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- [00:01]
A
Corey, it is Tuesday. It is Tuesday.
- [00:04]
B
And that means the most consistent podcast is here.
- [00:10]
A
You know, I gotta say, it's been a long five years.
- [00:15]
B
It has.
- [00:16]
A
Of these voices. And to gift people in the fifth year, I just posted the sign up to be interviewed on the podcast. Corey's been dragging me for it, but now you can. And I'm having to report nobody signed up yet. But I did post it two minutes ago. She did.
- [00:31]
B
But here's the thing. If you've ever tuned into the podcast ever in your heart and you're like, you know what? I have a tip, a trick, something that's worked for me. Maybe something that the twin said that didn't work for me or something that the twin said that I do opposite that has worked for me. That is valuable information. Me and Heather only have our two aspects of life. We live in a high populated area, so we can only speak to a certain few certain things. I don't live in a midwestern town with one light at the road, but there's so many people that do. You could add a lot of value just by letting us interview you and it would be easy. Questions. I'm not going to say and tell me what your tax returns look like, what I'm just going to do.
- [01:11]
A
There's some calculus problems at the end
- [01:13]
B
though, and I don't even know the answers because I was good at calculus. But it will just be pre designed questions just to get to know you and get your perspective as it comes to bakery. And you if you're like, well, I haven't been a baker long, I haven't opened my bakery a long time, there's still value in that, people. I would love to go back and ask questions to someone who's brand new, especially as the algorithms has changed. You know, social media has changed. You have a whole different perspective and, and it's a valuable perspective, right?
- [01:43]
A
I was getting into rug tufting. Am not. Was not. Past tense, present tense, current tense, future tense. But I find myself just lurking in the groups and reading people are like, hey, this is a big problem I'm having. And somebody's like, oh, you know, you pipe too close to the sun, like, oh, like oh shoot, let me go and fix that on my own. So even your mistakes, bless your little souls, would be a great thing. So it's really just telling your story. Nothing obviously is easier, peasier and more laid back than this podcast.
- [02:11]
B
And we'll send you the pre done questions beforehand so you already know what to expect. You can review them, but It'll. Me and Heather are laid back. So the podcast is laid back. I'm not going to be like, can you refilm that question?
- [02:22]
A
No, no.
- [02:23]
B
We're just gonna just cruise and bruise
- [02:25]
A
and just your story determines the question. So whatever your story is, if you don't have five kids like Amy, we're not gonna ask you five kid questions. Yeah. How do you do it? How do you not pull out all your hair? If you're tuning into this, the for
- [02:39]
B
the first time, this is the Baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast, and it's a spin off from a group that's on Facebook, people. It's the number one marketing group for sugar cookie bakers. And it's just. Just a resource. So even if you're thinking about getting into cookies, you. You took a break and you want to get back in. It's a great place to start and see what people are doing now and what works for them, what doesn't work for them. And this podcast is just a way for you to listen while you're baking during the week.
- [03:07]
A
Yeah. I'd be curious what brings you to a random podcast on April 14th, but I'm here for it. I like the randomness of your life.
- [03:15]
B
The random.
- [03:16]
A
Do you agree?
- [03:17]
B
What?
- [03:18]
A
Oh, go ahead. I really do. Like, no, I don't really like. This is the first year I feel like time is flying faster than it's ever flown.
- [03:27]
B
It flew last year, though.
- [03:29]
A
This is just unprecedented.
- [03:31]
B
Unprecedented. Flying, flying fast.
- [03:34]
A
Yes. So, Corey, today's podcast is when excuses kind of how excuses are always there. So the quote is, if it's important, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an excuse. I love excuses.
- [03:52]
B
Oh, mine best. No, they're not even best.
- [03:55]
A
They're just.
- [03:56]
B
I have pretty mediocre.
- [03:57]
A
They're pretty mid.
- [03:58]
B
I have a bucket of excuses that are easy that I just grab into oftentimes, you know, like the. I gotta pick up my kid from school and.
- [04:06]
A
Oh, I was gonna say. And I was gonna say it out loud. I was like, Corey uses her son as a smoothing target of an excuse. And nobody knows the schedule, so we all have to be like, okay, I don't think it's true, but okay.
- [04:15]
B
Heather loves a good excuse.
- [04:17]
A
What's your go to? Excuse me? I would like always think I always have an excuse. But I laugh at myself even saying them because I know it's set cray out.
- [04:28]
B
Here's the thing and why it's topic of today's podcast. You can have your excuses or you can have your goals, but you can't have both of them. And excuses are delicious. They're juicy. They're always there. When I use one up, another one's just around the corner waiting for me to use it.
- [04:45]
A
The diagram of a juicy excuse is it has to absolve onus. Like it has to absolve. What is it called when I have to do the thing? Responsibility.
- [04:54]
B
I can move.
- [04:55]
A
That's my favorite kind of excuse. Like responsibility. Then it can't have anybody try to counteract it. So if I'm like, I have no time and someone's like, well, you were on TikTok last night. No, I can't, I can't. My, My good excuse needs to be imper. Impenetrable to the devil's advocates.
- [05:11]
B
Just like a Facebook post in, like, everyone knows the person who does the vague book post. A vague excuse can't touch her because you needed to be able to morph around.
- [05:23]
A
Like, you need to be able to dodge the people with like, good reasons why the excuse is lame. Like, no, it's not lame. So, like, I'll even catch myself. Like, I just have no time. But I'm like, girl, what? And so as long as I know that the excuse is coming from a made up world, I can kind of see the reality behind it is that it's often coming from a place where I'm scared of failure or I'm scared of trying something new. So I'm going to create this excuse that protects me. That's why I think we hold on to them, is they're protecting us from fears. Feel failure. Feel fear of like not selling out of a pre sale. Like, oh, pre sales don't work for me. That's an excuse. Pre sales haven't worked for me because there's something I'm doing wrong. That takes a lot of introspective shift. It does.
- [06:12]
B
To overcome your excuses, you have to have a come to Jesus moment with yourself and your shortcomings. So for Heather to say, oh man, I. There's just no time. If she was really honest with herself, she spent an hour scrolling on social media and maybe an hour researching how
- [06:29]
A
did you get into my house? And who gave you the key?
- [06:32]
B
I just know. Yeah, that twin telepathy thing, it's. It's hard to have. It's hard to come to yourself and overcome your excuses and be like, I really, honestly, I did have time. Like, I did do this and it was more of a priority than maybe doing that. And I Chose to do this over that.
- [06:52]
A
I think the, the great part of excuse is it's like, it's like the first round of protection between this like, innocent soft tendy spot. So I'll be like, well, I didn't go to the gym because, you know, I'm really busy at home. I just moved, right? But I know that I actually didn't go to the gym and made up the excuse that I was bus lifting things at home because I was nervous about going to a new gym. I don't know, it feels like you're going back to high school and you walk into a new gym. So that was really the reason. So I said, okay, you're actually nervous about going to this new gym. That's the reason of the excuse. That's actually the, the thing you're protecting. Why are you nervous? Well, I don't want anyone to make fun of me. What if there's like, popular people? I don't know, whatever my brain said, okay, go to the gym, do a once round, get a lay of the land, and then decide if you want to stay or not. So kind of having a one on one with me and my excuse, we could kind of see where it's actually coming from. And I feel like a lot of times we protect our excuses because our excuses are protecting something about us that we don't want anyone else to find out.
- [07:53]
B
Oh, a thousand percent, thousand percent. Oftentimes you always like to say me and my family are trying to throw money at court. She never takes an order. If I had to come to myself and figure that out, maybe it's because I'm worried about disappointing you guys and not being able to come come up to your expectations, which I've put on you.
- [08:14]
A
Your high expectations.
- [08:15]
B
You've not given to me. I've put it on yourself. And now I've made them so high, I'm worried that I, you know, like,
- [08:21]
A
you could slap some grocery store rock rocking. We'd be like, this is amazing. I'll put that right in my mouth.
- [08:28]
B
But that's what it. The excuses are something we create ourselves and we give legs to. So we grow them ourselves. No one else is out there growing our excuses and watering, like Heather's watering her lawn.
- [08:39]
A
We.
- [08:39]
B
We end up watering our own excuses to make them more palatable, more easily protected.
- [08:45]
A
We can't have anyone knock them down. Although they're fragile built, they're little Jenga towers of like, if one person moves one brick of my excuse one way, the whole thing comes tumbling. That's why when somebody tries to counteract your excuse with logic, you're like, no, I gotta go home.
- [08:59]
B
Goodbye.
- [09:00]
A
I came from school.
- [09:02]
B
I oftentimes see in sugar cookie marketing, someone will bring a problem or an issue they're experiencing to the group. And the group, like the group does, brings its hive mind with solutions to it. I'll see bakers to every single helpful comment come up with an excuse. They're impenetrable there. You can't touch them as because they are guarded by so many excuses as to why they can't do this or why that doesn't work.
- [09:29]
A
We're not looking for solutions. Those posts were actually worded as looking for solutions but wanted validation on the excuse. So when you say, hey, listen guys, cookie classes can't teach them. There's no place to host. Host, host. As you couldn't technically teach outside. I'm saying you could teach almost anywhere. A cookie class, your own basement. You could teach at a community center brewery. Seem to be hell bent on getting people in there teaching random things. I took a power tools class and you could sign up to take a sewing class. So I could even have rented out the power tools. But somebody's like, well, there's, there's no place. Okay, so then you start coming up, okay, let's try this. No, no, that doesn't work. That doesn't work, that doesn't work. I bet the excuse is actually protecting the fear of speaking. Public speaking, which is probably, I think they say that's the number one fear of most people is public speaking. Sure. So instead of, hey guys, I have a real big fear of public speaking because that makes you feel weak. I guess it's easier to say, no place will let me host my class. Not even my own house. My own house. They're not even allowing me to. You know, the roadblocks protect the, the self conscious. I don't want anyone to know that I'm actually really self conscious about speaking in front of people because of X. Y. Yeah. And so you come to the group and you say, hey guys, I have this unsolvable problem. They're like, solve, solve, solve, solve. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And we're like, oh, you never wanted a solution in the first place. Oftentimes I'll find myself just locking those threads because it's a lot of people spinning their tires to solve your problem when in reality you wanted validation. And you're not going to find that in a group of business owners who are trying to help you solve a problem.
