Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Good day everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stoughton. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who have supported me through this journey. I had a conversation with a couple people this week and they were talking about niche and niche and I saw a commercial on it and I was kind of thinking about marketing and then I was kind of thinking about workplace organization. So I thought, what a kind of cool combination of topic I thought we could discuss. So I was excited about it and thought, okay, tonight might be the night to do it. So I am so lucky to have as my guest to help me out in this conversation. Her name is Lisa Williams. Lisa is a native Texan, digital marketer, podcaster, entrepreneur, and goal setter with big dreams. She is obsessed with sunsets, puppies, and experiencing everything life has to offer. Today you can find her working outside on her patio in a cute coffee shop or traveling to new destinations to immerse herself in the culture where she is learning the language or looking for a new adventure. Currently, she's on a mission to make a difference in the lives of those around her and building authentic relationships with kindness, empathy and compassion. She is always looking for someone with a genuine interest in understanding their business, building their brand, and figuring out the best strategies for achieving their goals. I was just telling Lisa, when we first started here, before we started taping, I should say that when I reached out to her, I had no idea that she was going to say yes. I just thought I would give it a whirl and see what she said. And when she said yes to me, I was totally thrown for a loop. I was so excited because I just think that she is just a tremendous individual and just a perfect type of person that I love to have on my podcast. So welcome to the show, Lisa. I am so happy to have you on as a guest today.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Andrew, thank you so much for inviting me and I am honored to be a guest. You know, oh, it's probably been five years ago, I started my podcast journey by reaching out to people just like you are, to get them onto my podcast and invite them as guests and learn their story. But my secret agenda was I was asking them the questions that I wanted to ask them so that I could learn more about building my business or building my brand or building myself individually. And so it was this two prong approach and I always loved it when people said yes. It was very rare that I got a no. It might have been a yes, not right now, or can we do it at a later date? But it was rare that I got a no.
I'm honored to be here. Thank you.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: It's greatly appreciated that you said yes to me. I will tell you, when I first started my podcast, my first ten people that I asked were a complete no, like, right off the bat. So I kind of wondered, is it something that is doable? Is am I wasting my time here? Because people were kind of saying no to me right off the bat? Am I? So. And then I thought to myself, no, I'm going to stick with it. I'm going to keep asking people. And now this year, I have a little bit of a mantra that I say to myself. I am not afraid of saying the word no and hearing the word no. So I ask people, I try to do something, working on different projects as well, currently, and I just ask, and if they say no, that's okay. I'm not insulted, I'm not hurt. It just means that it's just not the right fit or the right time or whatever, and we just go on to the next right.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: I mean, we can't take no personally because we don't know what's going on in their life and we don't know why they said no, and we don't, you know, and it's not our business to ask. So when we take no personally, it's about us. It's not about the other person. So I don't. I don't see no as a bad word to say, honestly, I don't.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: I'm learning that as I go, that it's not a bad thing to say or to hear. And as I continue to grow, not just as a podcaster, but as an individual, that it's okay to. To use that word. It's not a negative thing at all. So what I want to know from you is, how are things with you? What's new? What's going on in Lisa's world? Tell us. Give us the deets.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Well, okay. So all of 2022, I traveled extensively. I was gone pretty much eight or nine months out of that entire year, and it was just a fabulous experience. Andrew. So I had the privilege of pet sitting at various locations. That's how I funded my travel journey. And it's a longer story than what I'm going to give you, but that's not what we're going to talk about. But anyway, so I traveled in Petsat all of 2022 and then came home at the beginning of last year, towards the end of 2022. Beginning of 2023. And I was just looking like, oh, do I want to travel this year? Do I not want to travel? Do I want to do it as extensively as I did last year? So I kind of did a little bit of traveling here and there, but then what I did is I rescued a puppy myself, so back in June of last year. So, needless to say, she has stolen my heart. And I still do traveling, not extensively like I was, and I have some trips planned, but that's what's new in my world. So I'm in Texas, I'm in the Dallas Fort Worth area, and today was 71 and sunny. So we got to go on a nice, long walk and enjoy the sunshine. And, you know, I am a sunshine girl, so anytime I have an opportunity to get out in nature and, you know, let the sun hit my face, it feels great. And she, she and I got to go on a long walk today.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: That sounds absolutely amazing. Here in Canada, we're currently, as we're taping, we're in the winter season, so. But it's been mild for Canada. I was outside, um, at lunchtime, uh, having a conversation with somebody, and it was just gorgeous. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go outside today. And I was outside with them and even have a jacket on, and I just. I loved it. I'm like, oh, my God, like, I can't wait for summer. Like, it's just. I just love. I'm like you. I love the sun. I love the warmth. I find it's just so.
