Why Content is Still King with Deirdre Breakenridge

Welcome to the podcast. I am Shane Barker, your host of Shane Barker’s Marketing Madness Podcast. Today, we’re going to discuss the importance of content. My guest, Deirdre Breakenridge, is the CEO and owner of Pure Performance Communications. She also serves as a CEO of PR Stud Chat, which is a community on Twitter for PR students, PR pros, and educators. A PR marketing veteran, she comes with rich experience of over 30 years in the industry. Listen to her as she elaborates on the reasons why content is still king in the marketing industry today. Listen till the end to find out the value of great content. So let’s start this thing off. Just so I can get a little bit of a foundation for the podcast, give us a little bit—where did you grow up? Are you always on the East Coast?

So, you were a big—did you have stocks in Aqua Net or anything like that? Or was that just—?

Now, I know you look familiar. I was like, wait a second, I think I remember her from—no, I was always a West Coast boy. And I did watch a little bit, but I actually like the big hair. We had that a little bit on the West Coast too. I just know the prep. I know my—one of my actual friends—this is, I don’t know, 30 years ago now—no, wait, four years ago. It’s just crazy, the amount of prep that would take, because I do understand that the struggle is real.

Prep is serious. I do get that now with mine. I know you’re looking at mine and thinking it might take three or four hours. I know a lot of people go, “Guys with amazing hair, what do you do with your hair Shane?” and I go, “Well, thank you so much,” because there’s not a lot left, and we’re just trying to hold on to what we have left. So that’s kind of the goal there. All right, so you grew up in the Jersey area, right? How big of a family did you have?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s always nice because, once again, the protection side of things is great. But then they also treat you like a guy, probably when it comes to wrestling and stuff like that, and that has its value down the road. Like, if you have to get in a wrestling match or you’re fighting, or something—which I do frequently, I’m a big wrestler. We’ll bring that up a little later on because I know that was kind of a side fact. But speaking of side facts, is there anything interesting the audience wouldn’t know about you growing up? Is there anything that you’re like, “I haven’t told anybody this, but I used to professionally…” or anything like that?

It really is. So it’s actually historical, like a monument or something, where people would go through? Oh yeah, that’s awesome. Tarred and feathered—who knew that’s exciting. Do they still do that? Does your brother still do that with any family members at Christmas or…?

There we go. And that’s what Christmas is all about, right? And wrestling, obviously, that’s exciting. So what college did you go to? Did you stay in New Jersey to go to college, or did you break outside of New Jersey?

I feel like 100 million is a pretty good reason to get your name on a school.

I think that’s good. Obviously, it’s awesome when people make that kind of money, and then you’re able to give back, and it obviously helps the community. I think of times—a lot of those donation things—it’s kind of the, “Hey, thanks for doing this,” but the fact they’ll put a monument—I guess it depends on how much you donate, but you’re probably going to get a college name, a building, or something named after you. All it takes is 100 million dollars, folks, to rename a college. Do you know when this happened? The 100 million was probably a little while ago, huh?

Gosh, that’s crazy—100 million dollars. I plan on donating to my college. I’m actually going to donate, I think, $1,000, and we’re going to see what I can do with that—maybe a rock or something like that. I’ll say, maybe not even “Shane”—probably just “SB” or something on the front. It’ll be by a tree or something, just to have gold. Hey, there you go. We got to start small, folks. We’ll start with a small rock, and then eventually, we’ll have…

We got to start somewhere, right? That’s really what it comes down to—small rocks, folks, that’s where we’re at. Well, cool. Tell us a little bit. Okay, so your college—you’re literally a Jersey girl, right? So, you grew up in Jersey. Bruce Springsteen fan, by chance?

Yeah. How do you not? I was a Bruce Springsteen…

Yeah, I was gonna say, I can say it’s almost dangerous, wasn’t it? Weren’t you part of his gang? Didn’t he have a gang there in Jersey? I think I know kind of where—I think the whole city, right? I mean, everybody was, I can only imagine. Bruce was the man. He’s still the man. I mean, he was born in the USA.