- [11:04]
B
Yeah, my favorite one that bakers go to is they come to the group and they say, guys, I'm getting no engagement. What gives? And someone's like, you're just not posting during very busy times. You need to make sure that you're posting. When your audience is there, they're hit with the excuse, I just don't have time. But I want to be like, you're literally in this group making time for your.
- [11:26]
A
This is research. I find the one like somebody had it wasn't. It was an innocent question. They were like, I can't get any reach. So I just tagged the collab which only had 54 people registered and thank you guys. Now it's at 100 people for the pipe apart collab this this Friday. But I'm gonna say these collabs are every month you can self serve engagement because you say, well, how is that gonna help engagement? I can guarantee it because the bakers will come and engage with it. That's built into how the collab works. Well, I don't have a park. Corey made me go to a corner store park. It was the most, it didn't even have an address. So yeah, you can go to that and okay, well I don't. Listen, if you want the excuses, you don't get the goal. That's what Corey's initial.
- [12:08]
B
Yeah, you can have your excuses and believe me, no one' take them from you because we manhandle white knuckle those bad boys so we don't have to face the. But if you're like, my goal is but my excuse is you're only going to be able to hold on to one. So it's which one do you want to hold on to?
- [12:25]
A
The goal or the excuse?
- [12:27]
B
The Piper park is on Friday. And it's so funny. We've seen a lot of comments in the group saying a lot of posts in the group saying, I can't get in reach. I don't have any engagement. But none of these people have ever participated in these collabs. I'm going to tell you one thing I hate to do participate in the collabs. Why? It takes extra time.
- [12:45]
A
Well, Cory had to bake a cookie. We had a meet at a park. She had to invite me because I had the camera. But I think you wanted to go to Olive Garden so I'm taking that as a win.
- [12:54]
B
Two birds, one.
- [12:55]
A
So yeah, then I, I had to add the photos. But if she didn't have me, she'd have to edit them herself and now she has to make herself available on Friday to write a caption and for one hour, engaged. Yeah, it's worked. However, there on the other side, is the engagement of which she seeks.
- [13:08]
B
And I want to say the topics that we'll bring today. Not necessarily. We know. Everyone's smart enough to know when they have a good excuse and when they're getting ready to drop an excuse, have an excuse, create an excuse. Our goal today is how to overcome your excuses, your own excuses.
- [13:25]
A
This is.
- [13:26]
B
This is personal work. You can't even ask us to overcome your excuses. This is all you. So the topics today are how to overcome the excuses in a way that you can find the benefits of moving past your excuses so your goals are tangible and in front of you and not barricaded by all these excuses around them.
- [13:46]
A
I want to. I want to. Before we jump into these very fine points Cor's got written up here, I want to say the excuse that you have to strike from your memory is market saturation. Market saturation is the best excuse because its solution is murder. There's too many bakers. Like, unless they are dying of natural causes or you interjecting yourself in that cause you can't solve market saturation. If that. It's the. It's where I find that the baker who doesn't want the solution ends up because it's the untouchable excuse. Like, so you can see.
- [14:17]
B
Well, yeah, because you. It's not about you, it's about everybody else.
- [14:20]
A
Yes. And the only solution is literally people passing away. So when someone says, well, it's just too many bakers, I'm like, oh, then you didn't want the solution. You didn't want the solution of considering how to work around a local baker,
- [14:36]
B
a competitive local baker. My favorite thing to hear from my competitors is it's oversaturated. Because, baby cakes, I'm the saturation. And if you remove yourself from my equation, I have one less person standing in front of my goal.
- [14:51]
A
I think Amy had said, if the market's saturated, I'm the water.
- [14:56]
B
Right?
- [14:57]
A
Right. It's the best thing for you as the competitor of this person here, because that is the solution, the excuse, the. That they will not overcome. So if some. If your competition says the market is too saturated, congratulations. You do not have that person as a competitor anymore. Oh, just stepped out of the ring.
- [15:14]
B
Oh, that. That makes me happy. When. When my competitor is like, how can I get more engagement? And what strategy? I'm like, you're still out.
- [15:23]
A
Now we gotta work Drives as hard. But when your competition says, hey, the market's saturated, that's why I can't find a place to teach classes. Be like, yes, I, I know now. I now know there's a place to teach classes because it's where that person's not teaching them. Yeah, yeah, that person just came up with the excuse. The most delicious excuse for the competitor is that Baker doesn't want to do it. It's too saturated.
- [15:46]
B
It's too saturated. I want to tell you, if you're listening to this, your excuses are valid. They're valid. I'm not going to invalidate them. Yes, your kid has to be picked up. Yes, you have softball practice. Yes, your kid has ballet tonight. But you're also on social media. You watch your favorite shows. You sit in the kitchen scrolling.
- [16:07]
A
Right.
- [16:07]
B
Your excuses are valid, but you also have to come to a come to Jesus moment with yourself that you are the one standing between using your goals, using excuses between them. Some excuses, we can't get around them. They are truly good excuses.
- [16:23]
A
I'm actually going to jump to Corey's point three and then I'll go back to point one because I think it's so fun. I think it's the best solution. I love an excuse. And then I think the best part about countering that excuse is to laugh about how illogical it is. Like, I, I've run out of time. You ran out of 24 hours. Like there's so many hours in a day. But I have this and the other. Yes, but there's. All you need to do is let your phone tell you how much time you spend on social media. But you're going to be like, but I was in sugar cookie marketing group getting my questions. You were there for five minutes, girl. You were there for five minutes. You know you were there for five minutes. The rest of it was doom scrolling and it felt delectable. So the point number three is rephrase your language. Excuses are often masked as I can, I don't, I don't have time. I can't do that. Some things in the way that's immovable but it. Switch it to don't or I'm choosing not to and you're still allowed to have the excuse. I keep the excuse. Be like, hey, I just don't want to do that right now.
- [17:19]
B
I don't. And that's so hard to put the onus back on yourself because to cast the onus on an excuse, I'm free. I'm free.
- [17:28]
A
I'm free. And Fancy. It wasn't my fault.
- [17:30]
B
It was my juicy excuse to say, I just. I'm choosing not to. I want engagement on my page because it's lacking, but I'm choosing not to do the collab on Friday because I don't want to.
- [17:41]
A
Right. Well. Well, you're. You're absolutely. The thing. The thing is that I don't want to was always the actual reason. I don't want to. I don't have time to. Don't feel like it. But these majestic excuses. My cat, my child needs to be received from the school. I sent him to that one. It seems like more respectable.
- [18:02]
B
Yeah, it. It's funny, because this Pipa park collab, you can go to the park any day in the last month to participate. It just has to be posted on Friday. But Heather posted a reminder about the collab two weeks ago, and someone's like, can't, can't. Can't do it.
- [18:16]
A
Like, you are at a time like the future. Two weeks fully accounted for, canceling, planning to be busy in two weeks. You know, Sugar Cookie Marketing Group, the podcast and newsletter is still fighting the same algorithmic challenges of every bakery trying to get their posting. But I'll post them some of like, wow, you'd only gotten to me sooner. Like, it's your fault I can't do it. I'm trying my best, doing what I can, so. So the excuse, though, will always trump the logic, and that makes excuses illogical. I do believe a lot of excuses are actually coming from a place of illogical foundations. We didn't run out of time. There's plenty of time. We ran out of willpower.
- [18:57]
B
Sure.
- [18:58]
A
Yeah. I used to, you know, kind of when he. I can tell when Corey's I gotta pick up my son excuse is loaded of crud.
- [19:06]
B
Yes.
- [19:07]
A
Because I can, like, I can see it in your eyes. You knew that wasn't true and. But now I don't even.
- [19:11]
B
I don't even make eye contact with her.
- [19:16]
A
It's. It's two in the afternoon. To sneak it off at two. Yes. So we know where it's coming from. I was talking to Ruthann about this. Like, I know where my motivation is, and I'm the only one who knows it. I know if it's actually coming from a place of truth. But if I'm like, hey, that Piper park collab, two weeks away. Sorry, fully allocated every hour of every day for the next two weeks. I know. That is malarkey.
- [19:42]
B
What's funny is we just did the presale boot camp. And in the presale boot camp, a lot of excuses I see is people say my pre sales just don't work. If I said to you, heather, if you sell 10 cookies, I will give you $1 million.
- [19:58]
A
You said, me selling 20, going to
- [20:02]
B
be posting it everywhere. Like her life depends on it. There's a million dollars on the line. But what she's not going to do is say, I'm not allowed to post in these groups and I don't know what to post. No one ever clicks on my things. It's too saturated.
- [20:16]
A
No, it's fine. Like, people are like, most of the groups have rules. Well, you said most of. So you know that some don't, some of those don't. In your excuse right there, you accidentally revealed the truth. But even then, we have a whole podcast on how to create community within community groups without selling. But it requires a ton of work. It does.
- [20:35]
B
But Heather, I don't have time. I have to pick up my kid
- [20:38]
A
at 3, 2, 1. So in this tip, it said, okay, like, I, I ran out of time, I couldn't go to the gym. I know that's untrue. I know I didn't want to go to the gym. So it says, I'm choosing not to prioritize exercise today because I'm prioritizing sleep. I'm allowed to do that. I'm the boss of me, sure. But that saying, hey, it's not something I'm not going to do. The Pivot park thing, I just don't feel like it. I know it's going to hurt my engagement and it's a risk I'm willing to take. Yeah.
- [21:04]
B
What me and Heather have come to know in our businesses is I said, we know ourselves. Me and Heather do things last minute. That is who we are. We can say that we're early planners. We're not. It's, it sucks to say, like, we wait to the last minute on things,
- [21:22]
A
but that's who we are.
- [21:23]
B
In just being able to address that and know that about ourselves, that's half the problem. So if we know that we are last minute workers, I better make sure that I don't love sleep the last two days before a project, sue, because we're going to be awake for it. But to lie to myself and say I ran out of time, I didn't. I waited to the last minute.
- [21:43]
A
It's funny, instead of telling Corey, like, I can do something, I always say, I'll get to it. And I don't. And then I can see she's like, well, you've been getting to that for five weeks now. So the other day I said, the reason, you know, if I'm honest with myself, the reason I haven't gotten to that task is I don't feel confident in it at all. And she was like, well, we can sit down and not feel confident in it together. And I was like, is delectable. Let's do that.