It feels so good, like you said on your face. And so I'm totally with you on that, for sure.
Well, I'm glad that you got a chance to get out today with the pup and enjoyed the nice weather. It is super important to get out, for sure, and just to reflect and just to think and change a scenery as well. It's nice as well.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And I think also because I do work from home and I do live alone. And so one of the things for me is I have to change my environment, I have to change my scenery, and that's why I traveled so much over the last several years. But getting out most of the time, I don't listen to a podcast or music or anything. Most of the time, I just stick my phone in my pocket in case I need it. But I don't even listen to anything while I'm walking because I really just want to enjoy the nature and enjoy the present moment and not miss what's going on. And, you know, I just value that time to get out, to mix things up, to break up my day. I think it's so important to get movement, to move your body, to get sunlight, and to get plenty of rest. And you, you know, one of the things that I used to pride myself on many, many years ago was the least amount of sleep that I got, that I could manage to function on. And so unhealthy for my mental state, my physical state, everything.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yep. It certainly is. Certainly is. So I'm so excited to get into this discussion with you today, but before we begin, I have a fun question to ask that I ask all my guests to get things going. It's a thought provoking question. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: I'm ready. Let's go.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: So your question is, if you could choose any animated character, who would you be and why?
[00:09:57] Speaker A: I think I would be Spider man. Oh, but can we say Spider Woman?
[00:10:04] Speaker B: You can. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Because then I could just use my web powers to go wherever I wanted and just, you know, shoot them out of my hand. And if I wanted to go climb a window or a building or a mountain or whatever, I could do that. So I could just use my superpower to go wherever I wanted. I guess that leads me to say I'm super adventurous and want to explore.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that would. You know what? That's exactly what I was thinking. And, you know, that's why I love these questions, because I just never know what I'm going to answer, I'm going to get from the guest. And I did not expect that answer from you. I don't know what answer I was expecting, but I did not expect that. And I just love that answer. And that fits exactly who you are to a t because, yes, you like to travel, you're adventurous, and that fits it to a t. So I just love that answer. That is perfect.
That is awesome.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: You're very welcome. Thanks for having fun with me.
I appreciate you doing that. And I appreciate your great answer. It was awesome.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: You're welcome. So why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about you, Lisa, and your story and your why.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Oh, well, gosh, I don't even know where to start. But to pack it all in, let's start with sometime around 20, 12, 13, sometime around there.
I was working in corporate America, and I had a territory which was the whole state of Texas. And so I drove around visiting insurance agents, independent insurance agents, because I marketed a product to them. And there was a little thing on my iPhone called podcast.
I really didn't know what that app was, so I started trying to discover what exactly a podcast was. I honestly didn't even know and found this whole new world of podcasting. So I would drive around because I had endless window shield time, and I would listen to podcasts. And I was married at the time, and I came home and I told my husband, I'm gonna start a podcast. This is, like, so easy. You just put all this information together, you talk, and you share your. Your opinions with the world.
