Power To Show Up As Yourself With Jackie Voutsinas

Transcript

Dave 0:00
Welcome to another episode of the agency balanced podcast. I can’t believe we’re back around here today. And I’m so pumped, so pumped to bring another guest with you today, Jackie foo sinus director of accounts at Smarty gear, Jackie, welcome to the podcast.

Jackie 0:15
Thanks for having me. This is super exciting. I, you know, I’ve been super excited to potentially get a spot on the agency balance since I found out that it was something that you were going to move forward with. So this is great.

Dave 0:27
Well, we’re excited to have you on we’re gonna have some fun today. But before we do that, I would love for you just to spend some time to share with our listeners a little bit about you your background, what you’ve been up to.

Jackie 0:39
Yeah. Alright, so I am newly in the role of director of accounts at SmartAcre, which is super exciting. So that’s something I definitely want to spend some time touching on. Previously, I held the role of Senior Account strategist at Smart acre. I’ve worked for a couple of different agencies in the past, I’ve worked in house. So I’ve worked at a variety of different industries, and definitely have, you know, a little bit of everything going on in my background at this point. I live in Center City, Philadelphia, with my chunky hound pup digs. And yeah, that’s me. That’s awesome.

Dave 1:15
So right off the bat I for our listeners, agency versus in house. So obviously agency, you know, you’re you’re working on a bunch of different clients. And when you’re in house, you get the focus on one. So maybe just talk about that a little bit about the pros and cons or things that you’ve seen, or maybe for any of our listeners who are considering going one or the other.

Jackie 1:39
Yeah, so I remember after kind of my first stint in agency life, I was like, I think that this is something that I enjoy in the moment, but will burn me out long term, I think I’m going to go in house, I think it’s going to be great, it’s going to be so easy to just focus on one thing. And then I went in house and I realized pretty quickly that not having a full team and being expected to do literally everything. I was a graphic designer, I was a copywriter, I was the editor, proofreader, I was doing all of the things I was doing the, you know, the technology, all of it. And it’s so hard to get things done. And it’s so hard when you go from that team atmosphere where you have someone to give insight and gut check you or even just like client approval and communications with a client versus like, no one’s going to sometimes check depending on you know, how your team is structured, how big you are, you know, where you’re, you’re you are in your career, you might just have to do it all pretty much yourself. And you just have to kind of fly by the seat of your pants without really much guidance or structure. And I didn’t like that. And I also miss the fast paced agency life. You know, it’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me, and it’s something that kind of keeps me on my toes. I like that every day is different. I like that I don’t just pick up on exactly where I left off the day before and you know, have a very one track mind, I liked that we have a variety of clients that I get to work with, and a whole team that I get to spend time with and learn from and engage with every day. So for me, that was kind of the big, you know, plus side of agency life and why it was a no brainer to come back.

Dave 3:17
Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s that’s been it for me for years is like you don’t just get up every day and work for the same company. I mean, you’re doing that right. But you’re working for so many other different companies. It’s given you a variety, keeps you on your toes and keeps you learning always be learning of different clients and figuring that stuff out. So so you’re you’re doing that right. So you let’s talk about that for a moment. Let’s let’s get right into well, one of the things that always stands out, and I’ve known Jackie for years, and I’ve seen you continue to grow, but you’re a boomerang employee of smart agar.