- [22:05]
B
Because when Heather says, I'm getting to it, I can't help her, she's not getting to it. But when she says, I need help, hey, let's fail. Fail forward together, I can help with that. But it's the honesty that comes to yourself in moving past an excuse to honestly put mud on your own face. Because I could look at Heather and be like, you're dumb.
- [22:25]
A
But I was like, I think that's why we package our excuses in such a impenetrable way, is like, I'm afraid that you're going to see me as dumb because I do feel dumb. And if you say I'm dumb. But when I said to Corey, like, I don't know how to do this, she didn't say I was dumb. She's like, I don't really know how to do it either. Let's just do it together. And I was like, oh, great. But my fear is, like, somebody's going to call me stupid, because I am. And I don't want them to know that. So I'm just going to add it to this. Never ending, like, clearly the fifth week, the sixth week of saying, like, it's on my list. It's on the list. I've typed it out. The list at the bottom of the list, in fact. Would you guess so if I. I thought it was just such a refreshing Haley. I. I just. The reason why it's been on the list for five. I just don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm a toddler. And Cory's like, yeah, let's just toddle together. Let's toddle like we did.
- [23:13]
B
And I appreciate the. The truth that Heather said that versus hearing yet again, it's on the list.
- [23:21]
A
Adding into the upcoming week. It's definitely not going to be done, but I'm going to tell you it'll be done. So I really do like that. Rephrasing the language. Yeah.
- [23:28]
B
And it sucks. It sucks that Heather said, I'm not good at this. But it's the truth and we can work with the truth. I can't work with the excuse.
- [23:36]
A
I went to I went to a class that was called Power Tools Intro to Power Tools. It was the Ryobi Electric Power Tools intro class. And I had to go to a place I did not know with a bunch of men. I thought there'd be more women. There was not. And I said, this is awkward to me, like I'm clueless. But then I said, I also spent a lot of money to be clueless. So I'm going to ask the dumb questions and I'm going to say, hey, listen, this is a dumb question, but I paid for it, so give me the answer. They're like, nothing here is dumb. Oh, thank you so much. You didn't make fun of me and have everyone in class turn around and point and say, look, it's an idiot. I think a lot of it's manufactured anxiety. The brain being so worried about failure that we try to get in front of it in these very odd ways. Let's go back to point one, Reverse course. It says use the five minute rule. So most excuses are born with the fear of how long a difficult task will be. Tell yourself, I'll only do the task for five minutes. This one helps me in the gym a lot. Gym.
- [24:33]
B
And I want to say bakers specifically have the biggest and most grandiose plan. So pipe a park. Honestly, you know, it needs to be.
- [24:43]
A
I'm going to shape of a flower hype this mountain range and I take the mountain range to the top of the mountain. Yosemite happens to be the mountain. And I'm going to take this photo. I have a perfect camera. It's an amazing camera. And I'm going to take it as the sunsets. I have to be there at golden hour, which means I'll be hiking Yosemite at night. But yeah, like, Corey was like, you know what? I had this big, big. She's like, maybe I had this corner park. There's no address. You'll just have to feel for it. I said, I really need an address.
- [25:10]
B
It wasn't my ideal place. I wanted to go to this other park that has this walking over the water, you know, but it's a little farther away. And I thought maybe I could do this like scene of these birds with this flower in the water to make it look like the water's continuing into my cookie that I made. I said, you know what?
- [25:30]
A
You know what?
- [25:31]
B
I'm not going to do that because I've, I've gotten too creative with it. And I see a lot of bakers get hung up on this. You have the best. The AI cookie collab we did every. There was like 156 signups. I want to say 70 people showed up because so many people are like, I have this huge plan. I'm going to create a bunny. I'm going to wear the bunny costume. And then you're going to have to guess between me and the bunny and
- [25:56]
A
one of Elon Musk. Ask robots to pipe the other bunny along with me while we record. So you can see that we best laid plans.
- [26:04]
B
Yeah.
- [26:05]
A
However, Corey did the mvp, the minimum viable product to get the pipe apart collab out the door. And we got it. We got it. And most of the goal was met. It may not have been fantastical. She's not going to win awards for this. I'm.
- [26:20]
B
I'm not gonna bring in a million likes on this. But what I am going to do is I'm going to do the marketing portion of the collab, which ties me to my local area and show cases. A great little park for little kids. And guess whose orders I typically take. Birthday sets for little kids. So it still worked. I just had to get in my own way and get out of my own creative brain to make it work for me. Because I see a lot of bakers fall off on this point. Like I was going to, but I never got a chance to. But, like, the pipa park is literally a flower cookie held in front of a sign.
- [26:55]
A
You know, it's not, is it? So I'll actually be sending you guys that photo of Corey standing in front of sign with a cookie that I took to prep you for the Piper Parker collab. It's so simple. You're just going to a park, taking a photo of cookies. She chose to be in the photo herself. You don't have to do that. And then you're going to tell people about the park. Ideally, it has an address. Corey's didn't. But it did have a bike repair corner. So we took a photo.
- [27:17]
B
It has a name. So I'll be able to stay on the corner of. Yeah.
- [27:22]
A
Harvard Drive or something. It's called Harbor Drive park or something.
- [27:26]
B
Yeah. Innovation Park.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah. Yeah. This one is a good one. Point number two, if then planning excuses often thrive in the face of unexpected obstacles. So nobody will let me host a class. One I like is, it's like, okay, I'm going to psych myself up to hike a trail. I'm not a hiker. I found part of the Appalachian Trail here in West Virginia, and it has five parking spaces. Like, at any given time, it's full. Yeah. But I can feel myself saying, oh, I don't want to go there. If it's too crowded and there's no parking. Well, here's the thing. It's on my way to anything because it's just really close. If it's too crowded, then I don't have to go. But just saying, I'll stop. I'll do it. If there's a parking space, like, I'll go there. But for a lot of times, our excuses to be like, I don't think there'll be a parking space, so I won't go.
- [28:18]
B
And we see so many bakers get caught up in this type of excuse. I don't want to reach out to this venue because they might say no. So I'll just not reach out and just have the no and not teach classes.
- [28:33]
A
Right. Okay. You.
- [28:34]
B
You, you have your no.
- [28:36]
A
But if you follow up with this commercial order. Well, the real reason is I won't follow up with this commercial order because I don't want to be directly rejected. Them ghosting the quote is easier than saying, we don't want to work with you. We found somebody better to work with. Yes, yes, absolutely. The if, then for the parking. If there's a parking spot, I'll hike. If not, then I'll go walk Main Street. Okay. There's no excuse allowed there because there's if the bigger obstacle, then the smaller thing.
- [29:01]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:02]
A
So if I reach out to the brewery and they say no to classes, I'll go try this AR workshop and
- [29:08]
B
see you've narrowed down. Now your playing field of venues. Do you have a solid no? So now we can focus elsewhere and. But if you never want to get the no, and I, me and Heather will tell you no doesn't feel great. No feels bad. We don't like to be told no.
- [29:25]
A
Right.
- [29:26]
B
So hearing no over and over again gets you more calloused to hearing no. So where no doesn't hold so much power over you? When me and Heather started our marketing company, we did cold outreach. I've never been told no so much that when I finally got a yes, I wasn't prepared for it.
- [29:44]
A
Yeah, you heard it. When we had the financial advisor on. He was like, me and my wife. We made a game out of no. And he jokingly said he got rejected by so many women who was par for the course. Like, he was great at hearing no. And I think we had a podcast on falling in love with no. No is devastating, especially when you paint this big old picture of what the yes would have been when you fall in love with yes, the no is the worst. And you see, like even getting rejected in a dating suite, all this reject, it makes you feel small. But when you say rejection is part of business ownership, well, it makes you feel normal.
- [30:20]
B
It does.
- [30:21]
A
It does.
- [30:21]
B
When I used to sell cars, they wanted you to actually run someone's credit before you went out and fell in
- [30:27]
A
love with a car.
- [30:28]
B
Because if you fell in love with a car and got told no by the bank, hurts a lot more. If we ran your credit and saw what your monthly payment needed to fall under, I was only going to show you cars you could say yes to. So it felt a lot better. We so build up these no's and nobody's going to like me. There's no way they're going to want me to teach at the venue. There's no way that they're going to want me for this corporate order. There's no way I'm going to be able to be at this farmer's market. I'm brand new. Your no is an excuse. You, you've put. You've put something on somebody that they didn't ask for because you just assumed it on yourself. So your excuse is, I'm not even going to try because it's going to be a no.
- [31:06]
A
Right.
- [31:06]
B
Me and Heather in 2021 did not know the people who ran Cookie Con at all. But I said, heather, let's send an email. The worst they can say is no.
- [31:21]
A
The answer is already no. The non yes is a default no. I guess maybe hearing it verbalize makes you be like, well, it's because you don't like me. You just chose to take that personally. Right. So back to the if then planning. If they say yes, awesome. If they say no, then I'm going to try this yes. Yeah. So it becomes more of a strategy. The no baked into the plan. If yes, this, if no, then this instead of if yes, happiness. If no devastation. Yeah, you know I'm gonna go. If there's a parking spot, great. If not, that was meant to be, not to go this weekend and I'll try it again. I'll do this thing instead. Having the fall back to the initial no that moves the plan forward is a really wise addition. Yeah. The plan restructured when you got that first. No. Okay. The original plan is no longer. We have an alt plan.
- [32:07]
B
Yeah.
- [32:07]
A
But when we say if I hear no one time, it's.
- [32:09]
B
It's done.
- [32:10]
A
It doesn't work for me. My area doesn't support It. Well, that's not it because your area, you, you can find the space and not everything fits for every baker. So I'm not like you just got. But a lot of the stuff does fit for most bakers. So that no was just a stumbling block to find the next yes.
- [32:27]
B
In May we're doing the Main street cookie collab and that's where you cookify some spot in your town. A small business preferably or you could do something else like a statue. A well known place. Main Street Cookie club is, is hard because a lot of people have done the Main street cookie collab and it's turned into sales. Some people have said, I did the Main street cookie collab. I gave them the cookie of their logo and crickets. Here's the thing, we're only doing the Main street cookie collab so we can get in front of our audience and say, look, I live in the town you live in. That's, that's the goal. The, the cream on top of that, the cherry on top is if you got an order out of it. I see a lot of people are like, well, I did it last time, I didn't get an order so I don't want to do it again. But if you don't. If you don't, then you will not.
- [33:18]
A
Right. And then we try to bake into the collabs is the engagement, the post, the content and the potential for future orders. It's all of those things. So if one doesn't show up, at least we got the other three.
