Season Finale, 2022 Reflections & What To Set on Fire with Lisa Zwikl

Transcript

Dave 0:00
Welcome to the agency balance podcast. And I’m so thankful to say that we had an amazing first season and this is the final episode. And I thought it would make so much sense for my to bring back my first guest to close out the season. The badass mom that she is, and and mom boss, Lisa Zwikl. Lisa, welcome back.

Lisa 0:27
Thanks, Dave. I’m so excited to be here. It’s nice to do this for a second time. I feel way less nervous coming into this podcast today. So it’s it’s an honor to be here and to help you close out. Awesome. First season. Congratulations.

Dave 0:41
Yeah, thanks so much. I was looking at the stats, because like when I started this, I was like, What is this, it’s a platform for me to just kind of share some of the things that I share with everyone internally. So now I can just share it with the world. And I was able to do that seven different countries. Seven different countries are listening to the agency balance. So I guess it’s it’s making its way out there. And that’s the beauty of it. So if you enjoyed this season, please reach out, drop me a comment on the website. If you’re on YouTube watching watching this on YouTube, drop me a comment there. Really, we’d love to hear your thoughts on season one. So let’s let’s get into it. I mean, we’re all about balance here. And I think let’s start by taking some time and maybe recapping some of the things maybe that you talked about in the year episode two, my first guess, or things that you’ve picked up along the way that keep Lisa Zwikl balanced?

Lisa 1:41
Yeah, yeah. So oh, boy, there. There’s a lot one of the things I’m going to talk about today is the idea of reflections. Here we are at the end of your season, it’s been great to look back re listen to episodes, I did not really listen to my own, but I did. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to share today, that theme kept coming up because it’s helped me so much. Stay balanced. You know, I have air quotes for those of you who can’t see me balance, because it’s such a, it’s the way that Josh described it in one of your more recent episodes, I love what he said he pulled up the dictionary definition. And he talked about, it’s staying in one position or to be in better control while moving. And that’s it just resonated with me, because balance is never this perfect state. It’s just this sense of feeling, Ah, okay, I got this, I have some level of control over this situation. So reflecting really does help me looking back on my weeks are those moments that make me feel out of whack or in whack? I don’t know if in walk is even a thing. You know what I mean? I did talk about the glass ball during our first conversation together. And that really helps me of just staying really focused on those things that are critically important, what I need to prioritize my family and my well being. Even if it’s just a five minute conversation with my husband, we will actually talk to him throughout the day, making sure that I have my eye on that glass ball, that thing that I can’t let drop and then everything else can be this chaos of juggling around me. But just having that prioritization is really, really important. And it’s something that I’ve stuck to this year. Anytime I feel a little out of balance, I just come back to where do I really, really need to focus my time and energy right now. Because that if I can pick one thing, it’s going to help me feel like Okay, we’re good, we’re good.

Dave 3:42
Yeah, that comes up a lot with multitasking and multitasking doesn’t really exist other than like chewing and walking up like walking, walking gum. Chewing chewing gum and walking, right? I don’t think there’s that you can’t really you can’t be doing two things at once with two mice in your hands and looking at two different computer screens. It’s really hard. So when you focus on something that obviously puts all your attention into that and that’s I just love that what you said about the glass ball and you know for those who didn’t get a chance if you’re listening to us to this episodes, go back to episode two. Listen to Lisa talking about the glass ball maybe we’ll even splice in a little a little bit there about it but I like that a lot. I mean so what happens right what happens in your in your Do you have you been able to like catch yourself in the moment like, oh my gosh, there’s like I’m trying to focus on the glass ball but all these other things are coming at me like give me some like real world or some things that you do to kind of catch yourself in the moment because I think so many times we talk about balance and like these are the things you should be doing you should be focusing on like your your priorities. Well what happens when that one thing’s coming in and trying to knock you off your glass wall and Does anything come to mind or?

Lisa 4:57
Yeah, and unfortunately Have the times that stand out to me looking back on the last couple months are the times where either someone else calls me out on it and says, Okay, let’s just take a chill pill. That’s what I always tell my two year old and you and I, he always is chill pills are yucky. With it’s not even a real thing. I just like pretend I’m handing him something. But usually my husband calls me out on it just says, Hey, you got to you have to go run on the treadmill, or you have to go to go grocery shopping all by yourself. You’re just take that time to prioritize yourself. And it’s usually when I’m just feeling overly tired. Or I just feel like I can’t, I can’t stop. I can’t slow down. I can’t take a minute for myself. And when that phrase starts to come up of I can’t do this. Yeah, usually, that’s when I, he either calls me on I need to call myself on on it and say I need to reframe my perspective here. Because if that word keeps coming up where I can’t, or I don’t have time, I need to take a step back and say, Okay, I do have time, I just need to reprioritize how I’m spending it and be more intentional. So I can put my own oxygen mask on first, because that’s gonna help me be better for everyone else around me.