Jackie 3:53
Yeah, one and only thing and, yeah, I mean, this whole podcast is about agency balance. And my first time around at Smart acre, I obviously loved it. I loved everyone I worked with, I was super engaged. It was the work that I loved. It was a perfect role. For me. I was an account strategist. And, you know, I think I had a lot of what I was doing from a client management and just general marketing perspective down pat, what I did not have down pat was my personal life and the balance and just how to show up for my team in a way that aligned with who I wanted to be professionally. And a big chunk of that came from the fact that I was still living by this mindset where I had to be like business, Jackie, you know, every day when I showed up to work, I was, you know, in full business attire and heels. I had my hair curl. I was, you know, fully done up for the day. I didn’t talk much about my personal life or just what was going on outside of work. You know who I was outside of the office and I think that for my personality type to not Just be authentically and pretty much anyone to not just be authentically who I was. And, you know, talk to I wanted to talk and say what I wanted to say, and chit chat about my life outside of work, you know, kind of unapologetically, it was really hard for people to understand me understand what was going on in my life, some of the things that, you know, were probably areas where I’ve definitely needed to change things up a little bit, because I just wasn’t talking about anything. I was like, you know, I wasn’t doing a great job. As far as balance. I wasn’t showing up on time, I wasn’t there every day, I wasn’t showing up for the team, I was a frustrating person to probably work with across the board in that nature. And that’s because I really had not established that balance yet. I was trying to do it all. You know, I was young, I wanted to go out with my friends for so and so’s birthday. And we were you know, traveling here for the weekend, I was working, you know, 10 hour days, because I was all over the place. It wasn’t focusing on the right things. I didn’t know how to balance my time and my schedule. So I was working hard. But I wasn’t necessarily working on the right things in you know, I was trying to go to the gym every single night after working 10 hour days, and I was just burning myself out, while at the same time insisting No, it’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll get it together, you know, and I was not getting it together. So it didn’t work. And you know, it was definitely not an area of my life where I was like, oh, yeah, I’ve got this under control. This feels fine. So until I just kind of established where I was lacking, which took a while it just wasn’t working.

Dave 6:28
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. I mean, I know that’s, that’s tough, right? But when you when you stop and think if you are, if you are struggling right now, I think, prioritization, and putting yourself first and starting to think about you is really important. Because if you don’t get, you know, you’re stray, how can you is you’re expected to lead others, it’s a difficult thing. Maybe maybe just talk about, like now, right, like, so what are the some of the things that you’ve you’ve done to find more balance for yourself? You know, especially now that you’re, you’re continuing to level up in your career, how are you? Like, give us some ideas and give our listeners some some ideas on what they can be doing? And be mindful of that?

Jackie 7:12
Yeah, so I think that just in general, that whole transition, as a young professional is really challenging. And, you know, for me, I had to really sit down and be like, What do I want my life to look like? What’s important to me, you know, across the board, professionally, personally, all of those things? And is what I’m doing. And you know, how I’m doing it, who I’m spending my time with what I’m focusing on, you know, does that align with what I want long term? And, you know, if it’s a no, if it’s not an absolutely, yes, you should probably reconsider it a little bit. And, you know, in life and in general, and in agencies, especially in the role that I’ve been in, it’s really hard to not get pulled in a trillion directions. And just, I think the biggest thing for me was realizing that I kind of, I have to be my own anchor, no one else can do that for me. And I have to make decisions based on what I know is going to align with what I need in order to be successful and to be happy and feel fulfilled across the board career personal and everything. So, you know, being that anchor and realizing that sometimes for me, that means all right, I need to do one Bikram yoga class a week, because I need that 90 minutes where I shut down and there’s no phone, there’s no laptop, it’s just me and sweat, basically, you know, like, that’s something that helps my brain recalibrate, and it helps me show up better. So when I’m working, and you know, it’s around five o’clock, I’m like, Okay, I need to shut down for this class, I’m not going to make it and something pops up, or someone on the team asks me a question. And you know, it’s really easy to be like, This is urgent. And, you know, I’ll just go to the class, you know, another day this week or next week or something like that, but putting myself as something that is also urgent helped me remember that that is what I need to do in order to find balance and balance is urgent. You know, if you don’t have that control, and you start to burn yourself out, inspire a little bit, not doing that, you know, silly thing, whatever it is for you yoga class, going to the gym, spending time with your family, you know, for you cars, sports, cars, all of it. So, not doing that is actually hindering your ability to handle those urgent things as they do come up and in general, just focus so definitely something that I learned along the way.