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go to Jersey and be like, “You know what? I am not a Bruce Springsteen fan.” I think that would not end well for you or anybody—but definitely not you. And are you currently in Jersey as well, like right now?

Yeah, I think that’s it for me. I’m the same way. In the beginning, it was like, I want to be in the city. I want to be in the mix of everything, and every day I want to hear the honking and this and that. And then you get older, and it’s like, I just want something a little quieter. I don’t necessarily need a farm—I mean, I need to be close enough to the city, but you know, yeah, I just have to look at it. Every so often, I can tap into it, but I love the energy of the city. When I’m there, it’s amazing, but at the same time, I don’t think I could maintain that energy 24/7—I literally never sleep. I’d be so jacked up on the energy, that it’s good for me to go to a little quiet time. I like that—to be able to disconnect a little bit. Now I get that. So what was next after you graduated from college? What was your career path? How did you get to where you are? Because there’s a lot—we talked earlier—there’s like 50 things we could talk about, including athletes you’ve worked with. I’m always interested in hearing that journey, like after graduating from college. I’m interested because you’ve written books, you’re a speaker—you’ve done a lot. You were a teacher or a professor at the university, so kind of give me a little rundown of how that all played out.

I’m already doing it. It’s just in somebody else’s name.

Ah, gotcha. So that’s the transition. Today, do you focus heavily on consulting?

Yeah. And that’s the fun part, right? When you get to a point where, foundationally, you’ve done a lot of really cool stuff—it sounds like your journey has been pretty clear. You kind of knew where you were going, like all you did was talk to a guidance counselor, and they probably said to take PR, not to take over PR. And you heard “take over PR,” then went ahead and did what you did. So tell me a little bit—you also have a book, “Answers for the Modern Communicators.” I’m assuming this ties in directly with your consulting business—how we get the word out from a PR perspective, personal branding, stuff like that. Tell me a little bit about your book.

I think that’s awesome. I was gonna ask you—because obviously you’ve written a lot of books, and I think I’ve talked about this and potentially whined about it a little bit—I have a book that I’m working on, and I’ve only been working on it for 40 years now, right? I feel like it’s gonna come out in 2096—it’s right around the corner, so I’m super excited about that.

But somebody like you, you’re pumping out a book like every three hours. How do you like—for me, I’m just a little envious because your main thing is writing. But I love the idea that you grabbed all the questions, all the pressing questions that people asked you, answered them, and then brought in other experts. I think that’s something I could potentially put together, which I think is an awesome idea.

Tell me about some of your other books. I’m sure each one of them has been a little different. How do you—I mean, mainly, this is like me not even caring about anybody that’s listening. Literally, I’m doing this so that instead of hiring you as a consultant, I could ask you questions on the podcast. I was like, “What’s the cheapest way that I can get to one of the best PR people in the world? I’ll have her on the podcast!”

This is it! This is the—and anybody else probably wanting to hire you as a consultant, if you don’t put her on the podcast, you can ask her all the questions. So that’s my snippet of information for the day.

How do you do that? How do you put together six different books? Obviously, it looks like some of them kind of start, then you have some other ones that take precedence. Like, you have six, right? At least six under your belt. Give me a little intel on that.

I think that’s such a valuable point. It’s funny when you say it; it sounds easy. I’m like, “Yeah, all you gotta do is listen a little more.” I feel like my wife is right next to me saying, “You just need to listen a little more.” I’m like, “What did you just say?” It feels like there’s an obvious need.

That’s what happens with entrepreneurs—there’s an issue. They see an issue and say, “There’s not a solution for this, and I have this problem, right? Maybe now I can start a business that will take care of that problem.” For you, you had enough people asking these questions. You said, “You know what? Instead of me sending responses to 50 people, why don’t I write a book about it? There’s clearly a need there.”

I think this is another thing in regard to content—again, what are the pain points? What are the pain points of your potential clients? We look at it kind of the same thing. If you’re answering these questions in blog posts, and then you put it into a book, now people are buying it, and you’re a thought leader in the space.

I love that. Like I said, the book thing—I’ll come out with it one day. But I love the fact of talking with people on how they put their books together, because everybody’s process is a little different. The underlying message—and literally, I’m saying this out loud just for myself—is just to do it. It’s just to get it done.

