Episode 335 – Kellie Parks

Kellie is an Bookkeeper & Cabin Renovator

Cloud Accounting Aficionado Kellie Parks talks about her cabin renovation projects, building her own “she-shed” office, running a cloud-based accounting firm, and how her renovation projects apply to her profession as an accountant! She also talks about her other passion for water skiing!

Episode Highlights

• Getting into water skiing
• Getting into cabin remodeling
• Renovating her family’s cabin
• Running her business out of her “she-shed”
• Applying her love for automation and tech to her renovations
• How her remodeling work goes hand-in-hand with her accounting work

 

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Kellie’s Pictures

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Kellie at Mount Aspiring, New Zealand

Kellie’s dogs Tippet and Clark

Kellie’s cabin

Kellie’s Links

Transcript

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    Welcome to Episode 335 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”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

    I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book is published. It’s available on Amazon, Indigo, barnesandnoble.com, 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 reading it and writing such nice reviews on Amazon, and more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

    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, Kellie Parks. She’s a cloud accounting aficionado at Calmwaters Cloud Accounting in Puslinch, Ontario, Canada, and now she’s with me here today. Kellie, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

    Kellie: Well, thanks for having me, John. I’m sure it’s going to be fun.

    John: This is going to be a blast. We’ve hung out a couple of times at conferences, so I’m just excited to have you be a part of this. I have my rapid-fire questions, as you know. These are things I probably should have asked before we hung out that first time. Here we go, get to know Kellie. Easy one, favorite color.

    Kellie: Red.

    John: Okay. How about a least favorite color?

    Kellie: Green.

    John: Green. Interesting.

    Kellie: I know.

    John: So, Christmas is sort of a half-and-half for you.

    Kellie: Actually, you know what? No, I’m going yellow.

    John: Yellow, okay. I’ll let you switch. I’m nice like that. I’m nice like that. How about, do you prefer more hot or cold?

    Kellie: Oh, cold.

    John: Yeah, yeah. Well, as a Canadian, I was assuming that would be the answer. How about a favorite actor or actress?

    Kellie: Shrek.

    John: Shrek. That’s great. That’s a great answer. That’s awesome, very cool. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

    Kellie: Oh, early bird. If I’m up till 9:00, that’s late.

    John: Oh, wow. Okay, all right, and that’s Eastern Time, so hoo.

    Kellie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tournament ended at 11. I was literally napping partway through it.

    John: That’s fantastic. Would you say you’re more diamonds or pearls?

    Kellie: Actually, I don’t wear jewelry.

    John: Oh, okay. Well, there we go. That’s easy. How about, when it comes to puzzles, Sudoku or crossword.

    Kellie: I don’t do puzzles.

    John: Oh, okay. Let me see what else I can ask you that you — how about a least favorite vegetable? I don’t eat vegetables.

    Kellie: No, I love every vegetable.

    John: All of them?

    Kellie: Yeah. I don’t think I have a vegetable I don’t like. I can name a bunch of fruit I don’t like.

    John: Okay, least favorite fruit, let’s go with that.

    Kellie: Bananas.

    John: Bananas, okay, and that was an easy one. You knew that one right away. All right, how about Star Wars or Star Trek?

    Kellie: How about Shrek?

    John: How about Shrek? That counts.

    Kellie: I’ll still go with Shrek.

    John: Shrek is also a series. Absolutely, I would totally take Shrek as an answer. That totally counts. Your computer, more PC or a Mac?

    Kellie: Well, I have PCs. I love Mac to death, but PCs just make all the more sense for me.

    John: There you go. There you go. On your mouse then, is it left click or right click?

    Kellie: Right click.

    John: Right click. That’s where the fun is, right?

    Kellie: Right? Finally, I answered a question the way you asked it.

    John: These are your answers. That’s totally awesome. Here’s one that you’ll nail, favorite adult beverage.

    Kellie: Wine, beer, wine.

    John: All of them.

    Kellie: Carry on.

    John: Is this like the vegetables where I like all of them?

    Kellie: Yeah, basically.

    John: All right. Here we go. Since you’re an accounting background, balance sheet or income statement.

    Kellie: I’m a balance sheet girl. I don’t want to be a dumping ground. I hate that.

    John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just put it all in goodwill and make it balance.

    Kellie: Or clearing account, right?

    John: Yeah.

    Kellie: I know, how about we don’t do that? Ask my accountant. No.

    John: Right? There you go. How about oceans or mountains?

    Kellie: Mountains.