Dave 9:33
That’s great advice. Definitely. Listen, write that down. And you said something to me the other day when we were kind of prepping for this a little bit, you know, and I love this. I think this this should be on a t shirt, the power to show up as yourself. You said that to me. So I think I think that’s that’s it right? There was there was I went through a period of of my time as well in my career. or I wasn’t, I didn’t feel like it was me. Like there was there was a run of time where I was like, it was me, I was being myself, I was feeling comfortable in my role and in the position that I was at the agency in the in my peers around me. And then I wasn’t, I was kind of like, faking, I wasn’t quite me, I wasn’t, it just wasn’t natural. And then it got to another chapter of my life where I was like, okay, you know what, I’m just gonna be me, I’m gonna wear white rimmed glasses today, people, because I like to wear funky glasses. And today, I’m wearing a basketball jersey, because that’s me. And that’s who I want to be. Because I’m gonna be myself. And I’m gonna talk about myself, and I’m not gonna apologize for it either. So that’s thanks for sharing that anything else about, you want to talk about regarding like, trusting yourself and kind of that managing chaos aspect. Anything else to elaborate on there?

Jackie 10:51
Yeah, so that was another kind of big part of it. And it kind of ties back to the whole being your own anchor thing is just like, trusting that when you make those decisions about where you’re spending your time, or not spending your time, that it’s for the right reason, and you made that decision, with a purpose in mind, you know, it’s like, I need to do this, because of that. And if you don’t trust yourself, and stay true to that, and actually hold yourself accountable to that, there’s, it’s not going to work, it’s not going to happen, you’re going to end up back at square one before you made those decisions in order to help yourself, get wherever you were trying to get or get over whatever you were trying to get over at that time or improve. So just really sticking to it and showing up for yourself and being kind of true to your own word and remembering why it’s super important in order to you know, stay balanced from what I’ve seen and learn. Alright,

Dave 11:42
yeah, so switching topics a little bit, but you shared with me an aha moment where the whole team and client balance. So now you’re kind of in a director position and managing a team. So for any of our listeners out there that are kind of just getting into management and overseeing a team, anything you can share or talk about of how you go about prior to prior design, well, oh my god, I can’t talk people. Anything you can share about prioritization for your, your team members, or anything that that comes to mind when you’re starting to think about how do I go about my day?

Jackie 12:18
Yes. So my big aha moment came almost two years ago, at this point where I felt like I was, you know, showing up, I was working super hard. I was making sure our clients were happy. And I thought that that would translate to Team happiness. You know, I felt happy clients, how could the team be stressed? You know, everyone’s super proud of what we’re doing. Everyone’s really happy with our work. The team’s gotta love that. Right? But they, they were stressed, you know, they were frustrated, there was this friction. And it was because I was putting the clients over the team. And I was like, Hey, guys, oh, you know, so and so reached out to me, I’m gonna hop on a quick call with this client, can we move this meeting to some other time, you know, or, Hey, I can’t review this for you by end of day, like I promised because so and so just reached out about this, or that, or this came up or, you know, just got this email. And I would also just, like, kind of bend over backwards. If the clients like, let’s totally shift gears and do that, I would be like, Yeah, let’s do that, instead of taking a second to, you know, stop, decide whether or not that’s the right move, or whether that’s going to cause massive chaos to the team. If we just scrap all the work we did for weeks, and we just throw it out the window in order to switch directions for something else? Is that the right move for the client? Long term right now, etc. And what does this do to my team, if I tell everyone, okay, we’re going to totally pivot do a total 180 Right now, and we’re going to focus on that instead. Of course, it was causing frustration. So when I realized that, focusing on the team and putting the team first and making sure that they were supported, and they felt happy, and they felt confident in the work they were doing, and also they knew where to focus. It was a total game changer. And I just felt the just everything was received a lot better from the team, we were working better, the clients were even happier because the whole team was just doing better work, we were able to just, you know, it was frictionless at that point, I felt like a true cohesive team that translated to great work for our clients and just everyone grew in the process. I saw a lot of people level up once we were really doing that versus the unintentional kind of chaos that I was causing by just catering to the client and like pivoting 24/7 based on anytime a client needed something.

