Episode 285 – Gail Perry

Gail is a CPA & Movie Buff & Writer

Gail Perry is a woman who can say she has done a lot of awesome things! She talks about how she transitioned from having a music major in college to picking up writing and journalism, to bookkeeping and running her own movie theater! She also talks about how these experiences helped her in her career as an accountant!

Episode Highlights

Watching movies as a kid
Becoming a ghost writer during her time in college
Getting into bookkeeping & public accounting
Running her own movie theater
Why she felt reluctant to share about her hobbies at work
Writing for the Dummies and Idiot’s guide franchises

 

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Gail and her husband ran the Orpheum Movie Theatre in Champaign, IL

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    Welcome to Episode 285 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett. Each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “And” those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiates you when you’re at work.

    I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book’s being published in just a few weeks. It’ll be available on Amazon and a few other websites. Check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s listening to the show and changing the culture where they work because of it, and this book will really help to spread that message.

    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. This week is no different with my guest, Gail Perry. She’s the editor-in-chief of CPA Practice Advisor Magazine and a CPA with her own tax practice who’s also written 34 books. If she had written mine, it’d be out by now, but now she’s with me here today. Gail, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

    Gail: Thanks, John. I really appreciate you having me on the show, and I’m looking forward to having a chat with you.

    John: Absolutely. It was so fun meeting you in person at the ITA Conference a couple of years ago and glad that we were able to make this happen. You know the drill, 17 rapid fire questions. Get to know Gail in a new level. Here we go. Easy one at first, favorite color.

    Gail: I think I would say yellow because it’s really happy.

    John: Okay. All right. How about a least favorite color?

    Gail: Maybe white because it’s pretty boring.

    John: Okay. I see you. I see you. How about chocolate or vanilla?

    Gail: I’m afraid it’s vanilla.

    John: No, that’s good.

    Gail: Not a fan of chocolate.

    John: Okay, okay. How about pens or pencils?

    Gail: Oh, my God. So, I can only write with a certain type of pen and a certain type of pencil. For pencil, it’s the Pentel 0.5 millimeter, the thinnest of the lead; and for pens, it’s the Pilot. It’s called the Better Ballpoint. It’s a fine tip, and you can’t get it in stores anymore, so I have to buy it by the case.

    John: Oh, my goodness. That’s awesome. I love how particular you are. That’s fantastic. Now people know what to get you for Christmas.

    Gail: Exactly.

    John: So there you go, a case of pens. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

    Gail: Oh, I love them both. Sudoku if I’m in a hurry. Crossword if I have some time to take.

    John: Yeah, I could see where you’re the writer and the tax person. You’re a little bit both. Yeah. You should just both hands. I’ve got the right hand, Sudoku, left hand… How about more early bird or night owl?

    Gail: Totally night owl. If I have to do something at 6 or 7 in the morning, I just stay up for it.

    John: That’s awesome. So great. Okay, this one might be tricky. Star Wars or Star Trek.

    Gail: Trek.

    John: Okay. All right. How about your computer, more PC or Mac? PC. Yeah, me too. How about your mouse, right click or left click?

    Gail: Left click.

    John: Okay. Making decisions, I like that. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

    Gail: Oh, well we did the chocolate-vanilla thing already. I don’t like things in my ice cream, so vanilla — yeah.

    John: Oh, so just plain vanilla.

    Gail: Yeah.

    John: Okay. Yeah, we are the opposite. I want all of the calories. I want to chew it.

    Gail: Load it up.

    John: Which is weird. Yeah, yeah. How about what’s a typical breakfast?

    Gail: V8 juice and —

    John: Okay.

    Gail: A hard-boiled egg.

    John: Oh, nice.

    Gail: Yeah. Or a bowl of potato chips and a bottle of root beer.

    John: Okay. Now we’re being honest. There we go. There we go. This will be fun, balance sheet or income statement.

    Gail: Oh, income statement all the way. I’m a tax person, so you are what you spend. I got to see the income and expenses.

    John: There you go. How about cats or dogs?

    Gail: Dog. 100% dog. My dog can eat your cat.

    John: All right. What kind of dog do you have?

    Gail: She’s a golden retriever actually. She doesn’t eat any other animals, but she has a scary bark.

    John: Right. Then she just rolls over and lets you pet her belly.

    Gail: Exactly.

    John: How about a favorite number?

    Gail: Four.

    John: Four. Is there a reason?

