Episode 301 – Jeannie Ruesch

Jeannie is a Marketing Director & Author

Jeannie Ruesch talks about her early discovery of her passion for writing stories and how it goes together with her career as a marketing director! She also talks about the importance of being authentic and vulnerable both in the office and as an author!

Episode Highlights

Getting into writing
Publishing her first book
Bridging authenticity and vulnerability
How her career in marketing and writing interleave each other
Talking about her writing in the office
How both an organization and an individual play a part in workplace culture

 

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Jeannie’s Pictures

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Jeannie’s books

Jeannie’s first book signing in 2009 at a bookstore in Sacramento

Jeannie book signing with one of her best friends

A Sleeter reunion photo at last year’s QuickBook Connect with Doug Sleeter and Misty Megia.

Jeannie at one of her many family San Jose Sharks games (when they happened.) With her hubby Dave and her son Connor

Jeannie’s Links

Transcript

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    Welcome to Episode 301 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. To put it another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “And”, the things above and beyond their technical skills, the things that actually differentiate them when they’re in the office.

    I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book’s being published in September. It’ll be available on Amazon, Indigo, Bookshop and a few other websites, so 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 cultures where they work because of it, and the book will really help to spread this message.

    Please don’t forget to 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, Jeannie Ruesch. She’s a marketing director for Bill.com, and now she’s with me here today. Jeannie, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

    Jeannie: Thanks for having me, John. I’m excited to be here.

    John: Oh, no, this is going to be so much fun, so much fun. I have my 17 rapid-fire questions, get to know Jeannie, right out of the box. Here we go. Start you with a simple one here, favorite color.

    Jeannie: Blue.

    John: Blue, all right, mine too. How about a least favorite color?

    Jeannie: Orange, which I probably shouldn’t say.

    John: That’s nothing to do with anything. How about pens or pencils?

    Jeannie: Pens, lots of them.

    John: Oh, there you go. Okay, all right. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

    Jeannie: Neither. I like the regular piece-them-together puzzles on the desk.

    John: Jigsaw, okay, okay.

    Jeannie: Oh, yeah, that’s the word.

    John: That works. How about a favorite actor or actress?

    Jeannie: Tom Selleck.

    John: Wow, blast from the past.

    Jeannie: Yep, he’s my favorite.

    John: That’s a great answer. There you go. How about a TV show that you’ve binge watched?

    Jeannie: Most recently, Sweet Magnolia is on Netflix. It’s fantastic.

    John: Oh, yeah, that’s a new one.

    Jeannie: Really good, yeah, highly recommend it.

    John: All right, would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

    Jeannie: Oh, I’m definitely a night owl. Mornings are not my strength at all.

    John: Right, perfect. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

    Jeannie: I am a Star Trek person. Not that I don’t like Star Wars, just so nobody can get offended, but I’m much more of a Star Trek fan.

    John: Okay, all right. Fair enough, fair enough. For your computers, more of a PC or a Mac?

    Jeannie: PC, 100%.

    John: Yeah, me too. I don’t even know how to —

    Jeannie: My husband and I have multiple arguments about this because he’s a Mac guy.

    John: Oh, wow. That’s, yeah.

    Jeannie: And we’re still married, yeah.

    John: What’s your secret?

    Jeannie: That’s because he likes Star Trek too.

    John: Oh, there you go. There you go. That’s the real denominator right there. All right, how about on your mouse, right click or left click?

    Jeannie: It’s probably backwards because I’m left-handed so my mouse is flipped.

    John: Oh, wow, fancy.

    Jeannie: I’m fancy, yes.

    John: So both of them.

    Jeannie: Pretty much, yeah, whichever one works, yeah.

    John: That’s impressive. Okay, how about, do you have a favorite band or musician?

    Jeannie: I’d say probably Garth Brooks has always been one of my favorites, love his voice. Along the same lines, also a big Frank Sinatra fan.

    John: Okay, there you go. Also great performers.

    Jeannie: Mm-hmm, incredible.

    John: Very cool. Now, since you’re in marketing, I have to ask, digital or print.

    Jeannie: Digital but I still think there’s a place for both.

    John: Yeah, well, especially print, if done right, the texture, it can come alive there; but, yeah, digital definitely can get a lot more people.

    Jeannie: Given the reason I’m on here, it would be a little odd to say no to print.

    John: Exactly. How about cats or dogs?

    Jeannie: Dogs, like the ones sleeping and snoring behind me while we talk.