Dave 14:33
Yeah. And that’s really interesting to me, I think, you know, you you come at it from obviously you have a lot of strategy and your background and you’re coming at leading accounts and leading the team with with like a strategic vision. So lift the curtain back a little bit share, how do you go about developing a plan and developing a strategy either for a client or kind of to do the work and how do you even come up with ideas like what’s your what’s your inspiration? How do you how do you incubate in your in your mind?

Jackie 15:03
So I’m going to channel my leases Wickel here and you have to start with the goal in mind. You know, it’s it’s the only way to be successful if you don’t have the why and what you’re trying to accomplish. There’s no way you can figure out the how there is no how, you know, if you’re doing marketing, just for the sake of marketing, you’re not going to see results, you might get lucky, you might drive a couple of leads if you throw a paid ad campaign up there, but what are you really trying to do? How does this translate to your overall business goals? And I think, why I’ve been able to be so successful as someone who’s works mainly in the strategy space is, I really take the time to relentlessly get to know my client’s goals, and just their business and how their team works and what success looks like to them. And the more aligned we’ve been with a client in that space, the better everything has been across the board, our relationship, the work, we’re doing the results, we’re seeing, everything. So for me, that’s critical. And that’s how I start as far as how I come up with ideas. There, I’m not gonna lie you mentioned in incubation, there isn’t much for me, they come up pretty quickly, I’m the type of person where I can very easily be sparked by this comment or that comment. And things really just kind of come to me and I, I don’t hesitate to share those things, which is something that does tie back to what I learned as far as not creating team chaos. I have these ideas, I get super excited about them. I am very passionate about something that I’m like, Oh, this is super cool. This will work. But is it something that’s going to cause friction? Is it going to cause chaos and frustration? Is it realistic? Or is it just a fun, shiny new idea that’s been as I’ve leveled up, that’s something that I’ve really had to just kind of pull myself back on and make sure I’m not getting too far out of balance. And being just realistic. So

Dave 16:56
yeah, that’s, that’s really important. I fall into that I have fallen, and I still fall into that trap of like, Alright, here’s an idea, I’m gonna drop whatever I’m doing, and I’m gonna just go with it and go in and I get myself in trouble. Because I like I just run fast, too quickly, right out of the gate of something, where I haven’t really spent the time to analyze it, think about it. So something that I continue to work on. Because I’ve always been confident that like, like, just like, if you fail, like fail fast, and then rebound. But yeah, sometimes you need to let it sit back and simmer for a little bit there. That’s interesting. So you so were remote, your remote, your remote kind of for a while before we kind of went fully remote in the agency. You know, like looking back, like now versus being in an office or managing, you know, within an office like, how has that changed? Or like, is this really like, is this going to? Is this the new norm for everybody? Like, I always like to talk about that, because I think everybody has different perspectives like how does that work for you.