And I bought a microphone. I had branding. I had all that stuff done. And then my life, our life collectively, our marriage, it all started falling apart. And my ex husband, now ex husband, was a brutal alcoholic. And so that changed the trajectory of my life because, you know, you get married and you expect, and we have two kids together, and you expect that that's a going to be your life, right? You're going to. I stayed home for many years raising our kids, and you expect that to be your life. And then things unexpectedly happen, and I didn't deal with it very well. I put a lot of blame on him. I, you know, just emotionally was a roller coaster and a wreck. And so we ended up getting divorced several years later. And going through that process, Andrew, it just. I felt like I pulled this coat of armor off of myself. And so what I had found in being married for 20 years was I was layering this coat of armor, if you will, with a protective shield to mask and hide who I really was inside.
And I no longer even knew who I was. I went out with a friend on a friend date, and he asked me, what do you like to do for fun?
And I couldn't answer him at the time because I didn't really know who I was.
I had put all these layers and all this. These masks on. So coming out of that divorce, like I said, it felt like pulling a coat of armor off me and trying to find myself again.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: That's.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: That's kind of the. The beginning of my journey of what got me here.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Wow, so much to pack in there. What stuff that's resonated with me here is, you know, first off, to have your thoughts. I think that's something. What you felt as far as this is what I thought is going to be is something that I speak to a lot of people on, whether it be a relationship, whether it be a career, whether it, you know, could be anything. Right? And it's just you have this idea of what you're supposed to do. Like, you know, I've talked to people that they went to school. They finished. They got the degree, met the husband or the wife, got the house, the white picket fence, got the kids, the dog. They got a job, corporate job, car, cell phone, laptop, and I traveling, going to see clients. And then they realize, oh, my God, I don't like what I'm doing. There's something that's missing. I'm not happy. I don't know what it is. I think, you know, I'm happy at home, but I'm just not happy doing what I'm doing. And they realize that after a while, you know, you keep think, well, maybe I want to, you know, take this promotion. And then you take that promotion, and you think that that's gonna be it. And then you're like, no, it's still not it. And then you figure, well, I'm gonna go a little bit higher. And then you. So you keep trying to do that, but it's not fixing the problem.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: What's in here?
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: You realize it. Actually sit down and think about it and realize, oh, my God, this is actually not what I want and. And make that choice. So I love that you took the time to, to figure out what your passion was, what you. What you love doing, and in turn, you also were able to find yourself as well. So I want to commend you today because there's a lot of people that I speak to that are not there or still not there or trying to figure it out. And you did. So with all the stuff that you had going against you, you know, a lot of situations would be like, oh, well, you know, throwing a white towel, never going to get out of this, but you got out of it, and you figured it out. And from what you're telling me earlier, what you did, you had a great day. So it's, you know, it sounds like you got to where you wanted to be. And I always talk about, you know, passion, but I always talk about clarity. And you found your clarity in your life now, and the listeners will not see it, but you were one of those people that someone who's always smiling, and you could always tell when you're smiling, whether you're on the phone or talking to somebody and you're talking them in front of them, you're always smiling, and you could just tell. And that, that just tells me that you found your passion of what you really want to do. And that's super important.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Well, my mantra, or, if you will, is, I want to a live a life by design. And before I started my business, and I started my business in 2018, but even after I started my business, I used to just write Andrew on sticky notes on glass boards. You know, we're in my journals, in my notebooks. Life by design, create. A life by design, create. And I don't know. I didn't know what that looked like. You know, it just was. I didn't want to live on somebody else's dime and somebody else's time, and I wanted to be me, 100% me. And like I said, I lived this masked life for so long, and it took me so many years to peel those layers off and become who I really was and who I truly am again. And so I. I never wanted to go back there, ever. And I only wanted to go forward. And so today, I like to say that I'm living a life by intention, not convention, because I think we are taught and told so many false truths in this world that just because the majority of people believe them, that we believe them, or just because the majority of people think them, we're supposed to think them. And you should question everything. You really should, because nothing is true. You should question everything. And the way that you should come to a conclusion as to what's true is what's true for you based on your experience, not what somebody else says should be true.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Right, right. I totally. I am with you 100% on that, for sure.
