Welcome to Episode 449 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 in 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.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And?” on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. The book goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your culture. 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, closing out 2021, is no different with my guest, Lei Testa. She’s the managing partner at Averett Financial in Fort Worth, Texas, and now she’s with me here today. Lei, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Lei: Thank you, John. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here. I have wanted to do this since you and I met, and I found out you had a podcast. Thanks for having me.

John: Absolutely. This is going to be so much fun. Yeah, we met a couple of years ago when I spoke at a conference and then just stayed in touch and then here we are. This is going to be so much fun. I do have some rapid-fire questions, things I’ve never asked you before, and I probably should have when we first met, now that I think about it.

Lei: That might have been good to know.

John: Right? Here we go. Here we go. This is a good one. Favorite color.

Lei: Red.

John: Red. Okay. How about a least favorite color?

Lei: Brown.

John: Brown. Yeah, that’s a very unpopular color.

Lei: It is. Every now and then I’ll see a brown car, and I say, why?

John: Was it on sale? Did you steal it? Why do you have a brown car?

Lei: There’s a new color out now that’s like flat gray. It’s even worse.

John: Yeah, I have seen a lot of the flat colors lately.

Lei: Yeah.

John: How about more heels or flats?

Lei: Heels used to be, flats now. Just older. Yeah, but I love heels. If I could go back, I would.

John: Okay. Okay. How about a favorite actor or actress?

Lei: Favorite actress, Katharine Hepburn. Favorite actor, Gene Hackman.

John: Oh, yeah.

Lei: Followed closely by Tom Hanks.

John: Okay. No, great answer, answers, plural actually. Ooh, this is a tricky one. Chocolate or vanilla.

Lei: Chocolate.

John: Oh, yeah. You didn’t even think. You actually interrupted. Chocolate or chocolate. It’s chocolate. Whatever the order is, I don’t care. Chocolate or a billion dollars. Chocolate. How about puzzles, Sudoku, crossword or jigsaw.

Lei: Jigsaw.

John: Oh, nice. Okay. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Lei: Oh, yes. I can’t pick. I cannot pick. My dad and I watched Star Trek when I was a kid back when it was James Kirk. I love even the next gen Star Trek. Then Star Wars was when I was in high school. I love Star Wars.

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Lei: Anyway.

John: Okay, I’ll give you both.

Lei: It’s hard to differentiate from — yeah, to choose, choose.

John: How about your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Lei: PC.

John: PC. Yeah, me too.

Lei: I own a Mac at home, and I like Apple products. At work, you have to know how to use a PC.

John: Yeah, definitely. How about a favorite Disney character?

Lei: Oh, gosh. Oh, Cruella, the new Cruella. Have you seen it?

John: I have. I saw it on a flight recently.

Lei: Fantastic movie. I did too. Then I came home and made Frank watch it because it’s the backstory. Like Wicked is the backstory for the Wizard of Oz, Cruella is the backstory for 101 Dalmatians.

John: Exactly. You think it’s this evil person. Yeah, Cruella, that’s very good answer. Very good answer. How about more pens or pencils?

Lei: Oh, pens.

John: Pens. Yeah, same.

Lei: Especially fancy pens that you can do fun stuff with.

John: Right, right. Since you have the accounting background, balance sheet or income statement.

Lei: Balance sheet.

John: Oh, okay.

Lei: Yeah, I’m an auditor, and I’m an old school auditor. You audit the balance sheet, and the income statement falls out. I like the balance sheet. It’s tangible. You could put your hands on it.

John: Right? There it is. Okay. How about more of an early bird or a night owl?

Lei: Early bird.

John: Oh, yeah. All right.

Lei: Before, a night owl, but definitely an early bird.

John: Oh, before, a night owl. That’s hilarious. How about a favorite number?

Lei: 137.

John: Oh. Is there a reason?

Lei: It’s my name upside down. L-E-I —

John: Oh, you’re right. It is. Holy cow.

Lei: — is 137. I was playing basketball in high school, and we had a free throw. I was standing in the back court, and I could see the scoreboard. There was a minute 37 left in the quarter. I went, that’s my name.

John: That’s great. That’s so good. I love it. That’s so awesome. That’s so awesome. That’s the best reason I’ve ever heard for a favorite number, for sure.

Lei: Really? Oh, my gosh. Okay, we’re done.

John: It’s my birthday or… Nope, it’s my name upside down. Nailed it. That’s so good.

Lei: Bill could be 8177. You turn that upside down, it says Bill.