Then we’d both be competing for that same year, which would suck, because I haven’t come up, and you’re pretty famous. Last time I checked, so that would really suck for me. So if you could do it a year before, that would be awesome. So yeah, structure helps too. I think that’s the thing. Structure is probably the key. And a starting point right is like, “Hey, let me see what this is going to look like.” Of course, I will continue to evolve and change. Yes, but it’s interesting to me. That’s interesting. I’m, I think I just need to probably talk to like, three more people on the podcast. And I actually have Andy Crescentino Who, who actually told me, like, “Next time we talk, you better have, like, you better have pieces of this already put together.” And he kind of threatened me in a nice way, which is unfortunate because now I can never talk to Andy again, because then he’s gonna call me on my stuff, right? So it’s like, I just, I can’t, I don’t wanna be held accountable, or anything like that. I got to make sure to avoid him. But yeah, that’s awesome. So I’m going to think about that. This is, I think that’s the way that you came up with it, which is, naturally, makes sense of just listening.

I am actually. So it’s funny that you talk about Evernote. I love Evernote just because, once again, you can do the audio, you can write stuff, and then you can write notes, and once again, it’s connected to everything. So I’m pretty in tune with the Evernote thing. It really, for me, it’s, it’s not like, I don’t have the content. It’s not like, it’s literally just one of those things. I just need to start getting it going. I have, like, ADHD, right? So I’m like, I would say a good amount.

Probably half my listeners do like, half my listeners are probably off the podcast right now because they’re like, you know, looking for a shiny penny or something like that. But all the people that have stayed on a little older folks that, you know, aren’t heavily medicated, you know, they’re still here. You know, I think for me, it’s really just doing it. Like, I have some of the outlines together and all that kind of stuff. And I have the collateral—the curriculum—because I was, you know, a lot of the stuff that I want to talk about is influencer marketing, and, you know, how to be influential. I mean, I taught, I teach a class at UCLA on personal branding and how to be an influencer. So it’s not like I don’t have the material. It’s just one of those things of sitting down between, you know, my workshops and, you know, all the other fun stuff for me, it’s focusing on this one thing for however many hours I need to do it. Because I’m like, “Oh, look, a shiny Penny.” Oh, look, I just got an email. Oh, look, you know, so I’m like I have to literally shut everything down, which is, yes, difficult for me. So that’s hard, it is. It’s hard to shut everything when you’re so connected. But this, I will tell you, over the years, I have been able to become more disconnected, or at least being able to disconnect from work and stuff like we talked about a little bit earlier about that. And I think for me, I’m getting to the point where it’s really just sitting down on a Sunday and saying, “Hey, let me spend two hours on this, you know, each week, and I can do it up.”

This is the thing. I’ll do it here soon, so that way I can talk to Andy again and be able to look you in the eyes and tell you that we’ve pushed that date back to ’94 or something like that. Now we’re hot in the trail to getting this thing going. So okay, so obviously you’re the thing. Do you obviously your background as a writer, right? I mean, that’s what you’re the premise of. Everything that you do has this common core or being a writer. So how is content a major piece of that? Like, how do you integrate? Because not everybody’s writers, right? And don’t have the expertise that you have. So how is it with content being kind of a major part? How do you do that with your consulting business, with your clients?

And I think, I think you hit the nail on the head with that. I mean, for me, it’s like, and that’s what we kind of look at, is like, what do you enjoy doing, right? And what are you good at, right? And it’s like, really building something around that, because you can always find if you’re not the best writer. I mean, if you can speak and put something into a tape and tell people what the premise of it is. Or, you know, we do video a lot of stuff, like we use Loom to be able to do a video and explain things. You don’t have to be the best writer in the world, right? You don’t have to with video. It’s a little difficult to clone yourself and have somebody else do it, so you probably have to do that work. But, if you hate being in front of a video, then maybe that’s not for you. But I think it’s important what people one of the things is, is figuring out, obviously, what you’re good at, but then also knowing that you don’t have to be everywhere, you don’t have to be on every platform, you don’t have to do every medium. Figure out what you enjoy doing and what kind of content you think your audience is going to like, and as long as that resonates with what you’re creating, then finding that connection, right? I think that’s always the hard part, because, you know, night we get this, and I think everybody does is like, there’s always a new platform, there’s always a new this, there’s always a new that, right? There’s always something to distract you from it. But I think it’s, it’s really focusing. And for me to say focus is kind of ironic, but to focus on exactly like, once again, what your message is, how you want to put that out, and once in what you enjoy doing. Because I think people want to, “Oh, I gotta do video, but I gotta hate video.” And I think there’s a difference between hating video and then also getting it to a point where you just haven’t done it a lot, so you’re not good at it, right? Not where you, like, have anxiety and you’re like, have to take medicine or something to be able to get on right? That’s a whole different level.