- [33:32]
B
Yeah, that's what I think. I think a one win, one out of three.
- [33:36]
A
I'll take it. It's hard to win. So you know you're guaranteed engagement because the other bakers are coming to engage. Point four is optimized for frictionless starts. I do like this one as well. If I don't have gas in the car and gas is kind of expensive right now, I'll make up a ton of excuses to not do the thing I actually don't want to do and I'll blame it on the guests. So having the car, I passed 50 gas stations journeying to this land of West Virginia. I could have filled it up. Filling up the car. Now it's a frictionless start to get
- [34:06]
B
in the car and go hike.
- [34:08]
A
I guess when I go hiking, I'll report back. But in terms of the business, like no one, you know, like there's so many friction points we can create, but just as much as we can create them, we can uncreate them.
- [34:21]
B
Yeah. With the pipe apart collab. I know a lot of people are listening to this. Well, oh, man. Well, then I'd have to turn the oven on, thaw the dough, and cut it just for one cookie. We're making cookies all the time. Time. You include that extra cookie on your next order that you're making. And there you have a frictionless start. Just throw the little flower cookie in the freezer for whenever you're ready to pipe it. And when you're ready to head out to the park, you're good to go.
- [34:43]
A
I got a tattle on Corey's frictionless start here. In pure irony, the pipet park collab was came from my brain of piping a flower. But Corey's brain came up with the next class kit, which is flowers. So she said to create a frictionless star for this, I'm going to use the cookie from the flower class, and that will be my. My pipe apart cookies. Yeah, you're gonna see that tulip twice this week.
- [35:06]
B
But do you see that? I knew my excuses were going to get the better of me. I was gonna have to turn on the oven, bake a cookie, decorate it to be so. And I was running out of time, but I was running into excuses. So what I said was, it's not the park, the ideal park I want to focus on. And this isn't the cookie that I had in mind, but I've put those two together. So I will be able to put to participate in private park because the benefits outweigh the excuses.
- [35:34]
A
Another, it's the outlines. Giving some pointers. It's tax day tomorrow. Everyone universally gag right there. I don't like taxes, have tax ptsd. I think it's a massive weirdness that we all have to try to hire these people who can speak the language of the IRS that we have to pay or we can get fined. Okay, I have a massive mental friction point with taxes. So I've created a folder that just says this year taxes. And anything that says important tax document enclosed, I just throw it in there. That way, when it comes time to send this to the counter, if you're doing it yourself, it's all right there. The documents are in this folder because the thought of having to find the document is a massive friction point for something you already don't want to do. Remember, the excuse is protecting the this. I don't. I don't like taxes. It makes me nervous, right? So I hate tax day, but it makes me nervous because I have gotten those fines before. I hate the feeling I hate just tripping about. I always wait till the last hour on them. So now I have this folder. All my tax documents are in this folder. Everything I need, I know is here. That's a part of optimizing for frictionless starts. Then it has a secondary point. It's just a one step goal. Make that first step so small, it's impossible to fail. One thing that I was doing with this rug tufting thing, I do find it exhausting. You have to hold this like machine gun size rug. Tufting gun is what it's called. And you have to hold it and so monotonous. And I know, I know this rug, this first rug I'm going to come out with is terrible. I can already feel it in my bones. But I told Corey, if we're failing forward, this is a massive step for failing forward. Yes, this.
- [37:16]
B
Yeah.
- [37:17]
A
So what I do is I clean the tufting gun. You have to clean and oil it. You should clean and oil it. Often I clean and oil it the night before. I vacuum the floor the night before. That way the next time I walk down there, everything is ready to go.
- [37:32]
B
Yeah.
- [37:33]
A
So I, I made a frictionless start for something that is not fun. It's not fun being bad at something.
- [37:40]
B
Not. Not fun at all.
- [37:43]
A
This is the final point. Audit the payoff. Every excuse provides a hidden benefit. Usually protection from failure, judgment, or discomfort. So ask yourself, what am I protecting myself from that makes me make this excuse? And then once you say that, instead of being afraid of that or not having time, you can address the fear directly. So I don't, I guess if I'm honest, I don't want to go hiking because I'm afraid. Like, what if I'm too tired and I'm halfway and I gotta go back? What if I can't go all the way back? What if my knees start hurting? True, but I said, okay. I'm actually a fear of like getting stuck. Well, then only do two miles of the six mile. It's six miles one way, so it'd be 12 miles. Only do two miles, four miles.
- [38:22]
B
It goes back to point number one. You have grandiose plans that you want to hike the Himalayan trail.
- [38:28]
A
Everest loves to see me coming.
- [38:30]
B
Yes, but here's the thing. Because you had, you have put on this giant goal for yourself, and now you're like, but what if I can't? What if I fail?
- [38:40]
A
So your excuses.
- [38:41]
B
Well, there's no gas in the car and the spots are typically taken. We're just not ever going to crawl
- [38:46]
A
over this mountain napalatch. And it'll be so like with a cookie class, Right? I don't want to teach a cookie class. That's too saturated and nobody wants me to toast them. Those are all the made up excuses we know. They're not. They're coming from a place of protection, not from a place of legislation. Okay, actually, I don't want to teach a cookie class. I fear that I won't know what to do. Well, actually, Cory and I teach you how to teach cookie classes. And there's a whole Facebook group that's free. So before you say, well, that's paid crap, that excuse. No. 13 bucks to take the boot camp. You can still buy it and you could just go to the sugar cookie marketing group and ask for free. We're here to help. Well, I don't know what to teach. We're here to help. Well, I don't know how to teach it. We're here to help. You know, all of that stuff is there. The feel of the fear of failure. The Philip Eliot. The fear of failure is the true fear here. That's what the excuse is protecting. What if we take away. Corey and I love to come on the podcast and tell you how we failed. That's why we want you to be on the Baking it Down Baker feature and tell us how you failed, because we can learn from that. I think every time it was the Edison quote, I didn't fail. I just found another way not to do it.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:53]
A
Your.
- [39:54]
B
Your excuses will always be there, and there will always be a new excuse. I know if. If last time we did the collab, you were too busy, and this time you're too busy. I can almost promise you, next one, the Main street one, you're going to be too busy.
- [40:08]
A
Right?
- [40:09]
B
But what are your goals? Because if your goals can outweigh your excuses, you might be able to overcome the excuses to reach your goals. But if you give so much weight to your excuses, they'll always be the thing that wins and you'll always have them. You'll be comforted by your excuses. Me and Heather, knowing that we wait till the last minute on things, just knowing that has been able to help us overcome those excuses because we know who we are. If I know I'm busy, too busy for these collabs. And Heather's already posted the Main street cookie collab. Even now, I can't say in the next month, I have no time whatsoever.
- [40:46]
A
I removed that. Excuse me, I.
- [40:49]
B
The funniest thing to me is pre. Pre designed excuses like, oh, in five weeks, I. I absolutely cannot.
- [40:55]
A
I will be way too busy.
- [40:56]
B
Like, how do you know?
- [40:57]
A
I really. I really have done my best to bake out the ability to have excuse. Well, I don't know what to post. No, I write it for you. Well, I don't know what I should take a picture of. No, Corey and I took it a week ago. I'll show you what it is. Well, I don't have time. Schedule and then come back and engage. Well, I like, dude, I don't know. At that point you say, I do not want to do it, and I understand it will hurt my Instagram engagement. Well, I'm not on Instagram. Get on Instagram. It takes two seconds to create an account. You know, whatever your excuse is, you can keep them. Keep them, protect them, love them, kiss them, squeeze them, put them to bed at night. But understand that every excuse cost you something. Yes, every excuse cost you the win. And the win might be a small win, but that excuse is costing you.
- [41:37]
B
That I want to say, though, as excuses, because we've probably used them over all of our entire lives, so they're
- [41:44]
A
just kind of baking proficient. This is my second language.
- [41:47]
B
Really, really good. What you can do is celebrate the small wins. I have been a gym goer for a bazillion years, but just this past year, I've decided to overcome my excuses, really push myself. What's so funny is my husband's like, wow, you usually sandbag. And I hate that phrase. And I had to Google it back when he first said it to me. Sandbagging means you don't try hard. And they're big bags of sand. So, like, you, you don't try the most because you're scared either it'll hurt, you're scared you'll fail at it, but you're never scared that you might get it. So he said, this past year, you. You just haven't been sandbagging.
- [42:24]
A
And it's just.
- [42:24]
B
I said, well, because, yeah, sandbagging means I was in the way of my goals, and I don't want to be the person that stops me from my own goals. I made the goals. Why would I hold myself back?
- [42:34]
A
You know, the only thing worse than going to the gym is. Oh, than not going to the gym is going to the gym and wasting your own time. Like, then you didn't accomplish anything and you wasted time. And I can speak from a place of knowledge because it's what I typically do, but you say, what? What do I want? I love the million dollar. If you could get paid a million dollars. What is the effort you'd put in? It would look a lot different.
- [42:59]
B
Yeah, I'd be making time for the gym.
- [43:00]
A
I'd be like, sorry, Heather, I gotta go.
- [43:02]
B
My kids have to walk.
- [43:03]
A
7am you'll find me at the gym.
- [43:05]
B
7pm Right now. Excuses are normal. They're. They're always going to be there. You're always going to be busy. I've realized that the amount of times that I say I'm busy has never.
- [43:17]
A
It stopped.
- [43:18]
B
It's just always there because I know how to fill up my time with something else.
- [43:23]
A
Right?
- [43:23]
B
Your goals for your bakery, for your business, for yourself, are made by you just as much as your excuses are also created by you. You just have to weigh in your hand. Which one matters more, the excuse that I have today or the goals of tomorrow?
- [43:38]
A
And I don't want to villainize excuses. I think they're delicious. I think you should sell what I think. You say, here's my excuse. And the reason why I've made up this in imaginary roadblock is because I don't want to go. So I'm going to laugh. I'm going to laugh to myself. I'm going to say, that's my excuse and I'm keeping it. And then I'm going to say secretly in the back of my head, here's what it's protecting. And I'm okay with that right now. I'm okay with the loss that this excuse is creating in my life or my business or my relationships. I'm going to protect the excuse right now. And then maybe I'll do some interpersonal work of investigating why I'm so scared of what's on the other side of that excuse.