John: Right. How about when it comes to books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Lei: Audio version.

John: Oh, okay.

Lei: I’ve actually listened to your book three times.

John: Oh, my goodness.

Lei: Yeah. Just because I love the concepts, and I love that it’s you reading it. I love when authors read their own books. It’s great.

John: Thank you. Yeah, that was hard, harder than you think, especially when I wrote the book. It’s like, these are my words. It should be… Yeah. Well, cool. Thank you. All right. How about your first concert?

Lei: Foreigner.

John: Nice.

Lei: Yeah.

John: Okay.

Lei: Foreigner was my first big concert. I went to a concert with my parents, but I don’t really count that one. That was Barbara Mandrell and the Statler Brothers.

John: I think that’s how you have to say it actually.

Lei: It is. It is. That is how you have to say it. Then my first one that I went by myself was Foreigner.

John: Nice. Okay. All right. We’ve got two more. How about your favorite ice cream flavor?

Lei: Moo-llennium Crunch by Blue Bell.

John: Good.

Lei: Have you ever heard of it?

John: I have absolutely. Blue Bell Ice Cream is so good.

Lei: Yeah, it is.

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

Lei: My car. My Corvette. I love it. It makes me smile. Every time I go outside and see it and get in it and drive it. It’s wonderful.

John: That’s awesome. What color is it?

Lei: It’s white.

John: Okay.

Lei: It’s my very first non-red, purchased by myself vehicle. I share cars with my husband that he bought, and I love it. My last Corvette was red. This year’s model, it’s a 2014, which seems so old now, but it’s still a great car. The red that they had, I just didn’t like that color red. I saw the white one and just really liked it.

John: That’s so cool. That actually dovetails perfectly right in with your “ands”, obviously Corvettes being one of them, but also knitting, which is awesome. I’m not sure if I’ve had a knitter on the show yet, to be honest.

Lei: I’m the first knitter. Oh, my God.

John: Yeah. I’ve had all kinds of other crafters, but not knitting as the lead, for sure. How did you get started knitting? Was it something, as a kid, you did?

Lei: Yeah, it was as a kid. My grandmothers on both sides, mom side and dad side, both did handiwork, sewing, crochet, knitting, embroidery, all the things. One of them taught me to sew and embroider, and the other taught me to crochet and then knit. Growing up, I’ve knit things but little kid things, like the scarf. I graduated to a hat. I remember doing a ton of potholders. Remember those little things that your grandmother used to crochet on the end of a towel so you could loop it through a door? I probably made 100 of those things.

John: Okay.

Lei: When I was in high school, we moved, and our next-door neighbor was a prolific knitter. She knit garments. I never really thought about knitting something you could wear.

John: Yeah, beyond a hat or whatever, scarf.

Lei: Right, or a scarf. Yeah, but a sweater, a jacket, yeah, something substantial. I said, would you teach me how to knit a sweater? She said, sure, but we are not going to Walmart to buy the yarn. We have to go to the real yarn store, so save up your money. I did. I saved up my pennies, and we trucked over to Memphis. I grew up in Arkansas. We went to the big city. We went to Memphis, to the real yarn shop, and I bought real yarn. I picked out a super hard pattern. She said, okay, if you want to try it, you can do it. By doggies, I did. I made that sweater, and I still have that sweater today.

John: That’s awesome. I was going to say you should because that’s a lot of work that you put into that.

Lei: It was, absolutely.

John: It was a pattern. It wasn’t just a solid color. Wow.

Lei: Yeah. It was a pattern, and the pattern that I chose — a lot of sweaters, you knit in one piece. You knit from the top down or the bottom up. This, you made the pieces. I made a front and a back and two sleeves, and I had to put them together like you would sew a garment together.

John: Wow.

Lei: I made a mistake. It had cables. I don’t know if you know what cables are.

John: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Lei: Actually, I’ll give you a picture to put on with this episode.

John: Yeah, on the show page at whatsyourand.com.

Lei: There’s a mistake. I did not see the mistake until I was ready to put the thing together. I was like, I just give up. I quit. I quit. I don’t want to do it. She told me this story. Her name is Gay Bonner. She’s still a really good friend. She said, stop. There’s no reason to lose your marbles over this. She told me that she had heard that women, and probably men, that weave these beautiful, really expensive Persian rugs, which must take way more hours than I spent on my sweater, purposely weave in a mistake because they say only God makes things perfect.

John: Oh.