Dave 6:15
Yeah, two things there that that really stood out to me. The first is the can you keep telling yourself, I can’t do this, I can’t, and he start telling yourself that you won’t. So you need to be telling yourself, I will do this, I can do this. And I try to coach my kids on that all the time. Like, it’s just too hard. You know, and then and really, really, I think that’s awesome that you have somebody that kind of remind you about getting you refocused or like they’re observing you like, hey, go wrong, and go to the grocery store or something like that. What I’ve also found for me is if I have trouble starting the day, and I’m like feeling like, like, like, the things I don’t want to do start with something that you do want to do, because then it prioritizes your brain to be happy. Like if I do something that whether if it’s filled with you know, a car or look at something, or read a magazine, or enjoy something that I enjoy sports collecting or something like that, consume that first, then it gets your brain started. And it’s not so hard.

Lisa 7:20
Yeah, definitely, I think it is one of the challenges of being a working parent, especially a working mom, I’ve, for anyone that doesn’t know me, or hasn’t listened to one of the earlier episodes, I have two very little kids, I have a two year old and a one year old. So my husband and I are in the thick of it. We have a lot going on. And as we talk about a lot of the tips, and I had some notes of recapping some of the really standout things from previous episodes, there’s all these amazing tools that can help you feel really good and find that balance in a good state of mental and physical health. But it’s really hard as a as a working parent, when sometimes those things are just out of your control. Like a great night’s sleep is a great tool to feel mentally. And sometimes I truly that’s out of my control. You know, there’s just something it’s not going to happen. Roy, he talked a lot about how he spends his mornings Roy was on I don’t know what episode or was ROI page, awesome episode, go back and listen to it. But he says he carves out his ROI time in the morning. That’s great. I love that for you, right. And it’s just my reality right now, you know, and it’s a time it truly is just a phase. But I have to often reflect on my weekend, think back. Okay, that was totally out of my control. And that’s okay. i That might not be a tool in my toolbox that I can use right now. But guess what I can find even if it’s just 15 minutes in the morning to go run on the treadmill. It might not feel like a perfect workout, but it was 15 minutes, I got to do something by myself. And that’s a win. So just focusing on those things that you can control and accepting the things that you can’t and being okay with that. And reprioritizing refocusing.

Dave 9:13
Yeah, that is a great callback with with Roy talking about his piece. And yes, so if you didn’t, if you didn’t check out there is a resource on agency balanced.com that you can download, and go through the exercise of determining where you are in your peace index. And if you’ve done that before, do it again. It’s you know, six months, go by and try it again, see how you’ve made change. And I think that’s the beauty of it, you know, redirecting and seeing, seeing where you are from time to time. So we’re getting near the end of the calendar year. It’s been a crazy one. The world is unpredictable. There’s there’s the financial things going on. We won’t get into any of those crazy things, but looking forward or maybe let’s even take a moment reflections on the year and I’m going to think about that. As to reflections back as to the year observations, if you will, some of the things when we’re talking about, you know, balance and things for free yourself anything you want to share, they’re all about reflecting on what 2022 was, Are we all ready to put it in the bag and move on to 23?

Lisa 10:18
You know, 2022, just like every year, there are so many there were highs, their lows, that being a chief strategy officer and an agency, there’s a lot that we learn from both what we’ve done for our team this year, what the work that we’ve done for our clients. So I, I like to be able to reflect and look back and learn from things and be feel good about the progress that we’ve made. But at this point, I’m, I’m looking ahead, I’m ready for what’s next, I’m ready for the next year. And, you know, as I think about what 2023 brings, I think there’s gonna be going to be a lot of opportunity just to go back, go back to the basics, go back to the basics of good solid marketing, strong value messaging. We just had an awesome meeting a couple of weeks ago with our director, Team shout out to our smarter directors, y’all are amazing. But we were talking about what we see the next year looking like and being in that state of starting to think next year when we’re sitting at this table together. What is what is it? Who who’s here? Who’s in this room? What? What are we talking about? What are you? What did we accomplish? What are we eating? What are we wearing? You know, like starting to really think ahead, that always helps me feel good about reflecting back on the year, but also starting to vision? What what’s coming. It’s good to look back, but I like I liked the look.