- [44:11]
B
Yeah, it's a lot of work that interpersonal work is like, not fun. It is not fun at all to say, here's my shortcoming. Here's where I'm scared of. Here's what I'm worried about. It's not fun to come face to face with that. But it's much easier to say, well, I can't because xyz. Well, I don't want to start it because here's why.
- [44:35]
A
What if you came to the sugar cookie marketing group and instead of saying, hey, nothing's work, and every time somebody gives you a solution, you say, no, I've tried that. It doesn't work. You said, hey, guys, I don't want to teach cookie class. I'm so nervous that I'll just. That people will hate it. And then Let us solve for that. Because that's what we're actually saying. Remember, I told Corey it's on my task list, but in reality, I don't know how to do the task. So that's why I was just kicking the can down the road. It's always that funny trope in relationships that the man tries to solve it, but the woman just wanted a venture. Yeah. It's this YouTube video, and this. The. She's talking to her boyfriend. She has a giant nail in her head. Of course, it's all like, C.J. or whatever. And she's like. He's like, but you have a nail in your head.
- [45:13]
B
She's like, stop.
- [45:13]
A
I don't want to solve the problem. I just want to talk about the nail in my head. He's like, but there's a nail in your head. She's like, stops fixing it. Yeah. Yeah. So she just wanted the excuse. She didn't want to solve the problem. So ask yourself, do I want to ravish myself in this excuse? And it's all deliciousness and that syrupy good taste. When the rest of us are like, oh, that's an easy one. You just gotta walk this way, not that way. You're like, no, no, no, no. Don't solve it. Yeah. Just listen to my pity party. I love my pity party. Yeah. So I'd say, if you do have an excuse, chuckle to yourself, say, here's what I'm really doing. I know that I can get around this. I'm. I'm just gonna keep my excuse. I'm gonna acknowledge that this excuse is cope. And I'm fine with it. Yeah.
- [45:57]
B
What's so funny is I didn't like to get ready and do my hair in the morning. And I love to say, because I don't have enough time, girl, wake up early. Ain't nobody holding you. Strapped to the bed. Can't get out. Netflix is going. The past month or two, I have made the effort, I have noticed, to get to. Because one, it helps me feel better if I needed. Like, the other day, I had to go into the orthodontist office. I felt confident going in there because my hair didn't look bedraggled, you know, so it helps me as a person.
- [46:29]
A
Are you looking at my hair as you say that?
- [46:31]
B
My hair doesn't look like Heather's the drag. But it took. I can say, oh, there's just no time in the morning. I just run out of time. No, girl, girl. That is you, baby cakes. That is you, my friend.
- [46:43]
A
And you're allowed to. As long as you acknowledge that the repercussions of the excuse are likely not what you want your life to look like.
- [46:52]
B
The great part, though, about overcoming your excuses is then you start experiencing the little wins. The goals are getting checked off, and you're like, wow, Oh, I took my excuses out of the gym so I could not sandbag at the gym. But what's happened is I have more energy during the day. It's been fantastic. I never feel like the crash in the afternoon where I'm yawning.
- [47:14]
A
I'm like.
- [47:15]
B
I'm like, why? I have so much energy. I'm having to put myself in the bed to go to bed.
- [47:20]
A
You have to. I said it, Corey. Like, I get the gym thing. Cory is saying, I want to focus on the gym because we're going on a family beach trip on in June or something. And I said, okay, well, like, what happens after Dune? And Cory's like, well, I feel actually so much better during the day, and I sleep so much better at night. I think I'll keep it going. So great. Okay. That excuse that she wasn't going before was keeping her from this, apparently world's best night's sleep. I went on a walk with Corey. Might as well have been that hike up the Everest, because it was up everything. I said, did you only pick upward trails? How are we always climbing?
- [47:56]
B
We were, we were going up a hill and Heather is like, I'm just
- [48:01]
A
gonna have to talk to you at the top. Yeah, Corey's got one this pace. That's ridiculous. And we're up a hill and I'm trying to, like, tell her life secret. And I was like, wow, dude, I have to tell you later. Like, I'll check in in a minute when I learn how to breathe again because I'm dying.
- [48:14]
B
But you're gonna see, you're gonna have little goals. So maybe you do the Piper park collab, and it's not the best cookie you've ever made. And it's a little corner park that maybe not many people go to, but you do it and you see an uptick in engagement that day. Now you're not making bazillions and turning into an influence overnight. But then you do the Main street cookie collab, and you're like, wow, a business actually recognized it and shared my post that I. My posts never get shared. And I. I got shared in their audience is my audience. And I got a few followers from that. You're gonna see these small wins as you move past your excuses and the goal is to retrain your brain and fall in love with those, because those are where you're really going to be happy. You can fall in love with your excuses, and you'll always have them. But if you can fall in love with the repercussions of meeting your goals and overcoming your excuses, it's addicting.
- [49:05]
A
It is addicting.
- [49:08]
B
It is.
- [49:08]
A
It is. So I would say you. You know, you know what your excuses are. I have my own collection. Love them, keep them.
- [49:16]
B
Sometimes I borrow from Heather's collection.
- [49:18]
A
My excuses. I'll give you one. You know what your excuses are? You know why you're saying them. Only you know where they're coming from, what they're protecting. A little inside secret you don't want anyone to know about. Just adds up. A lot of us can see that, that that excuse is protecting something, but what it is deep down, protecting. You know?
- [49:36]
B
Yeah.
- [49:37]
A
And then ask yourself, what if. What if the other equation. What if I do fail? Do we all vote you off the island? Probably not. Maybe. Maybe your anxiety has given that little fearsome leg legs. And it's climbing Everest with me. Nice walk. Yeah. Worst case, what?
- [49:55]
B
Heather turns around after 10 minutes, heaving and hoeing, maybe gulping water down.
- [50:01]
A
Right.
- [50:01]
B
That it's still not a failure. She got out there and she actually climbed for 10 minutes. She got closer to her goal than she did if she just drove by the park. Because, you know, whatever excuse, the fuel, the parking spots, the day, the time,
- [50:17]
A
you know, so that is what I would take into this week. And I would take it. I know we talked a lot about the collabs because that's where I see a lot of people come up with excuses where I'm like, dude, it's going to a park and taking a photo. Like, I can see through the excuse already. Like, you got five weeks runtime. I write the captions for you. Basically, you just schedule it. Like there's very few legs the excuse can stand on. That's why we're talking about the collab. But it goes to cookie classes. It goes to that set. It goes to learning that complex floral lettering, figuring out projectors. Yeah. You can. Can. Your excuses can keep you underpaid. Beginner, mindset, hobbyist. Yeah. Can keep you that way. And if that's what you want, that's what you're going to get. You're not going to see me argue with you because you're one less competitor we have to worry about. Yes. However, the business that you want is on the other side of Those excuses.
- [51:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. And that would be great if you got the business that you wanted, something that didn't hold you back, where you didn't hold yourself back from your own goals. And me and heather were, excuse, 101, 102 right there. Born and bred.
- [51:19]
A
I was, I asked Ruthan this question. I said, if you could press a button and see six years in the future, would you press it? And she said, absolutely not. I said, it's curious. Why? Because she's always, you know, worried about the future. And she's like, because I would hate to know how bad it's going to look. And I was like, that's so funny. What if it's so great? What if it's the best ever? It's so funny that your brain naturally opted for it's going to be terrible. And I think with the excuses, those people probably naturally have a tendency to see the worst case scenarios. So what if you go ask them if you could teach a cookie class and they said yes.
- [51:50]
B
Oh, what if you make your first cookie classes and you don't sell out, but you get four people to sign up? That's way better than zero.
- [51:59]
A
That's way more monies you've made than not doing it. They're saying probably anxiety has a big role in excuses. The fear of, the fear of this, the fear of that we see the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of no. But there's a 50% chance you get a no. But there's a 50% chance you Get a yes. Yeah.
- [52:19]
B
And there's some people out there that are born and bred to just ask because they know the answer's no, regardless. So if they ask, it might be a yes.
- [52:27]
A
And sometimes I have to tell myself that, like this person's probably doing this to everybody and they're expecting a no, but it might be a yes.
- [52:33]
B
And they probably get more yeses than they do no's.
- [52:37]
A
Yeah. And they're not taking no's personality. That's why they're so willing to risk it. Yeah. Yeah.
- [52:43]
B
Okay.
- [52:43]
A
If. Unless Cora has something to add, I'm going to move us on to our cookie college bootcamp. I have a review. Amy took the bootcamp, the pre sales bootcamps, and she says, you guys, if you've never used Google forms or offered a formal pre order before, you really should spend the $13 on the pre sale bootcamp. This is a great value add. To me. I feel like my form looks so legit and professional and I literally just created it Step by step while following along the PowerPoint doing what Heather Miracle told me to do do. LOL. Follow me. Yeah, I will show you the way. So the boot camps are only 13. However, you can upgrade to the cookie college. If you sign up for a bootcamp within the seven days of the bootcamp, you get a discount code. So Amy said, hey, I just took the bootcamp on pre sales. She gets about six hours of coursework for just 13 bucks and she gets worksheets and she gets prompts. She can join the private Facebook group. So it's a lot of bang for the buck. And the reason why we do that is so you can preview what the cookie college membership looks like. So we said said how can we pull back the curtains on the cookie college and let people taste test it? And this is the boot camp. So the boot camps all get put into the cookie college. If you sign up, you get everything we offer. I did a get to know your membership 101 live yesterday and there's just so much content. I told people it's only going to be 30 minutes and it took an hour. And I feel like the whole time I was just telling them where, what and how everything works.
- [53:59]
B
Yeah, the next boot camp is actually all about printing. 3D printing.
- [54:05]
A
You want to tell them what you learned? If we can, yeah.
- [54:08]
B
Oh, here's two things. I got a last minute order from a brand I really always wanted to work with. It's it was like a dream brand. I was never going to reach out, but they reached out to me and it was a last minute turnaround but it was coach. So coach brand purses, things like that. Wanted me to make cookies for them to make it even more custom to them. I was able to make custom cookie cutters for the shapes that they desired, making me even more valuable to this corporate order client so that maybe down the road when it comes to her ordering again, she's going to consider me. If I would have not had a 3D printer one I would have had to make a custom order. Let's say on Etsy was most people go to the turnaround time would have been a few weeks. Unfortunately I only had a few days. Would not have been able to do that without a 3D printer. And that is what this next boot camp is going to be about. Heather is going to order a bamboo A1 mini with you guys. It's going to arrive. She's going to set it up on camera. Visual learners, this is going to be your heyday because you're going to Be watching it. This week I ran out of filament and needed to replace my filament. Easier than I thought. But it was so nice to watch someone do it and hold my hand while doing it.