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense, because you’re, you know, because, I mean, drugs are expensive, from what I understand, but from what I’ve heard. So I think that’s the—that’s the key. Is like, what I go once again, what do you like to do, and what are you good at doing? And then you can build out the other pillars, because there’s other people that enjoy whatever that you don’t enjoy, like accounting or answering emails or something like that. So I will take that. If you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to do video, but I will do this,” then we’ll work together. So figuring out what you’re good at, what you want to do, how you spend your day, and once again, do you enjoy what you do?

And absolutely. And I think that’s the thing is that you know my yours, or my first speaking event, my first podcast, my first video thing, you don’t jump into it sound great, like I’ll give you an example, and I’ve brought this up in past podcasts. I have my first blog post that I wrote on my website, and I show it to my students at UCLA, and they always look at it, go, “God, that’s terrible.” And I go, that’s my point of showing it to you. Is that it’s terrible, right? It’s like, but I started right? So the thing is, with you is with you. And it’s important to go and do that and step out of your comfort zone. And my writing skills aren’t absolutely phenomenal. I’m not a writer by trade, but this is where I started, right. And now I have people on my team that helped me with writing, obviously, with, you know, writing content. So this is the thing is, like, you just have to get it started. And the video thing and the speaking thing being a great example of that, people are, I mean, people would like, it’s like, death, and speaking, right? That’s like, the thing a lot of the time, speaking is more scary than death, because speaking, you have to think about what you do after death. It just happens. And it’s like, okay, it’s happening. So it’s the crazy part about it for me is, once again, I think you touched on it is like, do are we so uncomfortable we just can’t do it because I get anxiety before I speak. And I haven’t told a lot of people that, but then when I get up on stage, other than you work, yeah, you work through it, right? It’s like, I kind of forget about all that. And now it’s this was in the beginning. Now it’s just kind of second nature to get up and speak. But in the beginning it was, it was absolutely terrifying. Like, I’m like, “What am I doing? But I know myself that I was like, I have to conquer this, like, I have to go through this, right? And I just not, I don’t love it by any means, but they’ll get to a point where I’ll just jump up on stage, grab a microphone, and then it’ll just, it’s all second nature, and that’s where I’m at now. But it takes a while to get there, and you know, I have to say, I’m willing to really go through the hard times? Because it’s not easy. It’s just worth it!

I mean, you just never know where it’s going to take you, and I think that’s what’s exciting—like the speaking side of things and workshops. For me, in the beginning, it was uncomfortable, but for me now, I knew once I got through that, there was going to be great stuff that was going to happen, right? But it’s like anything else—that first part sucks, right? Going from here to there, because you’re like this and that. But so many good things can happen once you break outside of that, assuming, once again, that you’re not so heavily medicated yourself to do something.

But even then, I would have. This was years ago. I was going on, and I was just a little nervous—little speaking event, little keynote I was doing in Santa Barbara. And the funny part was the guy that was there, he goes, “Hey, how you doing?” I said, “Oh yeah, I’m doing good.” And that’s always my answer, right? But I’m like, you know, sweating, and deep down inside, my palms are all sweaty. And he goes, “Do you want a shot of tequila?” And I was like, “Do I want a shot of tequila?” And I’m like, “I’m Irish. It doesn’t mean I drink before my keynotes.” But he goes—he actually goes on always. I’m thinking, he had a bottle of tequila. His point was that he had other people, speakers, that would—for a long time, they would drink tequila.

