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Cristin Browne [00:00:05]:
Hi. This is Cristin Browne and when I’m not outside gardening or skiing or taking classes at my local improv theater, I’m listening to John Garrett on What’s Your “And”?

John Garrett [00:00:16]:
Welcome to episode 659 of What’s Your “And”?. This is John Garrett, and each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. And to put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “And.” Those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work. It’s the answer to the question of who else are you beyond the job title? And if you like what the show’s about, be sure to check out the award-winning book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites.

John Garrett [00:00:46]:
All the links are at www.WhatsYourAnd.com. The book goes more in-depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture. And I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and writing such great reviews on Amazon. Thank you so much for those. And more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it. And if you want me to read it to you, that’s right. This voice reading the book. Look for what’s your hand on Audible or wherever you get your audio books.

John Garrett [00:01:13]:
And please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week. And this week is no different with my guest, Cristin Browne. She’s an entrepreneur and nonprofit leader in Denver, Colorado, and now she’s with me here today. Kristin, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your End?

Cristin Browne [00:01:31]:
Thanks for having me on, John. Really excited for the conversation.

John Garrett [00:01:35]:
Oh, this is gonna be a blast. So much fun. I have 17 rapid fire questions. Get to know Cristin out of the gate here. So buckle up. Are you ready?

Cristin Browne [00:01:43]:
I’m buckled in. Let’s go.

John Garrett [00:01:44]:
Okay. Alright. Here we go. How about a favorite color?

Cristin Browne [00:01:48]:
Favorite color is pink, and here’s why. So I spent eight years active duty army. I’m a service academy grad. I graduated from West Point. And for so long, I had one color that I always wore, and it was olive drab green. And especially on my deployments, I always wanted to have something to remind me of of my femininity, that I was still a girl, and I had something on me that was pink. So the thing that I became kinda infamous for was a pink phone cover and a pink water bottle that I carried around with me everywhere to the point that when I had my pink water bottle with me, everyone was like, oh, that’s Cristin’s truck. Oh, that’s Cristin’s aircraft.

Cristin Browne [00:02:29]:
And so pink has has always just been a great symbol of my aunt as I was in a very green and gray environment, and pink was I I love the vibrancy of of the color.

John Garrett [00:02:39]:
Yeah. That’s your differentiator.

Cristin Browne [00:02:40]:
Absolutely.

John Garrett [00:02:41]:
Yeah. Something that simple. I love it. That’s awesome. How about a least favorite color?

Cristin Browne [00:02:45]:
Beige. You know, the the absence of color. Beige, gray, the opposite of pink.

John Garrett [00:02:50]:
Right. Yeah. Exactly. It makes pink look more awesome, though.

Cristin Browne [00:02:53]:
It does.

John Garrett [00:02:53]:
There is that, but yeah. But it’s still like, if it was all that, ugh. Yeah. I I hear you on that. How about puzzles? Sudoku, crossword, maybe a jigsaw puzzle?

Cristin Browne [00:03:02]:
My attention span is not long enough to be able to get a jigsaw in person, straight up. I think I’ve done one Sudoku, tried Wordle for a while.

John Garrett [00:03:11]:
No. Fair. I totally gotcha. How about books? Audio version, ebook, or real book?

Cristin Browne [00:03:17]:
Oh, audiobooks all day every day. I probably read a book every two weeks, and I always have some business book going on and just some personal fantasy book going on. But audiobook, I I love listening to while I’m gardening, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, or cleaning. I I like being while I’m driving. Yeah. Audiobooks all day.

John Garrett [00:03:36]:
Yeah. And you could also adjust the speed so you can, you know, double time it. And, yeah, you burn through books.

Cristin Browne [00:03:43]:
1.25 is my standard, listening rates to the audiobook.

John Garrett [00:03:47]:
There you go. Yeah. Because when I was recording it, they were like, okay. You know, read it slowly. And I was like, no one’s gonna listen to this. This is crazy. And but then they were like, no. People can speed it up, but they can’t slow it down as as much, I guess.

John Garrett [00:03:59]:
And so I was like, alright. Alright. So this is a fun one. I love this one because I love concerts. What about your first concert?

Cristin Browne [00:04:06]:
My first concert was in fourth grade. I went to go see Spice Girls.

John Garrett [00:04:11]:
Oh, wow.

Cristin Browne [00:04:12]:
Oh, Spice Up Your Life. Oh, yeah. Little fourth grade me has great memories of going to see the Spice Girls at the PNC Art Center in New Jersey.

John Garrett [00:04:20]:
That’s epic. That’s pretty awesome. Okay. It’s always such a great answer. That’s why I love it. How about a favorite actor or an actress?