- [55:20]
A
We held hands and I press.
- [55:22]
B
We held hands and then we pressed thumbs together on the reload.
- [55:27]
A
And then I went. That bamboo A1 mini. They discontinued the one that I have, but the new one sing to you, which I thought is a little nice. Sounds like a washer dryer combo. It does, it does.
- [55:38]
B
But I want to say if you're looking at a way to get more corporate orders, being able to have these custom cutters for your clients is a great way to really set. If you think it's oversaturated. I'm going to tell you, if you're. If your competitors don't have custom cutters and you have custom cutters, that's a way to. To put you above your competition.
- [56:00]
A
Yeah, it's. If you could get this. So that. So the. The 3D printing intro to 3D printing boot camp is not only just setting up a printer, we'll actually design a print an STL and we'll print it. That's May 7th and 8th. So you get two days. It'll be $13. And then you'll get that discount code to upgrade to the cook college membership and get all the future boot camps included plus your 13 back as a discount code. Why am I so out of focus?
- [56:24]
B
Because your hand keeps going up front.
- [56:26]
A
You know, I have it said, I think, to focus on animals. I think I was taking a picture of the cat.
- [56:29]
B
Here's one that. Here's an interesting thing that happened. There's a bootcamp that I did about food photography, specifically sugar cookies. Our local foodies group, about 150,000 people in there, just banned AI content. So if you have an AI generated photo. AI generated food photo.
- [56:48]
A
I think they even said copy.
- [56:50]
B
Yeah, they even said the copy. That would be a great one. People buy what they can see, what they know that you can create. So what you can create is the thing that you want to showcase in your brand. And it makes you individual. It makes your brand stand out. The food photography one, I take you to the basics. Just the easy old BO basics that you can use these photos for years to come, especially as people are deciding where they land on AI generated stuff.
- [57:15]
A
Yeah. So if your excuse is, I can't afford the cookie College, ba bam. It's $13 for these boot camps and you can upgrade at the cookie college for a discount so that excuse is for the birds. Birds we knocked out another excuse for you. You can sign up for that bootcamp@thecookiecollege.com bootcamp or go to the code cookie college.com and then you can purchase that ahead of time. And when it drops, you'll get an email. Our upcoming boot camps May will be 3D printing cookie cutters. They all try to fall in the first week of the month on the last two or three days. So that's how I try to structure it for you guys so you can kind of expect them. So somebody's like, why are they so close to holidays? They're not. They're just in the first week of each month is what we're shooting for.
- [57:51]
B
And I want to say that's also an excuse. There's always a holiday. There's a holiday every single day of the year.
- [57:58]
A
Because come on a holiday, go on a holiday is. But you can rewatch the boot camps endlessly now because you guys said, we seven days ain't enough. You get all the days. So as long as the product is supported, you can go rewatch it. Boom. Another excuse down.
- [58:12]
B
Bam.
- [58:13]
A
After that, we'll do June. You guys begged, I pleaded, and we got her to do the basics of recording cookie videos. It'll be very much like the photography course. I said, key, I want to. I want you to take us to a website, order a stand, show us how to set up the stand, show us how lighting works and show us how to record something and how to upload. It's the basics. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Tell me what to do. Tell me like, I'm a little baby toddler. Yeah, little baby toddler. I said to Corey, in this rug tufting world, everyone is talking so advanced. I wish somebody would talk to me like I'm stupid, because I am. That's what I need, the basics. So that'll be in June, July, we'll do cracking community groups. I like that for July because it's a little bit of a slower time for people. Also, it could set us up in July for what's coming. The super bowl of cookies, which is Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then in August, we're going to touch on Procreate, Designing sets with Procreate and just tell you how, you know, here's the app, here's how to download the app, here's how the pencil works, here's the iPad I would purchase and. And we'll go from there. Kind of the basics of that we'll talk about layers, we'll talk about pencils. Pressure, procreate.
- [59:16]
B
See, that would be good for me because I said if anyone asked me to draw up the designs beforehand, they would not order from me because of my drawing.
- [59:24]
A
It's so bad. So somebody said, wouldn't that take more time and that's more money? Yeah. I would only design or sketch a set as a top tier. We'd tier pricing and then I'd make that top of my highest tier and somebody would have two rounds of a change log. So you'd say, here's your first set. Hey, I want to make these tweaks. Okay, here's what it is. Finalize the order, charge accordingly, and then do that. And some of you guys love to just sketch and designs, probably because you're talented. The rest of us struggling out here. But I'll tell you the basics of procreate. The talent is on you though, and I can't provide that because I don't have it myself. Moving on to the gossip column. Goss column. This one says Thief in the right. I like these little titles. This one was from forever ago, but when it first got started, I do what most bakers do and I post in community groups to get sales. But this local baker, who, yeah, she had a year up on me, would comment snide remarks about my bakes, my designs, or some made up cottage loft she was trying to flex. But the more interesting part was she would insinuate that I was stealing her designs. But the designs were just basic shapes, like pumpkins for Halloween or Santa for Christmas. Outside of the fact that we were both literally baking a Santa, there was no design ceiling. It was literally just the hotel holiday. So I finally had a blocker. Who knows if she's still out there telling people I stole the Easter Bunny, the fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence. Just call me Nicholas Cage. It's hilarious. So you kind of see that a lot. And that's how I think we did a podcast way at the beginning. It was called like Putting Blinders On. Yes. It's easy to look over the fence a la home improvement show and say, what are you working on? Oh, you stole that from me. I haven't seen some bakers have seen in the past. Been like, that was my idea and they stole it. Like, you didn't even execute on it. They. And they stole your. You know, like, how would someone's like, it doesn't matter what I do. They come out with it. You could. That could happen. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen with Corey. Corey, like, it's so funny. I wrote this copy and this person just stole the copy. Exactly. Like.
- [61:16]
B
And it's.
- [61:16]
A
And it's annoying. But if you're going to focus looking over the fence, you will drive yourself crazy. I'm. I'm. I was telling Corey the block button my new feature. It's delicious.
- [61:27]
B
Yeah, it's delish, I suppose.
- [61:30]
A
Singing a car group. Just an opinion. You're allowed to have them, I guess. Not on social media. And some guy's like, you're dumb. And I was like, bach. You don't. You don't deserve access to me. We'll never be friends in real life. Yeah, you have your opinion, but you wanted to call me stupid. And instead of taking that personally and never asking the question, I was asking what time a car meet started. I just blocked him. I moved on. My life was better for it. So I would not be ever revisit
- [61:56]
B
your block list and unblock. Or is the block eternal and forever?
- [62:01]
A
You know, I forget I have a bad memory. I don't know why. I look at the block list and I'm like, you were there for a reason. I may not remember what that reason is.
- [62:07]
B
I gotta trust past me for future me.
- [62:10]
A
Me did something for future me and means gonna respect what past me did. Yeah, I can't really remember things. Too bad you can't add a note. Like, this person laughed at my comment and I didn't like it. Yeah, I know. So, yeah, if you guys wanna submit to the gossip column, I'll post that link. I'm gonna add it to the Sugar cooking marketing website so it's a little easier to find upcoming events. We have the Pipe park collab is actually this week. And the main Street May Collab will be May 22nd. If you guys think those dates are weird, it's the third Friday of the month. Yeah. You guys can see there's a structure there. The first week is the boot camp. The second week is the class kits. The third week is a collab. And the fourth week is probably the digital downloads. But events. What's popping? Concord and I are going to be heading to that on Saturday. We'll be talking about standing out. We'll probably do a podcast on it when we get back. But standing out in a newsfeed, which is kind of what marketing is, especially when a lot of our lead generation is on apps like Facebook where feeds are prevalent.
- [63:07]
B
Yeah.
- [63:07]
A
Yeah.
- [63:08]
B
It's so easy to be like well, you know, I did what the content calendar said and Crickets.
- [63:12]
A
Crickets.
- [63:13]
B
But there's strategy behind the way you post it and that's the goal.
- [63:19]
A
Yes. So that is this weekend. I think they still have tickets if you wanted to show up. I think they also have day passes. But you can go check the what's popping Con website. Super cute. Upcoming is Cookie Con in Orlando and there's a Cookie Con happy hour sponsored by Heather Campbell brookshire. That's on June 24th. That's also when Cookie Con starts. That's in about 10 weeks.
- [63:41]
B
And since it's in Orlando, Heather Campbell Brookshire is a Disney planner. If you want to just, just two birds, one stone. It bring the kids and the the old spouse down and cruise
- [63:54]
A
there. I think Cookie Con at that Rosin Shingle Creek Hotel has a shuttle to Disney Springs. What is that restaurant that we love that I love?
- [64:05]
B
Cannot remember the name.
- [64:06]
A
Great.
- [64:09]
B
It's the Boathouse.
- [64:11]
A
Boathouse. I love that restaurant. So if you're down there you should definitely check that out. And the Vendee blendy is in 32 weeks ever creeping closer to us. I remember when I said it was 52 weeks away and now it's 20 weeks closer to it. No upcoming holidays. Teacher Appreciation Week. Always a big seller. Nurse Appreciation Week. I think those are in just about two weeks. Mother's Day coming up in four weeks. Graduation, it's dependent on your local area. But eight weeks in, last day of school about nine weeks away. Father's Day is June 21st.
- [64:40]
B
Summerween.
- [64:41]
A
Corey and I added this to the list because it seems to be 8A holiday popularity growing.
- [64:47]
B
Yeah.
- [64:47]
A
Those Halloween cutters, you could get two squeezes out of them.
- [64:51]
B
I, I, I see what I see bakers are starting to do is pre sell their countdown calendars. They're like Advent calendars but technically called countdown calendars for Halloween in July.
- [65:06]
A
Oh I can see that. I can see that. Really early pre sale it people do that.
- [65:12]
B
Christmas in July. They do it for that.
- [65:14]
A
That's a good point. Yeah. And then the 4th of July is in 12 weeks which hit or miss whether or not you can sell out. I always find that to be the platter holiday.
- [65:22]
B
We finally decided to do another class in July to suggest the theory is July event class.