Jackie 18:04
So I do think it’s the new norm, I can’t imagine just, I can’t imagine just being like, I’m gonna go into an office every day. Now. I don’t think I would like it, I really enjoy the flexibility of working from home. And I think it does kind of cater back to what I mentioned earlier, with having a set schedule and doing these things. And, you know, in some ways, some people find the opposite, where it’s like, oh, I’m working from home, I can just sit at my computer forever. For me, I actually considered an office way longer than just like, Alright, I’m gonna stop and I’m gonna eat dinner. And I’m like, You know what, I did enough for that I need to shut down through the day, or I’m gonna go do this. Or, you know, a friend sends me a message and says, Do you want to go grab dinner and like, you know what, I can actually just go grab dinner versus Oh, I’m actually still at the office, you know, I was the type who would just sit and I would just work. And I like the thought of packing up and ending my day is like, oh, I can just do one more thing before I do that. So I actually feel like I am more balanced as a work remotely employee. And the only thing I really miss is just being with the team, we have such a close knit group of people who just really thrive and when working together. And I think that we really have figured out how to keep that culture alive and keep those communication lines open with the tools that we use. And it’s not like we don’t communicate 24/7 I feel like I talk all day every day with everyone on the team, which I love. But that FaceTime is invaluable. And I think that you’ve all done a really great job of establishing a balance in creating opportunities for us to get to do that through you know, annual training events or annual retreat, which I’m super excited for and just you know, making time I love when we have the opportunity to go meet a client in person which means I get to spend some time with the team in person. I had a whiteboard session with Lisa a couple of weeks ago, and it’s just it makes that in person time even more valuable and I feel like it’s like a good reset and everyone can I was back. And even when we go back to working from remote that just energy is still really there. So I love it. I don’t know if everyone loves it, but it’s definitely it works for me.

Dave 20:09
Yeah, it is. It’s I think we’re all we’re all kind of settled, I would say like, I feel that it we’re in the settling phase of working from home for companies that are just, you know, have never done it before. And they’re, but I think the cool thing, right is what you just said there is, there’s opportunity still to get in person, when you’re a remote company, especially like if you’re leveraging, you know, going to visit a client. So I would, I would encourage you, if you’re listening and you’re remote, and you feel like I really got to see people, like talk to your manager about it, they’ll figure it out. You know, even if it’s like, hey, our stance is we’re going to be a remote company, but we’ll figure it out whether if it’s a company event, or visiting up at a client or going to an event together, those are opportunities to kind of but I agree, I agree with you like being in person. That is the one thing you know, that you do miss is, you know, it’s just different. It’s just different being live versus, you know, on zooms all the time.

Jackie 21:08
Yeah, one other thing, I haven’t figured out the why behind it. But I have found over the past two years that the quicker that you can get in person with someone who is either new to the team, or that you are newly managing or working really closely with, the better your relationship will be, you know, we have all these tools. And I think we Jive really well as a team. And we’re super efficient. And we have great communication lines with what we have remotely. But there’s something about that early on interaction in that getting to know each other that has to happen in person, in my opinion for it to really translate digitally. And I found that with everyone who I’ve either newly managed or just you know, have started working with in a closer capacity after spending just even a brief time with them in person. I don’t know if it’s because you get to see someone’s mannerisms in real life. So you know how to better interpret them online, once you see them in, you know, moving and all of that. But something about it has genuinely elevated the way that I’ve worked with everyone after doing that in person with them. So just a little tip,

Dave 22:07
that’s a great tip. And to build on that we we’ve definitely identified that as a company. So like, the one thing onboarding new people are smart acres our employees has is taking longer, virtually just getting up to speed, you’re just miss the kind of being shoulder to shoulder with somebody that you can ask questions, even though you can do it over chat and everything. So one of the things that we really did was trying to make sure that we schedule things when newsmakers are coming on. So like for us, the beginning of the year was a big ramp up year. So it was really important to invest into doing in person training. So that’s one thing you can do. So I would encourage that for sure. When you’re feeling like hey, I’m not not there or you’re onboarding some new team members try to see if there’s an opportunity to kind of cluster them together and come together in person. So that’s that’s a great tip there. Okay, let’s switch it up here because I want to learn more about some randomness of Jackie v. So this is the point where I talked about Dave’s random 10 All right, you ready for this? I hope feel free to elaborate laugh. Ponder. They’re not too tough, but there’s some good ones in here. All right, well start off easy, but I don’t think I know this. Maybe I do. Alright, number one. Coffee or tea.

Jackie 23:29
Oh, big coffee. Personally, I actually don’t like tea at all. I’ve tried so many times in so many ways to find I don’t i just don’t enjoy tea. Yeah.

Dave 23:37
Oh, okay. Wow, I didn’t I Yeah, so how do you take your coffee?