And I love that. When you said that you pulled a coat of armor off of you, that makes me think of a lot of people that I'm talking to who are working in a job that they just don't enjoy and they're in a rabbit hole, or like you say, they feel like they have this coat of armor and they can't seem to get it off or get out of that situation because they just feel like they're stuck. And again, I love that you unstuck yourself and figured it out.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Well, we are conditioned to want more, be more, have more, do more.
It's the marketing that goes on around us for us to chase these shiny objects. We don't ever want to just live in simplicity. We always want a bigger car or a better car or a newer car, a bigger house or a better house or a newer house.
You know, the iPhones, they come out, what, every 15 months or so, a new one. And look at the lines of people who wait overnight to go get the new one when I'm sure their phone that they have in their pocket or their purse right then and there works totally fine. But it's that, it's these shiny objects that we chase all the time, so we never feel like we are enough or we have enough or we do enough. I mean, you read these articles.
Here's the best morning routine. And, you know, you should be journaling and praying or meditating and cold plunging and I running 9 miles and sitting and listening to the birds chirping while you're journaling. I mean, it's like this. And if you don't do all of that, you're made to feel less than. And I think that that's, you have to ignore the noise and shut it off. And one of the things that I've been able to do over the last five, six years is no longer pay attention to the news. I don't even have streaming services on my television.
I don't read news articles. I don't get on Facebook anymore. I mean, I took it off my phone. There's just things. I don't drink alcohol. I mean, there's things that I had to unlearn that are so prevalent in society.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah, you have to figure out what, you know, what works for you, what doesn't. And all that stuff you just mentioned wasn't working for you, so you had to take it out of your life. So. And that's. You figured it out and that's awesome for you. So I'm excited because our conversation is niche. And what I want to know from you, Lisa, is what is niche? What is the niche of an organization or a business?
[00:23:21] Speaker A: So I'm going to give you two different answers.
A niche in a business is you are really honing in on somebody that you serve in a very narrow, focused way. So let's just say that you are a service provider, that you run a SaaS company and you have accounting software. Let's just say you run a SaaS company with some accounting software. Well, your target audience is accountants. Cpas. Right. That's who your target audience is.
You can niche down. And you could say, I own a SaaS company and I target accountants or cpas only in the US or only in North America or only in Europe.
You could even niche it down further and say, only in the western half of the United States. I mean, you could just keep, only in Texas. Only in Dallas, Texas. I mean, you could keep niching it down. I only serve minorities, or I only serve, you know, and you can keep, you could keep going. I mean, you have to be careful about what you, but you could keep going and you can niche down as a business or a service provider or you sell products, you know, and I mean, you sell luxury cars. Well, you can't just, you know, there's, if you sell luxury cars, who's your audience? What kind of luxury cars do you have? If you go to the opposite end as somebody who has a job, somebody who's looking for a job, somebody who's an employee or, you know, you're, you're working for a company. If you want a niche down in your industry, you could do the same thing. I am only looking for jobs in the accounting industry. I'm only looking for jobs in the automotive industry. And then you go further. I'm only looking for jobs in the automotive industry in the state of Texas. And you just keep niching down. So I think there could be too narrow of a niche where? Let's just say, I'll give you a good example. Not a lot of people read newspapers like they used to.
Back when my parents were sitting at the kitchen table with their coffee and reading their newspapers. It's kind of a lost, just nobody reads them. You don't get them thrown at your door with the newspaper deliveries anymore. It's just everything's online.
So if I was running a marketing agency and I sold ad space in newspapers, physical newspapers, and that was my niche, I don't know that I'm going to be super successful.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: So you have to be careful on the, what your niche is. You have to make sure that there's a viable audience for whatever it is you're selling, buying, servicing, providing, or looking for.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: It sounds like you have to be well round, try to be well rounded. When you're talking about the types of things as an organization or business, you can't, like you said, newspaper and selling ads will, you know, try to figuring out, well, okay, well, I can't sell ads on, I guess you have to try to adapt, right. Or figuring out how, you know. Okay, I can't sell them in newspaper ads and newspapers, but I can definitely sell them on, you know, Internet.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Or LinkedIn or Instagram. Yeah. So, yeah, you have to adapt and be relevant and timely with whatever your niche is, you know, and I mean, I think there's a space also for that very lost art or that, you know, those people who really are super, super niche, but, you know, you have to find that, that fine, that, that bucket.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: So would you say that there is a, what is the disadvantage? And I'll also ask you, what's the Adv? What's the advantage and what's the disadvantageous of a niche?