- [65:27]
A
Well it is not a fourth of July class that we're doing. We're doing the free frosting fruits class that was included in the in person cookie classes boot camp. So even another excuse. Why don't I want to teach that $13 boot camp beyond come you get the class actually teaching and it's cute.
- [65:42]
B
Grapes, Pear.
- [65:44]
A
Lemon. Pineapple. Pineapple. Was there a cherry or strawberry? I think there's a cherry. Maybe a cherry. I don't remember. Strawberries. I would have not liked to do the seeds. I can remember if I didn't.
- [65:57]
B
Yeah.
- [65:58]
A
So that's the upcoming events. The STL me about it. You guys have some great texting questions. Corey 1 through 4. We have four texting questions. If you guys want win this you get a month of Cookie Design Lab, which is the STL design software I used to create Corey's coach cutters.
- [66:13]
B
Yeah, coach. And it worked out great.
- [66:16]
A
It worked out great.
- [66:18]
B
They're super solid. I actually use cookie design live a lot this week. I had a Nerf gun set.
- [66:23]
A
I used an airplane that I used it on. Yeah, yeah. And 3D printing. Much like Google Calendar. She has been. She has kept you at arm's length for so long and now has become your favorite.
- [66:35]
B
Listen my excuses of I just not techy. I have moved past him and my world has just opened up an opportunity.
- [66:45]
A
Follow me my my young grasshopper and I'll teach you the ways of the Cookie Design lab. Code twins atCookie Design Lab.com gets you 15 off and you guys wonder. They do pay to sponsor the podcast but I pay to have good design lab myself. So we got a little symbiosis there there. So I've got four texts in questions.
- [67:04]
B
Two.
- [67:05]
A
Two is 513 which I googled with Southwestern Ohio 513. Email me at sugarcookiemarket.com I'll put you in touch with Cookie Design Lab. She said, oh, I like this one. Just popping in to say I love the collabs. Thank you for organizing it. Thank you so much. Because there's a lot of footwork in organizing a cookie lab to make sure that you guys have the information you need to be successful to make.
- [67:27]
B
And Heather always makes me do it sooner so she can send you an example. So I feel even more pressured to get it done.
- [67:34]
A
That is on my docket to send out today. I just have to wrap up the cookie class kit for this month which is called Frosted Flowers. It's a long stem florals class which is something we never do. But I think it's very delicate and very pretty.
- [67:47]
B
One you'll use these cutters for your
- [67:52]
A
because it's not called Mother's Day. You could use it for Mother's Day. You could use it for spring. You could use it as Just a florals class. There's no like, specific, specific theme around it other than flowers. Yeah, just flowers.
- [68:02]
B
And they're very, very pretty. And the reason why there's five cookie cutters in this one is the cookies are very large and that was so you had the purpose that you weren't working in such tiny sections at the top of the flowers. So they're good size. They all needed to fit in a box is, you know, the problem.
- [68:18]
A
Still an intermediate class because we have a lot more icing bags. But yes, the first class we have with one fewer cookie. So it should save you time and on prep for the class, it should save you a dough. It should save you teaching instruction time. Yeah, time is money.
- [68:33]
B
So it's very pretty. I really, really like it.
- [68:36]
A
So anyways, yeah, that collab is. The next collab is by park. It's this Friday and then Main Street. You'll have full four weeks to go do that. Which one did you say? What were you thinking of feature?
- [68:44]
B
I haven't decided.
- [68:45]
A
Let's do the Bourbon event so we
- [68:48]
B
go and eat there as well.
- [68:50]
A
How can we recommend it if.
- [68:51]
B
For the collab.
- [68:52]
A
Of course. Anything for the collab. We must do it for the collaboration. Another text I have. This is for the 28 1. You didn't win, but you could try again next week. I feel like the odds are ever in your favor. Hi, I love the recommendation for the book Dollars and Cents. That's what I talked about on the last podcast and I have put it on my audible lineup. But I wonder if you have any more book recommendations for things that might help in marketing our cooking businesses. Thank you so much. I actually pre looked up your question and I have three books that I've read. Some of these are bigger than others, so I'm so sorry that I've listened to. Let me correct myself. So these are on audible. Predictably, Irrational is the same author. Some of the concepts are shared, but both are great lessons and he's very easy to listen to. Thinking fast and slow. That's the chunky book. But if you have anyone recommend that. It's about our brains and decision making as it comes to the psychology of purchasing. And then influenced by Robert Cini. I really liked that one as well. All three of those are out of the parks. And then if you add dollars and cents, you'll have enough of these little anecdotes I pull from to sound just like your own. Heather Miracle Opportunist. We have a text in from the 22 4. Hey Twins. Social media marketing question. This is Tracy from Sugar Bees and if I remember correctly, Tracy was the one who flew the cookies to deliver them on time. Remember that couple years ago?
- [70:10]
B
Yeah, I do remember that.
- [70:11]
A
Is there an mvp? A minimum viable posting approach to social media? It's so overwhelming. Do I post daily? Do I post to all my social media stories recently? Deals, Static picks? Is there going to be a boot camp on this? If not, then there should be. Tracy from Sugar Bees. Yep. Oh so sorry. She said yep. I'm the one who flew to Miami. I need a customer.
- [70:27]
B
Like Heather always says, I'm the one who flew.
- [70:30]
A
Like any excuse you have about customer service done.
- [70:33]
B
Just knock down. Here's the thing
- [70:39]
A
she has I have to finish her closing exam. Yes, I'm the one who flew to Miami to meet a customer in the airport to hand off her cookies as she was on a layover to her final destination in Europe and I didn't want them to leave delayed in customs if I shipped okay. Wow.
- [70:50]
B
That's wild. Way to go. There is there's strategy in posting. You can post endlessly and it do nothing for your business. You just end up clogging feeds and almost annoying your audience. If there's strategy behind the post, I would much rather fewer posts than there is just throwing something up there just because it's the next day. The least you could do is a post a week and I've seen bakers do even less.
- [71:16]
A
It depends. Depends.
- [71:17]
B
What is your goal in your business? Are you happy with the orders that are coming in and any more would drive you nuts then you're going to post less. Is your goal to create long term relationships so the same orders come in every single year, year after year? We're going to do more relationship based. It's a great that would be a great boot camp topic and maybe that would be something we touch on in the how to crack community groups type thing.
- [71:41]
A
Well, at the end of each boot camp we have a marketing module because it has to be about marketing because that's a part of of the sugar cookie marketing name here. There are different theories and approaches to the type of content. In a perfect world we'd have perfectly curated content, perfectly designed in the perfect aspect ratio for every platform. I, I, I work in marketing and there's not enough time of the day and that's not even an excuse. It just takes time to generate that content. So what you can do is cross post and understand hey, my excuse here is I didn't have the time and I know I'M not going to get the, the best amount of reach here. Corey said today she's like, you're posting like so close. You're posting one and then you're posting another. And I said, yeah, but if I don't, I'm not going to post a second one. So that's my excuse.
- [72:25]
B
Yeah.
- [72:25]
A
And I'm holding on to the fact that she's like, well, your reach is going to be less because you're now your post is competing with your second post. And I said, such is life. I'm willing to accept the terms of my own conditions.
- [72:37]
B
So Heather knows herself and then she knows that the herself will lack in strategy of some sort, but she's willing to do it because something is better than nothing.
- [72:46]
A
Nothing.
- [72:47]
B
Throwing something up just because is not the best approach when it comes to marketing strategy. I see a lot of makers do that and then they get into this rigmarole like crickets. There's no one. I'm posting every day and no one's commenting on anything. There's no strategy behind the post. What's the goal of each post? And that's what I tell people at the cookie college before you post. Say, what is the purpose for this post? Because the strategy, there needs to be a goal for each post that you make.
- [73:13]
A
Make.
- [73:14]
B
Is it to build a relationship? Is it to sell a class ticket? Is it to get to know your audience? Is it to tie yourself to a location?
- [73:22]
A
Which those are content buckets. And I do like taking a strategy from the content bucket. You guys seen content pillars? Content buckets. I like it because it diversifies even your bare minimum effort if you're like, I only barely have time. Well, Corey the other day asked people to post pictures of their dogs. And she had a ton of engagement because it was national pictures that day. And she didn't put, she didn't go and pipe 50 dog cookies. She was like, here's my dog. That was it. It wasn't even a cookie. It was a dog.
- [73:47]
B
And I even talked about it today
- [73:48]
A
in the cookie college.
- [73:49]
B
The reason I have a bulldog cookie. But it's not necessary just to say my name. Mixing Bowl Cookie company. They know I bake. So how can I move past that to build a relationship with them so that when they think cookies, they think Corey. I am Corey that happens to work at Mixing Bowl Cookie Company. They used to say, say, I'm Mixing Bowl Cookie Company that happens to work at. Corey happens to work at Cory happens to be Corey. So you see the ebb and flow as some marketing strategies become oversaturated because everyone starts doing them, it turns to something else. And you'll see more relationship based influencer marketing. People falling in love with you and then the things you like is what they like now, too.
- [74:31]
A
I think it was Jaleesa who said, don't sleep on relationship marketing. It's performing really well right now. And she went and posted pictures of herself as a kid. I think it was a trend coming up and it just performed better than anything else. And it's not that, like, people don't want to see cookies anymore. I think they want to see diversity in content. Yeah. And you're gonna.
- [74:49]
B
You're gonna sprinkle your sales in there. I promise you that.
- [74:53]
A
Got to. So, yeah, it's kind of mixing it up and stuff. And what did work five years ago, what did work five weeks ago, may not work today. Trends die. Those little funny things, Cory's been posting them to the sugar cookie market.
- [75:05]
B
I really have. Honestly, the car pickup line has been my, like, creators.
- [75:09]
A
Here's the thing is some of those trends are so time sensitive, they have a shelf life. That core. I know you're looking at me like, I can't use that one. It's gone.
- [75:18]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [75:19]
A
But yeah. So you could jump on the trends. That's a content bucket. That's really fun. And then within the trend, she's posting videos which are counted as reels, or TikToks if you want to call them, depending on the application that she's using. But on TikTok, we wouldn't post, but you could just see it's got to be a zhuzhed up mix. And sometimes your content bucket will get the. The ax when it's no longer performing.
- [75:39]
B
Yeah.