Jackie 23:42
Um, I do I mean, they’re like iced coffee usually all summer which I’ve liked to make myself I love my old crappy like Mr. Coffee just like straight up old school coffee pot that I make coffee every morning either hot or iced. And if it’s ice, a little bit of oat milk in it. If it’s hot, a little bit of half and half and that’s what I do. Yeah.

Dave 24:06
Yeah, I like to mess mine up to I don’t I like to put you know, sweeteners in

Jackie 24:12
black coffee person.

Dave 24:15
Yeah, all right. Cool. So number two, football or football.

Jackie 24:21
Oh, definitely the former I’m not a big slick baller soccer girls soccer.

Dave 24:26
Okay, yeah, the new American football.

Jackie 24:28
Yes. I love playing fantasy football with my friends. And yeah, I definitely am a big American football person and not a big fan of the other.

Dave 24:37
Well, I know you’re you’re a Mets fan, but what are you in American football? Giants. Yeah, also your giants. Okay? Because usually like Mets go with jets.

Jackie 24:47
Yeah, it’s a growing up whole family is Mets giants and Rangers.

Dave 24:55
Okay, well, I mean, the Mets are doing well but they’re giants. I think you got a couple more years.

Jackie 25:03
We’ll see it’s been interesting watching them in preseason. But

Dave 25:10
do you dare were giants into Philadelphia? You would never do that. Right?

Jackie 25:16
I have some very neutral Mets and Giants gear specifically for that reason like I have a all white Mets hat with white logo, just white. And that’s like as far as I go, if I’m going to like a game, going to an Eagles game, there’s no way I’m wearing anything. I’m just going to keep it very simple. And you just don’t want that. Everyone goes have failures.

Dave 25:38
Right? They threw batteries at Santa Claus. They’ll never let that down. All right. Number three, sun or snow?

Jackie 25:49
Sun, for sure. Yeah, I don’t really love the cold.

Dave 25:53
But you live in the Northeast.

Jackie25:55
I know. I know. About a lot lately. Yeah, definitely a sun person.

Dave 26:02
So as I’ve gotten older, I definitely love the sun more too. Although it’s been really hot. Well, most of the country’s on fire right now. But the thing that I like about snow, I don’t mind snow. But it makes me appreciate the sun even more that we have four seasons.

Jackie 26:21
I agree. I do love having four seasons. Like I think the worst is where we are now with this hot summer in Pennsylvania. And then the polar opposite is when it’s super super cold. It’s like that bone chilling like it hurts to just breathe outside. Those are the two worst times of year but everything else is you know you can deal with it. It’s nice so but yeah, there’s something peaceful about the snow and the quiet and just like the serenity of when it snows and obviously I love to watch my dog just like play around in the snow. It’s the cutest funniest thing but otherwise, I don’t really I’m not like a winter sports person. So I don’t have like that joy for it or anything. I love being on the beach. I love paddleboarding. I love the sun. So that’s definitely definitely my I’ve

Dave 27:04
never tried paddle boarding. I think I would enjoy that.

Jackie 27:06
I saw it on the list of things at the retreat that could definitely do some team time on a stand up paddleboard.

Dave 27:14
All right. I think I know the answer this next one, but there could be a wildcard in here. So cat dog or goldfish?

Jackie 27:22
Definitely dog. Yeah. Okay. You know, I’m a big animal lover across the board. And I’ve had all three but I Yeah. Oh, yeah. And yeah, definitely a big dog person. I cracked dogs are so funny to me. I just think they’re the most hilarious perfect beings. So yeah.

Dave 27:44
Cool. Yeah, I haven’t had fish since I was a kid. That was like, that’s like a kid thing. Then my son when he was really little, we got him goldfish. And they all died like quick and then like one just lasted forever.

Jackie 27:57
I feel like that always happens. I had this fish named blubber when I was a kid like one of those big to get it off with I don’t even know what they’re called. I was obsessed with this thing. And it lived forever we had and then when it finally died after I don’t even know it felt like a long time when I was a kid. It might not have been that long. But in my head, it was long. Had a little funeral for it and everything. So yeah, was definitely a big fish person at 1.0.