    Gail: There is, yeah. It’s movie-related. The very first movie I ever went to with a boy, I saved the ticket stub. I don’t have it still, but for a long time, I saved the ticket stub. You know ticket stubs have six numbers on them that mean nothing. I averaged those numbers because that’s also the accountant in me.

    John: Right.

    Gail: The average came to four.

    John: Wow. That’s truly amazing.

    Gail: It’s the weirdest story ever.

    John: No, no. There’s always a fun reason of why they’re favorite numbers. Some people, it’s like, “It’s my birthday.” I’m like, that might be the best reason ever I just heard. How about least favorite vegetable?

    Gail: Well, I have legume allergies, so I actually can’t eat peas and lentils and chickpeas, all that stuff, no hummus. I would say they’re my least favorite because I actually don’t even know what they taste like.

    John: It’s hard to argue that. That’s a legitimate answer right there. How about more diamonds or pearls?

    Gail: I think pearls.

    John: Pearls, okay. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

    Gail: A favorite thing I own, I think, would be my flute.

    John: Oh, okay.

    Gail: I went to college as a Music major before all this other stuff happened.

    John: Wow. Who could tell? Look at this. I had no idea. Do you still play?

    Gail: I do some, but it’s been a while.

    John: No, exactly. I used to play trombone in a marching band in college as well. However, walked or marched and played at the same time is beyond me. Also just your mouth and the muscles near your lips and everything, they’re shot when you stop playing regularly.

    Gail: Marching band was great though. When I went to Indiana University, and they didn’t allow girls in the marching band when I was there, so I just — the little bit of rebel in me that I have, every fall when they would have marching band tryouts, I would show up.

    John: Right.

    Gail: And make them listen to me even though I knew I couldn’t be in the band.

    John: Wow, that is so wild. Wow. Yeah. I mean they probably had no flutes.

    Gail: No, they did not. They had piccolos. I was happy to play a piccolo too, but they wouldn’t let me in.

    John: Right. Wow, that is crazy. All right. Also, I love the movie reference with the movie tickets.

    Gail: Yeah.

    John: Averaging out all the numbers. People didn’t even notice there were numbers on the tickets. Yeah. So, let’s talk movies. I remember at the ITA Conference, going around the room, and you were like, movies. I was like, what? That’s incredible. Did you grow up going to movies a lot? Or what drew you to this?

    Gail: I did grow up going to movies a lot. I grew up in a Chicago suburb, Oak Park, where there were, I think it was five movie theaters within walking distance of where I lived. Walking distance was between one and two miles, but you can walk that far when you’re little.

    John: Right.

    Gail: And movies were super cheap when I was a kid, so we always saw all the movies, my friends and I. Anytime — it was an era where everybody played outside. You said goodbye to your mom after breakfast, and you ate lunch wherever you were playing at lunchtime, and then you came home for dinner. On rainy days, we’d either camp at somebody’s house and read books, or we’d go to the movie theater.

    John: Nice. Yeah. Especially growing up at a Chicago suburb like that where you had access to so many theaters, then, yeah, you’re able to go and see so many. Were there some of the movies that you grew up watching that were some of your favorites?

    Gail: I loved that blockbuster stuff, the big David Lean movies, Bridge Over the River Kwai. I loved Lawrence of Arabia and just the big screen spectacles that are larger than life. I think great movies should be larger than life.

    John: Yeah. Because some of them, yeah, even I watched and I’m like, well, the end, you’re like, really? Did that just — what just happened? We could have just hung out and watch the wall and talk to each other.

    Gail: Yeah, I know. I like movies that you have to see on a big screen.

    John: Yeah, I could see that. That’s cool. So then, obviously, as you grew up and now in adult life, still big in the movies. Are you still going to theaters? Or is it more Netflix, Amazon, all that other — Hulu, whatever else is out there online, or a little of both?

    Gail: It’s everything. I still, I love movie theaters. You can’t change that movie theater experience, just seeing a movie in a dark theater with the smell of popcorn and strangers all around you and hearing their reactions to the scenes. I remember when The Sting came out. I went with a girlfriend of mine. The Sting, if you recall, has some big surprises at the end, and the audience reactions were, including ours, were so like, oh, my God. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time I sat through a movie more than once, but we just turned to each other and said, “We need to sit through this again just to see another new audience and watch their reaction.”

    John: Right. Once you know what’s going to happen and get their reaction.

    Gail: Yeah.