- [75:41]
A
Sponsors. We have Cookie Design Lab. Code twins is 15 off. Bakey bake. Code twins is 10 off. What's popping con? Now we've gotten everyone almost in the same code. What's Popping Con is code twins for 25 off. But code twins also works on Daisy Makes Primari, and Eddie will have her as a guest hopefully at the end of this month. That's when we scheduled it for. I think it was a 20. 28th.
- [76:02]
B
Yeah, yeah. One of those Tuesdays.
- [76:05]
A
It's a Tuesday 28th. Quiet. It's on your calendar, twin. Thank you, Eddie. The edible food printer. If Corey does a little bio about her coach order, she incorporated Eddie. She did handpiped, hand piped, handpiped with Eddie and then all Eddie and was able to secure the order in such a short period. Of time using cookie design lab for a custom cut. Yeah.
- [76:29]
B
I want to tell Coach, you. You literally squeezed every ounce of knowled and utility out of this business for this order.
- [76:38]
A
So yes, Eddie came in clutch for a more complex design. It was sack of three books actually.
- [76:44]
B
Yeah. With the C's on top. You know, Coach has that. The design. It's a repeating C. It would have been too hard to try to pipe that.
- [76:50]
A
Let me tell you. That was the most important cookie because it had the tagline on it for the set, I think.
- [76:54]
B
Yeah. Share your story. And that was the whole goal of the campaign.
- [76:58]
A
Right. I think it's so funny how these big corporations are like finding cookie bakers because you can see it was Sephora did it. Neiman Marcus does it for these like drops of products. I can see it now.
- [77:08]
B
I do want to say though, a thousand percent. It comes from my website and SEO. I could tell the point of contact at Coach found my website. Then I confirmed that I could take the order. Then she went and followed me on social media with her personal account. So it was definitely. She Googled that.
- [77:24]
A
Hey. It's part of marketing. Bosch and Nutrimil. Not a sponsor, but an affiliate. If you use code sugar cookies at checkout, you get 20 off. Now they're launching a new product soon. I'm not allowed to talk about it yet, but I did send it to Corey. You didn't respond. I don't think I did.
- [77:37]
B
And you didn't respond back.
- [77:38]
A
Did I think it was cool. I said what is this?
- [77:41]
B
And so I can't think of it's cool because I don't know what it is.
- [77:44]
A
So you can see what you're doing. I didn't understand what. I'm not the beggar. But they're coming out with something soon. I think you can post about it on the 30th, but I think that discount code works for that as well. So I'll post about it then. Cordy have a twin trist, do you? No, don't spin that one around on me. Don't you? Yeah. I went to power tools class.
- [78:02]
B
Yeah.
- [78:02]
A
So we have a dying mall. It's called Fair Oaks. And it's going to be knocked down and become an outside mall. Like a walkable.
- [78:09]
B
I'll believe that when I see it, friend.
- [78:11]
A
I don't know. It's what happening? I'm so sorry. Walkable malls. If it's raining, I don't want to go to you. If it's snowing, you'll never see me.
- [78:16]
B
I know have you ever been to Short Pump in Richmond? It's a walkable mall like that, but it's. You wouldn't get rained on minus a
- [78:26]
A
few little open slots like the Leesburg Outlets. Had to try to return something.
- [78:30]
B
That one you're just going to be right now.
- [78:31]
A
I think it had some. It has some awnings. Oh, nice. I mean, you're struggling on your way to the car, but you want to do that. Anyways, I went to. So this dine mall has these leases that must be a lot more affordable. So any business is popping up there and half of them are gone. But it was power tools. It was a called Trade Works, spelled with an X. And it was a construction company that wanted to teach people the basics of carpentry. Like the basic basics, not so you could go in there and take a class. It was four hours and. And it was. They gave us. Each of us had the Ryobi Power tools intro set. And for two hours, they talked about what each tool did and what it cut and what it was best for, what it wasn't best for. And then for the final two hours, we made and framed drywall. And then within the drywall, we cut a hole like as if you were patching drywall. And then we cut a bunch of stuff like it was me and four men in their 50s.
- [79:22]
B
You honestly should have made a birdhouse
- [79:25]
A
and then you could have used it after. I wish I did because I had a buy one for my cat. But yeah. Now within. Now that I've taken intro to power tools, you could do a beginning intro to tiling. We could do chair molding or I'm sorry, crown molding. And then you could go to chair molding. And then now you could go to drywall patching class. And then we'll be doing a painting class. Oh, a painting drywall. Got it.
- [79:50]
B
Yeah.
- [79:50]
A
So I thought I was like, I can't believe we could buy these tools where you could literally cut off your finger without a class. But he was like, yes. And it was really nice to just have somebody very comfy, confident in themselves teaching. And I'm sure at one point he could have thought nobody would take this class. But we all paid a couple hundred bucks to go take this power tools class for four hours straight. One of the classes was eight hours. Wow. And I bet you would leave knowing exactly leave with a house ready built
- [80:16]
B
and ready to go.
- [80:18]
A
So he was like. He was like, yeah, A lot of people don't want to hire an entire company, you know, like you. It's hard to get handyman these days. Like, they're like, your project's not big enough for me to even, like, turn the car on and drive out there. Yes. And then when they come out there, they have to charge a minimum of, like, $500 because they're out there. So he was like, this is the I think I can do most of this decently enough class.
- [80:38]
B
And you know what? You probably appreciated that. That was when we went to the rug tufting cat class. We knew nothing of the sort.
- [80:46]
A
Okay, you guys. People who have the excuse of, I don't want to teach cookie classes. You're not teaching people how to compete on the cookie food network. You're literally teaching people who just said, maybe this is something fun. I have no idea what I'm doing. Just keep it baked Basic. That's. Yeah, just keep it basic. The me's out there. That's what we want.
- [81:02]
B
I have a twin.
- [81:04]
A
Okay, hit me.
- [81:06]
B
I saw this video this past week, and it says you can honestly choose the mood. You can choose the mood you're in. We oftentimes let happen to us. It was funny. Nate came home yesterday, and he was in the nicest and happiest of moods, like nothing bad could happen to him. The dog kept us up all night. So we had been Both up since 3am And I was running on fumes. By the time he got home, he acted. I said, did you catch a nap
- [81:35]
A
at work because you're in such a good mood here?
- [81:38]
B
No, he said, I. I spent the last five hours a lady calling me worthless because I wouldn't arrest her son because he turned off the lights to the house and she didn't like it. And he said, I had the choice to go home to someone who thinks I'm more something thing. And I said, why would I be in a bad mood when I'm in the presence of where I feel worth, like, something?
- [81:58]
A
I like that. It's kind of like choosing your own adventure. I think a lot of people kind of choose being grumpy.
- [82:05]
B
Well, when they say we did, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed because one thing can throw your entire day off and you need another sleep.
- [82:14]
A
You only have so many days on the planet of the earth, and you're like, that one one's, that one's crap like, that one's out because that one's
- [82:20]
B
gone a whole wasted 24 hours. But you could simply do something to reset it. Whether if you reward yourself with your favorite cookie or a trip to Starbucks or A walk to reset your mood. You can reclaim the rest of your day. And that means the bad thing that happened doesn't own your entire day. You're actually taking the power back and owning your day. And you're more pleasant to be around.
- [82:44]
A
Yeah. Rumination is an interesting thing. They say it's the brain trying to solve an unsolvable situation. So you're like, well, you know. And another thing I would have said like, oh, you can't. That's why your brain is ruminating on it. Because it's trying to fix what can't be fixed. So rumination, they say, like, you know, obviously meditation and breathing exercises. Why it sounds so pie in the sky. Woo woo. It's really trying to retrain your brain to decide what it wants to think about versus what it defaults to thinking about. Yeah. A lot to be said there with that breathing exercise stuff and lowering the cortisol because. Because it feels like if I think about it. But what you're thinking about is turning into physical changes in your body.
- [83:20]
B
Let me tell you, a few years ago, Heather knows I was diagnosed with chronic stress. Yeah.
- [83:25]
A
And you were stressed.
- [83:27]
B
Chronic stress. But it, it manifested. Everything I was stressed about in my brain has then manifested my body was actually being like, wow, we're fight or flight constantly. Your stomach is going to hurt for the rest of your life.
- [83:38]
A
Kidney failure.
- [83:39]
B
Yeah. The problem is, is I wish I was diagnosed with something that I could take a pill for because that's easy.
- [83:45]
A
Easy.
- [83:45]
B
I had to come to grips with the things that were stressing me out so I could overcome stress. It took a year, but Heather got me this weird thing called a call me go. I know we've talked about it before, but it's breath work. And honestly, your anxiety can. When you have anxious anxiety, you turn into fight or flight. Your breath gets more and more shallow. You get more and more anxious. It's a vicious cycle. But slowing down your breathing and deep in, deep out, deep in for a solid two minutes can actually reset that whole. The whole trigger into spiraling.
- [84:20]
A
I was listening to that book Ashley told me to read together. I know she's definitely not reading it anymore. Called the dose effect. But it's studying the four chemicals of dopamine, serotonin, something, something. But it was like a lot of this can be manufactured by going outside. Outside. And they're like. And it doesn't require a pill. Being outside in the daylight hours has a massive effect on your mood.
- [84:43]
B
I was listening to this because I, I've told Heather I'm trying to get 10,000 steps a day and she's getting.
- [84:49]
A
They're all. Sometimes they don't.
- [84:52]
B
But the benefits of walking. They did a testing, a trial where they had a group of people that actually took anti anxiety meds for 16 weeks. The other group actually walk walked for 16 weeks. Both experienced less anxiety. But the ones who walked actually didn't have any of the side effects that you get when you have the antidepressants. You know, like you low energy, weight gain, things like that, moodiness. So I mean, you tell us.
- [85:20]
A
Guys, we're just a sack of chemicals that has a brain that loves to ruin our own day. You tell me.
- [85:26]
B
Tell me, you chronic stress ass.
- [85:29]
A
You tell me. You tell me. The body would tell you. The body keeps the scores.
- [85:34]
B
Heather, another book she likes to read.
- [85:36]
A
That's a good book. That's a long book. It's a long book to listen to. I don't read anything. Okay, guys, we're gonna cut you loose. We'll see you next week. On Tuesday we'll have since return from what's popping con in Kent, Ohio, refreshed, 10 hours in the car together. What more could you want? What? What?
- [85:53]
B
What more could you possibly.
- [85:55]
A
Goodbye, twin.
- [85:56]
B
Enjoy your hike. Goodbye.