Cristin Browne [00:04:27]:
I like Meryl Streep. She’s timeless, talented. Love her in Mamma Mia. I’m also one of those people that doesn’t have a a long list of I’ll I’ll watch a movie and be like, who is in that?

John Garrett [00:04:38]:
Right. Yeah.

Cristin Browne [00:04:39]:
Pop culture and remembering things. But, yeah, Meryl Streep is is definitely one of my favorites.

John Garrett [00:04:43]:
Always a good one. And this is an important one. Toilet paper roll over or under?

Cristin Browne [00:04:47]:
You know, I know people have really strong feelings about this.

John Garrett [00:04:51]:
They really do.

Cristin Browne [00:04:52]:
But I have two bathrooms in my house, and one toilet paper roll is upside down and the other is right side up, and I won’t tell you which is which. Right? However, it comes out of the package.

John Garrett [00:05:03]:
There you go. That’s so great. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Cristin Browne [00:05:07]:
Another one I I don’t have extremely hard feel or strong feelings about. But if I had to pick, I would say Star Wars. Again, love what Disney has done with the brand and how people get so into it and have their sub stories of sub stories and people make their entire careers about speaking about Star Wars. I just think that’s so cool and the just endurance of the brand and how it’s changed over the years, I think, is really cool.

John Garrett [00:05:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. That’s for sure. How about your computer? PC or Mac?

Cristin Browne [00:05:38]:
A Mac.

John Garrett [00:05:38]:
All day. Okay.

Cristin Browne [00:05:40]:
Yeah. I’m not a not a PC person even though I have I

John Garrett [00:05:43]:
am not cool enough for that, so good for you.

Cristin Browne [00:05:45]:
You can’t see this if you’re listening to this on auto recording, but I got my AirPods, I got my Apple Watch, and I got my Mac. And I hate when you’re on a text distro and the person with the Android shows up in the green of, yep, John talked to this, and you get the text rather than just the thumbs up.

John Garrett [00:06:00]:
Right.

Cristin Browne [00:06:01]:
Yeah. I’m a Mac person. Kick the green guy out of the text distro.

John Garrett [00:06:04]:
Right. I’m the one that’s like, hey. Welcome no one’s replying. Yeah. There you go. How about a favorite cereal from when you were a kid or now anytime?

Cristin Browne [00:06:13]:
Oh, favorite cereal. I’m not really a cereal person. I usually do eggs or oatmeal for breakfast, but I have an affinity for Reese’s peanut butter puffs.

John Garrett [00:06:25]:
Wow. Yeah.

Cristin Browne [00:06:27]:
Yeah. It can be a dessert or it could be a breakfast, and I just have some childhood memories of Reese’s peanut butter puffs being a real treat.

John Garrett [00:06:35]:
I love it. No. That’s great. How about a favorite sports team?

Cristin Browne [00:06:38]:
Pass.

John Garrett [00:06:39]:
Oh, wow. Okay. Alright. Okay.

Cristin Browne [00:06:41]:
No. No. Actually, wow. My my, West Point compadres will

John Garrett [00:06:46]:
I was gonna say after the season army football had come on now. Okay.

Cristin Browne [00:06:50]:
I’m gonna say say edit this out, but I don’t actually want you to edit that part out because I think this will

John Garrett [00:06:54]:
be funny to have the whole hilarious.

Cristin Browne [00:06:57]:
If I had to pick a sports team, army football is I have to be an army fan because for four years of my life, it’s mandatory to go to those games. And I get emotionally attached to one sports event per year, and that’s the Army Navy football game.

John Garrett [00:07:12]:
Huge. I I was, fortunate enough to go as a kid several times and when it was in Philadelphia. And, man, it was awesome. Like, just so awesome to see. I mean all the Cadets of both Academies coming in and everybody and the Padgettry and man if you love option football that’s your game that’s for sure. I think back in those days there were like three passes maybe total. Now they’re, like, totally throwing the ball, both teams. But So

Cristin Browne [00:07:36]:
our army’s undefeated this season. So and I did have a Naval Academy grad tell me recently that he’s secretly hoping that army has an undefeated season because it’s really, representative of all the service academy grads at the special place in in our hearts seeing one of us succeed. But I’m glad it’s army this year.

John Garrett [00:07:53]:
I love ice cream. Do you have a favorite flavor?

Cristin Browne [00:07:56]:
Mint chocolate chip.

John Garrett [00:07:58]:
Oh, there you go. Classic with a twist.

Cristin Browne [00:08:00]:
Yeah. Classic with a twist.