Dave 11:53
Yeah, sure. It’s yeah, I mean, I think the important thing is, if you look back, look at the things where there’s something that you can take advantage or put that into your future state, right, as we look into 23, obviously, it’s a chance to reset, I think one of the key things for me is being realistic in the new year, you know, it’s the you come out of the pandemic, and you’re like, well, there’s uncertainty, and then it’s going to be great. And there’s this and then there’s all this other factors that come into what’s running an agency running a business. So I think being realistic, you know, makes a lot of sense being smart with your choices to like, calculated, you know, one of the things that I’m going through right now is and I’ll put this as a download in the resource on the on the agency balanced.com website, is just kind of if you haven’t started planning the the year is putting, putting goals for your individual teams, like three things that you want the individual teams, to do three things that the leadership team is going to work on and do this on a quarterly basis, I found that when you set yourself like monthly goals or something like that, it becomes like not achievable, it’s just too much, but putting some some leadership responsibility and putting owners to those and saying, Hey, these are the things that we’re going to work on, and then hold ourselves accountable and measure against that it’s something that we worked into our, you know, agency and how we really, you know, work on it. Our theme for this year was progress over perfection. And I was, you know, trying to incrementally do things I always, I always tried to think that way is, you know, as a project manager for years, you usually have an ultimate goal. But it’s hard to achieve that with big steps. So you try to break it down into many, many milestones. So, you know, I, as I look, as I look into 2023, I think for me, it’s just being realistic, being realistic with, you know, Hey, these are these are the this is what the market is asking for right now. This is this is what the market condition is whether it fits you know, we’re in the tech sector, there’s there’s a lot of tech turmoil and turnover that’s happening right now, uncertainty with you know, budgets being pulled back. So how do you take advantage of those those things? You know, the things that I always encourage if if you’re in a downturn, and you’re looking at like, Hey, we’re not start focusing on the internal projects that you could be working on things that you haven’t gotten to start doing your own marketing? Yeah,

Lisa 14:19
refine, you know, do a really, really good job of drinking your own Kool Aid and making sure that your own marketing is is exceptional. Oftentimes, as marketing agencies, we don’t always do that. We don’t always prioritize ourselves. I think there’s a lot of opportunity and up skilling the team making sure that there’s good training. I forget the the other agency leader that was on earlier this year, he talked a lot about leadership training and how that applies to not just the leaders, not just the partners, but everyone in your organization can really benefit from that. He talked a lot about how that changed. is a game changer for them leading into a couple of their best years. So if things are trending to slow down, I think there are a lot of ways that you can prepare for a speed up, you can prepare for what’s happening next and use that as a competitive advantage.

Dave 15:15
So one of the things that you’re looking at to improve or change next year?

Lisa 15:20
Uh, well, personally, there’s, there’s quite a few. You know, I love what you just said about just being realistic. That’s one of the things that I’ve been continuously working on as being a working mom or working parent is I’ve had to change my expectations for myself, I may have talked about it that in our first episode together, but you know, you’re used to being able to work as late as you want to work. And you, I think my brain has like four times the amount of things that I think about now, you know, last night I was falling asleep, I was thinking about the expiration date on the chicken in the refrigerator, like planning meals for the week ahead. So there’s a mental load that comes along with keeping humans alive. So just, you know, being realistic about the things that I can take on and continuing to set healthy boundaries, because it’s not selfish in any regard, doing that for yourself. It just allows you to be more present in everywhere that you need to be at work at home, with yourself, giving yourself that time to just think and think creatively. So that’s one thing that I’m really working on for the next year. And then, you know, with smart acre, I, I’m excited to continue doing things like this and telling everyone about the incredible work that we’re doing at the agency, the things that our team is doing. We’ve Yeah, and it you talk about progress, but it was a year of progress for us for sure. We have we rolled out our handbook that what we’ve always had a lot of really good policies, but we looked at all of them made some really significant improvements, we have our our internal tools of my smart acre, a calculator for career growth and development in the agency. So we’ve, we’ve done some really, really awesome things for our people for our culture, and we do kickass work for our clients. So that’s that’s been awesome thing to do this year. And then next year, just continuing to do more of that to challenge ourselves to never settle that’s that’s a common core value of ours is just never settle. Always think about how can we how can we challenge our thinking here? How can we look at even the meetings that we have on our calendars? Are they still necessary? Can we do this better? Is this process still working? Is our budget still working? There’s a lot of opportunities, just really refine. And as a chief strategy officer, this is my favorite time of the year to be really starting to think critically about the year ahead for ourselves and for our clients.

Dave 18:12
Yeah, I think looking back at the things that we’re working on internally, from an operation perspective, consistency comes to mind. If you’re struggling, and you’re like, hey, there’s we always run into these problems, whether it’s hiring or onboarding, or offboarding. Having some sort of a consistent plan helps. And it’s always hard if you’re in the moment. So if you’re struggling and you don’t, if you have processes, great look at those processes, and bring them all together. That’s one of the things that we’ve identified was, when we’re onboarding people, it’s really important that there’s consistency with this is the expectation of when you’re when you’re coming into work, how you should work all those like things that you just expect. But being a remote company, it’s one of the things that we found is it takes longer to onboard, it takes longer to get people up to speed on things. So having tools in place, like a handbook that can be accessible online, self starters, a video library, we built our own intranet that allows us to bring all the tools that we have in our tech stack at a fingertip, which we’re really proud of. And yeah, I think the other thing there you mentioned was, you know, we built a salary, salary calculator. There’s so much question out there of like, well, the competition is steep, and people should be getting paid more. And there’s, I can remember myself throughout my career when I was like, Gee, I wonder if I do this? Could I make this right? And so we took we took some time and said, well, let’s just make it public. Like if you do this, you can get these. So we built a calculator. It’s something we published internally. I’m really proud of it too, because it does show. You know, we’re a very transparent, private company, that that shares everything internally. I think it’s really important. You know, if you’re on a leadership team, you sit down and you really think through how transparent do we want to be with our employees how far we want to show them and see what makes sense. What’s what’s right for you. So yeah, that’s that’s another key word for me. It’s being consistent.