    John: Mountains. Okay. Do you have a favorite number?

    Kellie: 18. I had a tipping point, health-wise, at 19, so I guess my glory days were at 18.

    John: Okay, okay. No, that works. We’ve got two more. Since my book is out, I’m asking, more Kindle or real books.

    Kellie: Real books, 100%.

    John: Yeah, yeah. The last one, favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

    Kellie: My water ski.

    John: Oh, okay. All right. It’s just one water ski? So, you’re slalom skier?

    Kellie: Yeah, I’m a slalom skier, yeah.

    John: That’s impressive. Okay. No, I just caught onto the water ski as opposed to skis where it would be two.

    Kellie: Yeah. No, when I’m snow skiing, I demo, but I own my water ski, and don’t put me on anything but my own.

    John: That’s very cool. Is it a certain brand?

    Kellie: Yes.

    John: Just yes. All right. That’s super awesome. I love how particular you are with that. That’s also something I didn’t realize about you, and I think a lot of people might have just learned. That’s super cool.

    Kellie: You asked and then I never answered. It’s the HO Phantom. I have custom boots on it too.

    John: Oh, nice. Yeah, you go all out on that.

    Kellie: Yeah, yeah. I have my own ski boat too.

    John: Yeah, I feel like we were talking cabin remodeling, but we might actually dip into the water — because have you water skied since you were little?

    Kellie: Yeah.

    John: Okay.

    Kellie: My starter husband was my coach and my boat driver. As it turns out, there are better reasons to get married.

    John: Starter husband.

    Kellie: My current husband will not drive me, water skiing, at all, which is fine. I skied at a water ski school, but carry on.

    John: Right. I’d imagine that’s like teaching your spouse how to golf, where it’s like, better to just not be involved. Wow, that’s impressive. That’s very cool, very cool. But cabin rebuilding, remodeling, re everything, almost just built it from scratch, when did this start?

    Kellie: Three years ago in October. I’m third generation out on this little lake that I live on. It’s not that little. It’s 10 kilometers around. My grandparents had a cottage out here, and my current husband’s grandparents had a cottage out here. We grew up together cottaging. He’s a lot older though, so we didn’t give each other the time of day. When you’re growing up at a cottage, the fellow’s three years older, he’s definitely running with a different group.

    John: Right. He’s ancient.

    Kellie: Anyways, they were summer places for us. I went off to university, he went off to university, didn’t see each other for a while. In school, my parents built a house where my grandparents’ cottage was. His parents were in Florida all winter, but they moved in, in the summers to their family cottage, but they didn’t do anything with it. They just tried to keep it standing.

    I’ve had five houses on the lake before this one, just bought wrecks and fixed them up. Then three years ago, somebody came along and wanted my last wreck and wanted it right then. I’m like, okay. Because we were going to buy the cabin. I know people don’t know this, but you and I are looking at each other. I’m pointing at the cabin because it’s right here.

    John: Right, right.

    Kellie: We were going to buy the cabin two years still from now, we were five years up, because it was built by our grandparents, his grandfather, and then renovated-ish, I’ve got quote fingers in the air, renovated by his dad and a couple of my cousins. It’s 100-year-old, truly handmade cabin with a lot of alcohol that went into the building of it.

    John: Okay, so not always all level and square.

    Kellie: No. No, that was optional. I don’t think they had levels for squares or anything. They just — and then my in-laws were pretty bright about it. They knew that they weren’t going to be here in the winter, so it wasn’t winterized. Literally went to building places and got new storm windows, but it was super cool. It has this amazing vibe. It’s got this 100-year-old, handmade stone, boulder fireplace.

    John: Oh, wow.

    Kellie: Right? It’s got this amazing vibe that you’ll never duplicate, and my husband and I, it means the world to us because it’s the last place standing on the lake that’s kind of original. We don’t need much. We kicked the kids out a while ago. They’re gone. They didn’t go far. A couple of them lived right out here on the lake with us, but we don’t want much. We travel a lot, and we live outside.

    Anyways, we’re moving into this place way ahead of when we should be, but we had a good opportunity with the other place. I got three different contractors out to try and save it, and all of them were like, no. Every one of our friends is like, what are you doing, man? Take it down. There are two problems with taking it down. We love it. Everybody’s like, okay, but, Kel, if you renovate it for 200,000 or you just build a new one for 500,000. I’m like, and you guys do math here? That’s still 300,000.

    John: Right? Maybe, are they paying for it? How good a friends are these?