[00:27:48] Speaker A: So, I mean, just because I just experienced this recently with my own business and transitioning, and one of the things that I used to say is, I don't think, you know, I run a marketing agency, a digital marketing agency. And I used to say I don't really niche down to say that I service a certain industry or certain organizations or certain locations because I had a wide variety of clients that were in all kinds of industries. And in my head, marketing is marketing.
And so I feel like the one thing that I felt was a benefit was every client that we worked with got very hyper personalized service, and we, myself and my team got to learn about so many different industries that we worked with and so many different organizations. Now, what I will say is we just recently niched down. And one of the things, one of the benefits of niching down is we're only talking to one audience and we're only selling one service.
And we know that service really well.
So we're not, now we're not learning multiple industries and going out and doing research for multiple different organizations. It's just one industry.
And the benefit to us is we no longer are spinning our wheels right and left and upside down and sideways. We're just focusing and we're narrowing our focus, which allows us to scale. And I think that's the thing, is we want to scale. And the only way that we can scale is to monetize. And so we have to narrow our focus so that we could create systems that will allow us to scale.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: You know that I love that because it makes me think of, like, an example that would make me think of, like a restaurant where you go into a restaurant and you sit down at the table and they give you the menu and there's like 40, 50 somewhat items on the menu, and you're like, okay, well, everything looks good. But usually in my thinking, you know, there are restaurants that, you know, they have an item that they, you know, they specialize in. That's right. They're really, really good at. But if you are, if you have, like, so many items on your menu, well, then you can't specialize in that one item because you have so many items that you have to be good at, like, all of them. So I could totally see where you do, where you do that. And I myself, I I try to, my goal is to have conversations. When I have conversations, I try to have them in a certain mold. So I have my conversations revolve around HR, leadership and workplace. So I don't go into anything other than that because I want to. I don't think we can.
Don't think perfection is real. I don't think, you know, it's just. Nobody's perfect, and it's not. It's. It's not real. So. But you can be good, and I think you can be. The better that you get, the more confident and the more comfortable you are with it. So that's that. So what you said, that kind of made total sense to me.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Well, so imagine this, Andrew cheesecake factory has a menu that's probably eight to ten pages long. First of all, imagine being a cook at the cheesecake factory, and imagine all of the dishes and the recipes and the food that you have to remember to learn how to make. Second, imagine being a manager or an inventory or the ordering person and all of the things that you have to order for that vast menu. Then imagine being a customer, and you come in and you open the menu, and the drink menu is 15 pages, and the food menu is 15 pages. And you're like, this is overwhelming to me. And then, I mean, I just tend to order the same thing over and over again if I'm going there, because I don't want to try to learn. I don't want to try to, you know, look through the menu. But now imagine going to a very fine dining restaurant. Let's say a steakhouse that only serves steak. Maybe they have a couple of chicken dishes or a couple of seafood options, but the majority of their menu is five or six steak type dishes, maybe a couple of chicken dishes or a couple of seafood dishes, and then their sides and a few appetizers. How much more enjoyable is that experience as a consumer, as a cook learning how to manage the kitchen, as somebody who orders their inventory, as somebody who manages the restaurant. And the reason that you go to that fine dining steak restaurant is because they're really good. And the reason that they're really good is because that's all they do, is steak.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You're not going to McDonald's for filet mignon, so.