    John: That does add to the experience, for sure.

    Gail: Yeah. So having the people there — and that’s not to say I don’t like a theater that’s all mine if I go to a theater especially on a Tuesday afternoon and I’m the only one there. I have a rule about that. My daughter and I came up with this rule that if we go in the theater, there’s usually music playing, if there’s nobody else there, you have to dance.

    John: That’s awesome. That’s so good. So if it’s like you and two or three people but it’s your group.

    Gail: Well, yeah, that’s my group then we all have to dance.

    John: As soon as someone else walks in then it’s like, I didn’t see anything.

    Gail: Yeah, exactly.

    John: That’s super fun. That just makes it an experience, which I think is a lot of what’s missing nowadays when a lot of things are just two dimensional. You go to the theater and that surround sound all the way around you and plus the audience, and you’re in it together. You’re experiencing a movie as opposed to watching it.

    Gail: Then if you have the great opportunity to go to one of the classic movie palaces, then it’s just a completely new experience. You think of the history of that theater. Because they don’t build them like that anymore, but just beautiful theaters that are ornate and housed generations and generations of people seeing incredible films, that’s a great experience.

    John: Right. Is this something that you go to, to visit on purpose, or if you’re just in an area, you check it out?

    Gail: I will make trips to movie theaters. It’s kind of a bucket list item because I love road trips, and I love classic movie theaters. There are books about all the classic theaters that are still in existence. So, yeah, that would be a dream trip, to just go around and visit all the ones that were built 100 years or so ago.

    John: Right. Yeah. I mean just to think of all that, or even maybe the Marx Brothers came through, to do a performance.

    Gail: I can’t believe you said that.

    John: Things like that.

    Gail: The Marx Brothers became the Marx Brothers — I mean they were brothers, and they were acting, but they took on the name, The Marx Brothers, at the theater my husband and I operated in Champagne, Illinois.

    John: That’s incredible. I had no idea. Very cool. So then you guys operated a theater as well.

    Gail: Yes. The theater was part of the old Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It’s the Orpheum Theater in Champagne, Illinois. When we took it over, we started learning the history of the theater because we were so entranced with this gorgeous place. When it was back in its vaudeville days, lots of — I mean all the Orpheum vaudeville stars came through there. One of the stories we learned was that The Marx Brothers performed there, and they decided, “Let’s call ourselves The Marx Brothers,” while they were there.

    John: Wow. Yeah, in Champagne, Illinois, which is — yeah. Most people listening are like, I have no idea where that is. University of Illinois is there.

    Gail: Yes.

    John: I totally know where that is. Wow, what a small world. That’s super cool. Just the comedy side of me was Marx Brothers. That’s very cool. So then, yeah, when you run your own theater, then you can just watch them all.

    Gail: You can watch them all. Yeah.

    John: That’s so neat. So neat. Then obviously the writing, I can’t dismiss that. 34 books, you don’t do one accident. I mean doing one is hard enough. Does it become easier?

    Gail: It does become easier, yeah. It’s still a challenge. Every time I start one, I think, oh, I’ve got this because I’ve written so many, but then I realize, oh, this is not easy. It’s easier than the first time was.

    John: Yeah. Okay. All right. I think that the dovetails with the movies and story and all of this, and you’re growing up with that. Do you feel like that’s enhanced or impacted your writing side?

    Gail: Absolutely. In fact, some of the things I write for CPA Practice Advisor are about movies.

    John: Oh, wow. Okay.

    Gail: Yeah.

    John: But certainly there’s a creative side of you that’s not all black and white tax.

    Gail: Absolutely. Yes. It started, so I went to school as a Music major. Here’s what happened. As a Music major at Indiana University, you couldn’t practice your instrument in the dormitories because you’d drive everyone else out of the dorm. So you had to go practice outside of the dorm. They had practice rooms around campus, and you reserved those rooms. You couldn’t just walk in.

    As a freshman, I had last choice. The freshman always had the last choice in getting the room, so my practice time was like 8:00 at night, somewhere way across campus from where I lived which was really uncomfortable on several levels. Not only was it dark and in the winter it was cold, but also all my friends were ordering pizza and sitting around the dorm, doing their homework together and having a good time. Here I was, putting on a coat and trudging off in the dark to practice my flute. I became an enemy with my flute at that point because it was like the flute’s fault that I had to do this.