Now, I’m not recommending drinking tequila before—you care of the anxiety for them. And I always thought that was interesting. Now, I’ve never decided to drink before I go on stage, because I don’t think I need to drink when I go on stage. Now, after I go on stage, I’m with the group, right, so—but I just thought that was interesting, to get rid of the anxiety of it. He’s like, “Yeah, I recommend tequila.” And I was like, “Well, there we go.” I mean, who knows? Let me know if you use tequila before your keynote, and how that turns out. Or if you even remember it. And if you do, then that’s awesome. Let us know how that goes.

Oh, how funny, when we talk about content. So tell me, what are you really passionate about? Like, if somebody said, if they put, you know, your name, plus the hashtag—like, what would that hashtag be? What are you passionate about content-wise? Like, what would be, right now, if someone said, “Hey Shane, this to me is, like, really, where I’m—I know obviously your podcast, right—women worldwide.” So, I would say that’s probably what you’re passionate about. But tell us, what are you passionate about right now when it comes to content marketing so well?

I love that. That is so awesome, and I appreciate you bringing up the thing with Noelle. I know that we talked a little bit on Twitter and through direct messages about that. I knew it was a hard thing for you guys, and it’s interesting how you’re turning it into something that I think could have a big impact. I think that’s awesome. I hope so. It will, it absolutely will.

And obviously, I’ve told you before, let me know whatever you need from my side to help get the word out—not only through the podcast but through anything. Because, like, I’m a big fan of passion projects, especially if they can make an impact. I think social media, it’s difficult for millennials, right? There’s really this need to perform, and this need to be out there, and you’re socially accepted by how many likes and comments you get.

If I’m not getting this content—I mean, I work with influencers a lot, and my class at UCLA is literally personal branding, how to be an influencer, right? There’s this kind of need to feel accepted or to monetize, and stuff like that. But the unfortunate part is if you’re not performing, they’re going to find somebody else who’s putting this forward. Some people have honest content, and some people have a façade of “Oh, my life’s great.”

I think there’s just so many other avenues to communicate, and it’s difficult. High school, college, it’s difficult at times. There’s a lot of moving pieces to it. I think it’s awesome that you’re looking into interviewing people and saying, “Hey, what are the potential issues here?” Especially when dealing with higher suicide rates and stuff like that. Social media has some upsides and downsides. It’s important to address both sides of it, especially if it’s affecting our youth and the people that—

Yeah, that’s crazy. Well, I can’t wait to hear more about what you’ve got going on there because—I think you’re touching on something that a lot of people don’t realize is going on, right? Because I don’t think it’s talked about a lot, right? Like I said, the other side of social media—how it can affect one can be great, then there’s the other side. It doesn’t affect everybody great, right? And so there’s that, and it can really cause issues.

I think that’s interesting. Once again, as I’ve told you before, let me know when you come out with that. I would love to support you in any way possible. Put it on my channels and stuff. Yeah, I think it’s important to look at both sides of that. I’m excited to see your research—I know how you do research, so I’m excited to see how that thing comes out. There’ll be another book, I can only imagine now. I’ll buy it. I’m ready. I’m ready for number seven. My goal is to come out with my book before you come out with your fifteenth book. This is my small goal—I’m going to put it out there!

Don’t you worry, folks, I’m gonna get this thing. This thing’s gonna be—she’s only gonna do eight books in the time that I do one. That’s not a problem. Nothing here to judge. It’ll be good.

So cool. You know, we’re gonna switch gears here a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit about the content marketing side of things. Like, what do you think the biggest challenges for marketers are? Like, where do you see marketers failing when it comes to content marketing? Is there anything, when you see content that comes out, and you go, “Oh man, I really wish that more content marketers or more businesses would do this?” Is there anything like that for you? Is something glaring that you see quite often?

