The Kinda Girl You Bring Home With Podetize CEO, Tracy Hazzard From Better Call Daddy With Reena Friedman Watts

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Today's guest, Tracy Hazard, is a podcasting pro, and she wants to make sure her guests feel just as good about the episodes as she does. That's a lesson that I definitely need to learn. Tracy Hazard is hosting and co hosting five different shows. She's got over 2,600 episodes, and she's the kind of girl you want to bring home to daddy. Tracy, welcome.

Hi.

Hey.

How are you? Good. How are you?

Good.

Just so excited to talk with you. We keep LinkedIn messaging back and forth. I love that we're finally talking again.

I love that I have another daddy's girl on the line.

So, so, so true. Absolutely. Like, I was thinking about this. I was, like, intimidated by coming on your show. What?

I'm intimidated by having you, like, your list of accolades. Like, I'm like, where do I start?

Well, yeah, but I don't know. I was like, am I the kind of girl you talk about, Talk to your dad about? I don't know. Like, that's. That's what I was, like, questioning in my head. I. I guess I'm good. I'm good. I was always the kind of girl that, like, everybody wanted to bring home to their parents to show that they had nice friends. Like, that was, like, that was me. I was like, too nice.

You know what is so funny? Like, I've had male guests that say something like that. They're like, I'm a little worried what daddy's gonna think.

I don't have a question for daddy. I'll just say, yes, sir.

Yeah, my dad was always, like, the nicest guy. Like, you, like, wanted him at your parties, and you totally got you know, he listened to his stories, was so much fun. But afterwards, if you were, like, on the side of being the boyfriend. Oh, he scared you. You were really scared of him, like. And Ida was like, I don't know how he flips that switch. I really don't know how he does it because you don't see it, but it happens.

Okay. When did you bring the first guy home?

You know, I was high school, probably. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it was probably one of my high school boyfriends, but he was never nice to them. So when I brought my husband home for the first time, or to meet them for the first time, because we were at college together, so they came to us to meet us. I think that it was one of those things where my dad turned to me and he goes, don't date, Tom. Because we were going to be moving in all together. Like a big group of us, like six of us were moving into an apartment together. And he looks at me and he goes, don't take the home. And I didn't. I was like, do I tell him it's already too late? Like, or do I just wait?

How did Ted handle that?

I didn't tell him until a lot later. I didn't want him because it would have totally intimidated him. Yeah. But 30 years later, you know, or actually, 34 years later, he's still hanging around, so.

Wow, that's crazy. You guys have been together a long time and you have three daughters. So do you have some daddy's girls?

You know, my girls are really daddy's girls. Like, I. There's just, like, no way around it. Like, they would rather have dad do stuff. Like, you know, it's. It's their thing. Like, they want dad to go play and do this with them, take them into the pool. Like, you know, that's the thing. But bedtime, that's my time. Like, they want me to tuck them in. They don't want dad. Cause he's cranky at night. And so they want me because I'll, like, let them drag it out, you know, like kids like to do at night. And so that's the only. That's the only thing that they complain about, that, oh, no, mom needs to do this.

I'm also curious, too. Like, having a strong relationship with your dad. Do you think that that played into who you picked up?

You know, this is. I said this before to other people. It's like, I am so, so grateful and so lucky because I was loved from the day, from before I was born, right Like, I mean, my dad wanted. Wanted to have a girl. Like, he just did. He wanted to have a girl. And so he was so happy to have me. So from the day I was born, I was fully loved. He drops me off at college and he cries. He cries as he's leaving me at college. And I meet Tom that very day. I meet my husband that very day, my first day of college. He did insult me, though. Like, he called me a valley because I'm from California and, you know, and that's an insult in the 80s. It was a big insult in the 80s. And so anyway, but, you know, and then we became friends, so I met him right away. And so from that moment on, I've also been loved. So I have been loved my entire life. That is, like, rare. And I'm so grateful for it. So, yeah, I mean, I think that just having that. Knowing what it felt like to be that loved, I needed that again. And so I don't think it was like finding someone because Tom's actually really not that much like my dad. They're pretty different in personality and definitely in the way that they look and everything, they're different. So I didn't marry my dad, but I married someone who loves me like my dad does, that unconditional kind of way. And I think that's powerful.

Very powerful also. I like that I heard you say that your dad was like, the devil's advocate.

Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Like, I mean, he would argue with us at dinner, like, over dumb stuff that I was like, you know, in the back of your mind, you think, you know, you're. You're a kid, but you think, my dad can't possibly believe that, like, you know, girls can't do this or, you know, whatever that might be that he was, you know, kind of giving me the. The anti argument for. Right. But he was provoking me to argue with him and debate with him. And so we would have debates over dinner over stuff that I thought that can't possibly be his viewpoint on the world in hindsight. But at the time, I was, like, fired up about it. I was going to, you know, give him my beast in my mind. So he taught me how to, you know, hold my own.

Yeah. And how has that helped you in business?

Oh, my gosh. I think it's helped me tremendously. Like, you know, it's. It's one thing to be argumentative, and it's another thing to be persuasive. And that's what I learned how to do. I learned over that Time that if I got argumentative and angry and emotional about it, it didn't work. But if I got persuasive, it would be different. And that's what he, you know, because he really probably didn't believe the position that he was taking. He was teaching me a lesson. And afterwards, I think if it had. If I'd known he was doing it, I'd be pissed. But call his bluff. I mean, at times, as I got a little older, I'd be like, dad, you don't really think that I'm like, you know, come on. You know, you don't really believe women are, you know, women don't deserve that or something. It was always like something like that where it was really, you know, a position on society in some way, shape or form that, you know, he just wanted me to be prepared for. I think.

Yeah, I was going to ask you that too. Like, what did your dad want for you? Or did he let you choose?

He did let me choose. But it's. So we have this story that we tell. We live in a community where basically you go to the school that's the closest, right? And there's so many schools, you could, like, you know, drop a pin anywhere and you'd be at somebody else's school. You cross the street and those people go to a different school. Like, that's how many schools are around here in Orange County, California, right? Just a ton of them. And so they had built this new middle school, and because the new communities that were coming over there, it wasn't overpopulated yet. So they gave us actually this choice that we could go to this new middle school that was being built. And so we got to go visit it, take a look at it, see what we thought of it, and then came back and we got to make a choice. Do we go to the one that everybody else who was in sixth grade was going to go to, or do we head off to seventh grade and go distance? And there was about five of us that ended up choosing in sort of our little community area that ended up choosing the new school. And when I came to my dad and I said, okay, hey, I'd really like to go to this new middle school, I've made my decision. And my dad says, that's great. Okay, we're going to go and it's all set. And I thought they might have a hard time with, like, because you had to drive there where I could walk to the other school. And so I thought my, you know, they might complain a little. We only had One car. So it was an inconvenience. And so when he didn't argue with me, I said, dad was, you know, if I had chosen to go to the other school, were you going to let me? And he said, no, you were going to the new school. But I wanted you to feel like you had a choice. And so I think that that's probably how most of my life went, was that he did let me have a choice, but if I had chosen wrong, he would have let me know.