Lisa 20:17
Yeah, absolutely.

Dave 20:20
So for other other things for you, being that C suite mom that you are to talk about some highs and lows, if you could, other than trying to figure out when the chickens going to expire in the refrigerator, any highs and lows that you can share, sweet mom that you are,

Lisa 20:38
there’s so many and it’s, it’s refreshing to talk about when you can laugh about it. But sometimes in the moment, it’s hearts racing, I’m like, I got a 9am meeting and someone just pooped on the floor. It’s literally my parents always telling me that, that I could write a book because it there’s a lot of chaos. And it’s adorable. It’s cute. And it’s hilarious. But it’s also it is stressful when nothing really goes according to plan. But, you know, they’re they’re still my, my kids love coming into my office. We have them in daycare a few days a week. And then the rest of these they’re home with my mom who is basically a super woman, she helps me unload the dishwasher and chop up vegetables and take care of the kids. And it’s it’s so awesome to have that and whether it’s you know, your mom or a relative just that’s one piece of advice that I have for anyone that’s about to change into working parenthood is make sure you have a good support system and get used to feeling okay with asking for what you need, whether it’s from your co workers or from the people that are helping you out or even your your partner of just being able to say, I need to go to the grocery store alone today. I popped my boil over. But you know, my kids still come into my office, they my two year old loves to work next to mommy. And it’s one of my favorite things because it makes me realize that this is something that he observes he he watches us do this from home. And I always remember when I was a kid and we had those special take your kid to work days and I got to go with with my daddy work, take our products for his career and being a little see him in that environment. It was so impactful for me of this is what he does every day and he wears a suit and he walks around these halls and people know who he is like, that’s so cool. And my kids get to see that all the time. And it’s it’s really rewarding that they get to come into my office and they want to play work, they want to talk on the phone and they want to type on their protected computer record videos. Which is that’s I love my video library scrolling back through it between seeing their smiling faces and practicing their ABCs and weaving how to this morning grew to two before when I would use it as a sales tool I’d like show my bump and vineyard recordings and say please get back to me before I have this baby. But scrolling back through that and seeing those memories, it’s just it’s pretty cool. It’s It’s crazy. It’s chaotic, but it’s it’s so rewarding to be able to set a positive example. And, you know, I I get to also do something that I love every day, which is helping me find that that balance.

Dave 23:43
Yeah, that’s really cool. I mean, is it though, if, if you bring your child to work and you work from home, that means they just get to stay home school. And that’s really what it is now. But no, it’s I think that’s it is really neat in a digital way to have them interact with the tools. And it gets them a sense of like they maybe they want to do that. Because it’s not necessarily like you said of old weather if it’s like you’re suiting up and walking the halls anymore and I mean that’s still there of course but it’s just different. That’s that’s really that is something that’s super neat. I’m glad that the you shared that. Alright, so we’re talking about highs and lows, what are their highs and lows Do you have?

Lisa 24:30
Well, another just reflecting on some of those things that throw me out of balance. One of the things I’ve noticed is another way that I can kind of recognize when I’m going there is when I feel like I’m overcompensating, you know when when you just find yourself saying yes to taking on that task or Yes to taking on that meeting or trying to get something out the door super fast. I do Do the same thing. And being a mom of let’s, let’s do this craft. And I start to realize, okay, I’m just starting to feel like, I’m not giving enough to one area, so I’m overcompensating both. And that’s, that’s extra chaos into the mix. So that’s another indicator for me of, I just, I need to just be okay with slowing things down a little bit. And just recognizing that when I’m doing that, because it’s not necessarily good for anyone, it’s not good to bite off more than you can chew on either one department. So in that regard to I’m really, there, there’s probably a science to this, I’m sure you can look it up. Maybe one of your listeners even knows the answers, but I’m really appreciative that kids do not really start creating memories fully until they’re a little bit older. Because I’ve had to give myself grace of okay, I It’s okay, that I don’t know what I’m doing. This is probably why kids don’t meet make memories yet. Because they’re, your parents are allowed to figure this out for the first like, three years. I’m approaching the time where I need to really get it together. But yeah, it’s sometimes things that come out of my mouth. And like, Why did I explain it in that way? Why do they think that that was a logical way to try to convince him or teach him something, but, you know, get in there, nothing’s exactly right. But I’m figuring,

Dave 26:28
well, I hope you’re recording all those moments that you’re failing so that you can watch them back when they’re older

Lisa 26:32
and laugh about it. Yeah. And it’s great to have other working parents that you can talk to, that’s another piece of advice that whether your mom or dad, I think moms do this more frequently, because you’re just naturally more open, and you talk to more parents about all the weird things that happen. But talking to a lot of our smoker dads has been I’ve gotten some of my best advice from dads. So they just think about things differently. They have really good ideas of just to do this trick. But it’s really important, because then you realize, okay, my life is a little chaotic. I’m in this phase. But I’m not alone. And there have been millions of parents that have survived the same situation.