    So after my freshman year, I decided I still wanted to do something creative. As a side note, during my freshman year, I had taken freshman English Composition which was a required course. My professor, who was one of my greatest inspirations, loved my writing, said, “You need to be doing this, and what you need is just lots of practice. Just stay comfortable and just keep pen on the paper, just keep yourself going.” This professor suggested, because every freshman on campus needed to take English Composition and 90% of them hated it, he said, “You could actually make a living doing ghostwriting for all these kids who have to do freshman Comp classes.”

    John: Oh, wow. So it’s like you’re still in college forever.

    Gail: Exactly.

    John: That’s hilarious.

    Gail: So I started doing this. I actually became the house writer for several fraternity houses on campus.

    John: Oh, my goodness.

    Gail: Who doesn’t want to write for fraternity boys? So I would write their compositions for them, and they pay me. That was great. That was a little side hustle when I was a freshman. So after freshman year of doing the late night practicing and stuff, I decided I wanted to have the fun in the dorms with my friends. I want homework that keeps me in the dorm, so why not just do this writing instead.

    I wasn’t certain what I wanted to do with that, whether I wanted to go into Creative Writing or what, but Journalism seemed like a really good option because then I could write for the paper, or I could figure out what I want to write, and I could get a lot of practical skills. So I changed my major to Journalism and got to do my homework in the dorms which was important.

    John: Right, and hang out. Yeah.

    Gail: Yeah.

    John: That’s an amazing story. That’s great that the professor’s like, “Yeah, yeah, go ghostwrite.”

    Gail: Yeah. Go help these people cheat.

    John: Right. That’s insane.

    Gail: It is. Yeah.

    John: That’s so funny.

    Gail: It was wonderful.

    John: Yeah. I mean now there’s the Internet, unfortunately, but, yeah, you could be a gazillionaire.

    Gail: Exactly.

    John: That’s awesome. Yeah. You got your writing chops in and writing all different kinds of topics, I’m sure, because everybody had them, which leads into obviously giving you a skill set that you bring to the office.
    Gail: Well, and actually, there was an additional thing. My third year on campus, which later became known as my first junior year on campus.

    John: Okay.

    Gail: I needed to really make a living. Years ago, my dad had a business and when I was in high school, had taught me basic bookkeeping skills. So I figured I could actually get a job job doing this instead of just writing papers for the fraternity boys. So I did that. I started working as a bookkeeper and from then on until I graduated, which took six years because from then on, I couldn’t go full-time because I was working. Each semester, I’d see how many courses I could buy based on how much I had saved from bookkeeping, so I had three and half years of bookkeeping under my belt by the time I graduated with a degree in Journalism. So that was how they sort of met, those two pieces of me.

    Then I got out of school. I decided I’ll do this some more, some bookkeeping because I already know how to do this as a job. Then I decided to go back to school and actually get a CPA. So I did that and put in my time at Deloitte in Chicago so I could get licensed and actually be a CPA. At this point I’m married, and I’m in Chicago. All I’m doing is going to movies when I’m not working for Deloitte. Married a movie buff, my husband and I were going to movies all the time, many times a week. We got to know some of the movie theater owners in the Chicago area because they saw us. “You were just here yesterday, weren’t you?”

    John: Right.

    Gail: So got to talking about what it takes to run a movie theater and it just sounded so cool. We thought, well, we’re kind of young, and we could do this. It may not take, but let’s just do it now because we’ll probably never going to get a chance again. My husband was teaching law school, so his schedule was kind of flexible. I decided I would quit my job and do full-time movie theater. We couldn’t get a theater in the Chicago area because the union is so tough up there. Unless you own several, you really can’t make it work.

    His parents lived in Champagne, so we thought, let’s just go down there. There happened to be the Orpheum movie theater which was struggling. We talked to the owners of it and said, “You’re having trouble with this anyway, why don’t you just rent it to us?” They said, “Okay.” We knew nothing about anything about running a business except that we loved movies. So we went down that path. We did it for just over a year, but the thing is we ran a business. We ran every aspect of that business. I learned so much about small businesses and payroll and employees and cash flow and building maintenance and how to run a movie projector and all the stuff that goes with it.

    That became part of my groundwork for going back into public accounting, and I could really talk on a different level to our clients because I’d been there. When I ultimately started going into writing, I wrote on a level that was conversational and plain English which means I wrote for dummies and I wrote for idiots because that’s where the voice is.