Lei: We don’t want to aspire to be like God, to pretend like we’re God, so we’re going to weave in a mistake. Plus, she said, nobody’s ever going to see it. Nobody’s ever going to go, there’s a mistake.

John: If they do, they’re not your friend. Get out of here.

Lei: Thank you. No kidding. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worn that sweater, and nobody’s ever pointed out that there’s a mistake in my sweater.

John: That’s awesome. No, I love it. I love it so much. That’s so cool. Since then, you’ve been knitting and getting more adventurous on things to wear and things for other people to wear and all that.

Lei: All my family members have socks and sweaters and scarves and hats and all kinds of things. Yeah.

John: What is the difference between knitting and crocheting? Because you dropped it earlier.

Lei: I did.

John: I don’t necessarily know the difference. I feel like one has a hook or something, right?

Lei: Yeah, a crochet hook. Yeah. You just use one needle when you’re crocheting, and the traditional crochet method, you only have one live stitch. You just move from that stitch to the next stitch to the next stitch, and you only have one live stitch. When you’re knitting, all of the stitches are live. If you accidentally pulled your knitting needle out, all the stitches would be free to unravel.

John: Oh.

Lei: Yeah. It’s pretty cool. A T-shirt is actually a knit product, but the thread is just so teeny tiny. You would need to use microscopic knitting needles to knit it. Same thing with socks, socks are made with knit material. One of the cool things about crochet, if you ever buy anything that’s crocheted, it is handmade. There is no machine that can crochet. There are machines that knit, like this sweater was knit on a machine. Your socks were probably knit on a machine.

John: Okay.

Lei: Isn’t that cool?

John: Yeah, that is cool.

Lei: If somebody gives you something that’s crocheted, it’s handmade.

John: Yeah, and then you’ve got to find the mistake. No, no, I’m kidding. I’m teasing. That’s super cool, though. Do you have something that you’ve made, besides that first sweater, that’s been like, wow, this was a really fun project or something that I was really excited to do?

Lei: Absolutely. For years, I wouldn’t tackle socks. That was like a badge of honor for a knitter to say that they could knit socks because they’re pretty complicated.

John: Totally. I can imagine.

Lei: Yeah. I decided I’m going to learn how to knit socks. I didn’t want to take a class because I didn’t want to admit I didn’t know how to knit socks to all my knitting friends. I got on YouTube and found a pattern that was just a real simple pattern. Actually, I take that back. I did get the pattern, not on YouTube. I found the pattern at a knit shop in Portland, Oregon, called Close Knit. I’ll give Sherry a shout-out here. She said, this is a great beginner pattern. I still use that pattern today. Bought some yarn from her and then I watched YouTube and just followed the pattern. It was easy. My very first sock, I was knitting on one of the riverboat cruises in Bordeaux, France.

John: Nice.

Lei: Yes.

John: Okay.

Lei: On our trip was this lady from Great Britain. She had her Great British accent, and I had just finished my heel turn, which is a big deal in sock knitting, especially when you’re new. It’s kind of scary. She said, oh, you did a fine job on your heel turn. I was just so proud.

John: Right? Especially when it sounds like Mary Poppins is praising you.

Lei: Right. Yes, absolutely.

John: You’re like, I’m so good.

Lei: Thank you Mary Poppins.

John: Right? That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah, it’s just making things that you’re like, well, why not? Let’s give it a try. Worst case scenario, you unwind it and start over.

Lei: Yeah, absolutely. So, that first pair was for me, and I have probably knit all my family and some friends. Because you have to be knit-worthy. You have to prove your knit-worthiness before I’m going to spend 16 to 20 hours making you a pair of socks, which is about what it takes me.

John: Right.

Lei: I knit socks all the time now. I never don’t have a pair of socks on the needles because they’re so little. You can take them anywhere. A sweater or an Afghan or something, it’s big. It takes up a lot of luggage room. If I’m flying around or traveling around, a pair of socks is a great thing to take with me.

John: That’s awesome. Especially in your Corvette, then they fit just perfectly.

Lei: Yes, and I do knit in my Corvette. I do take my knitting. I live in Dallas/Fort Worth, and there’s never not a stoplight. I get stuck at a stoplight, I just pick up my knitting and knit until it’s time to go, and then off I go. I don’t get mad at all the stoplights. Why are you stopping me? I’m like, oh, yay, another row.

John: Right? That’s so impressive. I love it. Do you feel like there’s a skill set from the knitting especially, that translates over to your corporate career?