I love that. So it was a little bit of a manipulation.

Yeah, it was. But. But I did feel like I had choices, so I guess that was good in the end.

Oh, my God. And mothers have to figure that out, too. I have a really big move coming up. Like, my husband just got a new job this week. Yes. We've been in the same house for almost a decade, and that's a lot to move, a lot to move. Have you ever designed for something like that?

So I am the queen of moving. But that is because we've moved frequently enough. Right. But we moved to this place that we're in. In the middle of the pandemic. So we moved in September 2020. So we moved in September 2020 to this place because we needed extra room for the girls to be in school. And then they ended up only in school one more month virtually, and they went live to school after that. So then we had to cart them and drive them to the school because the other school that they were going to was now, like, two miles away. I mean, it wasn't far or anything, but we now had to figure out logistics of driving, which we thought we wouldn't, but we needed extra space because we couldn't be on Zoom all the time and then have the kids on Zoom too, in the same open space that we had. So we had to figure this out. So we got a new place that had, like, more segregated rooms that we could have home office and the kids could have a classroom. But we did that, and we moved in five days, and I had us unpacked in seven. We've done a lot of those where we moved a lot over time. And so I kind of have it System. A system for it.

All right, girl.

Yeah. All I can say is that the system is. Is to purge on the other side. So this is the problem that we get into is that we really don't know what's going to fit where or where it's going to go in the new place. So people think, oh, I should clean house. So That I move less stuff. And there is a school of thought. If you're going to like decrease by a whole room of stuff, then you save money in packing and moving and all of that. But you're not going to save money in movers cleaning out some kitchen drawers. You know, it's just not going to happen. You're not going to do enough in your closet and enough in your drawers to like decrease the cost of moving. Instead, just pack everything and then when as you're putting it away, toss, recycle, do it on that side. You're going to save yourself a lot of time and energy because you also just don't know where it's going to go. So you're going to find stuff and go, well, that doesn't fit. So I guess I don't need it as bad as I thought.

Yeah, yeah, I could definitely do that in my closet.

Yeah. And then the second thing that I do is I always do the kitchen first. Like, it's the first thing that I do because it makes you feel more settled in. You can have meals. You don't feel like you're living out of a box. And I let the girls do their own rooms. So like that's also something. Like I let them do the first part of their own rooms and then I'll come in and finish up like the closet and stuff, Kitchen and bathrooms first. Then you've got your essentials covered and then you just work on it. My bedroom is usually the last one.

Who did all of that?

Oh, it was me. I mean, like, it was always me. Organize it. Yeah, do it. I mean, Tom takes care of like the logistics. Like get the guys there, get the truck moving. Like, you know, you deal with that part of it. But I will make sure and that they know what they're moving, where they're moving it and how it's going to go. Like the organization of that is just something I'll take care of. And we've just done it so many times that it does feel like you're capable of it. I think that's a part of it is like you have this overwhelmed that can I handle this? But you can handle it when you've done it again and again. We a lot in our marriage already. So let's see. We like South Carolina, Michigan, Rhode Island, New York State, upstate California. So up in the Bay Area and then down here. And we've lived in three areas, five houses, but three areas in the Southern California area.

What has all of those moves?

Usually it was work or you know, new babies, like as I had a whole second set of babies. So My oldest is 27 and then my, my younger two are turning 13 and eight. There's a big age gap in there. And so our life changed all of a sudden in the middle of everything.

Oh my God. I respect that so much and can relate to that as well. Like my oldest is 13 and my youngest is 3. So I have one entering high school, one entering middle school, one in elementary school and one in preschool.

So you know what you're going to find out that your high schooler and your toddler, you're going to have the same conversation. That's what I discovered. My older daughter was 14 when I had the baby. And so they started like, you know, 16 and 2 at the same time. Right. And so you would have this argument over like the shoes that they're wearing, are those really appropriate for the weather? And like, and I had the conversation literally on the same day with a 16 year old and a 2 year old. And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, I had no idea their.

Brains were like.

Yes, sometimes their behavior is similar.

Yeah.

Oh my God. Wow. I mean, I do feel like you can learn a lot from beginnings. So what have you learned from all of those moves besides how to move?

We moved a bit when I was younger too as a kid. So my dad was on job assignments. So we actually lived in South Africa for, at the height of apartheid in 1978-80. So we were right in there at that time period. And then we would come back, go to a different school, you know, things like that. So I think what it did, it was inherently make me really flexible, but also make me less concerned about needing people to like me. I didn't need it. I was good on my own. I was good being the new girl. I was good being, you know, self sufficient and making my way. And then you know how when you, your kids want to like smother the cats and dogs and the cats and dogs want nothing to do with it. Like they, they, they leave and they're like, no way. But you, if you just sit there, the one person who doesn't love cats, the cats all over, that's how I was as a kid. I was just that kind of kid who would be like, yeah, it's okay, you don't have to love me, but you know, I'm good with that. And then I would end up with tons of friends. And so it was just this kind of like being in that mode of I don't have to have everybody like me. Made me more likable at the end. And I learned that that was just like a really great way. It was like, I can just be confident and self sufficient and that's going to be attractive at the end of the day and. And it's actually going to make it so easier to make friends. There's a power in that, right? I think what I learned at this sort of beginning stage of everything is like, nothing new really daunts me either because new is just a stage. Like beginning is just a stage. It's got to go through. You got to go through that. Everybody has to go through that. Everybody's new at something at some point. That's what I try to teach my girls that it's like, you know, everyone is new at learning to do something right now, whether or not you want to give it all that it needs to become an expert or you're just going to get through that beginning stage and go, I got a little competence in this. It was fun. I didn't love it. That's okay too.

Yeah. So what are some things that you've tried that weren't for you skiing?

So no joke. My husband's family, like grew up on skis. So I come in to it like 18, 20 years old and I'm on skis. It's not fun for me. The family's like off on like major slopes and I'm like taking lessons at the bunny slope. So it was never fun for me. And I said, you know what, I could get good at this over the years, but we ski like once or twice a year. It's not enough to really get expertise in it. But I'm not having any fun being like all alone over here. And so I just stopped it. I said, I'm not going to do this. I rather sit in the lodge and read a book. My daughters are like, they've been on skis since they were, you know, potty trained too. So it's, you know, they would ski circles around me and I just not up for it. But I have to say that, like, now that my MOT in law and some of the people are getting a little bit older, they're slowing down in the skiing. And so I might have caught up and been like fun, but I would have spent like 20 years with no one to ski with. And, you know, that's just, you know, so, yeah, that was a perfect example of something. I just, you know, it's like, you know what, I tried it, it was fun, but it's just really not something I'm ever going to get good enough to enjoy with everybody else.

Yeah, that totally makes sense. Okay, so I also am curious, like, how did you meet tomorrow?