    John: There you go. There you go. I’ve got four more. Would you say, do you have a favorite number?

    Jeannie: Five. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. It’s just always been my favorite number since I was a little kid.

    John: That’s a great answer. How about a favorite adult beverage?

    Jeannie: I’m pretty much a red wine person, pretty simple.

    John: Don’t ask you why, ever since you were a kid. No, I’m just kidding.

    Jeannie: Yeah, ever since I was a kid, yeah, one of my favorites.

    John: I’m teasing. All right, more oceans or mountains.

    Jeannie: Ocean, by far.

    John: Yeah. Okay, and the last one now, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

    Jeannie: Probably my laptop because I can do pretty much anything that I want to do, work or hobby-wise, on it.

    John: Yeah, exactly, which leads right into the writing. Is writing something that you actually, since you were a kid, something that you did, or was it something that you got more into as you became an adult?

    Jeannie: Nope, I actually started writing when I was about six years old, and I remember the day really clearly. I was working on a story for Sunday school, I think, or school or something along those lines, and I remember when I finished the end. I actually put The End, in sixth grade, squirrelly letters at the very end of the paper, big huge letters. I remember finishing that and being really, really excited, running down the hallway to show my parents what I’d done. Ever since then, it just kind of created a bug.

    So, writing, I think when I was eight, I wanted to be the greatest novelist ever which, at my age at that time, pretty much meant Dr. Seuss, but I moved above that a little bit, even though he probably is still the greatest novelist ever. So, it’s been something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a little kid, and it stuck.

    John: That’s super cool because that’s something that — I mean, I guess I was creative like that, but at some point, I don’t know. I guess you just lose it or whatever, so, good for you. I think that’s fantastic that it stayed with you. Clearly the bug was bigger and badder than mine was.

    Jeannie: Yeah, it definitely stuck. I think in seventh grade is when I wrote my first book.

    John: Okay.

    Jeannie: It was handwritten on legal size pages, about 150, front and back. I spent a lot of time in my English class writing that book. My English teacher, I remember this, came up to me at one point, realizing I was paying no attention to what she was talking about in class at all. She came up and finally asked what I was doing. I showed her what I was doing. She just stared at me for a few minutes, and she goes, “I’m not even sure how I can tell you to stop doing that right now, so just do what you’re going to do.”

    John: Right.

    Jeannie: Her reaction was hilarious. So, I spent a good portion of seventh grade English class, writing that book and finishing that book.

    John: That’s incredible. I’m getting ready to be the greatest author of all time. Can you stop interrupting?

    Jeannie: Exactly. I don’t need English to learn how to write a book. Come on, people.

    John: Right. Exactly, exactly. I did this in sixth grade. That was last year. That’s super cool though. That’s really awesome, and then how you just kept doing it. I would imagine that it’s one of those where — I mean, me, writing this book has been the most daunting thing I’ve ever done, by far. I’ve heard that just more iterations that you do, the better you get at it. So, you were just getting those 1,000 hours in, in elementary school, which is fantastic.

    Jeannie: I definitely started early. The very first book that I published, it took me, from the time I started writing it to the time I finished, was probably six to seven years. A big part of that was because I was doing exactly what you said. I was writing and then I was researching and finding more information and joining groups and joining critique groups and going to conferences and taking workshops and reading articles and learning as much as I could about the craft of writing. Which was amazing to learn there is an actual craft which means you can be taught and you can get better, which is phenomenal.

    So, I spent a lot of time really focusing in on how to improve that book. For whatever reason, most people will tell you, they finished the first book. It’s usually terrible, and they’ll just keep moving on. I was determined to get that book published. So, I kept rewriting it and rewriting it. I think at one point, I probably trashed about 250 pages and went back and rewrote 250 pages and then kept going. So, technically, it’s probably not the original version of the book. It’s a different version of the book. Eventually, that book did get published by a small press.

    John: Which is huge, congratulations, I mean, just to finish that, six to seven-year project to stay committed to. Part of it is that inner critic and then letting other people criticize it or whatever and then eventually — I have a friend that — there was an author maybe 100 years ago or so that had a quote that was like, books are never finished, they’re just abandoned. I was like, mine is definitely abandoned because it’s just like, you know what? It is done.