John Garrett [00:08:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. There you go. How about more of an early bird or a night owl?

Cristin Browne [00:08:05]:
I’m a late morning person. So I Okay. 7AM. You know, despite my time in the military of waking up and standing in formation at 05:30AM, I never wanna wake up at 05:30AM again, but, yeah, at 7AM. But I’m somebody that wakes up, and I am ready to go.

John Garrett [00:08:25]:
Yeah. Ditto. I am the same. Yeah. Where it’s like, let’s just go. Let’s do this. And then afternoon, I’ll sorta peter out a little bit. But, yeah.

John Garrett [00:08:32]:
Okay. How about favorite number?

Cristin Browne [00:08:35]:
8.

John Garrett [00:08:35]:
8? Is there a reason?

Cristin Browne [00:08:37]:
My birthday’s on the eighth, and so that’s probably why it started. But 8 was my number in soccer growing up. And I, strangely enough, I remember being eight. You know, if you look back at your childhood, being eight is, like, the first time that I have, like, real adult memories of things that I was doing, people that I was with. So I just remember being eight, and I had lost eight teeth, and I was eight in soccer. And it’s ever since, it’s been my my lucky number.

John Garrett [00:09:05]:
How about a least favorite vegetable?

Cristin Browne [00:09:08]:
Oh, least

John Garrett [00:09:09]:
Especially as a gardener, just in case they’re listening.

Cristin Browne [00:09:14]:
I don’t really like beets. Beets are, I feel, like, very polarizing, and you either love them or they taste like dirt.

John Garrett [00:09:22]:
Yeah. Right? And, also, the next day when you go to the bathroom, you’re like, am I dying? Like, oh, yeah. I ate beets yesterday. My bad. Never mind. I’m like, yeah. It’s that’s hilarious. Alright.

John Garrett [00:09:33]:
Two more. How about shower or

Cristin Browne [00:09:34]:
bath? Shower.

John Garrett [00:09:36]:
Shower.

Cristin Browne [00:09:37]:
Even if I take a bath, if I do have time to take a bath, I always take a shower afterwards because after, you know, taking the

John Garrett [00:09:41]:
bathtub, you gotta rinse everything off. And the last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own?

Cristin Browne [00:09:47]:
My favorite thing I own, it has to be my house. Yeah. I bought this house five years ago, right at the beginning of COVID, and it’s an old eighteen hundreds Victorian house in the South Of Denver. And I love the charm. I love the history. I love the fact that I bought this house that was built before women had the right to own property or vote, and now I own this little piece of history in the South Part Of Denver. So if I had to be connected to an inanimate object, it’s this house.

John Garrett [00:10:21]:
Yeah. That’s very cool. That’s awesome. I love it, which leads perfectly right into your garden. So, you know, did you grow up gardening or was this something that came about five years ago?

Cristin Browne [00:10:32]:
Yeah. I didn’t really grow up gardening in the conventional center in the way that I’m passionate about it now. Although, I would say my love for gardening started as a child if I really think about it because every year my family had a tradition on Mother’s Day. We would go out in the yard. I grew up in New Jersey and we would plant flowers for Mother’s Day. It was the connectedness of the family, everybody outside, our hands in the dirt and putting flowers out in the front yard, and then those were part of the beauty of of my childhood home when I was a kid. And we never grew vegetables, though. So I would say that passion came to be when I moved here and bought my house.

Cristin Browne [00:11:14]:
And when I bought this house, the backyard it’s not very big. It’s a still a city house that I live in, but the backyard was just pure dirt. There was nothing to it. And I looked at it when I bought this house five years ago, and I said, this is a blank canvas. What do I wanna do with it? And I had dreams of having this big, beautiful, flourishing vegetable garden. And I did. I started the first year back in ’20, I think the first summer I was here was 2021. And I tried to plant a few things and everything died except for my zucchini.

John Garrett [00:11:50]:
Man, zucchinis are like the cockroaches of vegetables. I tell you what, they grow huge and no matter what you plant them in and they take over, they’ve been around forever. I’m convinced of that.

Cristin Browne [00:12:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. I don’t know what it is about zucchini, but anybody that wants to get into gardening in order to up your conviction that you can do this, just plant one zucchini in your backyard. Just leave it alone. So that was my entry drug into, okay, I I don’t have a black thumb. I can grow some things, but everything else died that first

John Garrett [00:12:20]:
year. Yeah. Were you going straight in the soil or did you do raised garden bed?

Cristin Browne [00:12:24]:
The first year, I had one raised garden bed, but I have learned now over the years that there’s a lot of things that are required in order to grow things other than zucchini.