And I'm exactly like you, Lisa. There are specific restaurants that I go to, and I just know them, and I say, okay, well, we're gonna go here. And I know exactly like, I don't even need to pull out the menu. I need only to look at the menu. I know exactly what I'm gonna have because I always have that there. And I know that it's something that I enjoyed. It's something that the restaurant does well. So why would I, like you said, why would I change something else when I know that I enjoy that one particular dish?
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Well, years ago, I read this book called the outliers, and it was just talking about people who are born like, let's just say a basketball player or a football player or a hockey player, and the way that their birthday ended with the way that their, or begins with the way that the school year or the season or whatever. So let's just say that you have eleven year olds who just turned eleven or eleven year olds who are about to be twelve on the same team, right? Well, that eleven year old who's about to be twelve is far more advanced than an eleven year old who just turned eleven. Just think about it. They were went from ten to eleven, and this person's been eleven for a year, and they're about to go to twelve. And so just the advantage of being born at a certain time of the year based on the sport that you play. And so think about that. How, how much, how much better that person is based on the advantage that they have. And then that allows them to hone in on their skill even more. So. And so it's the same thing in business. It's the same thing in, when you go and look for a job, if you have a skill that you've really honed in on, that you're really good at, then you're the niche, right?
[00:35:51] Speaker B: For sure. For sure.
So how do we find our niche in, let's say, in a workplace?
I'm gonna go workplace and business environment, how do we find our niche in both of those?
[00:36:08] Speaker A: So I think you have to find your ikagai. And your ika guy is this intersection of what you love, what the world needs, what you do well, and what you could get paid for.
And it's this intersection of finding your ichigai. And when you find your ikigai, I think you can go into the world business wise, as an organization, as an employee, as anything. You could go in with passion and love. And you know what ignites you. You know what sets you on fire. And if it means going and sitting at an office and typing in numbers and being an accountant and that makes you happy, you should go do that because the world needs you. You could get paid for it. You're good at it. And it's your love. If you love hiking mountains and you could get paid for it, then you should go do that. But I think that's, that's how you, that's, that's really, you have to look within first.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: I agree with you 100% on that. I think. I mean, we talked about it earlier about finding clarity and finding your passion. And I think once you find that, then, yes, it makes life so much easier for you. I always say that we spend so much time at work that we have to enjoy what we're doing. The minute that you're getting up in the morning and you're saying to yourself, oh, my God, I gotta go to that place again today, and I gotta spend 8 hours. That's when things start to go in arrears and there starts to be issues and there's can be all kinds of stuff that could happen, you know, including burnout, including. There's all kinds of, there's a gamut of things that can happen. So I think that you, once you lose that passion, you mentioned sports. It's a perfect example when a guy becomes a professional player and after a certain amount of time that he decides, okay, you know what? I don't want to go to training camp anymore. I don't want to go through all that stuff. He's lost his passion, so why should he continue to do it? Because that's whole, that's all part of, that's all part of it. Training camp, getting prepared for the season, the season and then the end of season. Right. So you got to, you have to be ready for all of that. And you have to have it in your, your mind, frame in your head to go through it. And if you don't have it in your mind and in your heart, then why, then why do it? So I totally agree with you and Andrew.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: You have to get, you have to be able to get paid for it because you have to, you have to sustain a living and, you know, so it has to be something you love, but it also has to be something that you could get paid for. So I love cooking. I'm really good at it. I make fabulous dishes. I come up with my own recipes. It's not something that I want to go do to get paid for because then I think I lose that passion, right. Because I only want to cook when I want to cook, right. I don't want to cook for other, all the other people all the time. I don't, you know, so I think you have to. I think you have to. I mean, you're really good at a lot of things. We all are. Like, as human beings, we're all really good at a lot of things. So what is it that you love that you can also get paid for. And I think that that's part of that intersection. And then it's also, what does the world need, you know, from you that you could provide a.
Lisa, if you.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Could choose one word to describe yourself, what word would that be?
[00:40:19] Speaker A: I would say free spirit.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: Is that two words, though?
[00:40:25] Speaker B: It's two.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: I'll let you have the two. No problem.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: They go together.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: No, I totally agree with you.