So, it’s funny—I have to tell the audience that I didn’t set this up for you to say this or for me to say this, but it’s interesting. My main focus right now is the workshops I’m doing for brands on how to work with influencers. Because there really is a huge disconnect between brands and influencers. Not all of them, of course, but overall, from what I’ve seen and the research we’ve done, there’s just this huge disconnect. I talk to brands, I talk to influencers, and the problem is that brands often treat influencers like, “Hey, send them a product and let’s see what happens,” without caring about metrics or clearly defining expectations. They’re not asking specific questions like, “What’s included in your brief? What does this actually mean?” And that’s where I’ve shifted gears. That’s what the whole UCLA thing and the curriculum I taught there was about, and that’s why we’ve developed these workshops. The idea is, if you’re going to do influencer marketing, there’s a right way to do it. It’s not guaranteed every campaign will be successful, but there are certain things you must do—questions to ask, clear briefs to put in place.

You need to understand that if you’re reaching out to an influencer because you love their content, don’t give them a brief that’s going to strangle their creativity and force them into creating exactly what you want. Obviously, you like their content, so let them create within boundaries—they understand their audience best. It still has to resonate with your brand, but let them be creative. Don’t micromanage their process. Also, make it more of a relationship rather than a transactional approach of, “Hey, we’re the brand, we’re paying you, this is exactly what we want.”

I see this all the time—brands coming to me and saying, “Hey, this is Kim Kardashian’s cousin, we want to work with her.” I respond, “Okay, that’s great—but why?” They say, “Because it’s Kim Kardashian’s cousin.” Well, that doesn’t mean anything to me. Give me a reason: have you looked at her profile, checked the analytics, noticed great engagement, or seen that she’s never worked with these types of brands and think she’d be a good fit? Usually, the response is just, “No, it’s Kim Kardashian’s cousin,” and we’ve already been over this. That alone doesn’t matter. Often, brands just look at followers and assume a large following automatically means it’ll work. It’s interesting, because, once again, education is the key here.

This is a terrible analogy, and I’m mostly saying it for comedic effect, but the way I explain brands and influencers working together is like two 15-year-old kids having a baby. I’m not saying you can’t have a baby at 15, but I’d strongly recommend finishing college, dating a bit, learning about life first, and then starting a family. In influencer marketing, it’s like two inexperienced parties rushing into something without proper preparation or understanding. I’m not saying you have to hire me or another consultant, but educate yourself a little bit. Understand you’re at the early stages, and better learn how to work with influencers.

Also, realize that not all influencers are the same. Everyone has their own way of running their business, their approach, and how they handle payment—if payment is even involved. Another key thing is the value exchange of time. You might have influencers who have a full production team—videographers and editors—yet you offer them a free $10 T-shirt and expect eight hours of content creation. That’s just not a fair exchange of value.

It’s important for brands to genuinely look at influencers, not just use software to pull lists and send out templated emails. If you’re going to start a relationship with an influencer, actually look at their content and pass what I call the eyeball test. When I started in influencer marketing, there was no software—it was purely about looking at content and deciding if it made sense. That human element, that EQ, isn’t going away. Artificial intelligence won’t replace the human aspect of relationship-building and decision-making. Influencer marketing needs human judgment. You have to see if influencers align with your brand as real people.

I appreciate you bringing this up because it’s a very important point. I don’t always discuss my workshops, but I’m doing it now because relationships really are essential. Great things can come from these partnerships, but you need to learn how to properly collaborate. And right now, that’s the disconnect.

It takes time, and I think that’s what people miss out on. Everybody—not everybody—but people in the world want “Why would I do a seven-second A/B if I can do a two-second A/B,” right? It really comes down to anything you do. I don’t care if it’s PPC, content creation, or marketing. You can skip steps all day long, but the problem is, you’re probably not going to have the outcome you want, right?

Influencer marketing is no different. If you just want to send out a templated email to 1,000 yoga instructors because you have a yoga product, you’ll find somebody that’s interested. But the problem is, are they the right person, right? It’s a lot more. You just have to put the time into it.

I think that’s where people get confused. They assume, “Hey, this is an influencer. They’ve got a big following. They’re gonna go post this picture. I’m gonna give them $1,000. I’m gonna make $10,000 and then I can go stay on my island, drink my Corona, and hang out for the rest of my life.” It’s probably not going to happen that way.