John Garrett [00:12:37]:
Right?

Cristin Browne [00:12:38]:
You do. You have to think about the soil composition. You have to think about what grows next to each other. If you wanna grow something other than a zucchini, raised garden beds are good for certain things like tomatoes. They’re really good for raised garden beds, but I can plant the zucchinis now straight into the ground on the part of my yard that doesn’t require sun.

John Garrett [00:13:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. I I love it so much. And it’s next level. I mean, you know, of but it’s that experimentation. And you don’t really find out till, you know, I don’t know, four months later where it’s like, is it growing or not? Is it gonna actually produce vegetables or not?

Cristin Browne [00:13:15]:
Yeah. I love that you brought up the concept of experimentation because that is absolutely one of the things that is awesome every year. I’ll try something a little bit different and and tinker. And the tinkering part is part of the the joy of it. So you you don’t know exactly what you’re going to harvest the following fall, which is, you know, you have to experiment. You have to put a lot of different things in into the ground, and it’s a good analogy for life. You have to experiment, and then you’re going to in some ways, you reap what you sow. But in other ways, there’s a lot of external factors.

Cristin Browne [00:13:55]:
One year, I planted a bunch of tomatoes and it was just a terrible year for tomatoes because of the external environments. And nobody’s tomatoes really flourished. Whereas this year, it just happened to be that it was a great year for tomatoes. And I had a tomato bush that I had just put off the side of my garden boxes right against my neighbor’s fence line. And I was just like, I I don’t know if this one’s going to grow or not. It was outside of the irrigation system that I had built and I just kind of threw it there to see what would happen. It just happened to be that was the tomato that flourished better than really anything else in my garden. And it just became a really cool conversation piece with my neighbor because the tomato bush that I wasn’t even expecting to grow grew up and over his side of the fence and he would walk out in the morning and pop a couple tomatoes in his mouth.

Cristin Browne [00:14:51]:
And when I saw him on the weekends out in the backyard, he was like, hey. Thanks for this tomato bush. I had it for breakfast this morning. So, yeah, my garden has been a medium for connection to my neighborhood as well as my last role when I was working in an office. It was a medium for connection with my coworkers.

John Garrett [00:15:13]:
Yeah. That’s interesting. So you met other people that garden as well, or was it just people that were just asking or super zucchini fans? Like, what was it? Like, all of the above?

Cristin Browne [00:15:22]:
So at work, we had a gardening Slack channel where people would post photos of their garden, and it actually came to the point that we would trade ideas of, hey. I would say my blueberry bushes aren’t flourishing. And somebody said, well, where do you have them planted? Next to the raspberries? Well, raspberries and blueberries can’t coexist because they need different types of soil. So why don’t you try transplanting your blueberry bushes into more nitrous soil and did that and the following year both flourished. So, it was trading ideas and just that form of connection and it also manifested into we would come into the office every Tuesday and Thursday and in the spring, it was so much fun to bring in whatever you had that was excess. So, I brought in that first year my excess zucchini and someone else put in their excess tomatoes and we had these great garden swaps. Like, I would walk in and say, I’ve got 18 eggplant. Who wants one? You know, throw it across the office and somebody else would do the same with whatever was flourishing in their in their garden that year.

John Garrett [00:16:21]:
That’s super cool because I mean, then it’s that human relationship that then I have to think makes work better.

Cristin Browne [00:16:28]:
It really does. That connection of we think there’s a lot of things that divide us when in fact you really uncover even one or two layers of the onion and you have more in common than you realize.

John Garrett [00:16:40]:
Absolutely. I mean, I couldn’t agree more and it’s so much more than the work. You know? We both love Excel. It’s like, no. That’s dumb. Like, you know, like And

Cristin Browne [00:16:49]:
I I don’t know why Excel made me think of this, but what’s cool about when you share things like this at work, one person might not like gardening, but you realize where there are adjacencies. So my boss, I was talking about gardening and he didn’t garden at the time, but he is a big composter. And I was like, hey. You should bring in a bucket of dirt into the office and all the gardeners are gonna be super excited that they can take your compost and turn it into a tomato next year. And so learning about how the adjacencies and the interconnectedness, even if it’s not outright the obvious connection, you go one or two orders of magnitude and you realize that there is something there is something similar enough.

John Garrett [00:17:32]:
And even if it’s something that you don’t even know anything about, the other person is so on fire talking about it that it’s infectious. I mean, that energy, like, I don’t know anything about this, but what tell me about this. Like, you are so, like, your soul is lit up. Like, tell I need to know about this. Your eyes are bigger. You’re smiling. Like, there’s an energy. There’s a vibration to it all.