I would definitely. I love those two words. I definitely go passionate for you as well. I think you're very passionate for all the things that you. You love to do in your career and in your out, you know, in your personal, professional life. I think you have passion for things, and I think that's super important, and I definitely see that in you as well.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Well, yeah, I mean, I think you have to have passion to guide you or, you know, like you said, if you wake up and you're not loving what you're doing and you're sitting there going, I don't want to go to work today. I don't want. When is Friday coming? You know, like, then you're. You've lost your passion.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: And one of the things I have to say, andrew, is every day is Friday in my world. So I love my life.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I have to agree with you. So I was someone, and I know there's a lot of people out there.
I am someone who was like a lot of people when I did not like Mondays at all. I used to hate Mondays, and now I'd say, in the last couple of years, I've grown to like Mondays. And the reason why I like Mondays is because I love a Friday, don't get me wrong, because it's the weekend, and I don't want to like Saturday morning, getting up and making a nice breakfast, whatever. I like that. But I do like Monday for the simple reason, because I get up in the morning on a Monday morning, and I look, you know, have breakfast, whatever, and then I get to look at my calendar for the week and see what I have going on for the week, and I. That gets me excited because I get to see what I got going on. Am I speaking to somebody or, you know, what podcast tapings are my doing or what have you? So it's a plan that I get to see the whole. For the whole week. And, you know, if it's somebody that I was looking forward to chatting with or meeting, you kind of like, oh, I get to, you know, I've been wanting to meet that person. I get to meet that person today. And, you know, so that's, it's kind of grown on me on Monday. I know it's still not going to be that for a lot of people, and that's okay, but for me, it's grown on me for sure.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I mean, every day is fabulous. I mean, you know, I think I told you this morning I had a leak in my, my refrigerator, but it's, I don't think of that as it ruined my entire day. It's just that time, that moment, there was an issue and, you know, you deal with it.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Right, right. You take care of it and you move on, and it's your, it's, the way that you handle it is super important. Like you said, you could have been, you know, said, oh, I'm gonna, you know, I'm miserable because I got, you know, water all over the place and I'm in a miserable mood. And, you know, you can let it set your day off, and you decided not to, so that was the, the most important thing. So that's pretty cool.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty cool.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: This has been such a great conversation. Lisa, do you have any final thoughts today?
[00:44:01] Speaker A: You know, the only thing I would say, just based on our conversation, just to kind of wrap it up and put a bow on it, I think we went in a lot of different directions, but I think you have to be living the life you love, to love the life you live.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: I love that. I love that.
Are you going to take ownership on that one?
[00:44:25] Speaker A: I don't know.
I think I read it somewhere. So, no, I'm not going to take ownership. Don't ask me where I read it or where I saw it or where it came from because I have no idea. But, no, but you have to be living the life you love. To love the life you live, you have to be, and, you know, you have to have that passion to get out of bed in the morning, and that has to fuel you, and it has to go, it goes back to the Ichigai, that, that center of all of those quadrants combined, that. That's your, that's your ikigai.
Highly recommend, the book.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it sounds like something that I definitely would be a great read, for sure.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: I want to take the time to thank you for coming on. It's been exactly what I. It's over and above what I expected it. It was going to be.
You are a tremendous individual. I just love your passion, your spirit, and your, your, in French, you'd say joy de vivre, like your way of life. I just love that you have.
You just have this way about you and, you know, you choose to just say, okay, that's, you know, it is what it is. Let's go on. And I just, it's something that I admire about you. And I'm sure that could see why people want to see how people could gravitate to you and to want to work with you, because you just have that.
Some people just have that it factor, and I feel like you have that it factor, that I can see why you're good at what you do, and I could see why a lot, like I said, a lot of people want to, want to work with you.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Thank you. And thank you for asking me to be a guest. And again, I am honored. So thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it. It's been fun.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Thank you so much. So on behalf of myself and my guest, Lisa, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everybody, that if we all work together, we can accomplish.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