Dave 28:20
Interesting. That’s neat. All right. A good book, or popcorn and a movie.

Jackie 28:26
Definitely a good book. Yeah, actually, I don’t know. That’s tough. I say a good book. I think in theory, like I think I would like to be the person who’s like, oh, yeah, books over movies. But like, do I really spend more of my time reading books than watching movies? But unfortunately, no if I’m being honest, so yeah, I think there’s a time in place. I think I’m also just coming off I was on vacation with my family last week, a lot of beach time. And on the beach, I will read a book so I think I’m coming off of that where I’m like, I’m a book person, but in three months if you ask me again, I’ll be like, I’m a movie person.

Dave 28:57
What so for our listeners, what are you reading?

Jackie 29:00
Um, when I do just big summer beach trip like that I love to have just like a good fiction just easy read and I am about halfway through hotel Nantucket, which I’ve really loved so far. It’s getting juicy. It’s interesting. It’s just so different than what I usually read. I like to read things that are kind of more career related or about you know, the way your brain works and all that teamwork all of that usually is kind of my jam but in the summer on the beach. I love a good fiction book like that. So yeah,

Dave 29:28
that’s, that’s interesting. So from my side, like I love far out there Star Wars. I love Marvel, anything that’s action based comedy, stupid stuff and movies. But when it comes to the books, it has to be like, I’m learning. I’m reading something that’s going to further me in business or anything. I can’t do anything that’s like nonfiction. In a book. Oh, complete opposite.

Jackie 29:58
That’s funny. Yeah,

Dave 29:59
I just I can’t but I’m with you there I think, you know a good movie. The last movie we saw was the new Thor took the kids to see the Thor movie. It’s fun. Yeah,

Jackie 30:12
this movie I watched this I think it was on Hulu and I love it. It’s about I don’t know it’s not fun

Dave 30:21
well, there’s some good ones coming out and as we get to the second half of the year, or we’ve debated this one I did this is one this is a repeat question from my my past but we’ve debated this internally. And what’s funny is I’ve done this three times and everybody looked at me with a strange face I know you won’t, but doors or wheels.

Jackie 30:39
Oh gosh, this again it’s definitely wheels we’ve debated this so heavily as an agency it’s got to be wheels there’s no way it could be doors. It just you think about just like all the gears all the issues it just I think the team is going to be so annoyed to hear this talk back up again because everyone’s like well that’s wheels its wheels at this point but yeah, I’m very much

Dave 31:02
yeah, I was with you there too for a while but then like the doors thing really threw me because I have so many cabinet doors in my house. Like the kitchen cabinet doors we probably have 47 Kitchen Cabinet Doors. There’s two doors to my office right here. Like I the hands down there are definitely more doors than wheels in my house. I can tell you that.

Unknown Speaker 31:22
Oh, there’s way more doors than wheels in this house. But I think outside of the home like everywhere else there’s just way more wheels but I don’t know now that you say that I’m looking into my kitchen and like I see so many doors right?

Dave 31:36
Right right. And that but then you think of how many automobiles there are and then the gears that are in the hands but yeah, that’s the that’s the infinite debate of doors and wheels. All right, back to the animal realm. I love animals too. If you don’t like so what is your favorite zoo animal?

Jackie 31:55
Yeah, I have this weird affinity for gators. I just think they’re so weird and interesting and like terrifying but also funny Do you ever see like what actually is happening gators swimming underwater? Oh really spooky up top alive to send me the picture. It’s so hilarious. They’re just like floating so awkwardly with their paws out like they don’t know what to do with their hands under the water and it just looks absurd and like not at all scary from the bottom but from the top. You know if you see a gator swimming towards you, it’s terrifying. But underwater, they’ve just looked very awkward. Like they don’t know what to do with themselves and they just kind of float through the water with this like I don’t know what to do with my hands situation and very funny.