John Garrett [00:17:53]:
I wanna know. Like, what is that? And even if it’s not something that I get into, I can at least ask you about it because oftentimes there’s somebody at work where I remember where we work with them for several weeks and then you go to a happy hour and they’re super cool at the happy hour. And I’m like, hey, can you bring that version of you to work? Because the last couple weeks has been brutal. I don’t know who that version of you is, but bring this version of you. And that’s an easy way to just, like you said, peel back that layer just a little bit of get to the awesomeness of who we all are, and work will happen. Don’t worry about it. Like, it’ll it’ll take care of itself.

Cristin Browne [00:18:30]:
Yep. And when people are really following their energy, flow state happens. And when flow state happens, magic happens.

John Garrett [00:18:37]:
That’s exactly it. And it’s your and is always great. I mean, you know, whether you got zero tomatoes or you got, you know, this bush that’s taking over your neighbor’s, you know, fence and everything, it’s still great both ways. It’s still amazing. You’re still outside and in Earth and unplugging and, you know, creating and, you know, creating I mean, I heard you drop, oh, I got my own earring system. Like, what? Like, that’s gotta be super cool.

Cristin Browne [00:19:03]:
Talk about FlowState. That was one of the the first times I realized how much I loved gardening was I went out on a Saturday, and I started tinkering with my irrigation system and said, okay. I I love gardening, but it’s also not something that I want to do every single day. So how can I automate the automatable? And I spent an entire Saturday. I thought I was out there for two hours, and I came back inside and seven hours had passed because I was so focused on making this irrigation system work and get the right little widget to go out to the tomatoes because I knew they needed more water than the brussels sprouts. And I was just so happy when I came back inside and realized that I was in a focused flow state that the the world just disappeared in that state.

John Garrett [00:19:49]:
No. That’s so fantastic. Yeah. I mean, because there’s a lot more to it. And, I mean, that’s the next level. So, I mean, I think it’s so fantastic. And it’s also cool to hear that, like, it’s sharing that at work. It’s not fearing, like, well, if I share this at work, like, people are gonna judge me as not being dedicated to my career because I’m, you know, building this irrigation system for my garden, you know, like, type of a thing.

John Garrett [00:20:11]:
You know, it’s like, no. Like, let’s make everybody better.

Cristin Browne [00:20:14]:
Totally.

John Garrett [00:20:14]:
But your outdoor enthusiast side, now it’s winter when we’re this episode comes out. So, obviously, the gardening, takes a back seat to skiing. And so that’s something that you did grow up doing or was that a a Colorado thing as well?

Cristin Browne [00:20:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I’m I’m a little sad right now because my garden is now officially over, but that sadness has sprung to joy of when I see snow, I say, alright. Now it’s time to bring out the other and or another and of Cristin, which is my love of skiing. So I sort of grew up skiing is what I like to say. I was taught to ski as a teenager. Again, I grew up in New Jersey and I had family that was in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and they taught me how to put skis on and how to point them downhill. But then I moved to Colorado and made friends that really grew up skiing, and I realized I did not, in fact, know how to ski.

John Garrett [00:21:11]:
Yeah. No. I was the same. I mean, when I was in elementary school in Ohio, I mean, we had a ski hill. And, you know, when you were a kid, it was huge. And I went back, a couple years ago and and saw it, and I was like, oh, yeah. That’s hilarious. People even skied down that type of thing.

John Garrett [00:21:25]:
Yeah. Because in Colorado, it is it is a whole another level of all of it. So that’s awesome. So you you jumped in, though.

Cristin Browne [00:21:32]:
I really did. I love to learn and grow and do new things, and skiing was no different. When I moved out here, I I love the fact that every time if I push myself a little bit, every time I could do a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And I also had very kind friends who helped me along the way, gave me little tips how to ski powder, how to ski trees. They would wait for me, you know, the first time that I went out and I said, I think I’m ready to to do a ski run. And a a friend of mine just followed me as I fell every other turn, and it took two hours to get down that particular run. But I loved it. I love standing up with the snow in my face, and then the next time I did it, I only fell every other turn, and it took me an and, you know, over the years now, I I have gotten to the point that I can ski, and I love skiing in the trees.

Cristin Browne [00:22:29]:
I I love just that level of focus and attention and having the the wind just go through my hair and my ski goggles and being out. Again, it’s synonymous with what I love about gardening, but just being out in in nature and the adrenaline that is probably the replacement for flying helicopters in in the army that that skiing is able to provide to me. And Yeah. Yeah. There’s not a bad day on on the ski hill, especially in Colorado where most days are the sun is shining and the snow is

John Garrett [00:23:09]:
all bluebird.