So besides him insulting me the first day of school. Right. So his roommate, the man who eventually became the best man at our wedding, we're standing next to each other at a concert, like the first week of school. And they were so they were together. So I really met him again in person there, his roommate. And Tom and I, we've, you know, all been friends. And there's a group of us that have been friends for 30 years. You know, we just really got hit it off and enjoyed it and. But we started standing next to each other. We started having a conversation. We. We became friends. I had another boyfriend and he had another girlfriend. He would drive home two and a half hours to go home to New York State to meet up with his girlfriend on weekends. It was actually April of our freshman year that he. I had broken up with my boyfriend. He broke up with his girlfriend and came back to school from spring break. And he said, hey, do you want to go to the RISD farm? Which is like, it's not really a farm farm. It's more like a grassy area. There is kind of a farmhouse on it, but it's not a farm. And then it's. You're really at the Narragansett beach in Rhode Island. And so he's like. He took me there and he brought his guitar and he said, you know, I really think we should start seeing each other. And I said, you know, we're friends. And I think this would be a really bad idea because then we wouldn't be friends anymore when this ends. And he goes, well, what makes you think it's going to end? And I go, well, what makes you think it's not going to end? He's like, oh, I'm sure that's how confident he was. Yeah. And so. So we actually did. We started dating in secret because we don't want our friends to know because we thought it. Everybody uncomfortable until we were really sure this thing was going to go. And so finally, you know, by the end of our freshman year, we told everybody.

So it was kind of like a workplace relationship.

We probably should tell everybody. Yeah, yeah, it was like, kind of like that because, you know, when you're living in a dorm like all together. Right. It's a big deal. But yeah, we did meet that very first day and he called me a Valley girl and insulted me and you know, and that kind of thing.

Wow.

So you guys have, like, grown up together. Did you study the same things? Because you have so much in common. Like, you've designed products together, you've done business together, you now deponentize together.

Yeah. So we didn't actually study the same thing. So I studied textile design and he studied industrial design, which is product and furniture combined together. But textiles and furniture go hand in hand. Like it's just. And colors and materials and finishes go hand in hand with product design. So, like, we were always working with industrial designers in some capacity. And so it got to the point where I thought I was going to go down this career path. And I did for a while, where I worked for Herman Miller, who invented the Aeron chair and all the. All the cubicles that we know and love in office spaces. Right. And worked with them. And it was an amazing company. I worked with Milliken and they designed probably the most textiles you've ever bought in the world. Come from there, you know? So I had those great experiences. But we had a chance to do our first business together. I realized that I could do something that I really felt like I could be good at, which was the business side of things. And it was going to give me the opportunity to do that. And Tom was like, I don't want to do the business side. I'd like to be an entrepreneur and I'd like to have a business and have the autonomy of that for my creative side, but I don't want to run a business. And so it worked out great that in the end I run the business and handle that vision and finance and all of those pieces of everything that we do. And he really handles that tech and the creative and that side of it, we do the creative and innovation together. Like, that's definitely a co creation standpoint.

But when did you realize that you had that ability?

I mean, I think I always knew I did. I. I never really thought that I wanted to, like, go and be a designer forever. Like, it was something like, I went out into the design world and I really enjoyed the presentations to clients and I enjoyed this, the selling aspect, and I enjoyed the figuring out does is this going to be cost effective and can this be sustainable? And like, what's the green message that goes along with this? And can we make it so that it has a less environmental impact? So, like, thinking about that big picture things were something that I really loved about it. And so much of the job was not getting to do that. And so I found when we went out on our own, both when we went out and consulted, because we had a consulting business for almost 15 years. So when we would just consult and design products for other people, we would have an expanded set of services that most people didn't provide. Because if we stayed in this narrow, creative, only designing what you're going to see, see, then it wasn't going to succeed. We found that that more holistic, more business view of things actually was a benefit to us and to our clients. We had more successful products that way, and we got to do what we both love to do and do it together. So it, you know, it just became this really great vibe together. But also the other thing is you have a great shorthand. So that's what I think. You know, when you really trust someone implicitly and you have a partnership together, you're on the same page with the path in life. It's. You're. You're married to your partner, whether you like it or not, right? Your business partner, because your fates are tied together. So when you're actually married and you're on the same path, it's actually better. So. So we found that to be the case is we didn't have to argue about the path of the company or what was going to happen, because we both knew in the end, the whole goal is to make sure that our lives benefit and that we both get what we want out of it, because that's where we're all going together. And that really worked out well for us. And so it just made an easy, easy choice to work together. But for those people who are like, oh, how do you work with your spouse? Like, how do you know? You know, look, it wasn't always easy. There were arguments in the early days, but today, like, sometimes we don't see each other all day long. Like, I just took a break before this interview to just go check in with him and see how he was doing and what was going on. And, you know, our kids are on spring break and we're like. And I'm like, where are they? Like, because I've been in my office doing my thing for the whole time, and I didn't even know they were gone. They were off at play dates. Like, so, you know, he took care of all that. So we just have this nice of, like, whoever available is going to take care of the business, the house, whatever needs to be done. We can dovetail perfectly together, but we don't have to work together and we don't do the same job. It's not like we're job splitting and so it just makes, you know, I live in Miami and he works in his element and it. It's great.

That's really rare. Did you have any grandparents that did that or parents? Like, is it in your blood?

Yeah, not really in mine. Maybe more in Tom's than in mine. My mom and my grandma and all of them were stay at home, you know, and had my mom's creative. My mom has an art business now. That's just amazing. She in fact has a big gallery opening tomorrow night in Laguna Beach. And so, you know, she's an artist. She's got like, her stuff's on Instagram all the time and, you know, things like that.

We will have to drop her Instagram in the story notes. Cool.

Yeah, she's just, you know, she's just amazing and. But she's been doing that our whole life. So the creativity has always been there and the creative spirit, but the business side of it. Both my grandfathers had their own businesses, though. One of them had owned bars and repaired jukeboxes in New England and the other one built like brick walls and chimneys and like, worked for the parks and rec and did all of these, you know, big builds and construction projects and. And that's where my dad got, you know, his start in engineering, construction and that side of things. So, you know, that they had their businesses, but it was certainly not something that was shared with me in a way that I would be. I would even know that they were running a business and how to run it. I didn't get any mentorship there. Tom's family, though, I think there's been a little bit more creativity and autonomy and in this entrepreneurial spirit. So I think he probably had a little more exposure to it than I did.

Interesting. But you did learn how to conduct a meeting.