    John: Right. Yeah. That’s where most of us are, to be honest. You use all these big fancy words, and now I’ve got to go to the dictionary and look it up, then come back and I forget what page I was on and all this. It’s easier for people to digest as well.

    Gail: Mm-hmm.

    John: Wow. What a fascinating story where, in several of these moments, it feels like absolute chaos. I don’t know which way is up from down and whatever. If you look back now, it’s almost an exact straight line.

    Gail: I know. It seemed like a flow. Although some of the early books I wrote, got me out on book tours which was fun. I was on a book tour for The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes, and I was introduced as this CPA and then they brought me up onstage. I was speaking to an auditorium of people, and I started out by saying, it seems like if you look how I got here, that I just followed a lot of sharp turns that nothing actually goes together, but it actually is completely a flow. I’m not sure anyone could follow that path if they tried to do it on purpose.

    John: Right.

    Gail: But it all just, for one reason or another, it all just led completely to where I am now.

    John: Yeah. It’s similar for me because people ask, “Well how do you get to where you’re — I don’t even know. I don’t even know how to tell you to do this. If you follow in my footsteps, it’s really hard so maybe don’t do that. But you had to go through that to get to where you are now, so it’s like, I don’t know. That’s so cool though and really awesome. Especially to hear how you’re able to take these things and make them more relatable to your clients, whether it’s talking about movies or it’s knowing how to run a small business like the movie theater or it’s writing in a way that people will actually understand.

    Imagine a movie where everyone uses just giant words. That would be a terrible movie. I don’t think blockbusters use more than three-syllable words because you want to hear the story. You want to get in. If I’m too busy trying to digest the words then it takes too long to get the story. That’s awesome and so cool. So cool. Did you ever feel reluctant to share this side of you with clients or even when you were at Deloitte back in the day? Or was it, this is who I am, take it or leave it?

    Gail: No. Especially at Deloitte, actually, I was pretty reluctant to share because most people who go through accounting school, they do four years of accounting school, which I didn’t do; they take the CPA exam, which I did do; they get into a firm like Deloitte, but they followed a certain path. They pretty much all followed the same path and so their experience is way different from mine.

    I felt a little bit like I cheated because my Bachelor’s was in Journalism, then I went back to school. All I did was take accounting courses for a year and a summer and then I sat for the CPA exam. I didn’t go through the whole four-year curriculum that most of them did. Although I’d had experience bookkeeping and running a business, which most of them hadn’t, but I felt that I didn’t follow the right path, so I didn’t talk about my past much.

    John: Yeah, yeah, or even just going to the movies or what movie you just saw or things like that. Yeah. Because you just feel like you don’t relate sort of a thing, but then at some point, that teeter-totter obviously tipped, or is it still something that you don’t share as much?

    Gail: No, I share it all now. I don’t care.

    John: Yeah, yeah.

    Gail: It basically tipped when, after the movie theater, my husband and I decided to start a family. I decided I’d go back into public accounting, but I was able to get part-time jobs which, at the time, wasn’t as easy as it is now. I thought I can raise my kids and work part-time in accounting. Basically I worked tax seasons and then a little bit the rest of the year. Then I got into training people in the accounting firm because I was like one step ahead of them in terms of a lot of things. Also, I hadn’t mentioned this, but I had a minor in Computer Science when I was in college too because I just couldn’t resist.

    John: Right, mine as well. Right?

    Gail: Yeah. This was when computers were just coming in on the scene, so I could learn this stuff really fast because I knew how computers worked and then I could teach it. That’s how training started, and that evolved into writing because I was writing, I mean writing technical stuff because I was writing the training manuals for my classes.

    Eventually, I decided I really wanted to be home with my kids. I could take this writing and make it a thing. That’s what I did. I left public accounting and went to full-time writing which turned into accounting journalism. At the beginning that was just writing books. I’d write two or three a year and do some editing. I wrote a column for the Indianapolis newspaper, so I had money coming in from a variety of different sources. It was a splotchy period, but I was doing it from home before being home was cool.

    John: Right.

    Gail: It was great. It worked out well.

    John: Yeah, that’s fascinating. That’s really fascinating. I think we are reluctant at first to share those outside of work sides of us. Why do you think that is? If you would have met a stranger out and about or at a bar or coffee shop and they would have said, “Oh, what do you like to do,” you would have talked movies. No problem. But then you’re in a Deloitte office or you’re in an accounting whatever, for some reason we don’t want to do that, even to this day, a lot of people.