Cristin Browne [00:23:09]:
Yeah. It’s just a beautiful thing. Yeah. It really is.

John Garrett [00:23:13]:
That’s awesome. Do you have a favorite memory from skiing or a favorite ski resort that you have?

Cristin Browne [00:23:17]:
I’m gonna I’m gonna give you two answers to that. So, again, I live in Colorado, and no better place to be on a powder day than Vail. And it is so true. Vale is just a massive amount of terrain, and you can just let it rip and be free. And skiing Vale on a powder day, there’s nothing like it. The other side of that so it’s on a powder day, Vale is definitely my favorite. The other favorite that I have is Copper Mountain, and Copper Mountain is known as the Athlete Mountain. And one of my friends here taught me a lot about skiing moguls, and there’s an area of Copper that’s got a lot of really aggressive moguls.

Cristin Browne [00:24:00]:
And I knew I had arrived when I could go down that mogul area without falling multiple times. And so that’s always I I feel like an athlete when I’m skiing Copper Mountain. It’s just got a lot of difficult and and varied terrain, as does Vail, but it’s different.

John Garrett [00:24:17]:
Yeah. Exactly. And Vail has a little bit of everything for everybody. That’s so great. And and is this something that also came up at work or comes up with coworkers or clients?

Cristin Browne [00:24:27]:
I’ve been living and working in Colorado for the last five years, and so it does if if it’s a Colorado native, they probably ski. We talk about what is your underfoot, you know. It’s a definitely different conversations, than I was used to before I moved out to Colorado. So it does it does come up a fair amount. And one of the things that we talk about as it relates to skiing is not only the actual act of skiing, but one of the fun things is the ski lift conversations. So I worked in go to market, sales, customer success, and those little, icebreaker conversations that you really get a lot of practice on a ski lift really does translate to work. It’s one of I feel like riding the ski lift is one of the few places that people really do completely let down their inhibitions and open up. And I think there’s a couple of reasons for that.

Cristin Browne [00:25:25]:
It’s one, you don’t really know who that other person is that you’re talking to because they’ve got a helmet on, they’ve got goggles on. So it’s just okay, human to human. And it’s also a very defined amount of time. You can talk to someone for five to ten minutes because once the lift gets off, you just kind of ski your separate ways. So I think that has helped translate to it to work in in a couple of ways. One, you know, a lot of jobs have networking events and Christmas parties. And so learning how to have those five to ten minute conversations and natural breaks in them is is an important skill set. It’s also sometimes you go deep really quickly on the ski lift because, hey, you know, inhibitions are down.

Cristin Browne [00:26:10]:
Tell me about the meaning of life. And so somebody might actually oh, and having that connection sometimes is like, wow, that was pretty cool. And you can practice that then then bringing that into the corporate world too because you realize how important that is sometimes to talk about something other than the weather. So, yeah, I think all of those skill sets are translatable, not only talking about the actual act of skiing, but also the the in betweens as

John Garrett [00:26:35]:
well. Yeah. Well, and I I say that to so many of my clients. It’s the minutes in between the billable hours. That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s what’s so important. You know, the way we make money and the way the business runs is the billable hours, you think. But actually, it’s the minutes between the billable hours is the real juice.

John Garrett [00:26:52]:
That’s the awesome stuff. And you’re so right because when I’m on an airplane, I do not talk to anybody because it’s long and I can’t leave. You know, there there isn’t I mean, the end is hours away, and it’s gonna get awkward. And that’s why whenever they say, So what do you do? I say, I’m an accountant. And they put on their noise canceling headphones. There’s never a follow-up question. There’s never anything. It’s just, We’re done talking.

John Garrett [00:27:14]:
And I’m like, sweet. And I mean, I was an accountant back in the day just in case somebody accidentally follows up. But there’s never a conversation starter. It’s always a conversation ender. And oftentimes most people’s jobs, it’s a conversation ender. You know, unless you’re an astronaut or a helicopter pilot or something like that where it’s like, wait, what, you know, type of a thing. But otherwise, that’s why it’s a you’re and. You’re an entrepreneur and outdoor enthusiast.

John Garrett [00:27:40]:
Well, I guarantee there’s follow-up questions on the outdoor enthusiast part, You know, like or the skiing and the gardening and the, like, you know, there’s there might be some follow-up questions on, you know, the first part, but rarely and probably not as exciting, you know, type of thing. And

Cristin Browne [00:27:54]:
So true. When I want to talk to the other person, I say, yeah. I was, I was in the army. I was a former helicopter pilot. When I don’t necessarily, I say, I worked in finance.