So I mostly learned from watching my dad. Right. My dad was like, moving up and he worked for a really large engineering construction company called Fluor Corporation and Floor Daniel eventually. And they built the Alaska pipeline. They built a pipeline in South Africa. That's why we were there, you know. So he worked for these major companies that do these things. And he was always championing women in his company. So he started a project management group that would train women to be part of the project management because if you weren't a project manager, you really couldn't move up into leadership within the company because you wouldn't have managed a big enough project. And so, so he created this, this path for training, education, mentoring, like the whole thing. And nobody really knew he did it, but that always going on like none of us really understood it until he retired. And there were all these women at his retirement party and they were saying, I have my career thanks to your dad. Because your dad started this program. You know, this is what happened. I think he was very disappointed. None of his daughters wanted to become engineers, but he figured it, he's the dad of girls, maybe he should start a. You know, he should champion women within his organization. And he did that. But all along, I think he was teaching me that he used to say things. He's like, when you hold a meeting, when you do anything, you have to have three things. And I'd be like, three things? Like what? You know, he's like, you're going to have three takeaways at any meeting. Like that's what you're going to do. And so I use that all the time. When I do a podcast interview, I'll have three things I want to cover, you know, or the three things are my recap. If anybody asked me to recap what I said, I'd be like, I'll pick the three things right? Like that kind of thing. But I didn't know why and I never really asked. But this is kind of what a wisdom he leaves me with. And I'm like, okay, I'll use it. But someone who was at. I told this story at an event and someone came to up to me and he said, well, I used to run all of the global expansion for Denny's. And he said the reason why leaders only give three things is because those three things might end up 3,000 things on the to do list of the person at the bottom. So you can't go through and give out too many things to focus on because they can't get all the of it accomplished. So it's, it's a big organizational move, but it's also a good memory move. Like, most people can't remember more than three things, so it works out anyway. But like those kinds of things and, and stuff like you can't pack more than you can carry. Like, these are wisdom that my dad used to drop at the dinner table. And, and I thought it was just like a rule in our house that if we wanted to like go on a trip, we had to carry our own stuff. And, you know, this was it. But I realized later in life that, like, as I'm traveling on business, watching some of the guys who I'm traveling with struggling to get their suitcases into the overhead compartment, and I'm like, oh, mine's ready. Because I can carry less than you, so I can get it in there. You know, it's actually really a handy thing to have learned.

That's cool. That he was a proponent of women. And I also heard that you have something called covert feminine design that you've coined.

Yeah, we. And we were working with this great publicist at one point, and that's what she said. She loved the way that we called it that. And so what we would do is we would design products, products that women would like. But the problem was is that no one wanted to, like, unless you wanted to talk about doing, like, October breast cancer awareness month and everything's pink. Like, we really didn't. You didn't talk about designing for women, which is such a mistake because products are bought and sold. 86 or more percent of products are bought, sold, or influenced by women in every product category. So if we think about that, it's like, why weren't we designing to what women wanted? Because they're going to make the decision anyway. Even if the product's not for them, they're still making the choice. So if we design it to appeal to them, then it makes more sense. That's the majority. So why wouldn't we do it? But, you know, this really came across when we were designing office chairs, and we designed like over 800 office chair designs for Costco, Walmart, Target, you name it, we designed for it. Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, like, all of them. And when we were designing these chairs, the default is 6 foot male. So that's the default ergonomic profile of an office chair. But women buy more office chairs out of Staples or Costco or places like that than men do. So we couldn't tell the buyers over there that, you know, you're wrong. Like, it shouldn't be designed like this. So we would design these features and we would say that these are the covertly feminine design in there, meaning that we hid them in. But we put those features in there and. And we wouldn't talk about them unless somebody asked us specifically about that. But what happened was, is that when we design something that appeals to women and is that it fits more men. Because all of a sudden, you know, not every man is six foot. Like, it's just not, you know, it's just not going to work for them. So what we designed was like things like gas lists that go lower than they would normally go, but that means they also go higher than they normally go. So that meant that they had a broader range and they could fit larger men and smaller women. So like, we would just stuff like that, features little things like that. Choices that get made are made usually by the person doing the design work. So when our products are designed over at an Asian factory, that's why they don't fit us. In the US we complain all the time like the sizing's all off to things. They don't fit us because we are not the profile of the people designing anymore. They're not being designed here in the US So by taking that back and by also having a woman involved in the process, it allowed us to see things that weren't being seen by others. And in doing so, our chairs sold better, our products sold better because men love them, because they would work for them too, in a better way.

That is so interesting. I'm also really curious about, do you think that manufacturing is going to come back to America?

I actually don't think it's going to come back in the way that we. In an old school way.

Right.

It just can't. It's just not the way we progress here. But I think there's so much that can. I mean, we started in podcasting on 3D printing because we really believed that that sort of on kind of manufacturing model, that mass customized model is a great way to go. Right. It's going to be fantastic for the future of manufacturing. So I think that there are places and things that could happen. I would love to see furniture manufacturing come back to the US we actually have the most trees in various wood types now. It's a specific wood type, but we have them here. We actually ship them to other countries to make furniture. Why do that? You know, let's lower our environmental footprint and let's make the products that are smart for the regions. But we do have to really think about this. I mean, like, look at what's going on in Ukraine and other areas. They are rich in nickel and now we're having all kinds of nickel product problems. Right. Nickel as source. Nickel is in just all kinds of weaponry. And so actually they're having a shortage of weapons in Russia because Ukraine provides the nickel that goes into these things. So we thinking about the way things are sourced and where they go, you know, it has to have a big global outlook to it. And I've always been a proponent of that. Tom and I have worked really a long time in Asia and other manufacturing areas, Canada, Europe, all kinds of places, because there are areas of expertise and materials that belong there.

Have you visited abroad?

Absolutely, yeah. When I worked for Herman Miller. We used to travel to all the factories. And then before that I worked in the automotive industry. And so we would go and visit the automotive manufacturers in Germany and other places like that. And so. So there's been all kinds of places that I've gotten to go. And then most of the time that I was designing furniture, most of those pieces of furniture were made over in Asia in various places. They might be in Malaysia, they might be in China, they might be, you know, in.

Okay, I want to know about that. I really want to know about that. You've got to tell me what that was like.

It's amazingly enriching to your life to see how they work and to see how these factories run, to see what their drivers are, to let them ask you questions. So I was traveling there at the height of the Obama administration and so they would. He had just gotten elected, I think at the time that I was doing most of my travel over there. And they would be like, what is that like to have a president like that? And they wanted to know and you know, because they were getting no information. And so it was that a tipping point where in China their affluence was coming up in terms of their sort of middle class building. So. So if you had a phone, if you had a car, there were more and more of them that had that. And so you were starting to see this kind of emergence to outside influences that hadn't been there before. And I think it really changed a lot of what happened over, I would say about the decade that I really did intensive travel there. But they want to please their clients. They want to be a part of the world economy. They want to do right by everyone. Can they always do that? No. Are there cultural things that you just don't understand? And I had it explained to me from someone in China saying that China deals in circles. The core circle in China is China, like China, you know, because it's communist, it's China. China comes first before your family, but then it's your family outside of that and then your extension to your city. And so it has an extension of like how that works in terms of its priority. We're not that different here, I would say we don't maybe put the US at our primary. Not that we aren't patriots in general, but our core family is our core. Right. That's just, just the independence of, you know, Americans, our families at the core. But that's not that different. And so when we think about that. And so what they said was, is that when Choices have to get made, and you're on the outside circles. They will sacrifice you because they have to protect the core. It's their mission, it's their job. It's what they need to do. And so how you get into the core is by being a part of the family. And how you do that is by. I used to show up up by the mere fact that I showed up, visited the factory, I was better than their other clients who would just email purchase orders or email in their requests. And so when things went wrong, I was enough in the. I was not in the core family, but I was in enough of the outer circle to be able to be one that could work with them. So when material prices were going up, we needed to do price increases. We had ability to negotiate with the factories and negotiate with the people we worked with because they were like, if Tracy's saying that this is the price we need to hit and this is what we need to do, she's not trying to screw us. She's trying to make sure that I keep the business. And so I need to play ball. And so that's how we would go about doing it, is we would just build this relationship. And then you start to understand, wow, how can we really make this win for everybody? And driving prices down is not a win for anyone. We're. We're seeing that right now. Right. There are. Are things that are so rock bottom pricing that they will never be able to be made here in the US Without a price increase, a tremendous price increase. And that's okay. That's what we may have to accept as consumers. But try telling the consumers that. Right. We flip out when prices go up on anything. So we all have to participate in that global economy shift if we want it to recentralize. I don't think we're going to be that accommodating. I think on some things we will like, it will make more economic sense.