Lei: Yes, absolutely. Because you can’t just say, let me just whip out a pair of socks, or let me just knit up a sweater tonight, and it’s due tomorrow, right? You have to plan. You have to use your thought process. There’s lot of decisions around what you’re going to knit. What color are you going to use? Is it appropriate yarn for the type of pattern? Because if it needs to flow and have movement, just like a piece of fabric, it needs to have a certain type of yarn. The weight of the yarn is a decision you have to make. A lot of planning goes into it. What size are you going to make? Do you want ease where you’ve got some room to move around, like a sweatshirt? Or you do you want it to be like Marilyn Monroe-type sweater where you can see all the goodies? What’s your goal?

You have to have lots of thought and planning go into that, which is just what you have to do for accounting. If I’ve got a company, and I don’t want to pay a third of my earnings in tax to the good old US government through the IRS, I need to do some planning. Think about, what is this going to do to my outcomes, and how’s that going to impact me from a tax standpoint? How do I need to account for things? Do I need to count that as cost of goods sold? Or is that something that can reside on the balance sheet and not be an expense and hurt my EBITDA, if I’m trying to be nice and good-looking to an investor or a buyer?

John: No, I didn’t even think about that. I’m not just going to go make some socks. It’s like, well, yeah, what color, what pattern, what size, what kind of material, what kind of yarn? That’s tons of thought process before that. Plus, too, I imagine if you’re halfway through and you’re like, I made a mistake, halfway through a tax return; it’s like, well, fix it. This isn’t brain surgery where, I messed up, and game over. It’s, just start over, or unwind and go back to that and then start again.

Lei: You’re absolutely right. Knitting backwards is a thing, and we call it tinking, which is knit spelled backwards. I’m tinking. Or if you’ve really messed up and you’re just going to get the whole thing out, you rip it, rip it, rip it, and that’s called frogging.

John: Okay. All right.

Lei: I love the process of knitting. I love that, but something about having to tink or frog it just makes me angry. I do not like doing it.

John: Right, because all the work you put in to make it.

Lei: Yeah, I’m going to have to do it again. Maybe I should say, I get to do it again.

John: Right. I get to. It’s more practice, and it’s even better. Is knitting, is that something that you’ve talked about at work or with coworkers and clients?

Lei: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. In fact, there’s a blanket right there that people come and borrow my blanket. Can I borrow your blanket? I’m going to go in this conference room, and it’s cold. Yeah, absolutely. One of our employees was having a baby. His wife was having a baby. If he was, we’d be on the news.

John: Right. Right.

Lei: Anyway, his wife was having a baby, and one of our clients was making him an afghan. He’s like, oh, you need to meet Lei. She and I have become knitting friends and shared patterns with each other.

John: See? That’s just got to be a richer relationship than with maybe another client that we also have, type of thing.

Lei: Right. Absolutely. The fact that he got to say, hey, our managing partner’s a knitter. You should talk with her. I gave him some context to talk to our client about it.

John: Yeah, absolutely. It just creates a sticky relationship. That’s got to be more fun. Oh, hey, I get to talk to this client today. Instead of, I got to make five phone calls. Oh, the knitter. What? We’re in. You block out an hour. It’s going to be a while.

Lei: Oh, yeah.

John: That’s cool to hear. How much do you feel like it is on an organization to create that space for people to be able to share their “ands”; versus, how much is it on the individual to just create that little small circle?

Lei: I think it’s 100% on the organization. I feel like, oh, my goodness, listening to your book, I was like, that is so it. It’s so true. That when you create an atmosphere where people feel empowered to talk about their weekend, or to talk about their upcoming trip, or to share that they’re about to be an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent; what joy do you get to share. We spend so much time with each other, sometimes more than we spend with our family sometimes, during tax season, for sure.

John: For sure.

Lei: Yeah, absolutely. Why not get to know each other like that? It’s what makes people feel at home. It makes you feel like you’re truly part of your organization’s family, not just a part of the organization. I love it when I walk out in the hall and I hear our people talking about all the fun stuff they’ve got going on in their lives. We have a whiteboard where we write those kinds of questions that you ask me. You actually gave me some fodder for our whiteboard, so I can put some new questions up there.

John: Oh, that’s great. Then people write down their answers?

Lei: They do. Yeah, they do. Then they put their initials by their answers, so you can give them a rash if they’re answering different than you. Yeah.

John: Oh, that’s cool. I love that idea. It’s once a week type of thing?