Dave 27:18
Yeah, yeah, that’s it, we, we usually come at it from the fun angle. Yeah, that’s dads have that like we over stereotype like we get we get, we get to be cool most of the time. And mom, unfortunately has to lay down the law and be the bad one sometimes. But it’s important to switch there. And I think it changes to like, it’s just something that I’m experiencing right now with having two teenage boys, which are a lot different than having a one and a two year old boy. But I can remember what it was just like, it’s switching. Like, they’re telling me things that they’re not telling mom, you know, they’re just different. They’re going through a different phase of their life. So you do pick up on on some things, but that’s those are that’s some really great advice, talk, talk to other parents, especially, you know, if you can in the workforce, talk about it, figure, Figure it out, get on a zoom together and share some of those things. Anything else that you want us to kind of share kind of the highs and lows for you?

Lisa 28:21
The only other thing is, you know, just looking back of the year and flipping through pictures on my phone, I realized, wow, there’s some things that just I don’t even remember that it really was so wild. Yeah. So I’ve been really trying to just think about a flashlight and shining a flashlight on those moments where I really want remember, we were just talking about Thanksgiving. And William said grace, Amen put his arms up in the air. And at the end, he said, Amen, and he was so excited to you to eat his food. And you asked if I recorded it, and unfortunately, I did it. But my mental flashlight was shining so brightly on that moment where I’m never gonna forget that and I tried to just be really mindful of that, whether it’s at work when we were together at our retreat, man, my flashlight was on I was laser focused on that time we had together and then I try to think about that. At night when I’m reading my Ted’s bedtime story. I’ve just let’s just turn on the flashlight because I’m not gonna get to do this forever.

Dave 29:26
Yeah, absolutely. celebrate the wins in business. It’s really important to celebrate your wins. And you shouldn’t be doing that yourself. The win of sale, win of a launch campaign, celebrate that with your team do something it doesn’t have to be extravagant doesn’t have to be a Michael Scott pizza party every time but you know, celebrate those wins is something that I learned that throughout my career is always everyone always focuses on the negative the problems that and we need to solve but for the mind, it’s really important that you’re celebrating those wins with your team. We have an Amazing kind of overheard thread that we that we have in our company that we just kind of, we chat and we talk about randomness, things, but it’s a, it’s a platform that you can instantaneously celebrate, celebrate, celebrate those wins with your team. So good stuff there. I don’t know about New Year’s resolutions. Because every time I set them, or when you set things like I’m going to lose weight, and it doesn’t happen, I just get fatter. And, or it’s like, I want to be I want to I want to spend more time, you know, really focused, I want to I want to do more reading I want to get I want to get smarter on this topic just doesn’t happen. So what’s what’s your spin or take on on resolution? Or do you have one that you can share with with the listeners?

Lisa 30:53
Yeah, so I, again, I think strategy is just in. It’s part of what I do every day. So I love love, not resolutions, and not necessarily goals. But just being able to take that moment to reprogram reset, hit the reset button and recalibrate. Give yourself a software update, maybe a good way to think about it. But one of my best gal pals and I, we we always tend to light something on fire, we light a fire on New Year’s Eve and we throw it we write something down and we throw it in. And it’s it’s pretty basic. I love to think about what do I want to start? What do I want to stop? And what do I want to continue? And just how can I really focus on what’s working? What’s not that I just want to completely let go of throw it into the fireplace who just let that go? And then what’s one thing that I want to try differently this year? What’s my program update that I want to give myself? And I love that because it’s so simple. And you can do this personally. But we also do this often for our clients when we’re talking about what’s what is working Quarterly, we tend to always give them an opportunity to tell us what do you think’s going really well, what do you want to stop, and then we do the same thing. And it’s just a really good way to go back to that what you focus on gets bigger, it will grow. And there are some things that you just have to bag, just stop doing the same old stuff just because you think it’s the right thing to do.

Dave 32:28
I like that I like also building fires. And now it gives me a reason to throw something into them. So you

Lisa 32:36
got to you got to let something go let something go. I like

Dave 32:39
that a lot. That also belongs on a t shirt. We’re gonna have to start a t shirt line for sure. But that that belongs on there. I think that’s something really great. Because I think if you focus on one thing and the resolution, then immediately you’re set up for failure. So that’s a good way to really look at it. Yeah, I don’t I don’t think I think it just going back to one of the things I tried to do this year, I might have gotten 2% better at it is like like don’t sweat the small stuff and like trying to let things go a little bit more. It’s still a work in progress that’s going to continue to be in 2020 30. And beyond that you’re continue. I have to continue I have to continue to do that. You know, so that’s that’s a really good, really good platform for that.