So, the idea of it is, as you’re developing, that relationship is the important part. If they do move the needle now, you guys can work on new campaigns. You work on other ideas and how you can do this. It’s going to be good for the influencer and great for the brand as well.

Absolutely. Cool. Alright, we’ve only got a few more minutes here, because this is what happens when we have fun. There’s no excuse here. This is just how it goes down. Sometimes.

What do you think for content—when you talk about any software you use? I know you talked about Grammarly a little bit earlier. Are there any other software tools that you use for either content creation, punctuation, grammar, or distribution of content? Is there anything you’re using—what software do you use? Like you couldn’t live without?

Awesome. Yeah. You know what’s funny? I don’t think people realize what goes into a podcast, especially when you’re starting—and now you guys are doing video as well. The amount of work that goes into a podcast, which is funny because you think, “Oh, you just record it, then you put it up, and then you do this.” There are so many moving pieces, and it’s one of those things—I don’t know. There’s just a lot of moving pieces. I don’t think I do it the right way. And there’s always new things, and do this and do that, take clips here and put them here—it’s just a lot of work. But once again, I think it bears its fruit over time, for sure.

That is it. So, what would you consider—obviously, we haven’t even gone into the 17,000 things you’ve done over your lifetime—but what would you consider your biggest achievement? With the things you’ve done—obviously, you’ve done a lot of really great things—what would you say this is? And I guess it could be a current project you’re working on or one you’ve worked on in the past. What is that thing that you look at and you go, “I’m extremely proud of this”?

I mean, that’s awesome exposure. Like, you gotta be kidding me. That is really cool. Yeah, that’s really cool.

Yeah, I can imagine. If you’re sitting on a flight, you’re like, “Wait, I know her. Oh wait a second, I should reach out to her,” because you have nothing else to do other than stare at the screen and go, “Okay, maybe I’ll take a few notes, and here I’ll get a hold of her offline.” That’s awesome.

She’s my evil twin.

That is too funny. So how long was that on United for?

From a consulting perspective, you can’t really get in front of a better client—the people that are actually flying between this and that. That’s beautiful. Congratulations on that.

So we’ve only got another minute or two. First of all, I want to say, tell me about Daisy. I have to get a little bit of information about Daisy because I’m a fellow dog lover. So I just want to talk about Daisy for a minute, and then I want to talk about what your typical day looks like.

Oh god, I love dogs. I’m a huge—we have two rescues. Anyway I love dogs, so I had to ask you about Daisy.

Tell me about your day, because I know you’re good at structuring stuff—what does a typical day look like for you?

That is awesome. Yeah, it’s good. I go back and forth with regimens or schedules and things that I do, but I just recently started doing that—like, earlier than when I walk. Because I can’t run—long story short, I hurt my leg back when I was doing CrossFit stuff. So I was doing boxing, and anyway, now I’m going to these older sports of Pilates and yoga and stuff like that, which is difficult for somebody like me to slow down my brain.

Well, I’ll let you know how this all works out. But I’ve been doing walking and stuff, and running. I try to get a good little regimen in the morning, just to kind of get the mind going straight.

Agreed, agreed. Alright, so I’ve got the last question of the day here. If I was to give you a credit card—let’s say I was gonna give you a credit card for $50,000—I don’t know. Hopefully, that’s gonna be enough for a Jersey girl—I don’t know. I know that hairspray…

That’s definitely not going to be enough. So, if I was to give you a card for $50,000, where would you go? Like, what would you do with that? Would you go buy clothes, or would you go on a trip? Like, what would you do? Tell me—what would you do with that?

Man, that sounds awesome. Well, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with a little family time, a resort, and pampering. Why not adult beverages? I don’t know if there’s anything better than that right there.

You’ve been an absolute doll for the interview. I absolutely appreciate you taking the time today. Like I said, I’ll let the team know once this goes live, or let you know. And once again, if you need anything from me when you’re talking about these projects you’re working on, please reach out anytime.

So if somebody wants to reach out to you in regards to that or anything else, where can they find you?

That’s awesome. Well, hopefully we get some millennials that will reach out to you, get some interviews going. All right, have an awesome rest of your day.