    Kellie: I’m going to take that 300,000 and go to Thailand a whole lot of times, guys, or New Zealand. Right?

    John: Right.

    Kellie: I love how cavalier people are too. You’re building for 500 — first of all, you’re not going to build anything anymore for 500,000.

    John: Yeah, yeah, and it’s also your money, so of course they’re cavalier about it.

    Kellie: I love how cavalier they are with $300,000. It’s just like nothing. You guys pulling this out of the air? What’s happening here? Then I’m going to have a brand new house. I don’t want a brand new house. I don’t want a brand new house.

    John: Yeah, yeah.

    Kellie: I’m lamenting my woes with wine, with my mom and my dad, and my dad says, and I’m trying not to swear, but he uses the F word. He says, “I’m going to save it.” Because my dad is a jack of all trades. He says, “I’m going to drag all your cousins out here, and my son’s a framer.” He said, “We’ll save it.” I’m like, okay, this ought to be good. He did. We have now been at it, it will be three years, as I said, and we are reaching the end run, including my brand new iron filter went in today, because we’re on a well. We’ve got it all. So, new filter, not new filter bed, we fixed the filter bed.

    Just to give you a description of our life since February, we put in a new fridge in February. Then our stove went, and we had to wait until we could get people in here in June, I believe it was. We replaced the stove then the washer dryer said, hey, I want to be new too. All of the mechanical would get us through for a couple of years because we’re just trying to keep the cabin sanding, which I put windows in it. So then the washer dryer went, then the outside pipe to our septic went. This is all since February. Then a couple of weeks ago, the iron filter, water pressure tank, water heater and softener all went.

    John: Golly. These are all things that you weren’t even planning on at all.

    Kellie: Not yet, no. We knew they would be coming. Out of all of that, did you notice what’s left to blow?

    John: It’s the heater? Well, no, you had the hot water heater.

    Kellie: Our dishwasher went.

    John: Oh, you had a dishwasher in a cottage. That’s impressive. That’s fancy cottage.

    Kellie: I know. Actually, at least about — except when we entertain, we love having people here. I know it’s COVID. We’re COVINOIDS. We are hybrid COVINOIDS but all the same. So the dishwasher is replaced. So, aside from trying to save the cabin, there is nothing with a moving part now that has not been replaced.

    John: That’s unbelievable. Just the amount of adversity that you’ve gone through is impressive. Hey, move out today, into a cabin that we weren’t even thinking about for five years, and then to get in there and then to have everything that you didn’t plan on replacing, all go within seven months of each other. It’s crazy.

    Kellie: It’s really nice. I only moved two doors down, or we, because my husband and I moved together. It’s our 20th anniversary coming up.

    John: Nice.

    Kellie: We moved two doors down. The people that bought our old place weren’t going to change a thing. Then they basically changed it from the ground up, and it’s gorgeous. They thank us every time they see us for selling them their place, which is also, they’ve been the best neighbors, so it was totally the right decision.

    John: That’s fantastic.

    Kellie: The roof is getting — again, I’m pointing.

    John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Kellie: The roof is getting done this week. That is the last of the major expenses. We had to do windows. We had to do installation. We had to do, well, as you know, everything.

    John: Yeah. Wow.

    Kellie: Yeah, it’s been an adventure. Then what we did was — so the cabin is, it’s not small, but it’s not big. It’s basically, I think, 1,000 square feet. I don’t think. I know it is. It’s 1,000 square feet, but I bet you we have 3,000 square feet of living space, not to mention our property. So, the living space, because we get a lot of wind here on the lake, we’ve got a living space right down at the dock. We’ve got a big back deck that looks out over the light. We’ve got a whole thing up the side. Then we’ve got a whole thing of what would traditionally be someone’s front yard but then that faces out — I mean, we’re also back on to 250 acres of trails. Every one of those areas has a fire pit or a fireplace of some sort, and some of them have covering so that even with rain, we can be outside. So, we spent probably more money outside than we did on the inside of this.

    We haven’t done the kitchen. Our kitchen was done, let’s say, 40-some odd years ago, and my uncle slapped together wood boxes and flat pine, face frontings. It’s a fantastic kitchen to cook in, with as you know, brand new appliances. We kept the actual cupboards, so everybody who comes in, they’re like, oh, when are you replacing the kitchen? Yeah, well, not now. We’re spending our money outside, thank you very much.

    John: Yeah. You spend so much time outside anyway, when the weather is nice, or the coverings help even when it’s not, but you have the fire pits. That’s super cool. Then your she-shed, which is just rocking, that’s part of it as well. Was that an original piece, or did you have that built?