    Jeannie: You have to let it go at some point. You have to put the pen down and all of the pens down, and you have to just stop, and you have to stop rereading it too. That’s the other thing that I’ve learned. Once you’ve decided it’s done, you’ve sent it out to the world, to your editor, they’ve agreed to publish it, it’s gone. You just have to leave it be. I remember — I don’t remember where I heard this quote, but it always stuck with me, is that once a book has been published, it’s no longer yours. It belongs to the readers.

    John: There you go.

    Jeannie: To me, that means a lot because it’s basically saying, I’ve put out the best book I can, and I put out a book I believed in and I wrote from my heart. Once it’s ready, and it’s done, and the publisher agrees to it; or if I’m the publisher, if I’m doing self-publishing, my editor has agreed to it; then I put it out in the world. It’s for the readers to decide how it fits into their lives. That helps me a lot, just separate from that and try really, really hard to stay away from review pages.

    John: Yeah. Right. Exactly, exactly. That’s so powerful right there because I wrote the book kind of for me but for the readers. After that, then it’s like, I kind of care what you think, but I kind of don’t because I did what I thought was the best. This is what I wanted to create. If you like it, awesome. If you don’t like it, equally awesome. That’s the hard part, I think, for a lot of us with these hobbies and passions is that we’ve got to remind ourselves that we’re doing it for us. That’s why you’re doing it. You’re not competing against other people. You’re competing against yourself, I guess, which is hard to remember.

    Jeannie: I’m a believer that we have a voice, and we have a unique story to tell, in a specific way that we want to tell it, and there is an audience for that. I’m also a believer that not everybody is your audience, as evidenced by some of my previous reviews. I did find people who were not my audience too, but that’s a part of the game. That’s a part of putting out your work. That’s a part of putting out a piece of your heart.

    I think Ernest Hemingway is the one that says, “Writing a book is easy. You just open your pain and write.” That’s horrible imagery, for sure, but it is very true. You’re giving a very vulnerable piece of yourself in everything that you write. That’s the only way you can do it. I think that’s the only way that we can write something that’s authentic and real.

    John: Yeah, that’s really deep actually. It also kind of dovetails with this podcast where it is, the more vulnerable you are then the stronger your connections are. Is that a fair way to say it?

    Jeannie: I think so. I think we hear about the word authenticity a lot, especially in marketing. I think it’s a huge buzzword that everyone kind of rolls their eyes around, but I think that vulnerability is a big piece of being authentic. It’s a big part of being who you are and letting that out into the world.

    It’s funny because I’ve been working in the Accounting industry for about seven years, I think. I previously started at the Sleeter Group then I moved over to Xero, and now I’m at Bill.com, so I’ve been around these amazing people for quite some time. But when I first joined and I first started digging into and becoming a part of this community, I felt like I had to keep that side of my business or that side of my personality separate.

    I remember because I had a Twitter handle and Facebook handle and whatever things were available at that time, might have been Myspace. I don’t remember. It might have been Myspace. I felt like I had to create separate identities, one for the author and me, specifically because I would write romantic fiction which is not necessarily something that you would think would connect very well on the accounting side. I felt I had to keep these identities separate.

    I remember at one point I had a separate Twitter handle, a separate Facebook page, a separate this, a separate that, for all of these things. It was so exhausting trying to remember. Can I post this here? Do I post that there? What will they think of this? What will they think of that? Eventually, I just started realizing that, for me, what it meant to be authentic and being vulnerable was finding a way to bridge all of that together. You can do that while still putting out the brand of who you want your personal brand to feel and be like, but it doesn’t have to just be a compartmentalized brand. It should be all of you, and it can be all of you.

    I remember the very first time I posted, because I also watch silly shows like soap operas, General Hospital and things like that. They’re just really good with this television. I remember the first time that I decided to combine everything, one of the things that I posted on my now newly combined Twitter handle with my accountant audience, with the book audience, with everyone, was about General Hospital. I remember hitting the button going, oh, my god, I can’t believe I just did that. Then immediately, someone in my account audience was like, oh, wow, I used to watch that show. What’s going on? So, it was just that really quick reminder that, yeah, you can be who you are. You can bridge all of these pieces of yourself to be just you, in one place.

    John: No, I love that, and I love that affirmation where you throw it out there. You hit post and then swallow your heart and then think everyone’s going to unfriend me. I’m going to get fired. It’s the opposite, immediate, people are like, wow, that’s awesome. What’s going on, type of thing, which is really cool.