Lisa 33:26
Yeah, it’s it’s a simple tool. And like I said, it applies to both your personal life and for businesses as as a b2b marketing tech leading companies, we get so caught up in the data, what’s the data telling us? Where do I get my most revenue from last year my leads from, that’s all important as a mark, tech focus marketing agency, it’s all things that we look out for our clients on a daily weekly basis. But as you’re planning for the year ahead, you got to let go of some of that stuff and really just focus on and you’ve you’ve instilled this and we as Where do you want to go? What is that perfect vision and don’t get so caught up in how you’re going to get there. But really think of what is what is the end result? What are the things look like next year, you can apply that to yourself to have okay, maybe I’m I’m a little bit fatter, but am I happier? Like who cares?

Dave 34:22
I do I yeah, I am fat. And I do enjoy my ice cream at night which I shouldn’t be eating but oh well. Oh, well. Which by the way it is. Um, it’s it’s Turkey Hill brand. And I’m not being a spokesman for Turkey Hill brand. Turkey Hill brand, like, it’s like cookie butter or something. It’s almost like a sugar cookie. Which I don’t want to jump ahead but I do have a cookie thing a discussion. Oh, not quite there yet, but I’ve been talking about cookies. It’s an internal joke. Cookies are for closers. If you haven’t watched boss maybe or, or if you’ve watched boss, maybe you’ll get cookies or for closers in sales, you know, it goes back to the that old movie, they’ll always be closing. But I always like to always be caring too. So good stuff there anything else to put a bow on kind of looking back or looking ahead anything else you want to kind of share?

Lisa 35:20
No, I just, I would just say really, you know, start with start with that vision, start with what the end goal looks like. And if, if you need a reflection tool, one of my favorites, I bring this up with a team. Often it came from a great coach I was working with around the beginning of last year, Mickey Laura, she, she instilled in me the 7030 principle. So again, going back to balance, we’re never truly 5050. But the thought behind that is if you look back on your week, 70% of it should be those things that just naturally energize you and make you feel really good. It’s the work that you just, you get through and when you’re done with it, it feels really satisfying. And then the 30% are the things you have to do. Because it’s a gob you just you have there things you just have to do. But looking back and asking yourself as which is which bucket is bigger? And am I starting to be more than that? 5050 Or am I maintaining that 7030? And that’s a great tool just to think about really what is filling you up? What’s energizing you what’s helping you. Last year, my word was replenish what’s replenishing me versus draining me. And when you start to reflect in that sense, not so much of Oh, I did that wrong, or that wasn’t great. But really, why did the why behind it? What? What was the motivation? Why did it make you feel good, it will really help you hone in on what you want to start, stop and continue for the next year. So start, stop, continue. I’d love to hear that if you’re listening to this and reflecting. That’s your challenge from Lisa Zwikl on the agency balance, leave us a comment of what you’re planning to start, stop and continue into next year. We’d love to hear it.

Dave 37:02
Perfect, perfect. Perfect. I love that. Again, we’re gonna put that on a t shirt. All right now. Now let’s get into that Lisa has not been prepped for these 10 questions. These are brand new 10 questions of Dave’s random 10 I need to get a like a pump up to like splice in there like that. And we’ll see if this continues in for next year. This will be fun. Okay, we’re gonna start off simple. I alluded to it. Before we’re talking about cookies. Cookies are for closers. Okay. It’s I have an open ended at the end. Okay. Favorite cookie?

Lisa 37:37
Wrinkle crinkle

Dave 37:38
oh my gosh, you went right to it. I was gonna give you three options. Oh.

Lisa 37:43
Okay, I’m really big on cookies. My mom, she always makes a ton of cookies. I used to always make a ton of cookies. Cat would call me a Christmas elf. It would be kind of ridiculous. I would start like right after Thanksgiving. But my mom makes these wrinkle crinkles. I don’t even know if that’s really what they’re called. But it’s what we’ve called them forever. They’re just a nice chocolate cookie with the powdered sugar on top and they kind of crinkle open and they’re fudgy and delicious. And she makes the best wrinkle crinkles in the entire world. Oh

Dave 38:10
my gosh, I do know that the cookie that you’re speaking of, is that recipe available? Or is it is it a family recipe?

Lisa 38:18
I’m sure she’d be willing to share it. Okay, we’re gonna we’re gonna call

Dave 38:21
in Lisa’s mom and see if she’s willing to share that maybe check out agency balance.com It might be downloadable and into whatever you call it a three by five card. All right. Three options here now because I gotta preempt it. That’s totally fine. It’s always getting ready days. Okay, walk, run or climb

Lisa 38:46
climb. Yeah. Well, I mean, I like to do all those things. But I say climb because I love to climb mountains. My husband and I are trying to climb all 46 high peaks. We just recently did one for our 10th wedding anniversary. And man, we both fell old and out of shape. But it is so rewarding. Even though every time we are finished. We say we’re never going to do this again. And then 10 hours later we say what’s what’s our next slide Pete? Could it be?