    Kellie: Yeah, so my dad realized the money was going to need to keep coming in, but I’m living in absolute chaos.

    John: Right.

    Kellie: So, he built me a she-shed. Just for people who can’t see it, which is everybody listening, it’s a 12-by-eight-foot cabin. It’s got all full cabin windows that lift up.

    John: Oh, there you go.

    Kellie: Pull them up to the roof. It’s all pine tongue and groove.

    John: Yeah.

    Kellie: It’s a stand-up desk, and it’s just very cool. A few of my cousin’s made me little signs to go around it. I’ve got a couple of chairs. People love to just come and sit here, and we chat about stuff. It’s got this fantastic vibe. You can feel the love that my dad put into it, to keep me out of the cabin when he was working in it. Basically, I lived in the cabin. He also took control of the cabin, meaning that he was doing a lot of stuff that he wanted to do in there, not necessarily asking my permission.

    John: There you go. Yeah, eight hours later, you come in and…

    Kellie: Yeah, we’re digging up our entire front yard because we had to fix some of our septic beds. When he was done digging up the yard, also, he had to dig around the foundation of the house to insulate from the outside because it was built on little cedar logs. So, he did that, but when he was done, he still left all the equipment in the front yard, thinking that that was hilarious. When I was doing webinars or stuff, he’s just out there lifting the high hoe up and down, the bucket.

    John: Like, waving to people with his big bucket.

    Kellie: He would stick his head in. I have a sign, like, don’t come in here. He didn’t care. He’d just be sticking his head in with his silly hat, swearing and asking me questions. I’m like, you can’t do that. Why not?

    John: That’s awesome.

    Kellie: So, he built me this shed. My husband is a fly fishing guy, and he built my husband a fishing hut too, where he runs his business out of. He’s got all his waders and his gear and everything in there. So, he’s got a really cool working hut himself. It’s kind of fun, yeah.

    John: That’s super cool. When you’re doing these webinars and when you’re talking to clients, you’re in the she-shed. They’re seeing a lot of this happening in real time, with you, which is really cool.

    Kellie: Yeah, or my clients, not now, but I am completely, 100% cloud-based accounting. I’m a bookkeeper and 100% percent have been, I’ve been on cloud products since 2012. I’m looney for this stuff. Most of my clients are local, so they come to my shed.

    John: Oh, they even just show up. There you go. Oh, that’s great.

    Kellie: Yeah. It’s cool.

    John: That is really cool. Sometimes people, they have these outside of work interests, and they don’t like to share them, for whatever reason. You’re like, no, no, I’m living this 24/7, so are you, type of thing, which is great.

    Kellie: One of the funnest things — I think funnest is grammatically correct — one of the funnest things I did, I love tech of any kind. Oddly enough, I don’t have any screen time. We can’t watch TV. We don’t stream Netflix. I don’t do any screen time after work. I have a visual problem with moving things on screens, so we don’t do TV or any of that, but we love our music, especially like concept albums and stuff. We’ll just have that going there, listening to Edgar Allan. We’ve got it all going on.

    I love tech and automation, so I decided, even while the cabin was still a wrecking ball — I mean, it’s cute as heck now. It’s really getting there. While it was a wrecking ball, I smart homed it. I had said to Jeff, “I’m going to smart home the house.” He’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we’re not smart homing the house. I just want to walk around and turn on lights.” I’m like, yeah, that’s really dumb. I already had, even then, had 12 Sonos speakers.

    John: Wow.

    Kellie: The whole thing is gigged up, inside and out, with Sonos, so that’s awesome. You walk everywhere, and there’s all this music going on.

    John: Yeah.

    Kellie: He was fine with that. He went away to — they have fly fishing conferences, believe it or not. I smart homed the house while he was away one weekend. I did all of the outlets. I did the thermostat, all the lighting, all that. It was all smart homed.

    John: That’s amazing.

    Kellie: No, not for him. He got home, and he was just like, “You promised you weren’t going to do it.” No, I did not promise.

    John: I did not promise.

    Kellie: I got my work life and my love of automation and tech all come into one place. That was fun.

    John: That is super awesome. I would imagine that just from a budgeting standpoint of doing the rebuild, you’ve got that nailed, but does any of the cottage remodeling project transfer over to your work at all from a mindset perspective or anything like that?

    Kellie: Yeah, yeah, 100%. Everything I do is built with an outcome in mind.