    Gail: Yeah. It’s a little bit cutthroat. There’s that. I at least had a feeling nobody else was going to movies, three or four nights a week.

    John: Well, certainly. Yeah. I don’t think anyone goes to movies like — but even once a month.

    Gail: Yeah, exactly.

    John: Even then they weren’t —

    Gail: One of the great parts about operating a movie theater was that all my movie expenses were deductible.

    John: Totally. Exactly. Because even if you add up, well we’re going to make less money; yeah, but we’re also going to spend less. We can add that, in theory, to our income and be like, wow, we are making so much money.

    Gail: Right.

    John: Because you’re not spending three to four days a week buying tickets.

    Gail: Yeah. I felt a little bit of this is not serious accounting business, so I kept my personal life to myself when I was working there.

    John: Yeah, yeah, but then now that you do share, do you find that it gives you a unique relationship with people or something else to talk about?

    Gail: Definitely something else to talk about, yeah.

    John: Because that’s what I found too, is it seems like most of the people that are on here, once they do start sharing, they’re like, wow, I wish I had done this sooner. Because people light up, and especially movies. It’s like, wow. Who hates — I’m not even sure if there are people that hate movies. People may be just indifferent or whatever.

    Gail: There are people who hate to sit through a movie. There are people who hate movie theaters.

    John: Those people are evil, evil people you don’t want to be around. I’m just kidding. I’m kidding.

    Gail: I just don’t understand them.

    John: Right. Exactly. It’s like, what? It’s probably those weirdos that like chunks in their ice cream. That’s who it is.

    Gail: Something like that, yeah.

    John: Right, right. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that maybe has a hobby or a passion that they feel like has nothing to do with their job?

    Gail: For me, it was almost like in my life, I’ve been sitting in a little boat going down a stream, and I let the current take me. I just think rather than trying to force yourself into a position, just go with the flow. That’s very cliché, but for me that’s worked really well. When opportunities come, I assess them. If it seems like it’s good, even if it’s not a direction I saw myself going in, I’m not afraid to take those chances.

    John: Yeah, and it clearly — some of those are driven by your outside of work hobbies and passions and then some of it’s dovetailing with the hobbies and passions, with your job or just in some way not letting that side of you go. That’s what I think is really interesting through all of this is that your relationship with accounting was in and out, hot and cold, if you will, but your relationships with movies and writing was always there. At no point did you ever stop going to movies. I think that that’s really important for us to take away is that these passions and interests are with us through everything. That’s awesome.

    Before I wrap this up, it’s only fair that I allow you to now become the host and rapid fire question me since I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning. So I’ll let you fire away.

    Gail: All right. Do you have a favorite movie or a few favorite movies? If so, why are they your favorites?

    John: Well, I went to college in the Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Farley heyday, so, Ace Venture, Dumb and Dumber, and Tommy Boy, just those movies that are like, you can turn it on and laugh within the first two minutes. It’s kind of an escape. On the flip side, I really do like Good Will Hunting, I thought was a really great movie and really deep, and some of those movies that just make you think about things a little bit differently on the flip side. I like super, super shallow and then super, super deep, I guess. I want to be taken somewhere, moved somewhere, in the end. Some of those movies where, you watch it, and I’m like, is there a second half, what happened type of thing. Are we where we first started? This is an hour and a half. I’m not getting that, those kind of thing. Of course, Rudy. I graduated from Notre Dame.

    Gail: Oh, yeah.

    John: If I even just hear the music, I will start to cry. It’s just like I’m just a baby when it comes to that too. Yeah, a lot of those sports movies, man, I will cry at all of them.

    Gail: I love feel-good sports movies. That’s a great genre.

    John: So that’s where I’m at.

    Gail: One more question. We’re, of course, on behalf of our audience, so I’ll just share the fact that we’re recording this in the time of Coronavirus, so my question is, what are you streaming?

    John: Oh, that’s interesting. My wife and I are watching Billions. It’s on Showtime but through stream, catching up on that because we never, never watched that. Yeah, that’s pretty much it and then just movies here and there I guess. It’s hard though because you’ve either seen it or they just took it away or whatever. You’re like, oh, no, type of thing. Where, had we not been going through all of this, then never would have known. Great question. Really great question.

    Thank you so much, Gail, for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”? This is super fun.

    Gail: Super fun. Thanks for having me.

    John: Absolutely. Everyone, if you want to see some pictures of Gail outside of work or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there, and while you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

    Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.


		

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