Sense.

Like shipping a bunch of wood is expensive. Right. It's big, it's expensive. And we don't need to be doing that. It's not environmentally friendly. So the actual cost of everything is higher than the dollar value of what we're making. That's when it's going to really make sense.

Yeah. So how did you incorporate 3D printing into podcasting?

I know it seems kind of logical, doesn't it? Because 3D printing is like a visual thing, but I know you've done a tie.

Yeah. So you see a picture. There's a picture of Tom and I together, and There's a tie that he3d printed and it doesn't look like, I mean it looks just really cool and textural, but when you touch it, it's plastic. And so people would like come up to it and it makes this cool sound and everything. So yeah, we designed a bunch of products and it was so hard to design for 3D printing. And we'd been designing for 20 years prior to that. So we said, well, if we're having trouble designing for this, then other people are going to have trouble. So how can we be of best of service? And the reality is, is that when we started podcasting, live streaming wasn't a thing. It was like barely anybody did it. We could YouTube, yes, of course, but we really didn't want to take the time to start a full on YouTube channel. So instead what we would do is we would talk about our process, we'd interview people, we'd give ideas out. We, we just talk about design theory sometimes and, and business, about the business of design. And you know, it got me an ink column. So by having the business of design being a topic area, I got to write a column on innovation and design and talk about nitty gritty things like how you price creative services. That all came about from what we did. And the podcast was just easier to do. And then we would do these short little video clips that would show how something's printing on our printer or what the Instagram photos of like what it turned out to like before and after and things like that. So that's kind of how we did it in the beginning because it was just easier and podcasting was just simpler to edit cheaper. Everything about it was great because we, we designed for these large companies that then like Martha Stewart Living and other people who then were in these retailers, these large retailers. So we didn't really have a list of clients or a list of followers. Like nobody knew who we were. We were ghost designers. I like to say that there's like ghost writer. We're a ghost designer whose name's not even on the book, right. So you know, that's, that's where we lived and, and worked and everyone was hidden from us. And so we said, well, what can we do? Could we build an audience over here and then maybe with 3D print products, they will come to us for designs in the future. That was like our idea that maybe we would have a 3D print design business. And I'm so glad we didn't start the business and then like see if people will come because they didn't want it. Like, nobody wanted 3D print products like that. They wanted to learn how to do it themselves. Like, that was the side. It was just too early in that stage. And today, like, look, we make 3D print products that you don't even know are 3D printed. Like, if you can see on the video, I have my mic block, which has my logo on it, and my mic block, or mike flag, sometimes people call it, that's 3D printed. We don't actually make these in bulk. We make a few hundred of them at a time. We print them on our printer here, and we send them to clients and we use them for ourselves. And, you know, that kind of thing. There are products out there that you're seeing in that way, but you're not seeing it full on. So if we'd gone into business instead of gone into information services, we would have probably lost a lot of money. So instead we found a whole new business. Right. And that's what happened because we went from, from having zero on that email list to having a hundred thousand listeners a month on the 3D print podcast and then having Hewlett Packard as a sponsor. So it just cascaded into, you know, a great run. We did 655 episodes or something like that of the show, and then we stopped. We were like, okay, I can't talk about 3D printing anymore. I think I'm successful. I just was like, I can't talk about that one anymore. But of course I have new shows, so.

Yeah. And how many shows you have now? Now 4. And you've also launched like over 350 podcasts for other people.

So we've launched over a thousand for everybody else. What, so like a thousand shows? A thousand shows total. But we usually have 350 that are active at any given time. Right. They're still producing and doing stuff. Yeah. Tom and I launched eight shows total. Between the two of us, I've launched seven of those eight, so there's only one that I wasn't on. And we launch a new show every single year to see how hard it is for our clients. So that's kind of, kind of our model of doing business. And so with Potitize, we wanted to make sure that the clients were getting the best information of, like, what's working, what's not working, and how we could advise them. And then so we don't keep the shows on consistently. So consistently right now I do have four that are ongoing, so I have the Binge factor feature brand and I have a New one that is for our investors because we're working on an investment campaign, so the investors have a private one. And so that's been interesting because I'm testing out how you do a private podcast and make sure that everybody shows up to it and downloads it. And, like, how do you make sure that your community actually accesses it and gets it? It's actually more challenging than you think. You're like, think, oh, I'm going to put it out there and they're going to consume it. And then they don't. Like, you're like, I have 200. And I think we have 200 investors, and we don't only even have, like, 50 of them listening to the podcast. So, like, how do we increase that? So that's going to be our challenge. And so I love taking on a new challenge with the show. And then. And then the other one that we is product launch hazards, which we still do, like an occasional update episode on, but we don't do it every day.

So that is amazing. And I just don't even know how you do that on top of being a mom. And.

Well, it is my day job, right? I mean, my job is podcasting. So if I didn't podcast as a part of that job, you know, then. Then we would be like the shoemaker's children, right? We have to put ourselves out there, use our own product. When we don't, I think that's where things really go wrong in the long run. I think when. When you get out of touch with your brand, with your services, with what you're doing, and you're not willing to use them yourself or you're no longer finding them useful, then that's really where your company's going to fail. And when companies get big, that's when the problem happens. I'm really proud of. We have over 108 employees around the world, and we have a dozen of them that are working on podcasts right now. And I love that we have that. I mean, they're not all getting them out there. They're not getting launched as quickly as they want them to. But we have about. About five of them that are launched at this point out of the dozen. But we. We made it actually a part of their employee benefits, like they get a podcast as a.

Hey, dad, do you remember when I was a production manager on that show Baby High that was being shot in Louisville with the producers from Teen mom and sixteen and pregnant? Now one of those teen moms has her own podcast.

Wow, that's incredible.

It's crazy. Her whole life has been documented on tv. I wonder what that's like.

Like, I think that'll be a real interesting story.

I'm back on my.

It's your favorite villain and barely famous host, Kayl Lowry, and it's like, podcasting is the only thing I'm good at. So with that being said, I'm bringing you the most raw, real and uncomfortable conversations with guests you never expect. Is it my ex? Is it your ex? Things are definitely going to get weird, but new episodes drop every Friday. So download and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. We'll see you there.

Part of that. And so they're able to come in and consume our services from the viewpoint of having been on the other side. And it's really interesting because they're seeing ways to improve things, ways to innovate, ways to make other people's areas that touch theirs work better. And so I love that we're finally starting to make that happen. Happen.