    John: Oh, there you go.

    Kellie: Defined what the outcomes were that we wanted in the cabin. What was the lifestyle we wanted? How are we going to live in this thing? What’s actually really, really important? The layout of the kitchen was really, really important; pretty, pretty cupboards aren’t. Right?

    John: Right, right.

    Kellie: The fireplace had been sealed up for 65 years, so we got somebody in because we knew we wanted that thing running again. There was no way we weren’t going to have a working fireplace. So, one of the outcomes was, how can we do that and make it not change visually? We had a glass door on the front and a flue that’s up at the top with a chain to open the flue. Otherwise, you have to do this whole thing that tears apart all the old stone.

    John: Right. Yeah, which ruins it.

    Kellie: Yeah. I’m the same at work. It’s always, any of the processes or systems or anything, any of the tech that I choose, is built on, what’s that outcome going to be? What’s the client outcome? What’s the Kellie not doing too much work outcome? Right?

    John: Just overcoming all those obstacles has to give you some sort of confidence. When you get any sort of a setback at work, it’s like, well, I’ve done crazier. We’ve had all the appliances go, so what else could be — it’s one of those mental toughness, sort of a thing.

    Kellie: Yeah, oh, 100%. If you’re living in a cabin while you’re renovating, and it’s not winterized, and you’re in Canada; you can get through that… You know?

    John: Right. The fact this isn’t a reality TV show is amazing to me. I feel like you should have your own show.

    Kellie: Well, and it’s funny. I know there’s a lot more interesting people who’ve done more interesting renovations, but what’s interesting is — oh, I just said interesting, what, six times in a row — is that the naysayers. Also, the other thing that I had in mind was always a plan. I knew what the brand identity was going to be, for lack of a better word. So, I have a brand identity, and that ties in inside and out with all of our living spaces. So, on the outside, I have a lot of screens, and they delineate areas. You’ve got these different living spaces. They’re louvered, tall, significant. They’re six-by-sixes with louvers and then with this lattice that you make, you don’t buy. It’s actually one-by-one. So, there’s a lot of that, that gives all these cool defined areas.

    John: That’s awesome.

    Kellie: Yeah, and then I knew that it was going to be — it’s black. The cabinet is painted black. It’s like a warm wood color and white, and that’s the theme throughout the whole place. Because it’s small, you can’t re-change it at all up everywhere.

    John: Right, right.

    Kellie: Now, a lot of the naysayers are like, okay, that actually worked out. So, there’s some satisfaction there. Because some of the processes that I put together at work, there have been some people along the way, going, I don’t know, that seems a little out there. Then when it works out, you’re doing a little ha. There you go, John. I did what you asked of me. Do a little shoulder roll.

    John: Right. That’s awesome. No, but you’re right. It’s, I’ve done this before in a different way, and I can overcome this. That’s really impressive. It’s awesome. I can’t wait to get back to Toronto, so I can make the drive over and be like, wow, this place is super cool.

    Kellie: Well, that’s the fun thing. It’s only an hour outside of Toronto. It’s not an hour north where all the traffic is. I’m an hour, west. I live on a lake. We have a — it’s an international water ski training site, so I don’t have to go far to do one of my other passions.

    John: All of your “ands”. Yeah, exactly. That’s fantastic.

    Kellie: I’ve got 250 acres of running trails behind me that I don’t have to get a car. The girls and I just go. We call it going OTL. We don’t go off the lake very often.

    John: Yeah, there you go. No, you have it all there. That’s so perfect. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that maybe has an outside of work interest that they feel like has nothing to do with their job or no one’s going to care?

    Kellie: Yeah, find something that you love or something that you accidentally wound up doing. Now this is the sixth house that I’ve taken a train wreck and renovated. This was the biggest challenge. Or let’s say you really love being outside, but you’re not a runner. That’s just not your game. Well, it doesn’t matter. Everybody says, oh, well, you can’t just go for a stroll. Yes, you can. There’s a million ways to enjoy the great outdoors, with or without alcohol. I hear this from people. Oh, that’s pretty cool that you love to run or whatever. I don’t mean that the way it just came out. It’s like, no, it’s because I absolutely love it. It’s not an effort. It’s not, I have to run it. It’s, I get to run. If that’s not your gig, find something that is your kind of gig. You’ve got to have something outside of work that turns your crank, especially — so I’m going to go off here a little bit. Bookkeepers and accountants work way too hard.

    John: Yeah, they do.