John Garrett [00:28:04]:
There you go. Right? Yeah.

Cristin Browne [00:28:06]:
When I really wanna engage, when people actually are, I say, I I’ve been getting into improv lately. And that usually is, wait. What? So that is totally true. It’s there’s many different versions of yourself, and you can show up as which whichever one makes sense in that particular moment.

John Garrett [00:28:22]:
Yeah. Or all of them, and let the other person figure out what to do with it. You know? Like, that’s the other thing that is also a a thing where it’s like, I’m all of these things. You can’t ask me to come to work and not be the gardener and not be the skier and not be the improv performer. I’m all of these things all of the time. Yeah. Sure. One of them is the front facing piece, but they’re all there and they’re all working all at the same time.

Cristin Browne [00:28:46]:
That is so true, John.

John Garrett [00:28:49]:
Right. I appreciate it. But how much do you think it’s on an organization to create that space for people to share their hand or even shine a light on it? Or how much is it just on the individual to create that Slack channel on gardening, and that’s what we do here?

Cristin Browne [00:29:04]:
I think it’s on the individual to show up in their authenticity. Like, we were just saying, I’m you’re all of those things at any given time, and showing up authentically and having the self awareness to understand what that means is extremely important. But then it also is on the organization to set a really strong tone and culture of what is and isn’t acceptable in in this particular environment. It’s a two way street.

John Garrett [00:29:34]:
That’s a fair answer because, I mean, at the end of the day, we are here to get work done, but I just feel like that’s gonna happen anyway. You’re gonna pass go, you’re gonna collect $200. It’s going to happen. You know? It’s just how do we do it and what’s the environment that we do it in, And what’s one where people wanna stay and engage with each other in more? And I feel like it’s clearly the one where we’re allowed to be human versus the one where we’re not. And unfortunately, over time, we’ve been indoctrinated into the one where we’re not. And even when we’re left to our own choosing, we’ll choose that one for some reason rather than the other. And so it’s like, no. Like, really create and foster that and shine a light on that.

John Garrett [00:30:15]:
That’s what makes your people so great is is not their work. We can find someone down the street that does the same work almost all the time, but not the same work and that outdoor enthusiast side of you or that improv performer side of you. Like, those are different skill sets than what other people have with that finance background, you know, type of thing. And, you know, even the military background, you know, like the the all that package is you. So to just lean on the college degree or the certifications letters after your name, it doesn’t give you justice as who you are as a person. So it’s been cool to just help people see that and kinda just have permission to do that. So do you have any words of encouragement to people listening that feel like they have an hand but has nothing to do with their job, so no one’s gonna care type of thing?

Cristin Browne [00:31:04]:
Yeah. I I think you really hit the nail on the head that all of you is great. I think for me for a really long time, especially, you know, being in the military, it’s I was very defined by the uniform that I wore. It was on my chest, that my rank. It was on my shoulder, my unit. It was on the other shoulder with whom I deployed, and it has been such a liberating, journey for me over the last several years to realize that it is the whole package. It’s that I’m a gardener, and I’m a improv performer, and I’m a traveler and all of the elements that make me make me show up to work in a way that drives the mission forward. And it’s all me.

Cristin Browne [00:31:52]:
It’s all me. And that just makes me a wholer person and a happier person and a more passionate person, which I can then bring into the actual nine to five that that I do. And it makes everyone around me also be able to find that and as well. And that’s been a a really cool journey.

John Garrett [00:32:12]:
Yeah. No. I love it. That’s so great. So I feel like it’s only fair though, Cristin, before we wrap this up, because this has been awesome, that I peppered you with questions at the beginning, that we turn the tables, we make this the Kristin Browne podcast episode one. So thanks for having me on, and I’m all yours. Whatever questions you have, I’m in the hot seat now. So, here we go.

Cristin Browne [00:32:34]:
So, I love to ask, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? And I’ll give you four. Flying, invisibility, mind reading, or teleportation, and why?

John Garrett [00:32:46]:
Okay. So of those four because for me, superpower is singing. I would love to be able to sing, but I can’t I’m not great at it. But out of those four, I would probably say yeah, probably flying. Yeah. I’d probably say flying because it was flying and visibility. What were the other two?

Cristin Browne [00:33:05]:
Mind reading or teleportation.

John Garrett [00:33:07]:
Oh, so oh, or teleportation. Let’s go flying because then you can actually see what you’re as opposed to just, like, quantum leap. Here I am. It’s like, no. I wanna see the journey through it. Yeah. And mind reading, I don’t really wanna know what other people are thinking. I really don’t.