That's really cool. Have they given you feedback from that experience? What are they saying?

Yeah, definitely. Like, you know, some of them are like, I feel like the process is too slow. I feel like it should be faster. And I've been saying all along, I think we should set up shows faster. Like, why aren't we. And, you know, but now they're starting to see, like, where could we shave off time? Where can we improve things? And then my daughter, my 13 year old decided to start a show. So she and a friend are starting a show. And I told them I wanted them to go through the whole onboarding process. Process just like a regular client, just like an adult. And then tell me what you don't understand. And I'm going to create an onboarding process just for kids, because we just set in a, a kid's price point, a student price point for our products and so for our hosting services. And so she's coming in with this kind of viewpoint that she's going to help us finesse the onboarding and finesse the process. And there were terms like, she was like, what's a URL and why do we need one? And I was like, you're an Internet child and you don't know what a URL is? And she was like, well, I don't. I mean, I know the term, but I don't understand why you're asking me. And my URL, I don't have a URL. I have Instagram. Like, you know, I have an Instagram. I don't have a URL. And I was like, oh, because we're so business podcast focused, we didn't think about the fact that they may not want a business site, they may not have a website for their podcasts. So how can we help them understand the power of that? How can we make it simple for them? And also how can we tell them that you don't need that if you don't want it, you can use your Instagram. Right. So that was kind of a great learning. So I do love that. That's the kind of, like, little details of things that you're getting clarification on.

I love that your daughter is inspired by your work. And I think you had another daughter, too, that was into 3D printing, right?

Yeah, same one. She's done 3D printing. Same one. Yeah.

She likes everything you do.

She, you know, the thing is, is that she's very creative, so she likes to try and make things. She's like, big in Minecraft and like, you know, and that kind of geeky side of things. So of course she's going to be like, mom, you talk. Called me geeky on air. I can't. My friends are going to find out. Like, I'm like, really? I don't think they listen to Better Call Daddy. At least I hope they don'. They might be a little young for it, but. So, yeah, she's creative and she loves to do things, but I was really surprised she wanted to do the podcast because I thought that it really wasn't her thing, but she had had a YouTube channel for a while, so.

Okay, we'll put that in the show notes, too. So what's your podcast going to be on?

So her podcast is called Art School Insider because they go to the school of Arts here at Orange county. And so they wanted to talk about what it. How different art school is, you know, Like, I think those of us of this older generation have the picture of, like, fame. And there is a lot of that. Like, it's a lot like that.

I actually went to a youth performing arts school, so I.

Did you?

Yes.

So, you know it's different, right?

Oh, my God. It was such an amazing experience. And I think it's what led me to working in a creative field.

It's intense. So, I mean, by going to art college, right, like, so I went to art college, and you go to school all day long. And so that's what she has, is they have conservatories that are into the afternoons and evenings, and then they have rehearsals and they get, I mean, I have to say, in this last, because she's only in seventh grade. So in the last, you know, year of school here, she has gotten so much skills in organization and all kinds of things just in order to fit in all these extracurricular activities that they've got as a part of the school and she's got time for friends and, you know, and so all of that is going on. So I do think there's something really interesting there. But that's what they decided to call it, Art School Insider. It's, it's probably going to take, you know, till summer to launch because they're still in school, but it'll be, it'll get out there.

What do you think about that, SEO wise?

I actually really like it and I think, you know, because it's a localized thing, like she's going to actually, some of those local podcasts do a lot better than you think. And that is because Google really rewards that. You know, if we're saying Orange County, California, constantly, it's going to start serving it up to all people who are local to Irvine or Orange County, California, they're going to start serving it up to them. It's just something that's going to regularly happen. I think that's so interesting to watch the models of those podcasts succeed. We have chiropractors who do really well in their region because of that.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay. So I'm glad that we kind of transitioned to podcast because that is your jam and I have a lot of questions from my audience, which I'm sure you get all the time. And I heard you on Marian Abrams podcast kind of asking all of these things. So since you're into the rule of threes, I'll let you pick three.

Okay.

As a podcast agency owner and somebody who has launched thousands of podcasts, the questions that, I mean me as a small agency and you know, I'm always asked are what's the way to grow and monetize? How do you find quality guests? What's the recording software? Right. All of the materials involved, topics for shows. And here's a creative one. I actually like this. If you have a stale podcast, should you go through a rebrand ideas around that? I think that might actually be a good one for you.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, look, I'm going to give a talk at the Outliers Festival in Austin on. I'm calling it Moneyball Podcasting because I really think that that's the way we have to approach podcasting is with this Moneyball mindset and understanding where the Real stats and what really matters and the fact that it might be different based on positions. A pitcher has to have a particular statistics area that they watch to see if they're going to be a sustainable, good investment. Right. Podcasts are that same way in different niches. They have different areas, they have different things that are going to make them sing. So that's what really think is like really starting to understand where that is for you makes sense. Rather than saying globally for everybody. This is what, where people make money. Because less than 2% of podcasts make any money on their show from advertisements. Less than 2% of all the 2 1/2 million shows out there. So it's just not going to be where the money is. So let's look at where it can be for you. That's where I like to dial that in as far as rebranding goes, which I love that topic. I love the. I change my show every year. I take a look at it. In fact, I was just talking about this with my clients as we were talking about having a review point for things that you do. I like a six month review point because if we can review at six months, it gives you enough time. You'll be about 25 episodes in. If you're doing a weekly show, it gives you enough time to say, hey, what's working? What's not working? Make a little tweak, go another six months. Now take a look and say if the show is not right for me or for the audience that I've drawn in, in now it's time for a rebrand. If it's wrong on all fronts, like, I don't like the audience that I've attracted for some reason, like, I don't really want to talk to this audience anymore. And I don't love the show, so I don't want to keep doing the show anymore. Then let's start a new show like that. That's the time to like scrap, scrap it and start all over again. But if your audience is still something that you want to connect with, that you love, change the show. I change the show for clients. We do it on the fly all the time. Like, they come in and they go, and I'll look at it and I'll be like, you know what? I think you should change your cover art. And they're like, can do that? Yes, of course you can. Like, that's the great thing about RSS feeds and dynamic podcasting is it's flexible. Go ahead and change it. This is not written in stone. And anyone who thinks that your website is. Is mistaken as well. Your website's dynamic, it'll shift and change over time, and it's going to rank differently today than it. Than it will tomorrow if you make changes to it. So you should always be updating it, always changing it. And why should your podcast be any different than all of of those things? We desire change nowadays. Like, I mean, you know, people are resistance to change, but we desire newness in our feeds, and a podcast is part of that. So we want newness in our Instagram. We don't want to see the same thing all the time. If we see the same thing, we're like, out of there. We've seen it, done it. It's old. Right? We want that newness happening. So if you're not fresh anymore and you're not feeling it, your audience isn't either, and you're not being attractive to the new people. And then the other answer, you bring it in.

Yeah, I want to know what newness you're bringing in.