    Kellie: It’s because our work is never ending. A friend of mine is an air traffic controller, and he made a really interesting statement. He said, “Air traffic controllers are one of those rare professions that you leave work, and you’re done for the day.”

    John: Yeah, because you can’t land planes from your home.

    Kellie: Right. He said, even cops, even whatever, doctor, they’ve still got that same caseload staring them down, and they could probably work forever. Accountants and bookkeepers are, I think, the biggest in the weeds on those, similar to lawyers, that this work is deadline-driven. It’s got to get done, and some of us feel that nobody else can do it just as well as we can. We work too hard. Not me.

    John: Right, right, right. Well, no, just as a whole.

    Kellie: Part of the reason they work too hard is that they’re not experiencing joy out — your thing, they don’t have an “and”. Get an “and” and get out.

    John: Yeah, I love that. That’s so perfect right there. Before I wrap this up, though, it’s only fair that I turn the tables because I so rudely peppered you with my 17 rapid-fire questions right out of the gate. So, this is the first episode of the Kellie Parks podcast. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate being your first guest. So, what questions you got for me?

    Kellie: Okay, what is your favorite reading beverage?

    John: Oh, favorite reading beverage. I guess I don’t really have a reading beverage but maybe a cider. I’m kind of a cider guy, like pineapple cider.

    Kellie: Hard cider, soft cider?

    John: Yeah, hard cider, yeah, like a pineapple cider is pretty good.

    Kellie: Like an apple cider or a cider…

    John: An adult, alcoholic cider.

    Kellie: Got you, okay.

    John: Yeah, yeah.

    Kellie: Where’s your favorite reading place?

    John: Favorite reading place. It’s probably our living room, with the TV off, obviously. Living room couch, yeah, is probably pretty comfortable.

    Kellie: Okay, hard or soft cover.

    John: My books have paperback. I guess I prefer paperbacks only because it saves you five bucks. The accountant in me is strong. Hardcovers are nice as well, but I don’t know. I guess the paperback because then you can just peel it a little bit more and make it pliable for your reading. Where the hardcover, it’s more of, you have to hold it. The paperback is a little more pliable, I guess.

    Kellie: I know I only get a chance to ask three questions, but I have one more.

    John: Yeah, yeah. No, you can ask one more.

    Kellie: Biography or autobiography?

    John: Oh, that’s a really good question. I’m going to do a hybrid. There’s a book right here, Dick Cavett. He was a writer for The Tonight Show and then he had his own show. His biography is half and half. He wrote an autobiography but then there’s an interview portion that’s also about a third of the book. So, it’s a little bit of both, which is kind of neat, I think, because then it mixes it up. I hadn’t heard of that before, but I’ve had that book for a long time. Only because in your own eyes, you could see something one way, but through someone else’s eyes, all of a sudden, little things become maybe bigger than what we think. Because we’re doing it, so we don’t think it’s that cool or that big of a deal.

    Kellie: Or we’ve got disassociation going on.

    John: Yeah, or that too, exactly.

    Kellie: Right?

    John: Yeah. I don’t know. That’s a great question though. That’s a really good one. Now my brain hurts. I’m going to have to think about that one. I should have said neither like you did to all your — no, I’m just kidding.

    Kellie: Is it neither, or is it neither?

    John: Oh, we’re going to get niche and niche on me, are we? Is that what’s happening?

    Kellie: Here in Canada, we’re all about the soft CH’s, man.

    John: Right? Because niches get riches. Niches get riches.

    Kellie: Oh, boo. You know what? I know those were your rapid-fire questions. I love reading a biography and an autobiography about the same person.

    John: Oh, that’s a good call.

    Kellie: It’s really interesting. I’ve only had one autobiography that I could not get through, though, because autobiographies, by their very nature, are me, me, I, I, me.

    John: Yeah, that is kind of hard.

    Kellie: A lot of people handle that beautifully. There’s only one that I’ve ever just went, okay, that’s enough me, I, I, but it’s interesting to read both sides to it.

    John: That’s a good perspective. Yeah. And because I’m efficient, I just did it all in one book. That’s why I came up with that one.

    Kellie: Yeah, super-efficient.

    John: Which I thought you’d be proud of actually, with all the apps you use.

    Kellie: Yes, super proud. Yeah.

    John: Well, this has been so fun, Kelly. I so much appreciate you being a part of What’s Your “And”?

    Kellie: Thanks for having me on the Kellie Parks Podcast.

    John: Right, exactly. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Kellie in action or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s 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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