Dave 32:32
Oh my god. Well, I Yeah, because I like I think they’re trying to be still right. So like to cap capture or something. But, yeah, alligators and crocodiles like I do find them as amazing, I think because they’re like prehistoric, which is really cool. My son is really into reptiles. He loves them when he was really younger. We used to go to like these. There was a TV show called Gator boys. That they would like wrangle the Gators and he was obsessed with this. Like we even went to go see them. And we went to like alligator wrangling things that like the fair. Yeah, alligators terrify me. I mean, that’s we don’t have alligators here. Really in the Northeast. But yeah, that’s interesting. So that’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah, alligators are cool. That’s that’s that’s I don’t think I’d ever want to have one as a pet though.

Jackie 33:21
No, absolutely not. The baby ones they look very adorable when they’re like babies. They’re like lizard sized. But like any bigger than that, like I don’t want something that’s gonna like kill me and drown me for fun

Dave 33:33
Alright, this is we’re getting into too deep questions. If you could tell future you what would be something that you would change? So if you could go into the future and be like, Jackie you got to do this change this what would you change

Jackie 33:52
go into the future and like change something in order to alter you know, like Sure. I feel like it would be easier to explain like if I go back and tell cast me a thing but like Go and tell future me a thing like

Dave 34:06
Sure. Do they can do that. We can go back to the future. We have a Dorian we could do it that way.

Jackie 34:11
Yeah, the folks I think I would just tell past me to just like, be authentic, be real, like show up as you actually are versus how you think people want you to be and that’s across the board. And that’s something that I think probably everyone can resonate with. I don’t know what I would tell future me though. I don’t know I feel like I learned so much every year that I’m like, Oh man, I didn’t nothing last year. So I can’t imagine like what I could possibly know now to tell future me that they wouldn’t already have like, learned light years beyond.

Dave 34:45
Yeah, the one thing that I’ve learned as I’ve as I’ve gotten older if I if I could be because I’m a talker. And so I have a podcast, but just listen more. I get so much more satisfaction of listening into conversations. Like I I have to contribute that’s just in my DNA being an extrovert, but like listening, I guess I should have listened a lot more.

Jackie 35:07
Yeah, you and me both everyone who listens to this will definitely get a laugh out of that one. They know me at all. But um, yeah, that’s definitely something that I’ve learned a lot as I’ve stepped into this new role where I’m not the one who is leading the conversations with the clients, it’s been almost painful to just sit and just only listening to like, Zipit. So yeah,

Dave 35:27
yeah, it is. It’s, it’s something you have to work on. Alright, last one. And this is the last one. What is something you’re going to keep?

Jackie 35:35
Something I’m going to keep. I’m just what I mentioned earlier, putting the team first always and just supporting them and just knowing that that will always make me feel a trillion times better. It’s very rewarding for me, I love to help people and watch people grow. And just knowing that that translates to success across the board. I think no matter where I am in my career, or what industry I’m in, you know, the more you can help others and give to others, the more it comes back in the long run.

Dave 36:07
Well, that’s the that’s the top 10 And I love that quote. I think I think I gotta make it a sticker or a shirt or on a shirt, the power to show up as yourself. I love that. Take that away. Write that down. Everybody who’s listening, Jackie, if our listeners want to get in touch with you, how can they do that?

Jackie 36:24
Yeah, yeah. I’m on LinkedIn is Jackie Voutsinas if you can spell that right off the bat, you earned like a bonus something. And then on Twitter. It’s at Jackie. Thanks. So can find me on either one. And yeah.

Dave 36:39
Well, Jackie, thanks so much for coming on today. This was really fun. And yeah, we’ll make sure if you can’t spell Voutsinas will will you can copy paste that out of the podcast, check out agency balanced.com where we’ll put those links as well and have a beautiful day.

Jackie 36:54
You too. Dave. Thank you so much. This was super fun!