    Jeannie: It was a nice way to complement, for lack of a better term, just making that decision to bridge everything together. I’m still careful with what I post. I still believe that I want my brand out there to be a positive one. So, in whatever it is that I’m talking about, I’m trying to maintain that positivity, but I will talk about just about anything. Number one, it’s a lot easier. I don’t have to have separate Twitter handles and Facebook pages. One is plenty to keep up with, much less, three.

    John: Exactly, and passwords to remember and all that other nonsense.

    Jeannie: Yeah, it was exhausting.

    John: I agree. Yeah, and the research that I’ve done and actually part of the book is just talking, when I speak even at conferences, is just explaining to people, defining professional is really hard, but defining unprofessional is a lot easier. If you’re interrupting other people’s ability to do their job, then that’s unprofessional, up to that point. You don’t share everything, everything, but for the most part, most of it applies, so why not? You love watching soap operas. You write these amazing books. It’s like, these are parts of who I am as a person, and there’s no reason for people not to think that’s cool, which is, I think, is great.

    Jeannie: I think that we also find ourselves, and I know I have been too, surprised when the different perspectives come together in some way. Even with the soap operas, as silly as that is, I wrote an article because I remember about marketing and brand marketing lessons that you could learn from a soap opera fan base because of some of the activity that I was seeing around this specific actress on one of the soaps and the way that the fans were responding to her and what they were doing to promote her and to promote the causes that she worked for. It was just such a really good example of how you build a community. So, I realized, well, there are connections here, between this, between marketing and all sorts of different things.

    Even in my books, as much as I am not an accountant, I market to accountants very differently. The last book I published, the third book, the character in the third book, the hero character, the man was an art forger who forged banknotes, so, a little bit of that. This is obviously historically set novel. The fourth book that I’m working on now, in the same series, the character actually would have been — she’s female in the Regency era which is about 1820, in London, England. They didn’t really have professions at that time. Women didn’t have professions, mostly. She would have been an accountant and a small business owner.

    When I started writing that story, and realizing what was bubbling up as her character, it just made me laugh because it was such a cross connection with all of the people that I have met as accountants and what I’ve seen from them and their entrepreneurship and everything, and it just built itself naturally into my fiction, even when I wasn’t planning it.

    John: That’s fantastic, yeah, because I was going to say, does some of the writing translate over into the job? I mean, it sounds like the job definitely, subconsciously, is translating over into the writing. How about the other way around?

    Jeannie: Yeah, it’s definitely, subconsciously, transferring itself into my fiction. That’s for sure. I think the fiction side has made me a better storyteller. If you’re in marketing or you’re seeing the buzzwords in marketing, how important storytelling is in marketing, but I think that what it’s taught me is a lot of things of how to tell a better story. What are the pieces that are required, how you set up a story, how you show that journey, how you show conflict and turmoil and resolve that in some way, and being able to take that and translate to a customer experience or to translate to a story that a brand is telling. I will say, when I started on both of these careers, younger, I had no idea how much they would come to inform each other and how much they would come to share pieces that helps me understand on both sides.

    John: I love that. That’s so awesome. Yeah, and it’s something that, until I asked that question, maybe it never dawned on you; or after we started talking, of course, did; but it’s one of those things where you’re just doing them independent and then you don’t realize that it’s impossible to keep them separate. It really is.

    Jeannie: And they complement each other really well. I think most authors that I’ve talked to, or writers, hate marketing, so I have a leg up in that aspect. Even though I’m still not the greatest at marketing myself as an author, the irony is hilarious, but I know how to do it. I just don’t always take the time to do it. So, the two pieces, they really do, they inform a lot on each other, and they have a lot to do with finding success on either side.

    Even one of the nonfiction books that I’m working on right now is about the writer’s voice, and in that book, I’m using marketing exercises to help a writer uncover the reasons why they write, what they want to be, what their voice is, what their message is out to the world, what matters to them. So, even in that flip side, taking pieces of marketing and the way that we use marketing work to discover a brand, to discover a brand’s why, all of those things that you hear there, you can take those same exercises and flip them back the other way. It’s very symbiotic.

    John: Yeah, that’s exactly it. Because it’s just like the writer wanting to write something, it’s the company wanting to tell that story. It’s the parallel there, which is really awesome. Is the fiction writing something that you share with coworkers, on occasion?

    Jeannie: I do when asked.

    John: Okay, okay.

    Jeannie: It’s not something that I generally talk about. I’ve actually had a few coworkers recently send me a text or a slack and say, “Hey, I happened to Google you for some reason, and I didn’t realize you wrote books. How did I not know that?” I remember when I started at Bill a couple of years ago, one of my coworkers there, she had Googled me, just getting to know me as I was fairly new, and found the books. She told me after she had already bought the books and read them.

