April 27, 2020
Transcript
Crystal Washington: Hello, I’m Crystal Washington, Technology Strategist, and Futurist
Karen McCullough: and I’m Karen McCullough, the millennial evangelist who helps you deal with change. And today we want you to rethink it forward
Crystal Washington: And by rethinking it forward, we mean that there are things that have worked for all of us in the past that aren’t going to work for us in the future. And if we’re, to be real honest, you’re not even necessarily working for us right now.
Karen McCullough: Right? So it’s money Monday.
Crystal Washington: Money Monday.
Karen McCullough: I know we like money Monday, but today we’re not really talking about money. What are we talking about crystal?
Crystal Washington: Investing in yourself,
Karen McCullough: investing in yourself. Spending the time. Huh? I had just been on a conference call and I heard someone say a quote and I loved it. It said that when the fishermen in Europe, I don’t know about our fishermen here, but when the weather prevents them from going out to sea to fish, they stay home and they mend their nets. Sound that wow.
Crystal Washington: That’s deep Karen.
Karen McCullough: I am pretty deep. That’s what I want to talk about today. Like what are we doing with all this time that we have?
Crystal Washington: And, and you know, here’s the thing, I mean for me caring at first I was just putting the pedal to the metal and working. But this topic is so on point because I just recently had the revelation, wait, no, no. This is kind of like when the fish aren’t out there, you don’t just go and just keep going out there where there’s less fish. You actually stop for a minute and pause and think about how do you improve on your competitive advantage. And so I’ve shifted the way I’ve been working here and to invest in myself as well. Time and money.
Karen McCullough: I really, I really liked that for me, you know, I just got off the stage like the day before, all of the lockdown I called the lockdown, the quarantine happened and my whole world changed because I had never done anything. I never did a Facebook live, I’ve never done a zoom except maybe to talk to my friends. So I had to really think about where I was going and what I was going to do. I took a deep breath and then you call and you said, let’s do these videos. And the first thing I had to do was go buy the equipment, right? And then I had to get on zoom like every morning and figure out how I was going to do this, where it was going to set up. If you’ll notice I moved out of my office, I’m in my kitchen because my office was driving me crazy. It was so cramped. So every day Crystal, I invest time in how to understand the technologies. I feel like I know how to speak and I’m, I have to learn how to adapt my presentations to fit this new medium.
Crystal Washington: You know, I think I’m in a similar boat. Um, while I might be a techie like you, there’s still technology I didn’t have because when my clients started asking me about what kind of video can you do, Karen, I was always capable of doing some level of video. But you know, we have brands, right? And one of my brands is being polished. And so I bought a lot of equipment with expensive lighting and everything. And the backdrops to make sure that I could create something up to the standard of what I had on stage. And so that was a financial investment. But as you know, Karen, it’s not just that. Now you have to figure out how to work all of it.
Karen McCullough: It’s so true. Please tell me I have a Mac and I work in a keynote instead of PowerPoint. I spent the last three days trying to figure out how to get my keynote presentation on zoom. When when you show the screen and everybody, I call it that, it’s so easy. It’s so easy. But they were working in PowerPoint. So now I’m going to change over to PowerPoint and I’m going to learn that. But I want you to think about other things that are happening besides us. I’ve been thinking about the customer, okay. Especially cause I am a baby boomer and I have my family, I have Lee, I’m the baby of the family. So I have older baby boomer relatives and sisters, but I’m watching how they’re adapting to the technology, how they’re getting their groceries online, how they’re getting them delivered, how my sister Pat takes her Zuma lesson from the Y on her smart TV. They’re figuring it out.
Crystal Washington: Well Karen, I think individuals, as well as companies, are figuring out, because I’ve had people in audiences for years that said, Oh, I’m not techie. You know I can’t do this or that. Or there were people that wanted to work remotely and their company said, Oh, there’s no way we could do that and now we’re seeing it’s so possible when you have to, you will adapt
Karen McCullough: when you have to, you will adapt it. That is so true. And when you see a reward, so for people who are taking the Zumba and the yoga and that they could still do the workout, they can still exercise, but they’re having to figure out the technology. So my new phrase is, fall in love with technology. Just fall in love with it. Hug it. Don’t be afraid of it. Crystal, I’m going to go back to 10 years ago. I don’t know if you remember this, but when we were starting to work on this and I was doing our first, I think we call it where they call back then when they, they weren’t webinars. What were we doing when we were both talking? I like it.
Crystal Washington: Yeah, no, it was, it was kind of like a webinar and it was a webinar sort of.
Karen McCullough: Of course, you said to me, okay, technology may fail. She said, people are used to that. She said, just calm down. Go have a glass of red wine. It was like 10 in the morning. She said you need to just,
Crystal Washington: you told me to do that. Yes, I did. I told you to drink. I did tell you to drink. Yes, but
Karen McCullough: when you said that the technology will fail, I took that with me into the keynotes that I did and I would tell the audience if something failed because so many times things fail. Just let just relax. The technology sometimes fails, but you know what? The audience is forgiving. So I want, that’s really helped me get through.
Crystal Washington: And I think when you’re, whenever you’re investing in yourself, that’s one of the things that sometimes can keep us from doing it. Karen. I mean one is time. Like some people might be watching this right now and you’re like, I don’t have a ton of extra time to invest a lot. Invest a little bit then. Right? But outside of time, the other thing is this of failure, fear of it not working right or fear of us not having it perfect the first time. Like I, I’m taking up Spanish, as I mentioned before, my Spanish is so bad. It is so, so bad. But that fear of not getting it right shouldn’t stop us from trying, you know? And so I think when we’re investing in ourselves, the payoff is part of, it’s whatever that end goal is. But part of it is just seeing that we have the sticktoitiveness to make it happen.
Karen McCullough: It’s true. And with all that’s going on, I thought about this when, when we started to say we’re not going out anymore. And I decided, okay, what can I do in addition to having to learn all the technology and really totally reinvent myself? What is it that I can do that when this is over, I show up better? So I started a diet, so now I’m on the keto diet and I’m working on that. Um, I’m working out. I put the time in there every single day for me. I go and work out at about five o’clock when I’m done with all my work, and I’m realizing that putting these, these habits, these little tiny habits into my life that were different than before will help me when this is over. Hopefully, I’m going to show up even better.
Crystal Washington: Ain’t that the goal though, I mean, I’ve done things like that too, but I mean, I absolutely love yours at the end of the day, what’s the point of us going through this if we don’t come out on the other end better?
Karen McCullough: I love it, crystal. I love it. So let’s all focus on coming out even better than before. Sound good?
Crystal Washington: Sounds good. Let’s invest in ourselves.
Karen McCullough: Sound good guys. I’ll see you next time.