Yeah, I mean, I always try to bring new things. So, like, right now, my hot thing is, and I took a photo of it, and I totally show it here, except that this camera that I have only focuses on my eyes. And so if every time I hold an object in there, I haven't figured out how to get it to focus on the object. So I can't hold my phone up here, but I will send Rena this image so that she can do it. I took a picture in the car. Now, if you've noticed lately, if you have Sirius XM or some kind of radio station that shows album covers and other things, they're starting to create really creative art images that are not the original single album cover that what belongs to it. They're creating individual episode ones. We've got episode art. Why not use it? You're allowed to put a different image in for every single episode that you do. We create them for our clients already, and we're not using them. So we decided that we would do that. And what it does is create this dynamic of which episode am I on if I'm listening to? To, like, binge listening to a podcast in the car. And now you've got it. You're like, no, I'm on the next one because the image is slightly different. And I. And I could see some graphic that is reinforcing the topic. So it's making it more engaging, more exciting, both on social media and when I'm sharing it. But it's also doing it in how it's being played and used as well. And so that's what my next thing is. Just like to start to change our standard operating procedure on everybody's show. But I always start with mine first and, like, make it work. Figure out what you know, what's going to go wrong, Is it not going to work this way? And then go from there. But customizing the shows and getting them to that place, there's so much more available than when we started our shows way back when. I'd say, if you're getting to that point where your show's stale, there's probably new things you didn't even know could happen. The next thing is also get an audit, get some outside eyes and ears on your show. That's, you know, Reena, you've been doing this a long time. You have some expertise in this area, right? When you listen to a show and you check someone out out, you look at that and you go, wow, they could be doing this better. They could be doing this differently. But there are also tech things that we do all the time. When we do audits of shows, and we do a lot, we do probably like 10 audits, 10, 12 audits a week, easily for people. And so we'll just audit a show and tell them, you know, hey, you have 4,000 characters you could be using for a description. You're keeping more people from finding you because you're not using enough keywords. They're like, oh, I got to write 4,000 characters. Like, that's not easy, but I can make that easy for you. But just using that, it's going to change overnight how much you get served up. And so technical things like that. When we first started, it was 400 characters. Like, it wasn't 4,000.

So when you started to know the right keywords, I know there are different sites that you can go to to see which words rank higher. Do you have any recommendations there or. Not really.

So I don't like to use them for podcasting. I mean, we use them for episodes and topic planning. So, like, that's different for the topic planning side of it. For a podcast show itself, it needs to be really authentic to you and to how you're doing it. What we have our clients do is record it. If you're recording it, you're more likely to use words that are mainstream. You're less likely to use too much lingo. That's your own lingo. Unless that's what you're going for, right? I mean, when we used FFF, we called our 3D print podcast, WTFF and the FFF. FFF stood for fused filament fabrication. Well, of course, we spelled that out in our description and we called it 3D printing in our description. And we did stuff like that. But using that FFF was a geeky attractor. So, like, we want to have those things that you would use and have it be friendly and cool and have those things happen and have associations like, you know, better call Daddy has great associations because, you know, there are lots of other shows with Daddy in them, and, you know, they. They're very popular. So that's good. And WTF was really popular. Marc Marone had just had Obama on when we started our show. And so, like, that was really popular as well. So it helped us show up in search. So there was some strategies there that you wouldn't get if you were really going in straight for that keyword strategy. We keep it too boring and simple. So by speaking it and recording your description, essentially. So by recording it, transcribing it, and then rewriting it to get it to 4,000 and to get it to look right. By doing it that way, we're encouraging those mainstream terms and you will get to what's. What's better to use. And what we. What we don't want to do is also keyword cram. And. But we do want to mix things up. So if I said 3D printing ever again and again and again throughout the thing, it would be. It would really be too much. I only really need it once in that description. So if I use 3D print, 3D printing, use it with a 3, you know, like, do different things like that, then I'm helping to accommodate the way that it might happen. And sometimes, on occasion, we use misspelling. Like every so often, Tom and I will misspell our own last name in the description. It's very rare that someone will find it. And if they find it, when I tell them why we did it, then they'll be like, oh, that's really cool. But hazard with two Z's is like, people spell it with one all the time. And, you know, so they, you know, we want them to find us. Even though that's the case.

That's such a good trick. And actually with hashtags on Instagram, I do Daddy's girl, G U R L and Father daughter dance. Daddy, daughter dance. Yes.

So there are a lot of father plays. Exactly, exactly. And so that's what you would want to do. You want to use father, you want to use Daddy you want it, dad. You want all of that in there? Because at the end of the day, and you would do that naturally when you speak, because you just don't want to be that repetitive. We naturally do it. That. That's why I think recording your description is one of the best ways to get at what you need.

I love that. That's so good. Is there anything that you'd like to ask my daddy?

I'm so glad you said that. You know, this is the thing. It's like, I really want to know what your dad thinks of the podcasting, like, community as a whole, because now he's been doing this a while, and he probably didn't really. I mean, I think early on, if I remember right from some of your early episodes, me wasn't really so sure about this podcasting thing. But I want to know what he thinks about the podcasting in general. Has he decided to listen to other shows? Like, is he getting a little bit of the podcasting bug yet? That's what I want to know.

Ooh, that is such a good question. And you know what's funny? Daddy is getting a little bit better at his reactions. He's getting a lot more comfortable on the mic.

I went and said to my dad right after our. Because I. When I interviewed you on the Bench Factor, I had you on my show. I went and asked my dad, and I was like, dad, if I had come to you with this concept of, like, having you on my show and being the end, would you have done it? And I can hear my mom in the background going, I wouldn't.

Not me. Don't ask me. And my dad was like, I don't know that I want to show up. I'm retired. I don't know that I want to show up all the time for that. But, yeah, I would do it on occasion. That's sweet.

Yeah. Have you ever interviewed your dad and, like, what questions or subjects would you like to talk to him about? That might be kind of, like, pushing the envelope.

Yeah. You know, I haven't interviewed my dad like that, but I did do it with my youngest daughter. She did one of those, like, reports where you had to interview someone from a different generation. And, you know, and then, you know, I remember thinking, making, like, this report. It was so funny. I was like. He would talk about the fact that. How they would have dinners as a family when they were young, and. And how his. My great grandmother. But his grandmother wouldn't. Wasn't able to sit down at the table because they were always like, fetching things and everything. And so it's like she practically ate standing up and, like, you know, like, that kind of thing. It was just so old Italian. And I was like. I was like, I've never heard some of these stories before. I'm, like, so glad she asked you these things, because that's what we get, these insights into stuff that we missed.

Yeah. I will say, too, I feel like the biggest benefit from doing this that I never would have expected is capturing my dad's thoughts on all of these stories that I've now come into. Because even though my kids can't totally appreciate that now, it's a time capsule for questions they may have that he won't be able to answer down the road.

I know, I know. Yeah. My dad's a big reader, and I always was hoping he'd write a book, but I didn't think he has it in his plan. So he's enjoying just reading it in his retirement. So Reading in Golf and Grandkids.