John Garrett [00:33:21]:
And invisibility, yeah, whatever. That’s fine. Yeah. Flying. I feel like flying would be just awesome because, yeah, no one else is really doing that. So, yeah, I’ll go with flying. That’s a good one. I like that question, though.

John Garrett [00:33:32]:
That’s that that made me think. My brain hurts already. Alright.

Cristin Browne [00:33:35]:
So it it’d be twofold for you, the flying. You wanna go from point a to point b really quickly, but you also wanna be able to strap on a jetpack

John Garrett [00:33:41]:
and do it for a little bit. You know? Like, it yeah. But where the teleportation is more very much, like, get me there, like, in a second, which sounds cool, but I’m not in that big of a hurry. So, you know, like, flying still. Yeah.

Cristin Browne [00:33:54]:
If you could have one person on your podcast, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

John Garrett [00:34:01]:
Oh, wow. Well, the former CEO I think he’s former CEO of Goldman Sachs, is a DJ at night. He might be the still the CEO. I’m not sure, but I think he’s former CEO. But he’s a DJ, so that would be super cool to have as, like, a realistic one. I I think that would be a pretty fun one to have on, as an answer. I don’t wanna get too deep and philosophical on that one because, yeah, my brain still hurts from the first one, so we’re good.

Cristin Browne [00:34:28]:
Like like I said, I got a lot of practice on the ski lift.

John Garrett [00:34:30]:
No. This is great. These are good. These are very good. I like it.

Cristin Browne [00:34:34]:
Alright. My my last one is podcasting. It’s become ubiquitous, and you’ve been a very successful podcaster. Episode over 600, I think, is what you said.

John Garrett [00:34:44]:
Six fifty nine. Yeah. For you. Yeah.

Cristin Browne [00:34:46]:
And to everyone who are aspiring podcasters out there, how long did it take you to really get your groove on the podcast and know you had to define direction and and make it work?

John Garrett [00:34:58]:
I think it’s always evolving. I mean, you could go back and listen to the beginning when it was called the Green Apple Podcast, you know, for a couple years. Just what’s your end is a better naming. But, yeah, I feel like I mean, I grew up in the military, so having those conversations with people, holding space for people to share their stories has always been a thing. I think the conversations just got more organic the more I did. And just go out there and and do it. You know? I mean, it’ll get better over time. And if it doesn’t or you don’t like it, then just delete it and deny it ever happened.

John Garrett [00:35:28]:
Like, it’s like, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Cristin Browne [00:35:31]:
I love that.

John Garrett [00:35:32]:
You know, we’re not some famous celebrity where everyone’s watching our every move. You know, there’s, you know, a couple hundred or a couple thousand people that know about it and then, you know, otherwise, there’s no pressure. But I would say if you’re gonna start a podcast, know why you’re starting the podcast and you’re not starting the podcast to get famous and rich. That is not why. So you have to have otherwise and don’t worry about the downloads, don’t worry about the listens, don’t worry about all that. Just create something that you enjoy and that you love and have a reason behind it and then just be consistent. If it’s once a month, if it’s once a week, if it’s once a quarter, whatever it is, just be consistent, and then people will know, you know, when it’s coming out. That’s the little tip that I can give, I guess.

Cristin Browne [00:36:14]:
That is incredible. Having a vision, having your why, and then the discipline and resiliency to keep going.

John Garrett [00:36:20]:
Yeah. Totally. I mean, that’s the only reason why I’m on 659. I mean, it’s not because, you know, I’m the next Joe Rogan. It’s because I have a show that is for a specific purpose and a specific reason, and I enjoy doing it. People come on and are able to share their stories and share their and, and it makes all of us better because I truly believe that the What’s Your And message is our collective message. It’s not my message personally. It’s ours.

John Garrett [00:36:47]:
So let’s all be on it and, you know, have a platform where everyone can share their “Ands.”

Cristin Browne [00:36:53]:
Yep. We are multifaceted humans, and our “Ands” make us that way. And we’re great workers because of our “Ands,” not in spite of them.

John Garrett [00:37:01]:
I love that. That’s so perfect. What a great way to end. So thank you so much, Cristin, for being a part of What’s Your “And”? This has been super fun.

Cristin Browne [00:37:08]:
Appreciate you, John.

John Garrett [00:37:12]:
Yeah. And everybody listening, if you wanna see some pictures of Cristin on the slopes or some of her garden, connect with her on social media. You can, get the links at www.WhatsYourAnd.com. And while you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. And don’t forget to check out the book. So thanks again for subscribing on Apple Podcasts or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.