Lei: Yeah. I don’t know if you know about the OU-Texas rivalry.

John: Oh, huge. A&M too.

Lei: Yes, but we’ve got an OU guy and a Texas guy. There’s always… The Texas guy writing in orange over the OU guy’s answer.

John: But it’s fun, and it brings some emotion to the office.

Lei: Yes, absolutely.

John: That emotion is great. I love it. That’s super awesome. Yeah, it is true, the tone at the top and creating that space to let people breathe and play in, rather than structuring everything and having to be so rigid. These are adults that are good at what they do. Treat them like adults instead of five-year-old toddlers.

Lei: Sarah and Joe, there are three partners, Sarah and Joe are married. They are the Averett. I’ve known them for a long, long time. When I joined the firm, one of the first things I got to do was plan the Christmas party. I became the fun Aunt Lei. Aunt Lei is the fun aunt. Then it was tax season, and I said, why don’t we get snacks for everybody during tax season? They’ve never done snacks before. Fun Aunt Lei is bringing us snacks during tax season. Then we started bringing in lunch on Fridays.

John: There you go.

Lei: I get to be the fun aunt.

John: That’s cool. Yeah. Well, it’s just bringing a wrinkle to what people expect, and it’s just a little bit different. I love that idea. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that feels like they have an “and” outside of work, hobby or passion that has nothing to do with their career or people aren’t going to care about it, they think?

Lei: Talk about it. Share your stories. Tell your funny stories. Tell people what you’re working on. I have even thought about, I should bring a couple more blankets up here just so people will have a conversation thing if they like. Bring a blanket into a meeting with the client. Hey, would you like one? Our managing partner makes these on the side.

John: Why not? Right. Exactly. Are you selling them? No, these are for the office. That’s cool.

Lei: Yeah, and it makes people remember you. If you have a conversation with them about what’s going on in their life and then they ask you what’s going on in your life, it just makes it so much more real, versus just talking about the numbers, good grief, poke and stick them. I don’t know why I went into accounting. I just think like an accountant, but I am not all about that.

Our clients love knowing about our people, and we love knowing about our clients too, and what’s going on in their lives. If I can encourage our people to talk to each other, then they become more comfortable talking with our clients. Our clients know who we are. We know who they are. That’s all more about life.

John: Yeah, which makes everything better. I love it so much, Aunt Lei, fun Aunt Lei. Before I wrap this up, I feel like it’s only fair that I turn the tables because I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning.

Lei: Oh, you did.

John: We should turn the tables and let you ask me whatever. This is the Lei Testa podcast. I appreciate you having me on as a guest. I’m all yours.

Lei: I confess, I took some of the questions that we’ve put on our whiteboard, and they’re going to be some of your questions.

John: Okay.

Lei: Okay. Thank you, John. Baseball or football.

John: Oh, football, for sure. Football. Yeah, it’s just more stuff happening. If baseball was six innings, then maybe. It’s like the middle three innings, for some reason, I get teleported out. I don’t even know what happened. They’re like, hey, did you see that home run in the fifth inning? I’m like, nope, because it was the fourth through sixth innings. I’m just like… Maybe the World Series is exciting because everything’s on the line now. A regular season baseball game for nine innings, it’s like, but yeah, football is always great, college especially.

Lei: Yeah. Oh, that’s fantastic.

John: For sure.

Lei: College or pro.

John: College football, hands down.

Lei: Okay. Yeah.

John: Easily. Yeah, for sure.

Lei: Beach or mountains.

John: That’s a tricky one only because I live in Denver, and I can, in my backyard, see the mountains. They’re right there. I feel like I’m a little bit spoiled in that regard. Beach feels like, I have to get on an airplane, and it’s a trip. It’s a vacation. I guess I might lean beach just because it means that I’m on vacation.

Lei: Got it. That makes sense.

John: Specifically, the Indian Ocean, a beach in the Indian Ocean.

Lei: Oh, I like that.

John: Yeah. The Indian Ocean is the best ocean. I will fight all the other oceans on that one.

Lei: No taking. I’ve never been to the Indian Ocean, so that may be a thing I need to add to my bucket list.

John: You can knit all kinds of stuff on a flight to the Indian Ocean.

Lei: Where in the Indian Ocean? Off the coast of Australia?

John: Zanzibar.

Lei: Oh, that sounds so exotic, Zanzibar.

John: Yeah, east side of Africa and then the Maldives, under India. Yeah. It’s just crystal blue and amazing and warm because it’s all tropical in the equator. Yeah, it’s great.