    John: Okay, that’s great.

    Jeannie: Fortunately, she likes them, or she at least told me that she likes them because she keeps asking me for the next one. Generally, yeah, most of the time, I’ll talk about it if someone asks, but I generally, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t really share all that much on that side.

    John: Right. Well, it’s also obnoxious if it’s just from a bullhorn, where, hey, you want to buy the book? Hey, buy the book. Hey, I wrote a book. Hey, hey, I wrote a book.

    Jeannie: Yeah. By the way, I wrote a book. No, I wrote three books. You want to go buy them?

    John: So, when I was writing my third book —

    Jeannie: Yeah, exactly.

    John: What are you talking about? We’re talking about coffee.

    Jeannie: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s like, how do you just slip that into conversation? So, I wrote a book. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.

    John: Right, but I do love that you do share and that people found it, and they were even like, well, how did I not know? It’s like, well, because I hadn’t been on John’s podcast yet.

    Jeannie: Yeah, exactly. Now everybody’s going to know, yeah. See, it’s going to be all your fault.

    John: Right, and then Amazon, through the roof. You get ready.

    Jeannie: Exactly.

    John: It’s a cool thing, and it’s an interesting thing that I think people lean into just to be like, oh, wow, tell me more. Or, I’m curious. What’s that about? I’m sure that you get some questions along those lines that are, just tell me more of that side of you, sort of a thing.

    Jeannie: I do. A lot of times they’ll ask what prompted it, some of the same questions you’re asking today. When did you start writing? How do you write a book? How do you finish a book? Yeah.

    John: Well, I’m saving you all this time.

    Jeannie: You’re saving me all this time. Now I can just redirect everyone to John’s podcast and —

    John: Right, exactly.

    Jeannie: Yeah, I think that a lot of people think that writing a book is and, yes, it is very hard work, and it’s very consistent and committed work. I will definitely say that. But it is no more committed or consistent than any other established practice hobby that anyone else on your podcast has probably shared. One of my coworkers is a professional musician outside of what she does. It’s an amazing thing for me, and I respect that tremendously. So, I think that writing a book, yes, it is a lot of committed work, and it can take a long time, but I think it’s, as you said earlier, it’s just that practice and that constant learning and that commitment to keep moving forward, like any other hobby in that way.

    John: That’s fantastic. It’s also cool that you work somewhere that you’re able to share those hobbies and passions because that’s not necessarily always the case. In the place that you’ve worked in the past, in general, how much do you feel like it’s on the organization to create that culture where, hey, we care about your outside-of-work interests and what are they and let’s share them; versus, how much is it on an individual to maybe just create that small circle amongst themselves and get the ball rolling that way?

    Jeannie: I think it’s going to be a combination. Every person is going to decide for themselves how much of that they want to share. I can tend to be a fairly private person, which I know is very funny, given that I write fiction books and you can find my name on Amazon. I think it really depends on the individual person to figure out how much they’re comfortable sharing, how much they want to put out there.

    I knew, when I used my own name for my books, which was really important to me because it was something I’d wanted since I was so young, I needed to see my name on those books’ covers, those book covers, that I knew that if someone Googled me for work purposes, interviews, coworkers, whatever it might be, that’s what would pop up. That was something that I expected.

    I think that organizations can, any place that you work, if you’re able to create a community or a way where people feel like they can be themselves, they can share these other parts of themselves, that it just makes a better culture. I think any company that has the ability to do that, that has the ability to celebrate what makes us unique and different, and celebrate the things that we are, outside of what we do, eight to five, that it just makes us more connected to each other. It builds a stronger community within the culture, and I think it just creates a better relationship with the company, overall.

    John: That’s awesome. That’s so cool to hear in your words because I agree wholeheartedly, and it’s cool to hear that that’s been your experience as well. If only you had been able to be Jeannie Seuss on your book covers then.

    Jeannie: Exactly. It would have been so much better but then everyone would have expected all my books to rhyme, so that could have been bad.

    John: Right, so we got to go back to the drawing board.

    Jeannie: I would not be very authentic.

    John: Jeannie Ruesch works just as well. That’s super cool, and just see your name on a book, that is pretty exciting.