Well, kind of like your description thing. Maybe he could just talk into the phone. I mean, truthfully, I interviewed my dad's mother a year into doing the podcast, and now she can't even tell the same stories. And I literally just put these little headphones on her and recorded her on my phone and got her to tell me the stories that I've heard 100 times. And it is so special that I captured that. I mean, that is what is amazing about podcasting and amazing about technology. Technology. I mean, really, people shouldn't be held back by the technology piece. They should just do what they're inspired to do.

Yeah. That's why on your list, I would never have picked the one about, like, recording equipment. That's a. Marian and I both agree on this one is like, that's the last thing people should be asking about. But it is a go. Like, I get it. At every event, someone will always ask me what recording equipment they're like, seriously, you could use your phone. You really could, and it would still be okay. I don't recommend that, but you could. It's. I don't want it to be difficult. This is the part that should be so easy. So I actually been teaching the class to people who are starting or have their own agency for podcast coaching and other things like that. And in doing it, one of the things that I said was, I was like, look, I'm going to do this module for you, and you're going to say you don't need it, but I'm going to Tell you that you really, you will realize that you do. And that is I'm going to teach you how to teach your clients the, like, low budget, simplest way to record. And I'm going to give you the whole tutorial on the equipment and what to do and what, how to use this and how to make this, like, plug and play. And I was like, you may have a whole model, but this is one that's going to work.

This has been something that I would never would have expected in podcasting. And I know this is part of your expertise as well, is that you're, you know, into having contracts in place and making sure legally you're covered and all of those things. I'm not so great at that. And I think probably a lot of podcasters aren't. I've had probably five or six, six out of about 215 interviews or so, feel like they overshared or wanted me to make certain edits after. And if it's one sentence, okay, right. Like, I'm not looking to ruin people's lives, but if it's chunks of the interview, I've chosen not to air a couple of them because of that. How do you feel about that?

I mean, you know, I try to be really clear with people about how it works, right. And I'm not there to do a gotcha. Right. Like, that's not the point of, of the way that I podcast and the way most of the people that I've advised podcast. But we did have one where, like, a client, their ex wife was kind of casually mentioned, but not by name or anything in it, because they were in a business together. So, like, and they were still in that business together. So, you know, he mentioned, my ex wife and I own this business. And, like, she didn't want any association with them and she flipped out about it. And he called in a panic. And I said, well, of course we're going to remove that for you because, you know, you want to remove something like that was just making people's lives more difficult. And so, you know, they don't need the hassle of all of that because they misspoke or said something like that. But when you're talking about, like, I regret everything that I said and I need to cut this whole thing. No, done. I don't edit it. I don't edit it. I won't do it. I'll just pull it. And you know, I don't pull a lot of episodes, but I, I would do that in that particular case because it's Just I don't want them out there feeling like this uncomfortable place. But I also don't want to feel uncomfortable about it either.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and if you thought the topic was really worth having, then go find someone who really is willing to talk about it at that point. You know, it's going to make it better for you at the end of the day.

Amen, sister. All right, well, let's promote all you've got going on so much. And who should come your way.

So anyone who has a podcast already and who's done 25 episodes or more, I want you to have enough under your belt that you feel good about it. And add at that point, you got to just be making sure that you're actively doing it. Because this is what's really important is we're consistent and constant. We're actively posting. So if you're posting a weekly show, it better be weekly. You better be doing that or you can't, you know, because I'm going to check it out and if you've got a big old gap in there, you know you're not going to make it. So that's really my only requirement. You don't have to be like, oh, I've got these amazing numbers. I don't want to put a metric on it because you might have 100 listeners a month, but be making $10,000 off of that. I want you to have that. You, you feel that something successful about your show that you can talk about, then you're welcome on mine.

I love that Tracy. This has been an absolute honor and I cannot wait to hear what my dad has to say. He's going to love this episode.

Now let's switch it over to grandpa.

I thought it was really funny that Tracy said, am I the kind of girl you bring home to daddy?

That was cute. She definitely was encouraged and inspired the men in her family, especially her father. She had grandfathers and uncles that were all entrepreneurs and hands on business people. The irony is that she was encouraged to make choices. Of course her father streamlined it a little bit where if she would choose wrong, I guess he would put his foot down and certainly protect her and make sure that she was doing the right thing things. But the fact is, is that she was involved in what she wanted out of life and decisions of her life and where she had the encouragement and the backing of her father and her parents and her mother. And the key element in here is that they encouraged her to be creative. Isn't that what she's doing? Now is that she thinks outside the box and she's done it for herself and for her own business, business with her husband. And she's helping other people think outside the box and to continually adapt to change and to earth things up and continue to put spice in your life. That is also the secret of success, of life is to be able to spice it up and to be able to try new things. But yet at the same time, she's conservative, knows what business, business highs and lows can be. And she made a very important thing about the podcasting business is that here we keep talking about advertising and yet only about 2% of all the podcasts are able to survive efficiently or cash positive advertising that most podcasts are not used for making money. What is a podcast? And she even asked me the question, question is, what am I getting out of it and do I value it more? Because I have such a busy schedule, I'm not really listening too many times to other people's podcasts. I have listened to a few and I have seen some of the clips of some of these things on YouTube and there's so many sites that are showing podcasts, it's just unbelievable. But she's talking about that there's thousands and thousands of them out there. And it's a way of communicating and also being able to, as Rena is doing with her show, is that she's able to promote herself. It's a way of advertising yourself. And it also gives you an enormous benefit of self confidence, of being able to speak out and communicate without being filtered by other people. So it is really, truly a beautiful new way to communicate with people and not having to be under some type of guideline and rules of other people, which makes it very difficult to have a breakthrough on your ideas. And you're able to be more creative by sharing ideas with so many more people that you're able to get to. It's just an unbelievable street or avenue that just amplifies a way of getting your message out. And other people's messages are out to people all over the world. Unbelievable. And the breakthrough this communication tool is.

I would think that you've learned from many of the guests who have been on our show. I think that you've taken away a lot of messages from them. And I think that everybody needs a podcast because you can't express how you feel about all of these things in the workplace.

No, but you also learn the words of, of humility, you learn the words of wisdom, you learn the word of kindness, of understanding, of compassion. All these words have a greater effect when you're around interacting with more and more and more people. And this also happened in our own factory. Dealing with all kinds of different levels and communications of all different type of professional people and hands on people people and obviously the responsibility of running a company and working with workers. It also opens up your mind and if you listen, if you listen to other people, you're right. You have an opportunity to learn so much more. So by giving and communicating your ideas and helping other people, your feedback that you get in return is extremely rewarding. It makes you a better person person.

What do you think about some of the work that she's done in her career? I mean, truly amazing too.

She is able to pivot, but by getting involved in podcasting, she's used it as a communication tool of the future and she gets everyone involved in it and she's doing hundreds of shows. She's even got her daughter thinking that way and making a show. It was a project for school, but the point is, is that she's using it. As I stated earlier, it's being used as a communication tool. It's not there to make you money necessarily indirectly, as you know it does, but it's a way to communicate better. It's like taking a course at school where you're learning a subject and being able to express yourself much better. Truly an incredible new tool that everyone should really learn how to to do.

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