Dave 39:14
I love doing these because this is like a this is definitely like a science six personality science experience because you took it the literal way could be you know, figuratively to like, are you more of like I could slow down on things but I like to speed through. But you went straight for the mountains. I knew you would do that. That’s amazing. Keep climbing your mountains. Okay, so it will still we’re still warming up here. This is two options. Palm trees or pine trees,

Lisa 39:39
pine trees. Pine trees. Yeah, I again just in the Adirondacks. My it’s my happy spot. It’s a tough choice. Because I really enjoy the beach. I love the ocean. I love all things tropical but pine trees especially this time of the year, so Christmassy

Dave 39:55
it is. I have a pine tree sent in my entryway on if you smell that is is a little overwhelming at times. I’m like pine overload. But yeah, pine trees are great. I have a lot my year, I didn’t realize how many needles they dropped at the one point of the year. And there’s needles everywhere. And yeah, anyway, so cool. Okay, this is this. This is an open ended question. This can be tricky. Okay. It’s It’s Song related. I’m already dropping song related. So start getting those in your, what song would make the best theme music for you?

Lisa 40:36
Oh, boy. Ah, I was hoping I would get the karaoke question. Because that one, I had a very specific answer to what, like the best theme music.

Dave 40:46
Like think of a movie or your walk your walk out song maybe.

Lisa 40:50
Okay, I might have to drop this one also give you a link. But there’s a song by The Lumineers. I think it’s called for frog or something. It’s an interesting title. It’s short. But it’s just this like beautiful melody. And every time I hear it, it makes me so happy. And I feel like if I could walk around to that all day, I would just just like feel good. So I’ll give you the link to it. It’s one of my happy songs. That’s just a nice little nice little beat along to.

Dave 41:22
It’s the there’ll be with you for the rest of the day. I guarantee you. If you had a quick question number five, another open ended question. If you had one superpower, what would it be?

Lisa 41:34
I don’t know if I should give you my genuine answer to this.

Dave 41:37
Well, you share what you want to share.

Lisa 41:40
Okay, someone can reach out to me and I’ll give them my first gut reaction of what I usually say when someone asked me this question, but it might come across a little weird if I share it on your podcast. So instead, I’ll give you my second choice. All right, which would be to not require sleep. Oh, yeah, the rest of the world would still have to sleep. And I could sleep if I wanted to. But I wouldn’t require it. And every day I would feel just super refreshed. Like I had the best night’s sleep ever.

Dave 42:08
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say that before ever. Hmm. Interesting. Most people say like, you know, live forever. I want to fly. Maybe it’s

Lisa 42:20
just a result of being constantly tired for the last three years.

Dave 42:24
That was super interesting. Okay, think about all the time that you would have that you would you’re gonna gain quite a bit of time. Time back. That is pretty good. But did you age do you still age? Yeah, time still goes. Okay. All right.

Lisa 42:39
You just don’t have to

Dave 42:41
sleep. Yeah, you’re not asleep. Okay. I like to sleep.

Lisa 42:45
Me too. You still could like you could just lay there and relax and fall asleep. But you could also just,

Dave 42:50
it wouldn’t be like you’re in like Alaska with like, 22 hours of daylight or whatever. Yeah, that’s what it would feel like to me. I don’t know. All right, cool. Moving on. Moving on. Alright. This is because I’m fairly certain you don’t have one of these. So this is if you had to get a tattoo today. You’re going to leave here. And you’re going to go to the tattoo parlor. Your favorite one. I’m sure you have one. What would it be?

Lisa 43:19
Okay, I thought about this because I really can’t, I might get tattoos. Oh. So both of our sons, their middle names are after high peaks in the Adirondacks. And I would get the just the very pencil thin outline of the peak profile for both of their middle names.

Dave 43:37
Okay, you don’t have to share where that would be on your body. We’ll leave that as an open ended to our listeners where that would be. Okay, that’s, that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. I want to get another tattoo eventually, one day, but it’s like one of those things where it’s like, for me, it’s like last time I got one I was 19. And now I’m old and I’m like, Why did I do that? All right, so this is the where I wanted to throw something in kind of the seasonality of it. We were talking about Christmas. So the question seven white lights or colored lights?

Lisa 44:17
It depends. So colored lights on the Christmas tree inside white lights outside on the house.

Dave 44:23
incandescent or LED incandescent? Okay, so you like the warm?

Lisa 44:28
Yep, traditional. On the exact opposite. Interesting. We’re usually the same on most things. My outside

Dave 44:35
I have floodlights, you can’t see it. Now it’s daytime, they’re all red and green. I’m all color outside. And then I’m all white inside. So I’m opposite on them and I’m led I like the really bright although I have it over there i That’s kind of an incandescent that I have one of those ceramic Christmas trees that I got from my career. Mother I think is the coolest thing. I just I love those old ceramic Christmas trees. It’s just something. Something. Okay, cool. Now we know their light situation. All right. business related preferred method of communication. Verbal written.

Lisa 45:18
Other. Verbal,

Dave 45:21
verbal. Okay, so you’d like to talk it out?

Lisa 45:23
Yeah. Yep. I don’t mind writing things, but a quick conversation can avoid so much back and forth. I love to just pick up the phone and talk to someone.

Dave 45:33
Are you leaving voicemails for people? Are you that type? Are you a voicemail drop?