    Jeannie: It’s pretty awesome. I will say that it’s a good feeling to see it published, to know that I’ve done both the publishing with a publisher and also self-publishing. The third book that I had out, I self-published myself. The first one, I published with a small press. The second one, I published with a digital press named Carina Press. It’s part of Harlequin. So, I’ve done the small, the larger and the self-publishing. I’ve done all three, but they all have that feeling. Once the book is done, and it’s ready, and it’s out, and you get the — go back to your digital versus print — the print copy that I get in my hands is a pretty amazing feeling.

    John: That’s so awesome, so awesome. Do you have any words of encouragement to others that are listening that have a hobby or a passion that they feel like has nothing to do with their job or no one’s going to care?

    Jeannie: I think people are going to care about you. If they look at their hobby, or they say, oh, it doesn’t really matter, it doesn’t have anything to do with my job; but it does build who you are. With most people that I’ve seen that have hobbies, whether short-term or long-term, it helps to create the person that you are. I’m also a believer that we have to have something more than just work because that’s what builds a life rather than just work.

    I find that having that hobby, having that passion and that enjoyment for something else helps me break away and gives me a chance to think of something different, put a different perspective on things and then come back to work refreshed as well. So, I think that’s really important. I would encourage anybody, if they’re comfortable with it, again, it has to be their choice, but don’t shy away from sharing who you are, even if it just means sharing a silly tweet on Twitter about a TV show that you like.

    John: Right, there you go.

    Jeannie: You’d be surprised at the ways that we build communities because even if it’s a coworker to coworker, we’re still human beings. We all like different things, and a lot of those things will be the same too.

    John: I love it. That’s so fantastic. Before we wrap this all up, it’s only fair that I let you now be the host of the show. You can now rapid-fire question me. Now it’s the Jeannie Ruesch Show, everybody.

    Jeannie: All right.

    John: Here we go, all right.

    Jeannie: You’re in trouble now, John.

    John: I know. I really am. I should sit down.

    Jeannie: Yeah. Well, you stole some of my questions, so I might ask you some of the same ones back. The first one, what’s your favorite snack?

    John: Ooh, favorite snack, oh, wow. Chocolate chip cookies, homemade chocolate chip cookies, really good homemade chocolate — they’re soft but not like gross soft. Yeah, that’s probably going to be my favorite. Yeah, it’s nothing healthy. It’s going to be chocolate cake or donuts or, I don’t know, M&M, Peanut M&M’s. I don’t know. I can keep going.

    Jeannie: I’m sensing a chocolate theme here. Chocolate everything, I get it. Yeah, got it.

    John: Exactly.

    Jeannie: Are you a morning or a night person?

    John: You know, I guess, between the two, I would probably say a night owl. Although I’m probably more focused in the 8 to 12 range, I’m probably more focused, but definitely staying up later. I guess maybe it’s from my comedy days. I don’t know. Plus, I don’t have kids that wake me up at the crack of dawn either, so, probably night owl.

    Jeannie: How about best invention ever?

    John: Oh, wow.

    Jeannie: I don’t ask rapid-fire questions, do I? Maybe I didn’t get the point of this.

    John: This is deep. How about an oven to make chocolate chip cookies, does that count?

    Jeannie: That counts, yeah.

    John: Or an ice cream maker that you can do at home because that’s also high on my list. I don’t know if it’s the best invention ever, but it sounds pretty appropriate right now.

    Jeannie: What’s the last TV show you watched?

    John: Last TV show was… Yeah, what was it? I guess, Billions, I’m trying to catch up on Billions. It’s on HBO, I think, or Showtime rather, sorry, Showtime.

    Jeannie: One of the many channels out there.

    John: Right, yeah. Just trying to catch up on that because I heard people talking about that, so, yeah, it’s the last show I watched.

    Jeannie: Your last question, what is your favorite cartoon character?

    John: Favorite cartoon character, probably, it’s going to be a close one, is probably Woody Woodpecker. I don’t know why. He’s just ridiculous.

    Jeannie: He is ridiculous.

    John: ″Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh!″ He’s just going around making mischief everywhere. Yeah, probably Woody Woodpecker. Tom and Jerry is a close second. I don’t know why.

    So, there you go. Well, Jeannie, this has been so much fun having you be a part of What’s Your “And”? Thank you so much for taking time to be here.

    Jeannie: Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

    John: Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Jeannie’s books or maybe connect with her on social media so you can hear about soap operas or also get links to her books on Amazon, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All of the links will be there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.

    Thanks again for subscribing to the podcast 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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