Lei: Awesome. Zanzibar. That sounds like a place I need to go. Any place that starts with a Z might be just for me.

John: Yeah, it is. It’s a cool place. It’s like, all right.

Lei: That’s really cool. Okay, dogs or cats.

John: Dogs, all day.

Lei: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good dogs or bad dogs.

John: Oh, well, our dog has a little — he’s got a personality.

Lei: He’s got some bad dog in him.

John: Yeah. He’s not super well-trained. He’s trained enough, but he’s still a dog. It’s like, let kids be kids, sort of a thing. Yeah. He’s hilarious though.

Lei: Movies or books.

John: I’ll probably go movies on that, like fictional. I usually read nonfiction books. Plus, it’s just more efficient. I can knock this story out, an hour and a half or two hours. Reading the book’s going to be a couple of weeks.

Lei: Yeah. That’s why I picked audible books when you asked me. I haven’t figured out yet how to read and knit at the same time.

John: Right. Oh, there you go.

Lei: I can listen and knit at the same time.

John: There you go.

Lei: I can’t read and — okay. Yeah. You live in Colorado, right?

John: Yeah.

Lei: The mountains. Yeah. In Texas, we eat chili. Do you like chili with beans or without?

John: Beans, with beans.

Lei: Wrong answer.

John: I just got kicked off the show. Get out. Get out.

Lei: Crunchy or smooth.

John: Crunchy.

Lei: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, me too. Got to have some crunch in peanut butter.

John: Texture, yeah.

Lei: Yeah. Zombies or vampires.

John: I’ll go vampire, I think, on that one. That’s a good one. I hadn’t thought of that before.

Lei: I like vampires too. Lost Boys is one of my all-time favorite vampire movies. Yeah. M&M’s or Reese’s pieces.

John: M&M’s peanut.

Lei: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. This is kind of dumb on you, comedy or drama.

John: Comedy.

Lei: Yeah, yeah. Do you like any drama?

John: Yeah, I do. TV shows like Breaking Bad or something like that is great.

Lei: Oh, okay. That was going to be my question. Do you like light, or do you like dark?

John: Oh, no, dark’s great. Even like… I mean, it was still a comedy. I thought it was hilarious, but Jim Carrey did that movie, Cable Guy. It was super dark comedy.

Lei: Yeah. The Truman Show, I thought was funny, but it was also dark.

John: The same thing. That was maybe a drama, but I thought it was hilarious in parts. No, definitely, there is a time for drama, but I feel like if I’m going to sit down and be entertained, then funny is where it’s at.

Lei: Yeah, yeah. You asked me pen or pencil, which makes me think about school. How about recess or lunch?

John: Oh, that’s a good one. Yeah. Man, that is really hard. I think I’m going to go recess just because I feel like you can get away with more stuff at recess than lunch where there are more teachers watching you.

Lei: There are more eyes watching you at lunch. Yeah. I see how you are. I see how you are.

John: Exactly, exactly.

Lei: Okay, what about classwork or homework? Do you remember?

John: Oh, in class, classwork.

Lei: Me too, yeah.

John: Or on the bus, whatever. I’m not doing it at home.

Lei: I am not doing it at home. My goal was to be done by the time the bell rang every afternoon because I’ve got some play time to do.

John: Right. Exactly.

Lei: Okay, a sports car or SUV.

John: Sports car. The taller the vehicle, the dumber I look driving it.

Lei: Me too.

John: Which is weird because I’m tall.

Lei: Me too. I feel like I look like a dork driving a big, tall vehicle.

John: A pickup truck, I look like a complete idiot.

Lei: Okay, so which sports car? If you could have any sports car you wanted, what would it be?

John: Your Corvette. No, I’m just kidding.

Lei: Next time you’re here, you can drive it. I’m not driving it all the time.

John: I’ll just go for a ride. I’ll knit and then you drive. We’re double efficient.

Lei: Final question, store-bought or handmade gift to receive?

John: Oh, yeah, handmade. It’s just shows that you care, and you know what’s going on. It’s something for you, and I know that this is for you. Yeah, for sure.

Lei: Yeah. Awesome.

John: Very cool. Thank you so much, Lei, for taking time to be a part of What’s Your “And”? This was super, super fun.

Lei: It was. Thank you so much, John. I had an absolute blast.

John: Awesome. Everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Lei in action or some of the things that she’s created or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to read the book.

Thanks again for subscribing on Apple podcast 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.