Lisa 45:37
Or do you not like to leave voicemails?

Dave 45:40
Do you think that’s a good tactic in business?

Lisa 45:43
Um, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I’ve never really thought about it. If if I was thinking about me personally, if I would listen to a voicemail, I would say no terrible tactic, but I don’t know. Maybe some people still listen to them.

Dave 45:58
Yeah, certain things like it just rubs me the wrong way. Like I just saw, I let my voicemail fill up. And then I actually needed it because I was expecting some like, important things. I didn’t want to miss it. Because I can’t answer my phone all the time. So I was like, crap, I gotta empty my voicemail. Yeah, that was annoying. But also, there’s times where I don’t like text, because like, there’s, like tech should be like quick answers. Like usually when you leave a voicemail. It’s like the commercial guys. Like, you don’t need to leave a voicemail. You can just leave a text that Funny Commercial. But sometimes I get texts and I’m just like, that’s so impersonal. Why can’t you just call me right?

Lisa 46:35
Yeah, well, I think it’s, it’s just like any good sales tactic. If you’re gonna leave a voicemail, don’t leave a voicemail. It’s like who? It’s Joe from? Blah, blah, blah. Just call me back when you can. Here’s my number. Like, actually, if you’re gonna someone’s gonna listen to something that you’re saying. Say something impactful. Yeah, for sure. All right, cool. Sorry, Joe.

Dave 46:55
That’s Joe. All right, we’re wrapping up here. Number nine. And we may have talked about this a, it might be a callback to the episode here. What is one goal you will have in your near future?

Lisa 47:12
Definitely working on boundaries. And really just, if I if I could, right now pick a word for next year, it would be just refinement of just how can I make sure that I’m really intentional with everything that I’m doing. And in order to do that it’s important to SET set the boundaries, I need to be able to spend time where I need to spend it.

Dave 47:38
Amazing. Last one, maybe number 10, number 10. This could be all time or it could be this year. I’ll leave that up to you. What is your favorite moment that you had working this year in your working moments? What was your favorite moment of the year?

Lisa 48:05
Oh, boy. That’s a good question.

Dave 48:16
None, it didn’t happen, ya know.

Lisa 48:18
So my mind naturally goes back to the retreat. Because it was it was just recently here. And there were so many really cool moments. But it for me personally, it was when you all sent me the video when I had COVID. And my whole family had COVID. And I still have it, I still pull it up if I’m having a rough day and I need a reminder. But that was so impactful. And for anyone listening that wants to make sure people on their team are supported. You don’t have to go crazy over the top but those when you know someone’s struggling or they’re having a bad day or a bad week, if you can just take a moment to give them something positive and uplifting. That that won’t just impact me this year that will impact me for ever. I felt so supported by the Smarty crew team and as one of those moments and as a mom where you’re feeling like I can’t do this. It was this is a good reminder that you can do it and you are doing it you are doing it

Dave 49:21
good stuff because I’m gonna give you the bonus It was similar to number nine a bonus question only because it’s the final final one. Specifically for 2023 What do you see yourself improving

it’s alright, we’ll cut out the dead space.

Lisa 49:45
Yeah, I mean, I think it it just goes back to just really spending my time very intentionally and in the best ways possible and knowing that it It’s okay to not have time to do something, or to know that there are other people that can just do it, do it better, and they’re there to do it better. And I think that goes through both my personal and my professional life of just being able to be okay with that, you know, it’s it’s a challenging thing as your role evolves. And as your life evolves, of letting go of the ego that makes it hard to do that, and knowing that you’re really you know, you’re setting other people up for success when you let them do the incredible things that they’re able to do.

Dave 50:36
Perfection. I love it. Well, maybe not improving. Well, perfect. If our listeners wouldn’t get in touch with you, how can they do that?

Lisa 50:46
Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Lisa Zwikl, you can shoot me an email lzwikl@getsmartacre.com. And those are probably the two best ways to get in touch with me. I’d love to hear from you. If you have questions about planning ahead for next year for your business or if you have questions about keeping your head on straight as a working parent, I’d love to chat with you. Or if you want to share your goals for next year, the best tips you have for achieving that state of feeling in control and balance. I’d love to hear from you. So feel free to reach out.

Dave 51:25
Thank you so much for being the final guests on this amazing season one Lisa, thank you so much for being here.

Lisa 51:31
Yeah, thank you for having me and for creating and bringing to life that agency balance there have been so many awesome episodes. I’ve taken a nugget from every one of them. And I still have a few of them on my go back and listen to again list. I another shout out to Josh from EIC solutions and I didn’t mention any of her quotes but Jackie voot sinus or boot scientists as a transcript changed her last name to that was one of my favorite episodes of just being authentic and it was actually a good reminder for myself before coming on today’s episode of Don’t be nervous. Just be yourself just be authentic. So thanks for bringing all of those great minds into your your podcast studio and for bringing their voices to what seven countries you said

Dave 52:22
Seven countries I think.

Lisa 52:22
Can’t wait for next year.

Dave 52:25
Thank you so much. And that’s a wrap