're all going to want to listen to her. It was a great book that you can get on Amazon. I read it, I loved it, um, it was very insightful and it taught me a lot about the world, the college world. It's all about the the world of sorority and fraternity and trying to fit in and the crazy things that go on. I was a little disturbed and we talked about it on the podcast and you're gonna love Heather and you're gonna love what she has to teach us. So listen to the podcast, please. And in the Whining Clues of Mom group, you can find me on Facebook. It's a free supportive community and we just did our November Thankful Challenge, and Heather, one of my wonderful members, won the challenge, so I will be getting her her prize. So Heather, thank you. Heather was one of the people who answered most of the questions. There's 5 questions every month, day 1 through 5 of the month, and the more questions you answer, the more chance you have of winning. So thank you everyone who, uh, took part. It was a lot of fun.

And go to whinyplousa.com, scroll down until you see the big pink banner, join our community newsletter, enter your email address and join. And then please like, comment, rate, review, share, and subscribe to all of Rebecca's content so that the social media and podcasting algorithms see your engagement and then share it with more people.

So I know that when I see my friends' business pages come up, anything that has to do with their business on Facebook, their dog breeding business, their catering business, the whatever business my friends have going on, when I see this stuff come up on social media in all the places, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, everywhere, I make sure to like and comment and I've been known to share stuff. It helps only because I know as someone who's doing it that that is what helps people. So we all appreciate when you do that for us. And, um, Seth is doing— Seth came up with this fabulous newsletter that I get to do every week.

I think it's 3 times a week.

And, um, it's 3 times a week, and I think that people are really enjoying it.

They are.

And the content. So we appreciate you signing up. And if you don't know how to do anything like, uh, subscribe, share, review, review—

people have some tech support videos.

I forgot about that. People will message— people will message me and be like, um, I want to leave you a review, I want to leave you a 5-star, I want to leave you 5 stars, and I want to leave you a review, but I don't know how. And I walk them through it. So Seth and I forget that people are wonderful and want to help but may not know how. So let us know because We will make some Texapork videos.

You were just kind of busy.

Everybody's busy.

Okay, I'll make some Texapork videos and send them to you.

Anyways, happy Monday, Blue Jays. Um, thank you for joining us, and we will be back next week with more topics. Topics. Thanks, everyone.